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0,on january 30 1959 the nuclear science center (nsc) was commissioned under the capable direction of dr robert g cochran department head and director of the nsc the receipt of a $350 000 grant from the national science foundation in addition to $675 000 allocated by the texas a&m system board of directors allowed for the development of this one-of-a-kind center designed to serve research and educational needs texas a&m university remains the only campus in the united states to have two reactors the 1 megawatt triga reactor at the nsc and the 5 watt agn-201m reactor on campus in the zachry engineering center click here to see the image of the original article from the eagle visit the nsc website to learn more about the facilities ongoing research and scheduling a tour
1,"the texas a&m university colleges of engineering and science present their sixth annual teacher summit on january 30-31 2014 with registration and a welcoming reception on the 30th general sessions and workshops begin on friday (1/31) and are held in the college station hilton hotel and conference center teacher summit partners texas a&m with teachers from all over the state to discuss the current shortage of k12 students seeking careers in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) associate professor dr tracy hammond director of the sketch recognition lab in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m is hosting a workshop session entitled ""interactive sketching with intelligent educational applications "" on friday morning at 9:45 am ""sketching plays an important part in the learning process for a variety of subjects ranging from science to language "" said dr hammond ""with the growing ubiquity and falling costs of stylus-enabled tablets for education it opens up the possibilities of expanding the current classroom curriculum with intelligent educational applications that incorporate interactive sketching this session will first introduce the benefits of intelligent educational applications inside and outside the classroom with interactive sketching and then expose you to several hands-on interactions of such emerging intelligent educational applications for different classroom subjects"" as an educator dr hammond's larger goal is to instill in students a passion for lifelong learning she has organized several workshops and conferences and is currently the local chair for the upcoming international workshop on the impact of pen and touch technology in education ( wippte 2014) to be held at texas a&m university on march 12-14"
2,recently a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering had an interview published in the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) control systems magazine dr aniruddha datta the jw runyon jr '35 professor ii in the department discussed among other things his research in the controls area and what led him to choose this field this is the second interview datta has had published recently his first interview was by ieee tv and during the interview he discussed a novel technique to optimize cancer therapy design using tools from classical control theory for more on the ieee control systems magazine interview visit http://ieeexploreieeeorg/stamp/stampjsptp=&arnumber=6712087 for more on the ieee tv interview visit https://ieeetvieeeorg/conference-highlights/applying-control-theory-to-the-design-of-cancer-therapy datta received the b tech degree in electrical engineering from iit kharagpur in 1985 the msee degree from southern illinois university carbondale in 1987 and the ms (applied mathematics) and phd degrees from the university of southern california in 1991 he joined the department in august 1991 his areas of interest include adaptive control robust control pid control and genomic signal processing he has authored or coauthored 5 books and over 100 journal and conference papers on these topics he is a fellow of ieee has served as an associate editor of the ieee transactions on automatic control (2001-2003) the ieee transactions on systems man and cybernetics-part b (2005-2006) and is currently serving as an associate editor of the eurasip journal on bioinformatics and systems biology the ieee transactions on biomedical engineering the ieee journal of biomedical and health informatics the ieee/acm transactions on computational biology and bioinformatics and ieee access
3,nicholas page a student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been named to the inaugural theta tau all-academic team by the theta tau educational foundation along with 91 other students from theta tau chapters throughout the united states page was selected based on a high grade point average in the previous semester and active engagement in his chapter one student from each of the eight theta tau regions will be named team captain in the coming weeks and will receive a scholarship from the educational foundation the theta tau professional engineering fraternity is the oldest and largest fraternity for engineers with chapters across the country and members around the world founded at the university of minnesota on october 15 1904 theta tau develops leaders for service profession and brotherhood they are usually the most diverse student group on campus – certainly the most diverse that is truly active and engaged in the lives of its members while most do not have the opportunity for fraternity housing a living learning service community is inherent in all chapters members interact and learn from those across the spectrum of engineering majors from the widest potential range of socio-economic backgrounds the theta tau educational foundation is a 501(c)3charitable organization and promotes education and training for leadership teamwork professionalism responsibility decision-making skills and development of others
4,dr helen reed professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been named a regents professor by the texas a&m university system board of regents dr reed joined the texas a&m faculty in 2004 and served as department head for four years before returning to teaching and research on a full-time basis widely regarded as an expert in hypersonics energy efficient aircraft and small satellite design reed has led research projects totaling millions of dollars and is a member of the national research councils aeronautics and space engineering board she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics & astronautics (aiaa) the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers she received the atwood award from american society for engineering education and aiaa and she was inducted into academy of engineering excellence at virginia tech (her alma mater) at texas a&m she has been named a 2013 presidential professor for teaching excellence with teaching and mentoring students as top priorities reed has directed 17 doctoral students 32 masters degree students and more than 1 000 undergraduate students during her career over her career reed has been lead computationalist in various nasa and air force flight and wind-tunnel programs with applications to high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles transports and hypersonic trans-atmospheric vehicles reed also directs the aggiesat lab satellite program a student satellite program housed within the department of aerospace engineering the goal of the lab is to develop and demonstrate modern technologies by using a small-satellite platform while educating students and enriching the undergraduate experience the program is a partnership with nasa johnson space center and the university of texas to promote space engineering education and develop new technologies used in space exploration through this program her students designed launched and operated texas a&ms first satellite in 2009 with another mission planned for this year reed earned an ab degree in mathematics from goucher college and an ms and phd in engineering mechanics from virginia tech the board established the regents professor award program in 1996 to recognize employees who have made exemplary contributions to their university or agency and to the residents of texas the regents awards allow us to show our outstanding faculty and researchers that we value their contribution to the a&m system said board chairman phil adams it is their commitment to excellence that makes the a&m system one of americas very best to date 179 a&m system faculty members have been recognized with the regents professor award
5,tim woodbury a graduate student working on his masters degree in aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a fellowship from the national science foundation graduate research fellowship program this program (grfp) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in nsf-supported science technology engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees at accredited united states institutions as the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind the grfp has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers with only 12 aerospace engineering students nationally being selected each year these awardees share in the prestige and opportunities that become available when they are chosen fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $32 000 along with a $12 000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees (paid to the institution) opportunities for international research and professional development and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited us institution of graduate education they choose tims field of research is autonomous systems and robotics under the guidance of dr john valasek professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and director of the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) nsf fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research teaching and innovations in science and engineering these individuals are crucial to maintaining and advancing the nation's technological infrastructure and national security as well as contributing to the economic well-being of society at large in the past 10 years the department of aerospace engineering has had six students awarded nsf fellowships
6,"texas a&m nuclear engineering graduate students in the computational group came together january 9-10 in the second annual ""code-a-thon"" over the course of two 12-hour days a dozen students worked collaboratively to create a multi-material eulerian hydrodynamics code from scratch they were joined by dr mcclarren a faculty member in the department and dr rockefeller a staff scientist at los alamos national lab the students formed groups that were responsible for writing individual components of the code working in tangent they used modern coding practices to produce tests for the code as or sometimes before they built it the final result: a code that will be used by current and future graduate students in the department as a research bed for trying new ideas and an invaluable learning experience for all those involved dr mcclarren began this ""code-a-thon"" as a chance for students to learn a valuable skill by working on a large computer code of their own design outside of the traditional classroom experience it also is similar to the working environment in industry: team-based work with a set of deliverables"
7,michael v pishko professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been honored with the designation of regents fellow by the texas a&m university system board of regents pishko holder of the stewart & stevenson professorship ii of biomedical engineering and director of the national center for therapeutics manufacturing joins a select group of agency professionals who will be formally honored jan 29 in galveston texas the regents awards allow us to show our outstanding faculty and researchers that we value their contribution to the a&m system said board chairman phil adams it is their commitment to excellence that makes the a&m system one of americas very best our staff faculty and researchers are the backbone of the a&m system this is an excellent opportunity for us to recognize the significant contributions these individuals make each day not only in the a&m system but all over the world said a&m system chancellor john sharp the board established the regents professor award program in 1996 and regents fellow service award program in 1998 to recognize employees who have made exemplary contributions to their university or agency and to the residents of texas to date 103 agency professionals have received the regents fellow service award pishkos research interests are in the related areas of biosensors biomaterials and drug delivery as nctm director he oversees initiatives that provide education and training in topics ranging from quality assurance and quality control good manufacturing practices regulatory affairs facilities management pharmaceutical manufacturing processes laboratory instrumentation and bioprocess safety as well as many other current and next-generation technologies applicable to biologics manufacturing the a&m system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $38 billion through a statewide network of 11 universities seven state agencies two service units and a comprehensive health science center the a&m system educates more than 125 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year externally funded research expenditures exceed $780 million and help drive the states economy
8,discovery channel canada recently featured on its popular show daily planet research on bipedal robotic locomotion carried out at the amber lab led by dr aaron ames amber lab an acronym for a&m bipedal experimental robotics lab was established by dr ames in the mechanical engineering department at texas a&m university in 2008 amber lab focuses on theoretical and experimental research in bipedal robotics locomotion nonlinear and hybrid systems and prosthetic design watch the video of the amber lab feature on daily planet here:
9,dr ames uses human data as the fundamental basis for achieving ‘human-inspired locomotion in bipedal robots the human data is derived from motion capture of people walking and navigating different environments this data is analyzed to extract essential information about walking in terms of universal mathematical functions and algorithms defining bipedal locomotion these functions become the basis of controllers for bipedal robots and the result is strikingly human-like walking gaits with the ability to navigate through disturbances in the environment amber lab has custom built two bipedal robots amber 1 and amber 2 and is testing ideas on the nao robot the team also is working on a project with nasa jsc at houston providing algorithms for the locomotion mobility and full-body coordination of valkyrie nasas highly advanced full-sized humanoid robot amber lab also is collaborating with sri on a next generation humanoid robot proxi with the goal of achieving efficient and robust locomotion the amber lab team with amber 2 dr ames with nasas valkyrie robot that walks with the help of algorithms provided by amber lab dr ames describes walking as ‘controlled falling because humans propel themselves forward to the point at which they are about to fall but catch themselves and avoid the fall as their legs gain contact with the ground inspired by the simplicity and elegance of human locomotion dr amess team continues to refine the locomotive capabilities of bipedal robots and to improve their stability the next step in the amber lab research is working on algorithms that will direct the robot to climb stairs and navigate uneven and unknown terrain there are many potential and highly useful applications of bipedal robotic locomotion these robots can traverse where wheeled robots cannot such as in areas of uneven terrain like polar ice caps craters or rubble-strewn sites in disaster zones and can assist in discovery and rescue missions another important application of this research is prosthetic design which could have a huge positive impact in the lives of people who have lost one or both their legs by enabling them to carry out movements and functions in an intuitive human-like manner the research of dr ames and amber lab has carried robotic engineering and controls to higher levels and continues to show promise of even greater refinement in the future the department of mechanical engineering is extremely proud to have dr ames on its team of highly illustrious professors to guide aggie mechanical engineers toward making new breakthroughs in engineering research
10,the robotics research of dr aaron ames assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was featured on discovery channel canada's daily planet the segment focused on the work ames and his students are doing in the a&m bipedal experimental robotics (amber) lab ames is working on the design simulation and fabrication of a robot that will walk like a human science fiction has long promised two-legged humanlike robots that can walk among us but those are not yet reality ames a self-described sci-fi buff is building the robots himself the amber lab was established in 2008 in the department of mechanical engineering and is devoted to both theoretical and experimental research in bipedal robotics locomotion nonlinear and hybrid systems and prosthetic design the video can be viewed here
11,for the battalion online (1/22/2014) city editor jennifer reiley interviewed nasa astronaut steven swanson about his career and his third trip into space scheduled for march 25 dr steven swanson received his phd in computer science from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university in 1998 he was honored by the cse department with the distinguished former student award in 2010 and is currently a member of the department's advisory board dr swanson's voyage on the russian soyuz spacecraft will take him and his team to the international space station where they will participate in low gravity research experiments dr swanson will transition to commander of the russian federal space agency expedition 40 in may before returning to earth in september 2014
12,longtime supporters of texas a&m university artie and dorothy mcferrin will further contribute to their legacy at texas a&m with a $3 million gift to the dwight look college of engineering to endow a new professor of practice in entrepreneurship and to support construction of the new engineering education complex we are so grateful for artie and dorothys unparalleled and continued support of the engineering program said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering the mcferrins understand the value of investing in our students and their generosity and commitment to educational excellence will benefit many for years to come two million dollars from the mcferrins gift will be used to establish an endowment for a professor of practice for entrepreneurship within the look college the endowment will fund an individual of exceptional merit who has had an illustrious career at the local state national or international level i became an entrepreneur before i realized i was one said artie mcferrin my hope with this gift is to teach our engineering students how to think like an entrepreneur an opportunity to be exposed to the non-linear opportunistic side of engineering arties passion for sharing what he has learned regarding entrepreneurship is also seen in his soon-to-be published book only sweat the big stuff he believes others can be taught how to be entrepreneurial minded and has assembled tips on the subject in the book the mcferrins donation also includes $1 million to be used for the construction of the engineering education complex (eec) a 600 000 square foot complex that will include the existing zachry engineering center and the yet-to-be constructed engineering design center the futuristic technology-integrated facility will be a departure from traditional classrooms and lecture halls by focusing on student-centered design to optimize modern learning techniques and technology and is expected to be unlike any other facility of its kind in the nation the new facility will be specifically designed to accommodate the colleges undergraduate engineering education and is a key component in the look colleges effort to transform engineering education through its 25 by 25 initiative i like that we are doing something within the college of engineering; our engineering leadership is progressive and ready to succeed said artie mcferrin there is something special about being an aggie engineer and this initiative offers more people that opportunity artie earned his bachelors and masters of science in chemical engineering in 1965 and 1969 respectively and in recent years the mcferrins have embodied the aggie philanthropic spirit with their generous donations to support both education and athletics at texas a&m in 2005 they committed $10 million to establish an endowed fund in the department of chemical engineering which was later named in his honor the mcferrins have also donated almost $43 million to the university benefitting the look college the college of education and human development and the athletic program currently artie serves on the engineering advisory council chemical engineering advisory board including several years as chairman the corps board of visitors and is a member of the board of trustees for the 12th man foundation dorothy has served on and as chair of the college of education and human developments advisory board together they have been repeatedly honored by various campus entities for their monetary and leadership contributions they have two children jeffrey 92 and jennifer a graduate of ucla and four grandchildren the look college is a nationally ranked program with more than 13 000 students and nearly 350 tenured/tenure-track faculty together the eec and 25 by 25 initiative will transform engineering education at texas a&m and its success lies within the network of the many supporters of the engineering program
13,the student engineers council (sec) at texas a&m university is hosting its 2014 spring career fair on tuesday (jan 28) at reed arena the fair which runs from 9 am to 4 pm is the premier recruiting event for the dwight look college of engineering the career fair is planned organized and staffed by the sec and is one of the largest student-run engineering career fairs in the nation historically as many as 6 000 engineering and industrial distribution students attend the fair seeking internships co-ops and full-time positions the sec also hosts a fall career fair and the 2013 fall career fair was the largest to date with 7 300 students and more than 425 companies in attendance
14,professor michael j mcshane (left) and professor vladislav v yakovlev have been elected to the aimbe college of fellows two professors in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university have been elected to the american institute for medical and biological engineering (aimbe) college of fellows michael j mcshane and vladislav v yakovlev each have been elected to the college of fellows for their outstanding contributions to research and education as fellows they represent the top two percent of the medical and biological engineering community the college of fellows comprises 1 500 individuals who are recognized as outstanding bioengineers in academia industry and government and have distinguished themselves through their contributions in research industrial practice and/or education fundamental to their achievements is the common goal of embracing innovation to improve the health care and safety of society mcshane and yakovlev will be formally inducted at a ceremony scheduled to take place at the national academy of sciences during aimbes annual meeting in march mcshane joined the department of biomedical engineering in 2006 his research and educational activities cover many areas of biomedical engineering including biomaterials molecular biology biomedical optics biotransport bioinstrumentation signal processing and medical device design his laboratory produces and tests sensor systems using microscale and nanoscale fabrication approaches of self-assembly and photolithography as well as develops strategies for deploying these in vitro and in vivo yakovlev joined texas a&m in 2012 his research focuses on the development of new instrumentation for biomedical diagnostics and imaging yakovlevs primary research interests include nanoscopic optical imaging of molecular and cellular structures; single-molecule spectroscopy and manipulation; protein spectroscopy and structural dynamics; bioanalytical applications of optical technology and spectroscopy; and deep-tissue imaging and sensing aimbe is the authoritative voice and advocate for the value of medical and biological engineering to society it is an organization of leaders in medical and biological engineering consisting of academic industrial professional society councils and elected fellows aimbes mission includes communicating objectively with and responding to us and state government agencies as well as lawmakers
15,a graduate of the dwight look college of engineering has established an endowment to support sustainability at his alma mater hw (bill) clark of friendswood texas is a 1974 graduate of the college a chemical engineering major clark is an eagle scout served eight years in the us army and worked for the dow chemical co for more than 35 years with matching gifts from dow clark created the endowment through the texas a&m foundation to support research and implementation projects to preserve the earths natural resources for future generations sustainability is the key issue of the 21st century due to continuing evidence of damage to the earth's ecology from fossil fuel-related consumption said clark the united states must set an example for the rest of the world by moving to a sustainable economy and most important i want my two sons and future grandchildren to have a positive future clarks endowment will promote research in multiple areas of sustainable development including fossil fuel replacements transportation alternatives plant products ocean ecology and climate change funds from the endowment will be allocated to researchers at texas a&m based on the merit of their projects clark hopes his gift will help texas a&m become a global leader in sustainability research i have always believed texas a&m is a world-class university making a global impact said clark my aggie experience brought many blessings into my life and i wanted to give something back about the texas a&m foundation the texas a&m foundation is a private nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance texas a&ms capability to be among the best universities for more information on the texas a&m foundation and related giving opportunities visit givingtamuedu about the dwight look college of engineering with nearly 350 tenured/tenure-track faculty members and more than 13 000 students the look college is one of the leading engineering schools in the country the college is ranked sixth in graduate studies eighth in undergraduate programs among public institutions with seven of the colleges thirteen departments ranked in the top 10 and second in research expenditures by us news & world report
16,spencer a hawkins a phd materials science and engineering student researching epoxy nanocomposites in the polymer technology center under the direction of dr hj sue has been awarded a fellowship through the nasa harriett g jenkins graduate fellowship program a program funded by nasa's office of education minority university research and education project (murep) for students studying stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) disciplines spencer will participate along with other jenkins fellows in a 10-week research experience at the nasa glenn research center in cleveland ohio phd students are awarded $45 000 (research grant stipend and tuition offset) for one academic year with options for renewal in two successful academic years this fellowship pays homage to harriett g jenkins who during a 20-year tenure at nasa implemented programs for minorities and women including recruitment of the agencys first astronauts of color ms jenkins subsequently served as director of the office of senate fair employment practices in the us senate ensuring the tenets of the us civil rights act were implemented
17,"david turner computer engineering senior in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is a finalist in the computing research association's outstanding undergraduate research awards for 2014 the cra's outstanding undergraduate research awards recognize undergraduate students who show exceptional research potential in an area of computing research notable qualities of the nominees include making significant contributions to more than one research project authoring or coauthoring multiple papers making presentations at major conferences and producing software artifacts that were in widespread use nominees have been involved in successful summer research or internship programs are teaching assistants tutors or mentors and have had significant involvement in community volunteer efforts cra cited david turner for his work on ""mechanix - free body diagram and truss analysis sketch workbook "" for which he received cra's honorable mention last year and ""coursesketch"" ""i have always loved difficult problems and there seems to be a never ending stream of them with these projects "" david said ""mechanix and coursesketch both use sketch recognition to improve education and help aid teachers understand the mistakes that students make and even sometimes correct students' problems automatically mechanix is in conjunction with people in the mechanical engineering department at georgia tech; they provide use cases for the software and help make sure it works"" david is a sketch recognition lab team member and is advised by dr tracy hammond associate professor and srl director his main research interest is sketch recognition and his secondary interest is improving education ""but i just really love the magic that artificial intelligence can provide "" adds david when asked about his extracurricular activities and plans for the future david had this to say: ""outside of school i am in percussion studio where i play percussion and participate in gigs and a concert every semester this summer i have an internship at amazon but in the fall i will be in graduate school working on coursesketch"" this past summer david was an intern at google in california"
18,professor mike mcshane (left) and graduate students jason roberts and dustin ritter (not pictured) are developing a carrier system that can deliver medicines and biosensors to targeted areas of the body a new injectable material designed to deliver drug therapies and sensor technology to targeted areas within the human body is being developed by a texas a&m university biomedical engineer who says the system can lock its payload in place and control how it is released the research led by michael mcshane professor in the department of biomedical engineering who specializes in biomaterials and graduate student jason roberts appears in journal of materials chemistry b it details the development of a carrier system embedded with microscopic capsules that act as tiny reservoirs for medicines or even sensors that would alert a person in critical instances such as when blood-sugar levels change the technology mcshane notes affords researchers a high degree of control over what is delivered to the body where and when it is delivered and how much of it is delivered that degree of flexibility he says could make the system an extremely useful tool when it comes to targeted drug delivery as opposed to having patients simply swallow a pill health care professionals have long envisioned delivering specific quantities of medicines to targeted areas of the body thereby increasing the treatments effectiveness while reducing side effects in order to achieve this a vehicle of sorts is needed to safely and accurately deliver the medicine to the desired location within the body mcshanes team which also includes graduate student dustin ritter is building that vehicle using a modified jell-o-like substance known as a hydrogel a hydrogel is a polymer mesh material that is typically biocompatible meaning it allows cells within the body to conduct normal physiological processes without triggering an immune response from the host because of this hydrogels are widely used in tissue engineering research and they can be found in a number of other applications most commonly as the material from which contact lenses are made although hydrogels arent new the ones employed in mcshanes carrier system arent typical; theyve been enhanced specifically they are embedded with tiny capsules that are significantly smaller than the width of a human hair each of these microcapsules serves as a reservoir or depot for the material doctors and researchers want to deliver such as a drug measuring a few microns in diameter these porous microparticles are made from clusters of calcium carbonate nanoparticles that have been deliberately formed around a specific material to trap it inside mcshane notes once the desired material is trapped within the microsphere multiple layers of polymers are wrapped around the particles he explains this allows for a precise and customizable control over how the microcapsule will release its contents when it interacts with its surrounding environment mcshane explains the system mcshane says is not limited to drug delivery in fact it has shown promising results with biosensors in these types of applications he explains the microcapsules carry a payload such as a protein that is responsive to something in the body that doctors want to measure this measurable material is allowed to pass into the hydrogel and into the capsules where it triggers some type of optical change he says for example mcshane has been able to trigger a color change in the material (observable with a reader device) when ph and oxygen levels change or when blood-sugar levels fluctuate its work that could translate into safer and more effective ways for people such as those suffering from diabetes to monitor their conditions
19,through chemistry we can design these microcapsules so that what we put inside of them stays inside of them or what we put inside of them is released when we want it to be released – all at once or gradually he says the microcapsules also play another critical role in the system – helping to transform the hydrogel from a liquid to a gel once it is inside the body mcshane notes in order to be easily administered mcshanes carrier system starts as a liquid with tiny solid suspended particles this allows it to be injected into the desired location transporting the microcapsules and their contents by manipulating the chemical reactions that take place between the microcapsules and the hydrogel – such as calcium release as the particles dissolve – mcshane and his team can control how quickly their system turns into a gel thats important because the hydrogel helps lock in place the microcapsules at the correct location while also acting as a buffer between them and the bodys internal environment without the gelation of the carrier system the microcapsules could be absorbed into the lymph system broken down by the body and removed before they could release their contents or they could migrate away from the targeted location mcshane explains basically our material starts as a liquid with a bunch of microspheres suspended in it and we can inject it he says it will then gel wherever we inject it taking the shape of the mold in which it is placed this mold could be something we design to give it a certain shape or it could just be a void in tissue that were trying to fill with the material its the combination of controlling the gelation and then controlling how the microcapsules function that makes this a unique and viable system for a variety of applications contact: michael mcshane professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university at (979)845-7941 or via email: mcshane@bmetamuedu or ryan garcia communications manager at (979)847-5833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
20,"a laboratory in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently was awarded a grant from the electric motor education and research foundation (emerf) a 501 (c)(3) organization and the foundation of smma - the motor and motion association (smma) emerf formed a pre-competitive research group of smma member companies to review and provide input regarding potential research topics that were of interest and value to the small motor manufacturing industry ""achieving improvements in power density while simultaneously increasing efficiency in small electric motors"" was identified as the research topic the goal of this effort is to provide a new small motor technology that meets the technical targets defined in the solicitation the seed award in this round is expected to be the start of a program that will take this new technology to market texas a&m university's electric machines and power electronic (empe) laboratory under the leadership of dr hamid a toliyat the raytheon company professor in the department won the grant his project ""design of ferrite assisted synchronous reluctance motor (fa-synrm) with aluminum conductors in stator"" is expected to start in january 2014 and last six months toliyat came to texas a&m in 1994 after being an assistant professor at ferdowsi university of mashhad he received his phd from the university of wisconsin-madison in 1991 he is an ieee fellow and has received the prestigious cyrill veinott award in electromechanical energy conversion from the ieee power engineering society in 2004; patent and innovation award from the texas a&m university system office of technology commercialization in 2007; the tees fellow award in 2004 and 2006; outstanding professor award in 2005 from texas a&m; distinguished teaching award in 2003; ed brockett professorship award in 2002; eugene webb faculty fellow award in 2000; and the texas a&m select young investigator award in 1999 from texas a&m university he has also received the space act award from nasa in 1999 and the schlumberger foundation technical awards in 2001 and 2000 toliyat was an editor of ieee transactions on energy conversion and an associate editor of ieee transactions on power electronics he also was the chair of ieee-ias industrial power conversion systems department of ieee-ias and is a member of sigma xi his main research interests and experience include analysis and design of electrical machines variable speed drives for traction and propulsion applications fault diagnosis of electric machinery and sensorless variable speed drives toliyat has supervised more than 50 graduate students published more than 370 technical papers (more than 110 of which are in ieee transactions) and has presented more than 80 invited lectures all over the world toliyat also is an inventor and has 12 issued and pending us patents in these fields he is the author of dsp-based electromechanical motion control (crc press 2003) the co-editor of handbook of electric motors 2nd editio (marcel dekker 2004) and the co-author of electric machines: modeling condition monitoring and fault diagnosis (crc press 2012) he was the general chair of the 2005 ieee international electric machines and drives conference in san antonio and is a professional engineer in the state of texas emerf will issue periodic communications on the project and will also present an update at the smma 2014 spring management conference in fort myers florida for additional information about the project emerf or smma contact betsy chambers at info@smmaorg or 5089795935 or visit the website wwwsmmaorg smma - the motor & motion association is a manufacturing trade association founded in 1975 comprised of motor and drive manufacturers and their suppliers emerf the electric motor education & research foundation a 501(c)(3) chartered in 1995 promotes the electric motor industry through education pre-competitive research and facilitation of technology transfer within the industry and in cooperation with academic private research and governmental organizations"
21,"the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and tenaris sa which has its north american headquarters in houston signed a memorandum of understanding (mou) jan 7 to establish a framework for increasing collaboration among the researchers and engineers associated with the two entities ""the signing of this agreement ushers in a new era of university and industry collaboration "" said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system ""there will be tremendous opportunities for collaboration and significant opportunities for our students and faculty to have valuable experience working with a partner such as tenaris"" tees and tenaris have many areas of common interest in oil and gas energy and mechanical industries and in some of the areas a considerable advantage may be gained from innovation partnerships ""we look forward to combining tenaris's practical knowledge and expertise with the resources and fresh perspective of the faculty and students of texas a&m university "" said germán curá president tenaris north america ""tenaris has always believed that no matter how much we invest in technology what's important is how much we invest in the human element and in the communities where we operate this agreement is a logical step forward in our commitment to education and innovation and we look forward to continued partnership with texas a&m"" the general area of this collaboration will include research development innovation education and employment opportunities and will involve two primary groups - a senior steering committee and sub-committees established by the senior steering committee ""we are extremely grateful and fortunate to have a partner like tenaris involved in this effort "" said phil adams chairman of the board of regents ""we appreciate the tremendous leadership of germán curá and have the highest regard for his depth and understanding of the importance of industry and university collaboration in creating value for the residents of texas our land grant roots run deep and this should be a shining example of texas a&m making a positive difference"" in addition to research projects tenaris will sponsor student educational activities and will accept texas a&m university students into the tenaris global internship program ""transforming engineering education will require partnerships with industry "" said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering ""the connection between industry and academia will insure our students are prepared to address the technical challenges that will be faced in the future"" tenaris practitioners may also teach adjunct classes at texas a&m and/or host educational events at tenaris facilities in order to convey practical business knowledge and field expertise to texas a&m students tenaris has initiated a comprehensive university outreach program and is pleased with the development of this cooperative program with texas a&m and tees dr dimitris lagoudas deputy director of tees and dr costas georghiades associate dean for research will oversee research and development projects with their tenaris counterparts while dr terri reed assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs will oversee education and workforce training with tenaris employees about tenaris:tenaris is a leading supplier of tubes and related services for the world's energy industry and certain other industrial applications its mission is to deliver value to its customers through product development manufacturing excellence and supply chain management tenaris seeks to minimize risk for its customers and help them reduce costs increase flexibility and improve time to market tenaris has approximately 4 000 employees at its 10 us facilities as well as a new seamless pipe production plant under construction in bay city texas tenaris's approximately 27 000 employees around the world are committed to continuous improvement by sharing knowledge across a single global organization"
22,the department of industrial and systems engineering welcomes dr satish bukkapatnam to its faculty dr bukkapatnam received his phd from pennsylvania state university in 1997 and since then has served as a faculty member at the university of southern california and oklahoma state university bukkapatnam appointed the rockwell international professor by dr katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering is a distinguished researcher and scholar in the area of quality and integrity monitoring of systems that incorporate the abundant variety of current sensor technology his main research thrust during the last ten years has been to advance wired and wireless sensor-based dynamic system modeling principles for monitoring and prognostics applications in ultra-precision and nanomanufacturing processes such as chemical mechanical polishing of semiconductor wafers and synthesis of nanotube composites systems cardiology and cardiorespiratory dynamics automotive manufacturing systems and large infrastructure and lifeline systems to date he has attracted over $46 million in contracts and grants including 15 national science foundation grants where he was the principal investigator or co-principal investigator bukkapatnams research has produced 124 peer-reviewed publications (71 accepted or published in journals and 53 in refereed conference proceedings) and 8 invention disclosures his work has been the basis for 11 phd dissertations 10 masters theses and included over 25 undergraduate research scholars bukkapatnams awards and honors include eleven best paper/best poster awards and recognition four invitations to speak at international conferences and a significant number of awards that include: three faculty fellowships; alpha pi mu-omega rho teacher of the year award 2001; the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) dougherty young manufacturing engineer award 2005; oklahoma state university (osu) college of engineering architecture and technology (ceat) halliburton outstanding young faculty award 2011; the osu regents distinguished research award 2011; the institute of industrial engineers (iie) iie hamed k eldin outstanding young ie educator award 2012; the osu ceat halliburton outstanding (senior) faculty award 2012; and the interdisciplinary research award: osu presidents (inaugural) cup for interdisciplinary research (first place team) 2012 bukkapatnam is a full professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering holds a courtesy appointment in the department of biomedical engineering and is the director of the tees institute for manufacturing systems
23,dr jaime grunlan the gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor at texas a&m university has been appointed an editor of the journal of materials science the journal which is a cornerstone journal in the field of materials science and engineering is published by springer and is the companys second most-cited journal with 31 500 citations per year overall springer publishes more than 2 000 journals its a big honor to have been invited to be an editor of jms grunlan said chris cornelius (university of nebraska) steve eichhorn (university of exeter) greg rutledge (mit) and myself will be working hard to fill the shoes of robert young (university of manchester) who is retiring after many years of service to the journal we four will be the team tasked with ‘polymer manuscripts the impact factor has been rising rapidly under the leadership of c barry carter (university of connecticut) editor-in-chief of jms i expect this trend to continue with the strong editorial team thats been established grunlan is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering with joint appointments in the interdisciplinary department of materials science and engineering and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2004 after receiving a bachelors degree from north dakota state university and a phd from the university of minnesota in 2007 he received the prestigious national science foundation (nsf) career award for his research into controlling the microstructure of high aspect ratio nanoparticles (eg carbon nanotubes) using stimuli-responsive polymers in 2012 grunlan received the le scriven young investigator award from the international society of coating science and technology for innovative and high-impact research into coating methods and materials for barrier flame resistance and electronic applications he also received the 2010 carl dahlquist award from the pressure sensitive tape council springer science and business media is a leading global scientific publisher delivering quality content through innovative products and services
24,jory denny a phd student in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university spent a part of the university's december/january 2014 transition as a volunteer at winter camp 2013 a camp for the boy scouts of america's (bsa) sam houston area council jory taught the robotics merit badge to 32 young men between the ages of 10 and 17 the merit badge requires boys to learn the basics of robotics robotic safety and careers in robotics as well as design build program and test their own robotic system the boys were split into four teams each tasked with designing a mobile robot system for warehouse automation using lego mindstorms robotic kits all 32 boys successfully completed the merit badge over the 4 day camp and had a wonderful time designing and testing their systems! as a gift each boy received a cse drawstring backpack containing department information cups pens hand sanitizer lip balm post-it notes and a t-shirt the camp is held at camp strake in conroe tx from dec 26-31 and the camp annually hosts over a thousand boy scouts from the houston area the boys sign up for various merit badge classes (up to 5) and have 4 days to complete them jory denny an eagle scout of bsa troop 828 since dec 2005 has attended the camp since 2001 and volunteered on staff since 2008 this is his first year to teach and the camp's first year to offer the robotics merit badge as it is a relatively new merit badge in the bsa (since 2011) jory received a bs in computer science from texas a&m university in may 2011 graduating magna cum laude and as an honors undergraduate research fellow this past summer he received an nsf graduate research fellowship which he used to further his interest in developing applications to engage k-12 students in stem his research honors include becoming a finalist for the computing research association's (cra) outstanding undergraduate researcher award in 2011 receiving the cse department's undergraduate research award in that same year and the department's mentoring award in 2013 his research interests are in robotics physically-based simulation computational geometry and machine learning photo: jory denny (standing center back) with bsa members of the sam houston area council
25,two graduate students in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded fellowships by the texas a&m university system louis stokes alliance for minority participation (tamus lsamp) lindsay nail and michael whitely each have been named recipients of the bridge to the doctorate fellowship which entitles them to receive financial assistance for the first two years of their studies the annual amount of each fellowship includes a $30 000 stipend and a $9 000 allowance for tuition and fees research supplies educational travel health insurance and other fees nail is advised by associate professor melissa grunlan and whitely is advised by associate professor elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez specifically nail is researching shape memory polymers in an effort to heal bone defects and whitelys research focuses on generating high-porosity bone grafts and porous microspheres for the controlled delivery of growth factors as recipient of the fellowship which is funded by the national science foundation nail and whitely have been identified as having the potential to significantly impact their respective academic and research fields in addition they have been recognized as potential leaders and role models who will inspire and help mold the academic and career paths of their undergraduate and graduate student peers in addition to pursuing their respective degrees the two graduate students as part of the program are required to attend the nsf joint annual meeting each summer during the course of their fellowships where they will have the opportunity to network with peer fellowship holders from other lsamp programs around the country as well as with the academic and research leaders among the nsf lsamp principal investigators and project directors they also must attend and present research at the annual tamus lsamp symposium where they will have the opportunity to meet and form relationships with graduate and undergraduate lsamp students and faculty across the texas a&m university system tamus lsamp is a partnership composed of texas a&m university; texas a&m university corpus christi; and prairie view a&m university committed to increasing the number of underrepresented students participating in the science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) fields the program offers a research program for promising undergraduate students in stem fields and the bridge to the doctorate program for incoming masters degree students interested in pursuing doctoral degrees in stem fields and ultimately entering the ranks of the faculty originally named the alliance for minority participation the program was renamed the louis stokes alliance for minority participation in 1999 in honor of us rep louis stokes cofounder of the congressional black caucus
26,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr robert wattenbarger holder of the john e & deborah f bethancourt professorship the endowed professorship appointment was effective nov 1 2013 wattenbarger is a professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering his research interests include gas reservoir engineering emphasizing production analysis of tight gas reservoirs paraffin deposition in wellbores and reservoirs electromagnetic heating of reservoirs and well test analysis and well performance he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 1983 wattenbarger earned his phd in petroleum engineering from stanford university his masters and bachelors degrees in petroleum engineering from the university of tulsa
27,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr ding zhu holder of the lf peterson 36 professorship the endowed professorship appointment was effective nov 1 2013 zhu is a professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering her research interests include production and well simulation and complex well performance and sandstone acidizing and intelligent well technology she joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2004 zhu earned both her phd and masters in petroleum engineering from the university of texas in austin and her bachelors in petroleum engineering from beijing university of science & technology
28,"dr paul v gratz an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a high-performance and embedded architectures and compilers (hipeac) paper award from the hipeac network of excellencegratz along with his student hyungjun kim his colleague professor vassos soteriou at the cyprus university of technology and postdoc dr arseniy vitkovskiy received the award for their paper titled ""use it or lose it: wear-out and lifetime in future chip multiprocessors "" which appeared in the 46th annual ieee/acm international symposium on microarchitecture 2013 their paper discusses how in tomorrow's multi-core chip multi-processors (cmps) with 10s or even 100s of interconnected cores or tiles prolonged operational stress will give rise to accelerated wearout and failure this is due to several physical failure mechanisms including hot carrier injection (hci) and negative bias temperature instability (nbti) each failure mechanism correlates with different usage-based stresses all of which can eventually generate permanent faults while the wearout of an individual core in many-core cmps may not necessarily be catastrophic for the system a single fault in the inter-processor network-on-chip (noc) fabric could render the entire chip useless as it could lead to protocol-level deadlocks or even partition away vital components such as the memory controller or other critical i/o in their paper critical path models for hci- and nbti-induced wear due to the actual stresses caused by real workloads are developed and applied onto the interconnect microarchitecture a key finding from this modeling is that wearout in the cmp on-chip interconnect is correlated with lack of load observed in the noc routers rather than high load a novel wearout-decelerating scheme in which routers under low load have their wearout-sensitive components exercised without significantly impacting cycle time pipeline depth area or power consumption of the overall router is developed the proposed design yields a 138x-65x increase in cmp lifetime gratz is a member of the computer engineering and systems group he received his phd in electrical and computer engineering from the university of texas at austin in 2008 his research interests include power reliability and performance in multicore and distributed computer architectures processor memory systems and on-chip interconnection networks honors include receiving a teaching excellence award from the texas a&m university system and a best paper award from the asplos'09 conference"
29,dr hamid toliyat professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been selected an institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) industry applications society (ias) distinguished lecturer the distinguished lecturer program provides a means for ieee chapters and other organizations to identify and arrange lectures by the worlds renowned authorities on ieee ias topics toliyat the raytheon company professor came to texas a&m in 1994 after being an assistant professor at ferdowsi university of mashhad he received his phd from the university of wisconsin-madison in 1991 he is an ieee fellow and has received the prestigious cyrill veinott award in electromechanical energy conversion from the ieee power engineering society in 2004; patent and innovation award from the texas a&m university system office of technology commercialization in 2007; the tees fellow award in 2004 and 2006; outstanding professor award in 2005 from texas a&m; distinguished teaching award in 2003; ed brockett professorship award in 2002; eugene webb faculty fellow award in 2000; and the texas a&m select young investigator award in 1999 from texas a&m university he has also received the space act award from nasa in 1999 and the schlumberger foundation technical awards in 2001 and 2000 toliyat was an editor of ieee transactions on energy conversion and an associate editor of ieee transactions on power electronics he also was the chair of ieee-ias industrial power conversion systems department of ieee-ias and is a member of sigma xi his main research interests and experience include analysis and design of electrical machines variable speed drives for traction and propulsion applications fault diagnosis of electric machinery and sensorless variable speed drives toliyat has supervised more than 80 graduate students published more than 410 technical papers (more than 120 of which are in ieee transactions) and has presented more than 80 invited lectures all over the world toliyat also is an inventor and has 14 issued and pending us patents in these fields he is the author of dsp-based electromechanical motion control (crc press 2003) the co-editor of handbook of electric motors 2nd edition (marcel dekker 2004) and the co-author of electric machines: modeling condition monitoring and fault diagnosis (crc press 2012) he was the general chair of the 2005 ieee international electric machines and drives conference in san antonio and is a professional engineer in the state of texas one of the largest special interest societies within ieee the ias focuses specifically on the unique needs of industry and commerce it strives to be a world leader in the advancement of technology and dissemination of technical information to support professionals engaged in the applications of electrical and electronic engineering to industry
30,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr william schneider holder of the zachry professor of engineering the endowed professorship appointment was effective jan 1 schneider is a professor of engineering practice in the department of mechanical engineering he has been a visiting professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m for the past eight years he spent 38 years working for the national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) johnson space center and also was a engineering consultant senior vice president and part owner of an engineering consultant firm schneider earned his phd in mechanical engineering from rice university his masters degree in mechanical engineering from the university of houston and his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from louisiana state university
31,the national academy of engineering (nae) has invited dr walter buchanan to serve as a member of its study committee for the project status role and needs of engineering technology in the united states buchanan is a professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university the 18-month national science foundation-funded consensus study will review the production and employment of engineering technologies and technicians in the united states; gather available data and explore private- and public-sector employer perceptions regarding the adequacy of the supply of engineering technologists and technicians as well as the appropriateness of the knowledge and skills they bring to the workplace; and describe the characteristics of us engineering technology education programs buchanan joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2005 prior to that he was a professor at northeastern university (1999-2005) and the oregon institute of technology (1996-99) he has also been an associate professor at middle tennessee state university (1995-96) and an assistant professor at the university of central florida (1993-95) and indiana university-purdue university indianapolis
32,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr jodie lutkenhaus the william & ruth neely faculty fellow in chemical engineering lutkenhaus is an assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering she also is an affiliated faculty member of the newly created materials science and engineering department she joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2010 prior to that she was an assistant professor at yale university from 2008-2010 lutkenhaus research interests focus on designing organic thin films and nanostructures to enable the development of novel organic energy systems and smart-coatings she received her phd from the massachusetts institute of technology and her bachelors degree from the university of texas at austin
33,susu and mark fischers' contribution of $12 million marks the largest contribution to date to the engineering education complex (eec) mark and susu fischer are generous and loyal aggies whose passion and commitment to excellence are unmatched said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering the fischers are genuine in their gratitude toward this university and i cannot think of a more fitting way to similarly help our students; their generous gift literally provides the foundation for an educational home that will shape the aggie engineer of the future the fischers decided to make this significant gift after learning more about the 25 by 25 initiative and the plans to build the eec banks first shared the idea of the 25 by 25 initiative with the dwight look college of engineerings advisory council in the fall of 2012 as a member of the council mark participated in further developing the idea the 25 by 25 vision is something unheard of and clearly something that will elevate texas a&m to become the pinnacle engineering program in the nation mark fischer said so if i can help achieve that vision im glad to do it the look college is a nationally ranked program with more than 13 000 students and nearly 350 tenured/tenure-track faculty together the eec and 25 by 25 initiative will transform engineering education at texas a&m and its success lies within the network of the many supporters of the engineering program its really easy for me to want to support a&m because i have seen the impact texas a&m has made on marks career susu fischer said if our support of a&m helps to make an impact on others that makes me happy and its easy for us to do that dedicated to undergraduate engineering education only the eec will be built adjacent to the existing zachry engineering center (zec) which will be renovated during the new construction project and when completed the eec and zec together will feature 600 000 square feet of state-of-the-art learning space the complex will be an innovative learning environment utilizing technology flexible classrooms design and fabrication shared-use laboratories collaborative space and tutoring services the eec is a key component of the dwight look college of engineerings 25 by 25 initiative the 25 by 25 initiative addresses the projected state and national need for more engineers by increasing access to the look college's program with a controlled growth plan to increase enrollment to 25 000 engineering students by 2025 mark earned his bachelors degree in aerospace engineering in 1972 and is the president and chairman of the board of chaparral energy in oklahoma city the fischers have been generous supporters of both academics and athletics at texas a&m they have two children scott and christy fischer speakes 04
34,dr douglas allaire joined the department of mechanical engineering as assistant professor on january 1st 2014 dr allaire received his phd from the department of aeronautics and astronautics at mit in 2009 he holds bs and ms degrees from the same department which he earned in 2004 and 2006 respectively before joining texas a&m dr allaire worked as a research scientist and a postdoctoral associate at the mit aerospace computational design laboratory his current research focuses on the development of computational methods for the analysis design and operation of complex systems he is specifically interested in aspects of uncertainty quantification multidisciplinary design optimization and compositional methods for simulation-based design he is currently working on projects involving the development of computational methods for enabling self-aware unmanned aerial vehicles the development of optimal algorithms for multi-information source management in design and the development of methods for enabling correct-by-construction model-based design processes the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m is very proud of welcome dr allaire to their team of highly accomplished faculty members
35,with 9 million new cases and 2 million deaths annually tuberculosis is the second most prevalent and deadliest infectious disease worldwide as an airborne disease it spreads easily and is very contagious quick detection and identification is the key to success in preventing the spread of the disease conventional tuberculosis screenings suffer from low sensitivity specificity and high-cost the gold standard for the diagnosis of active tuberculosis still relies on time-consuming culture tests that take 10 to 40 days to complete the screening process recent nanopore research by assistant professor hung-jen wu of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university along with the houston methodist research institute has led to a new screening tool that quickly identifies the m tuberculosis antigen cfp-10 cfp-10 is an antigen secreted by the m tuberculosis bacteria says wu its rod shape allows us to use various types of nanopore thin films to very easily and quickly isolate and identify the strand using a mass spectrometer wu has engineered the nanopore size structure and surface properties to isolate up to 90% of cfp-10 in biological samples the whole screening process takes about nine hours including incubation time this overall approach offers hope not only for speeding up diagnosis of active tuberculosis but also for future screening of other infectious diseases figure nanotrap (a) the antigens cfp-10 secreted by m tuberculosis were isolated by the well-engineered nanoporous thin film (b) the abundant proteins (green) in complex biological fluids were washed away cfp-10 (orange) left inside the nanopores were cleaved by enzyme and then detected with mass spectrometry
36,dr nancy m amato the unocal professor and interim head of the department of computer science and engineering was named the 2014 recipient of the computing research associations (cra) a nico habermann award amato was recognized for being a highly effective leader of programs that engage women and underrepresented minorities in computing research particularly the cra-w distributed research experience for undergraduates program amato is co-director of the parasol lab she received undergraduate degrees in mathematical sciences and economics from stanford university and ms and phd degrees in computer science from the university of california berkley and the university of illinois at urbana-champaign she was an at&t bell laboratories phd scholar and recipient of a career award from the national science foundation she is an ieee fellow and was a distinguished lecturer for the ieee robotics and automation society (2006-07) she also serves as a distinguished speaker for the acm distinguished speakers program amatos main areas of research focus are motion planning and robotics computational biology and geometry and parallel and distributed computing
37,dr dallas little snead chair professor and regents professor in the zachry department of civil engineering has been named the saudi-aramco honorary chair in asphalt technology at king faisal university (kfu) in saudi arabia saudi-aramco the worlds largest oil company which produces more than $1 billion in revenue per day endowed the saudi-aramco scientific chair at kfu in 2013 little will serve as honorary chair and work closely with dr imad al-qadi founders professor at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign who will serve as advisor to the program both little and dr al-qadi were selected for their respective positions based on their distinguished scientific practical experience and academic expertise in the area of infrastructure engineering little says that the relationship with kfu and saudi-aramco offers attractive opportunities for the zachry department of civil engineering and in particular the materials and transportation division on many horizons
38,seven texas a&m university faculty members have been appointed as university distinguished professors the title which is bestowed in perpetuity is among the highest honors awarded to texas a&m faculty members the latest recipients are: dr gianfranco d alpini professor of medicine texas a&m health science center college of medicine; dr robert s chapkin regents professor of nutrition and food science college of agriculture and life sciences; dr joe r feagin professor of sociology college of liberal arts; dr p r kumar professor department electrical and computer engineering dwight look college of engineering; dr jeffrey w savell regents professor of animal science college of agriculture and life sciences; dr renyi zhang professor of atmospheric sciences college of geosciences and professor of chemistry college of science; and dr m suhail zubairy professor of physics and astronomy college of science the 2014 university distinguished professor honorees join a select group of more than 70 current faculty members that hold the prestigious title this designation denotes a faculty member who is pre-eminent in his or her field has made at least one seminal contribution to the discipline and whose work is central in any narrative of the field and is widely recognized to have changed the direction of scholarship in the field university distinguished professors represent the highest level of achievement for our faculty said dr karan l watson provost and executive vice president for academic affairs they are recognized as pre-eminent authorities in their fields and their accomplishments are exemplified by outstanding teaching mentoring discovery and service they demonstrate to the world the high quality of scholarship underway at texas a&m university texas a&m interim president mark hussey and the texas a&m foundation will host a reception on april 30 recognizing the six new university distinguished professors and honoring all of the university distinguished professors more information including a complete list of university distinguished professors is available online at http://doftamuedu/
39,pi tau sigma is an international mechanical engineering honors society whose members are chosen on a basis of sound engineering ability scholarship personality and probable future success in their chosen field of mechanical engineering pi tau sigma came into being on march 16 1915 at the university of illinois this year on the 99th anniversary of pi tau sigma the texas a&m had the honor of hosting the national pi tau sigma convention at texas a&m university from feb 21 – 23 2014 this convention also marked the 50th anniversary of the texas a&m sigma delta chapter which was founded in 1964 esteemed guests: from left to right dr alex moutsoglou sy browning dr mun choi dr andreas polycarpou dr devesh ranjan the event was attended by some of the top mechanical engineering students from all over the nation who excelled in academics as well as leadership the attendees consisted of 210 students representing 74 universities with a female attendance of 25 percent also in attendance was the esteemed board of directors of the pi tau sigma society the event began with a welcome dinner at the hilton grand ballroom sponsored by bp dr mun young choi national president of pi tau sigma made an introductory speech about the history of pi tau sigma and conducted a roll call to represent each chapter in attendance he commended sy browning (convention chair) jordan ellington (president convention co-chair) dr devesh ranjan (faculty advisor to pi tau sigma) and the entire texas a&m pi tau sigma team for their hard work in planning organizing and hosting the event dr andreas a polycarpou gives an inspiring welcome keynote speech at the convention dinner dr andreas a polycarpou department head of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university made the opening keynote speech in his speech dr polycarpou felicitated the students on their success and encouraged them to continue on the path of success by following their heart and fuelling their passion with a desire to make a positive impact in the world and never giving up faculty members dr devesh ranjan and kristin schaefer explain the benefits of a graduate education at a breakout seminar dinner was followed by the breakout discussions and meetings on the following topics: chapter best practices and history of pi tau sigma benefits of a masters degree for academic and industrial careers convention planning & improvement ideas the breakout sessions were followed by a friday night social event at grand station entertainment in college station where students enjoyed a night of bowling laser tag mini golf and pool the events of the following day included a preview of the illinois uc – 2015 100th anniversary convention during breakfast plenary sessions were held in which dr alex moutsoglou (national treasurer of pi tau sigma) gave updates on the current financial standing of the organization and the future national officers of the society were voted for company panel discussion a company panel discussion on the ‘future of the mechanical engineer followed with participation of representatives from halliburton bp and schlumberger and moderated by jordan ellington lunch was held at the msc ballroom sponsored by schlumberger along with a presentation by larry leising (advisor and métier at schlumberger) after lunch students enjoyed light activities such as chapters interaction trivia event and got their group photo taken career fair a career fair followed which was a great recruiting event for the convention sponsors as they got to meet the best mechanical engineering students in the country attendees are given lab tours by professors in the department of mechanical engineering professors aaron ames tim jacobs eric petersen devesh ranjan and david staack in the department of mechanical engineering gave the students individual lab tours and demonstrations of the research being conducted in their labs poster design competition texas a&m graduate organization megso organized a poster competition for texas a&m mechanical graduate students showcasing their research the winners were: 1st place: poster #1 malcolm stein iv 2nd place: poster #6 thomas finn 3rd place: poster #2 michael penny 4th place: poster #4 vahid tajeddini in the evening all members enjoyed a banquet dinner at the msc ballroom sponsored by halliburton with a key note speech by tim hunter (technology manager at halliburton) the students continued to enjoy a saturday night social event at the fox and hound bar and grill in college station the following morning the event began with breakfast and a report from dr alex moutsoglou national secretary and treasurer of pi tau sigma scholarship awards outstanding chapter awards and outstanding report awards were presented dr mun yung choi and sy browning presented the closing remarks the event was a grand success which resulted in several fruitful interactions for the pi tau sigma members with peers educators and industrial representatives
40,"in ""broadway bots: robots take lead roles in drama standup "" by nidhi subbaraman contributing writer at nbc news digital ms subbaraman reports on the thespian arts currently in play at tokyo's robot restaurant and in the texas a&m university 2009 production of shakespeare's ""a midsummer's night dream"" raytheon professor dr robin murphy of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m comments on the thespian bots and humans as they interacted in the shakespearian comedy ""it really did seem like the fairies the robot fairies were characters in the production and not just flying props"" dr dylan shell assistant professor of computer science and engineering dr amy guerin assistant professor of theatre arts and dr murphy collaborated on the texas a&m performing arts project of the collaboration dr murphy said ""it's great to bring together students from engineering and performing arts plus we raised several important research issues"" the full nbc story"
41,"the 2014 acm richard tapia celebration of diversity in computing conference was held in seattle washington on february 58 the tapia conferences brings undergraduate and graduate students faculty researchers and professionals in computing from all backgrounds and ethnicities together this year's conference theme ""the strength of diversity "" celebrated diversity in computing by connecting attendees with common backgrounds ethnicities disabilities and gender with computing leaders in academia and industry conference attendance was over 625 approximately 30 of that number were faculty students and staff from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university cse was a gold sponsor at this year's tapia conference cse's booth was abuzz with all the attendees ""we had sling bags that were filled with department materials chap stick post-it notes and pens that were given away "" said kathy waskom cse engineering organizational services manager ""we handed out over 200 sling bags we also had three daily raffles on each of the conference days in which we gave away polo's t-shirts tamu mice (computer mouse) a signed book by dr bjarne stroustrup and aggieopoly"" one of our cse students was invited to present her research at the doctoral consortium a one-day workshop where doctoral students discussed their investigations with a panel of successful researchers chinwe ekenna a member of the parasol lab presented ""adaptive neighbor connection for prms: a natural fit for heterogeneous environments and parallelism"" cse interim department head dr nancy n amato and associate professor dr tracy hammond spoke on undergraduate ""survival skills"" at the cra-w/cdc undergraduate career mentoring workshop some of the topics covered during the workshop were finding technical internships learning to network resume writing and getting into graduate school besides her role as speaker dr amato was co-chair of the cra-w/cdc workshops which included undergraduate career mentoring graduate career mentoring and mid-career mentoring the tapia conferences are organized by the coalition to diversify computing sponsored by the association for computing machinery and presented by the center for minorities and people with disabilities in information technology (cmd-it) cmd-it's executive director is our own dr valerie taylor the tapia conferences are in cooperation with the computing research association and the ieee computer society"
42,the department of mechanical engineering along with the advance center for women faculty invited dr bonnie dunbar to conduct two seminars at texas a&m university dr bonnie j dunbar dr bonnie j dunbar is the m d anderson professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at the university of houston she also serves as the director of the universitys ‘stem center and director of the cullen college of engineering aerospace graduate program dr dunbar has worked for rockwell international space division building space shuttle columbia and has worked for nasa for 27 years as a flight controller as well as a mission specialist astronaut where she flew five space shuttle flights logging more than 50 days in space in addition to her flight career she was a member of the senior executive service her service included assistant jsc director university research; deputy director flight crew operations; and nasa headquarters deputy associate administrator for the office of life and microgravity sciences and applications (olmsa) after retiring from nasa she became president and ceo of the seattle museum of flight dr dunbar consulted in aerospace and stem education as the president of dunbar international llc and is an internationally known public speaker dunbar holds bs and ms degrees in ceramic engineering from the university of washington and a phd in mechanical/biomedical engineering from the university of houston she is a fellow of the american ceramic society and the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics she has been awarded the nasa space flight medal five times the nasa exceptional leadership medal and the nasa distinguished service medal dr dunbar was inducted into the royal society of edinburgh and in 2002 was elected to the us national academy of engineering in 2013 she was selected into the astronaut hall of fame dr william schneider host of the seminar introduces dr bonnie dunbar in her seminar titled ‘personal observations: the journey of a cowgirl to space and back dr dunbar shared some of the lessons she learned in her journey from growing up in a ranch to becoming an engineer and a nasa astronaut dr dunbar shares some photos from the international space station for the meen 681 graduate seminar class conducted by dr alan palazzolo dr dunbar presented a seminar titled ‘exploration of space: the rewards and the technical challenges in which she shared her history as an engineer working on the space shuttle columbia in californias edwards afb during the 1970s her flight career as a nasa astronaut and her observations on the future of space exploration in the 21st century both global and in the us she discussed some of the most significant technological challenges for a human mission to mars as documented by the nae reports and the preparedness of the unites states to solve them
43,eric marins pride for his alma mater and the opportunity to make a difference in a young persons life is the driving force behind his gift of $100 000 to the engineering education complex (eec) i love a&m and i am happy to help marin said i think this facility will be an important part of promoting the engineering program and by contributing to this project i feel like i am helping the next generation of students the eec is a key component of the dwight look college of engineerings 25 by 25 initiative – a transformational program to increase access for qualified students to pursue engineering education at texas a&m university to an enrollment of 25 000 engineering students by 2025 the eec will be solely dedicated to undergraduate engineering education and will be built adjacent to the existing zachry engineering center (zec) that will be renovated during the new construction project when completed the eec and zec together will feature 600 000 square feet of state-of-the-art learning space the complex will be an innovative learning environment utilizing technology flexible classrooms design and fabrication shared-use laboratories collaborative space and tutoring services facilities are a vital part of our students education marin said having first-class facilities helps to attract first-class professors and students to a&m which in turn elevates the engineering program nationally and internationally marin earned his bachelors in computer science in 1986 and is currently a managing director with wg consulting in houston he also serves on the engineering advisory council for the department of computer science and engineering and as a representative of that council on the look colleges advisory council
44,kyle kelly an industrial distribution major has been elected as the next student body president for texas a&m university kelly a senior will officially take office in april and will serve a one-year term kelly is the second consecutive student from the dwight look college of engineering to lead the universitys 58 000-member student body current president reid joseph is also an industrial distribution major kelly is a member of the corps of cadets serves as the chaplain for his squadron and is a member of the ross volunteers additionally he is the worship chair for the brotherhood of christian aggies (bca) has been a maroon coat host for the texas a&m foundation has been active in the student government association and has served as a host for aggie muster
45,in 2009 larry mcquiena fort worth resident and executive at lockheed martindied tragically after being struck by a car during a morning bike ride now his wife carol has established the larry j mcquien 76 take flight award a scholarship for undergraduate students studying aerospace engineering at texas a&m university because of her generosity larry mcquiens legacy will live on at his alma mater the 55-year-old was a go-getter in every sense of the word if he didnt know how to do something hed teach himself he enjoyed participating in scouting with his two sons who like their father obtained the rank of eagle scout and when he wasnt busy working he was enjoying the great outdoorshe was an avid water-skier snow-skier and cyclist mcquien earned bachelors and masters degrees in aerospace engineering from texas a&m in 1976 and 1977 and he graduated cum laude and summa cum laude respectively he then began a career in the engineering department at lockheed martin aeronautics co (then general dynamics fort worth division) with the realization that he wanted to balance his engineering background with stronger business acumen mcquien headed back to school this time to texas tech university for a law degree while there he met carol who had attended the university of texas as an undergraduate the pair married and moved back to fort worth mcquien returned to lockheed martin where he eventually became vice president of business ventures its comforting to know that larrys name will be attached to texas a&ms aerospace engineering program forever said carol mcquien i dont want him to just fade away mcquien says her husband was a natural mentor to young people she recalls a conversation with a young woman during a texas a&m tailgate i asked her what she was studying and she said she was a senior in aerospace engineering i said ‘this is your lucky day that man standing over there is my husband and he is a vice president at lockheed! well i didnt talk to her again the whole night she went over to him and stuck to him like glue the mcquiens younger son scott is working on a masters degree in aerospace engineering at texas a&m the couples older son john graduated from texas a&m in 2012 with a degree in economics and a minor in business administration carol mcquien hopes the recipient of the take flight award will not only possess book smarts but also will be easy to talk to and involved in the community if larry was alive today hed tell these students to do well in school but also to be well-rounded to have people skills she said hed tell them to develop their relationships outside of work bridget lauderdale vice president and general manager for lockheed martins aeronautics business also a texas a&m alumna worked with mcquien on multiple projects that are now core programs in the business larrys attitude was an inspiration for many he had a passion both for people and for the technical side of aerospacea combination that made him a great leader at lockheed martin he left a lasting impact on those fortunate to know him said lauderdale his expertise as an engineer and businessman created opportunity for our business for our employees and for those not yet in the workforce the ‘take flight award continues larrys legacy of opening doors for others and creating a path to tomorrows innovation to be selected for the scholarship students must be within the top 15 percent of their junior class and active in extracurricular activities applicants also must complete an essay addressing their aspirations in aerospace engineering as well as their thoughts on why larry mcquien was a leader in the industry the first recipient of the scholarship will be announced this spring and will receive the award for the 2014-2015 school year
46,herb richardson director emeritus of the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) was inducted as the 39th member of the texas transportation hall of honor during a feb 19 ceremony at tti established in 2000 to recognize those individuals who played significant roles in the development and advancement of texas transportation the hall of honor is located in the main conference room of ttis gibb gilchrist building on the campus of texas a&m university each inductee is represented by a plaque that bears his or her likeness we have a state that has been blessed to have an outstanding transportation system a system that has served the state well tti agency director dennis christiansen said during the ceremony its attracted economic growth to texas and provided texans with a high quality of life its widely recognized that the development and sustainment of that kind of system is the result of visionary leadership by a relatively small group of individuals richardson became director of tti in 1993 and oversaw a vast expansion of its mission to include all modes of transportation during his 13-year tenure numerous centers of excellence were established and research expenditures grew significantly which solidified ttis reputation for expert transportation research around the world transportation is the prominent thread that has run throughout richardsons stellar career which included three degrees from the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) and his appointment as the nations first chief scientist of the us department of transportation at the texas a&m system and texas a&m richardson held leadership roles including vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station prior to being named director of tti richardson was chancellor of the texas a&m system herb is truly a remarkable person innately bright very well educated remarkably intuitive dedicated personable explicitly honest and honorable said erle nye chairman emeritus of both txu corp and the texas a&m system board of regents he is one of the most accomplished persons i have ever met or been around it is hard to imagine anyone in the field of transportation that has made more comprehensive and positive impacts than dr herb richardson and it is equally as hard to separate his accomplishments from the man his intellect integrity good humor and endearing personal manner have contributed mightily to his success several other colleagues spoke at richardsons induction into the hall of honor including: david cain chair of the tti advisory council and president of david cain consulting; john junkins distinguished professor of aerospace engineering and director of the texas a&m institute for advanced study; and penny beaumont tti associate director emerita richardson received a standing ovation before addressing the crowd in his acceptance remarks he credited others for his accomplishments as i accept this place in the hall of honor with great humility i do so on behalf of all those at tti and elsewhere who worked tirelessly with exceptional competence to make texas transportation more efficient safer and more accessible for everyone he said looking to the future tti is in good hands under dennis christiansens clearly effective leadership richardson joins other hall of honor inductees that include raymond stotzer dolph briscoe hb zachry and lady bird johnson
47,two staff members have joined the dwight look college of engineering in its engineering academic and student affairs (easa) office dr kristi shryock has been hired as the senior director of retention to work with easa half-time until june shyrock also serves as assistant department head for undergraduate programs and outreach and as an instructional associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university she brings experience related to positively affecting retention within aerospace engineering including the use of peer mentoring hands-on projects at the freshman-level and innovative pedagogy to enhance the educational experience of undergraduate students with bachelor's and master's degrees in aerospace engineering from texas a&m she received her phd in interdisciplinary engineering with a research focus on engineering education also from texas a&m she continues to research methods for improving the undergraduate engineering experience through evaluating preparation in mathematics and physics incorporating experiential education in the classroom and introducing multidisciplinary design she has served on numerous national science foundation research projects working to improve retention at the freshman and sophomore years for the college of engineering she is the recipient of the benjamin dasher best paper award for her 2011 frontiers in education conference paper related to the preparation students receive for sophomore-level engineering courses dr sonia garcia has been hired as the senior director of access and inclusion in easa she has been a practitioner in higher education for more than 17 years and has a background in science technology engineering and math education garcia is currently spending half of her time in easa as she transitions from the college of geosciences at texas a&m university where she is the director of undergraduate recruitment and retention garcia will join easa full-time in mid-march while working in the mays business school and the college of geosciences garcia increased the number of underrepresented recruits and overallenrollment to increase the retention of first year students she founded the peer mentor program and the undergraduate recruitment team while in the college of geosciences she received various grants from oil and gas industries as well as former students to create the geosciences exploration summer program investigate geosciences and g-camp for freshmen a bridge program along with a number of pre-college programs garcia has received several awards including; the 2005 outstanding staff for mays business school the 2008 presidents award for academic advising the 2011 latino american the whos who for her achievement on the advancing the culture of latino american business community and the 2012 deans distinguished achievement award at the college of geosciences garcia holds a bachelor of science degree from the university of massachusetts at boston in political science a masters degree from the university of rhode island in college student personnel and a doctoral degree from michigan state university in higher education and administration with cognates in sociology and labor industrial relations
48,oxy usa inc recently made a donation to the harold vance department of petroleum engineering to replace seating in the richardson building the department commissioned 11 brand new custom-made wood benches for the lobby area as well as for the 4th and 5th floors these lovely benches furnish comfortable seating for the thousands of students who attend classes in the richardson building each week some of our petroleum engineering students are shown below enjoying our new benches (seated left to right) dante guerra tim jansen james guzek; (standing left to right) junjing zhang paola perez mark mcginley kathryn briggs
49,vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been promoted to the rank of fellow by the international society for optics and photonics (spie) for his achievements in optical instrumentation for biomedical imaging the annual recognition of fellows provides an opportunity for spie to acknowledge members for their outstanding technical contributions and service to the general optics community and to spie more than 1 000 spie members have become fellows since the societys inception in 1955 yakovlev who joined texas a&m in 2012 has made many significant contributions to the field of optical instrumentation for biomedical sensing and imaging he has advanced the technology of ultrasfast solid-state lasers making it an indispensable tool for multiphoton microscopy imaging and sensing in addition he was the first to adapt an optical pulse-shaping technique to improve the quality of multiphoton imaging yakovlev also developed a simple approach for hyperspectral nonlinear raman microspectroscopy which is now widely used for biomedical microscopic imaging and he has recently demonstrated its applicability for deep-tissue chemically-specific imaging yakovlevs most recent contribution to the field of biomedical engineering is related to the discovery of a novel material for substantially improved sensitivity of high-frequency ultrasound detection throughout his career yakovlevs research has garnered many awards and honors and he has been issued five patents yakovlev has published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals given 50 invited public presentations and more than 100 presentations at different conferences he also has edited one book on the biochemical applications of nonlinear optical spectroscopy and contributed to several books as co-author in addition he has served as a program committee member and symposium organizer for several international conferences in the field of optics yakovlev is a lifetime member of spie and has served as a program committee member of two international spie conferences he regularly participates as a speaker at spie conferences and also has been an invited speaker he regularly publishes his research in the journal of biomedical optics and optical engineering and serves as a reviewer for both publications he also has served as a special section guest editor for the journal of biomedical optics yakovlev received his masters degree in physics and phd in quantum electronics from moscow state university spie is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies the society serves more than 235 000 constituents from approximately 155 countries offering conferences continuing education books journals and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange professional growth and patent precedent spie provided $32 million in support of education and outreach programs in 2013
50,dr erchin serpedin professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university will become the new editor-in-chief of the journal eurasip journal on bioinformatics and systems biology eurasip journal on bioinformatics and systems biology is an open access journal published by springer in cooperation with the european association for signal processing (eurasip) the main scope of the journal is to publish original results related to signal processing and computational statistics techniques and algorithms with applications in bioinformatics computational biology genomics proteomics and systems biology serpedin will begin his tenure on march 1st serpedin has been faculty member in the department since 1999 and it is currently an ieee fellow he is the author of three books nine book chapters and more than 100 journal papers and 170 conference papers in the past he has served multiple terms as associate editor for numerous journals including ieee transactions on information theory ieee transactions on signal processing ieee transactions on communications ieee transactions on wireless communications ieee signal processing letters ieee communications letters signal processing (elsevier) eurasip journal on applied signal processing physical communications (elsevier) eurasip journal on advances in signal processing (springer) and eurasip journal on bioinformatics and systems biology he has also served as technical chair for five major international workshops/conferences his research interests include applications of signal processing and computational statistics techniques in bioinformatics systems biology and wireless communications
51,the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) smart grid center is organizing the second smart grid workshop on april 8 2014 the overall goals of this workshop are to strengthen partnerships between faculty industry end-users and government agencies; to expand on-going projects; and to develop white papers leading to collaborative research proposals specific objectives and expected outcomes:• discuss smart grid-related potential advances in the following areas: 1) energy management for buildings and other facilities; 2) big data visualization data analytics and optimization; 3) synchrophasors gps and signal processing; 4) communications cyber-physical security and embedded systems; 5) transmission distribution and renewables interfacing electricity markets; 6) flexible load energy storage on-site generation and demand-side management• identify means of partnerships within specific research areas above focusing on formulation of research problems demonstration projects technology evaluation student internships and joint proposal for selected solicitations detailed information on the program and the open registration site can be found at http://smartgridcentertamuedu/sgc/
52,richard monschke of fort worth texas has endowed a $25 000 scholarship designed for students pursuing a degree in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university we are grateful for mr monschkes support of the aerospace department and its students said andy acker senior director of development for the texas a&m foundation the support we receive from our former students is vital to the colleges efforts to provide students with affordable educational opportunities undergraduate students wishing to apply for the richard a monschke 65 scholarship should be member of the corps of cadets and a graduate of a texas high school recipients will be selected in accordance with university policy on the basis of academic achievement and extracurricular involvement monschke earned his bachelors degree in aerospace engineering in 1965 and was a member of the corps during his time as a student
53,dr jean-louis briaud the spencer j buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was recently elected president of the federation of international geo-engineering societies (fedigs) for the 2014-2018 term fedigs regroups the following international societies: international society for soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering (issmge); international society for rock mechanics (isrm); international association for engineering geology and the environment (iaeg); and the international geosynthetics society (igs) as president of fedigs briaud plans to foster cooperation and strengthen the links between the four societies while remaining conscious of each societys freedom briaud also aims to strengthen the group by inviting other geo-engineering societies to join fedigs briaud says that this prestigious and humbling position will give him a chance to broaden his horizons and learn more about rock mechanics engineering geology geosyntetics and other aspects of the rich geoworld briaud also plans to work on enhancing the image of the geo-profession which he sees as a long term but very important goal briaud received his bachelors degree in france in 1972 and his phd from the university of ottawa in canada in 1978 his expertise is in foundation engineering and more generally geotechnical engineering he has served as president of the association of geotechnical engineering professors in the usa president of the geo-institute of the american society of civil engineers and president of the international society for soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering among other awards he has received the asce ralph peck award the cgs geoffrey meyerhof foundation engineering award the astm hogentogler award the asce huber research prize and the asce martin kapp award over the last 30 years briaud has conducted about $85 million of research mostly on foundations and retaining walls he has supervised 49 phd students and 90 masters students he has been a consultant on many projects in several countries he is the author of the 1992 book on the pressuremeter and the 2013 book on geotechnical engineering: unsaturated and saturated soils he has published about 300 articles and reports in geotechnical engineering and has lectured worldwide
54,the zachry engineering center the jack e brown building and the emerging technologies building bustled with newly admitted incoming freshmen and prospective students and their families on feb 15 at aggieland saturday texas a&m universitys annual premiere recruiting event approximately 1 500 students visited the dwight look college of engineering and had the opportunity to meet with faculty and staff from the 12 undergraduate departments within the college the engineering academic and student affairs office and the student organizations at resource tables throughout the three buildings departments had demonstrations and offered laboratory tours for students and parents to observe the facilities and see a sample of the undergraduate research projects aggieland saturday participants also had chances to attend presentations given by scholarships and financial aid the office of admissions and dr prasad enjeti associate dean of undergraduate programs enjeti discussed the top 10 reasons to pursue engineering and how each of those related to the benefits of studying engineering at texas a&m the presentation concluded with a student panel which answered questions from the audience and gave an honest look into life as a student in the college of engineering high school senior joshua morris visited from houston with his family and said he found the event beneficial especially because he has been admitted to the look college i came to get a better feel of the campus check out the dorms and the different buildings and talk to people in the college of engineering morris said im excited about this new experience its a new door thats opening in my life and im ready to step through it
55,bp named team maroon fish the winner of the texas a&m university ultimate field trip (uft) competition campus finals a contest that asked college students in technical fields from leading us universities to solve real-world energy challenges the team of three engineering students from texas a&m university will compete in april at bps houston campus against other campus finals winners from us universities we were extremely impressed by the entries from texas a&m university but ultimately team maroon fish was chosen because of its creativity and demonstrated knowledge of critical areas said khymberly booth bps director of us university relations team maroon is composed of undergraduate students rubio storm (computer science and engineering) coleman fincher (mechanical engineering) and daniel jaeger (mechanical engineering) bp hires more than 700 university students for full-time intern and co-op positions annually in the united states it developed the uft to offer science technology engineering and math (stem) students the opportunity to gain experience working on real-world challenges in the energy sector the uft competition is just one example of bps commitment to higher education and to developing the next-generation of scientists and engineers to take on the worlds biggest energy challenges booth said the 2014 challenge asked students to identify an innovative solution that would significantly reduce energy consumption and could be implemented by 2025 with the potential to be deployed at scale across the energy industry if chosen as the grand prize winners for the us the team will join winners from the four other participating countries -- angola canada united kingdom and trinidad and tobago -- on a two-week field trip to bp locations in alaska and chicago
56,dr andrea strzelecs recent publication oxygen reactivity of devolatilized diesel engine particulates from conventional and biodiesel fuels is featured by renewable energy global innovations as a key scientific article contributing to the excellence in energy research dr strzelecs study reports measurements of the oxygen reactivity of diesel engine particulates generated with a range of conventional and biodiesel fuel blends in the study particulate samples were collected from a modern light-duty diesel engine and then devolatilized at 650 °c under argon reaction rates of the remaining fixed carbon component with oxygen were measured in a differential fixed-bed reactor global arrhenius kinetic parameters were determined from the measured reaction rates surface area measurements were also made in situ during particle burnout and revealed fuel-dependent differences in burning mode an empirical function for correlating the variation of surface area with burnout is proposed based on these observations when the observed reaction rates are normalized to the local active carbon surface area (which varied with fuel type and degree of burnout) it is possible to identify a single global arrhenius activation energy of 113 ± 6 kj/mol renewable energy global innovations alerts the scientific and industrial community to innovative papers considered to be of importance to the progress in renewable energy technologies renewable energy global innovations is viewed almost 325 000 times each month by an audience comprised of academic and industrial r&d scientists and is featured on the intranets of a growing number of the top 40 energy and industrial companies as well as major academic institutions papers featured by renewable energy global innovations gain extensive exposure
57,at a ceremony held february 7 2014 nine nationally and internationally prominent scholars were formally inducted as the newest faculty fellows of the texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias)
58,siblings kim and ed cadena recently endowed a $25 000 scholarship in honor of their parents margaret and ed cadena the margaret and ed cadena 42 family scholarship will be awarded to undergraduate students pursuing a degree in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering students wishing to apply for this scholarship must have a gpr of 30 or higher in addition to being an active member of the corps of cadets the petroleum engineering scholarship committee is responsible for reviewing applicants and selecting qualified recipients ed cadena received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from texas a&m university in 1970 and currently resides in houston with his wife lynn kim cadena also lives in houston
59,libby and terry gerhart have contributed $60 000 to establish a scholarship focusing on undergraduate students pursuing a degree in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering the libby and terry r gerhart 84 scholarship was established to provide one or more scholarships to full time in-state students who are also members of the student chapter of the society of petroleum engineers this endowment is part of the departments nelson scholars program and will be awarded in accordance with texas a&m universitys scholarship criteria terry gerhart received his bachelors degree in petroleum engineering in 1984 from texas a&m and his mba from southern methodist university he serves on the texas a&m university petroleum engineering industry board and is a member of the society of petroleum engineers the gerharts have one daughter and reside in the woodlands texas
60,"disaster robotics mit press by dr robin murphy raytheon professor of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and director of the center for robot-assisted search and rescue and founder of roboticists without borders is now available the book documents 34 disasters where ground aerial or marine robots have been used starting with the 9/11 world trade center disaster and including hurricane katrina and the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident it is intended as an introduction and history of the field as well as a reference manual for agencies and emergency managers and a textbook in field robotics and human-robot interaction dr satoshi tadokoro of the international research institute of disaster sciences at tohoku university states ""this book is an excellent introduction to rescue robotics for both researchers and practitioners robin murphy is the most well-known world leader in applying robots to disaster response her long-term research and experiences have given her deep insight into the humanitarian application of robots described in this book particularly human-robot interaction and fieldwork"" the book identifies several surprises: only one urban search and rescue team in the us owns a rescue robot and most robots at disasters were borrowed; the most common use of rescue robots is for mining disasters; pilots of unmanned aerial systems turn off autonomy during disasters; that while robots have rarely failed over 50% of the failures were due to human error; and that marine vehicles may have a greater impact on rapid economic recovery than expected the book also offers formal metrics for determining which models of robots are suited for a particular situation and for the human-robot ratio for the depth discussion and a summary dr murphy has been working in disasters robotics since 1995 and has participated in 15 of the 34 disaster deployments creating new methods for documenting and analyzing human-robot system performance in actual operations she received a bme in mechanical engineering a ms and phd in computer science in 1980 1989 and 1992 respectively from georgia institute of technology she has over 150 publications on artificial intelligence human-robot interaction and robotics she is an ieee fellow and has numerous professional awards such as the motohiro kisoi award for rescue robotics the auvsi al aube outstanding contributor award as well as being declared an ""innovator in ai"" by time an ""alpha geek"" by wired magazine one of the ""most influential women in technology"" by fast company and the us air force exemplary civilian service award dr murphy serves on several government and professional boards including the defense science board and the ieee robotics and automation society administrative committee she recently co-chaired the nsf/ccc workshop on computing for disasters and the dsb study on the role of autonomy for dod systems"
61,texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering will celebrate national engineers week or e-week during the week of feb 17-21 once again statoil will serve as the corporate sponsor of the a&m event the national event aims to promote engineering in society and texas a&ms student engineers council (sec) has scheduled events to spread engineering awareness across the university and into the local community the week will kick off with free coffee and donuts for students in the lobby of the zachry engineering complex other events include the e-week olympics puppy play day stem outreach and the statoil snow day concert for the complete schedule of events and times visit: http://sectamuedu/events/eweek/defaultaspx
62,byron anderson has created a fellowship in the department of mechanical engineering the byron h anderson 54 fellowship will provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing a graduate degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university i created the fellowship as a way to repay the fellowship awarded to me by humble oil & refining company while i pursued my masters degree said anderson i want to help others experience the benefits of attending texas a&m which provided the basis for my fulfilling lifetime of work and personal achievements endowed fellowships help encourage undergraduate students to pursue advanced degrees both scholarships and fellowships are crucial to the future of texas a&m because they provide benefits to students for generations the byron h anderson 54 fellowship will be funded by a combination of current and planned gifts to the texas a&m foundation anderson said his wish is to do whatever he can to assure the significant virtues of texas a&m remain available to others he earned his bachelors and masters degree in mechanical engineering he is retired from lockheed aeronautics company
63,"cse associate professor james caverlee was named as the recipient of the 2013-14 caterpillar teaching excellence award by the look college of engineering at texas a&m university the award is funded by the caterpillar foundation and is given to a faculty member who has proven excellence in ""engaging students in the enterprise of learning so that they are empowered to become active participants and self-learners"" in 2007 dr caverlee joined the computer science and engineering faculty at texas a&m after receiving his phd in computer science form the college of computing at the georgia institute of technology he is the director of infolab which is a research lab that focuses on web and distributed information management recent student projects are aimed at detecting analyzing modeling and predicting strategic manipulation and adversarial propaganda in social media among his many honors are the nsf faculty early career award in 2012 the air force office of scientific research-young investigator program (afosr-yip) grant (2012) the center for teaching excellence montague-cte scholar award (2011) the 2010 defense advanced research projects agency young faculty award (darpa yfa) two google research awards (2008 and 2010) and the graduate faculty teaching excellence award (2009 and 2010) the look college of engineering teaching service and contribution award recipients for 2013-14 will be honored with a monetary gift and an award plaque at the annual awards banquet planned for may 1 this year"
64,"bruce chinn a graduate of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been named general manager of the chevron pascagoula refinery in pascagoula miss the appointment is effective march 1 chinn joined chevron in 2006 and will succeed current general manager tom kovar who is retiring in april chinn currently works as a deputy upgrader manager in puerto la cruz venezuela for chevron global technology services co prior to his current assignment chinn served as refinery operations manager at chevron's refinery in richmond calif ""i look forward to the opportunity to lead chevron's largest and most complex refinery especially as we ramp up the pascagoula base oil plant to full production "" chinn said in an article on gulflivecom which is the online home of the mississippi press and mobiles press-register ""the pascagoula refinery is well-known as an industry leader particularly in performance partnership and safety we will build on that reputation and strive for continued success in our business and community"""
65,dr johannes strobel director of educational outreach programs for the dwight look college of engineering and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) has been appointed to serve on the committee on guiding implementation of k-12 engineering education in the united states the committee is part of a new initiative that will provide expert research-based guidance to those involved in overseeing engineering education in kindergarten through grade 12 it is organized by the national academy of engineering (nae) and sponsored by chevron according to the nae engineering education is likely to become more prominent in science classrooms due to the recently published next generation science standards (ngss) which will incorporate aspects of engineering into k-12 instruction this new project will build upon scientific research that has identified best teaching approaches to help students make connections among science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) findings on how to help educators gain knowledge and confidence to teach engineering successfully will also be incorporated strobel is an associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial engineering his research and teaching focuses on engineering as an innovation in p-12 education policy of p-12 stem education how to support teachers and students' academic achievements through engineering engineering 'habits of mind' and worldviews empathy and care in engineering and the use of cyber-infrastructure to sensitively and resourcefully provide access to and support learning
66,four graduate students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university were selected for best paper awards at the 37th annual american astronautical societys guidance navigation and control conference held in breckenridge co january 31 – february 5 2014 the papers were selected by a committee composed of university industry and government judges dylan conway a 2nd year phd student brent macomber a 4th year phd student and kurt cavalieri a 5th year phd student were awarded best paper first prize for their paper titled vision-based relative navigation filter for asteroid rendezvous written with dr john junkins first place comes with a framed certificate and a cash prize of $1 000 robyn woollands a 2nd year phd student was awarded best paper second prize for her paper titled a new solution for the general lambert problem written with dr john junkins second place comes with a framed certificate and a $500 cash prize dr john junkins said i am so proud of these four stellar graduate students who just had a wonderful recognition of their papers and presentations as judged by professionals in their field these exceptional individuals are ambassadors that represent the face of the excellence that is our program in aerospace engineering at texas a&m university
67,sharon and jack threadgill 63 have been active supporters of the dwight look college of engineering and texas a&m university for more than 30 years their most recent gifts benefit the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and the department of electrical and computer engineering the john w juett memorial scholarship was established in memory of sharons father and will serve as a reminder of his lasting legacy undergraduate students pursuing a degree in chemical engineering will be eligible for this scholarship the michael john pinkston 15 endowed scholarship was established in honor of the threadgills grandson this endowment focuses on students pursuing and undergraduate degree in electrical and computer engineering during his time at a&m jack was a member of the corps of cadets and fondly recalls the camaraderie between he and his fellow cadets because of this connection he and sharon have made it a requirement for those students academically eligible for their scholarships to also be a cadet in the corps jack and sharon reside in bryan and have three children shannon pinkston randy threadgill and barry threadgill
68,brock nelson 90 of wichita kansas has endowed a sixth scholarship through the cd holland scholars program in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering mr nelsons passion for students spans beyond just chemical engineering said thadd hargett director of development for the texas a&m foundation he has established numerous scholarships within the college of education college of veterinary medicine and the college of agriculture his longtime commitment to educational excellence has resulted in opportunities for many students to further their educational careers the nancy m and brock d nelson 90 scholarship vi targets full-time out-of-state undergraduate students pursuing a degree in chemical engineering to be eligible for this scholarship students must exhibit superior academic performance in accordance with the cd holland scholars program criteria brock nelson is president of spring creek capital a subsidiary of koch industries inc he is currently an active member of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering advisory council
69,stephen holditch with industry board member karen olson and petroleum engineering department head dan hill celebrates receiving award stephen a holditch professor emeritus in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university was recognized for his lifetime contributions to hydraulic fracturing technologies with the 2014 legends of hydraulic fracturing award during the spe hydraulic fracturing technology conference on february 4 holditchs career has spanned more than 39 years and he has received numerous awards in recognition of his technical achievements and leadership holditch was elected to the national academy of engineering (nae) in 1995 the highest professional honor for an engineer of the millions of practicing engineers in the united states there are fewer than 2 000 members of the nae in 2002 he was president of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) a global organization with more than 70 000 members he spent six years on the spe board of directors as vice president of finance for three years and in the presidential rotation for three more holditch traveled the globe for six years for spe giving speeches and representing oil and gas technology holditch has received the top three technical awards given by spe the anthony f lucas technical leadership gold medal the john franklin carll distinguished professional award and the lester c uren technical excellence award he was elected an spe honorary member in 2006 the highest honor that spe presents to an individual and is limited to 01 percent of the spe membership this status is awarded to individuals who have given outstanding service to spe or who have demonstrated distinguished scientific or engineering achievements in the fields within the technical scope of spe
70,clifford hart a graduate student enrolled in the nuclear engineering master of science program at texas a&m was recently awarded the roy g post scholarship for the 2013-2014 academic year with this $2 500 scholarship hart will also be given a paid trip to attend the annual waste management (wm) conference which attracts thousands of registrants from around the world and is widely regarded as the premier international conference for the management of radioactive material and related topics the wm2014 conference will be held in phoenix ariz march 2-6 2014 following the completion of his master's hart plans on achieving his phd he received a bachelor's in applied science and technology and an associate degree in mechanical systems from thomas edison state college in trenton nj hart completed half of his coursework for a master's in management before transferring to texas a&m he worked as an undergraduate researcher (now as a graduate researcher) at the a&m fuel cycle and materials lab for over a year and has had the privilege to assist in and work on graduate projects for terrapower hart participated in the national model united nations as a head delegate in 2011 and was exposed to international nuclear waste and proliferation concerns in the nonproliferation treaty forum which attempts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons reduce existing nuclear stockpiles and promote peaceful nuclear applications he served in the navy's nuclear program as an engineering laboratory technician prior to and during operations enduring freedom and iraqi freedom roy g post was the founding chief executive of wm symposia the sponsor of the annual international waste management conference the roy g post foundation is a non-profit organization formed by his students peers and protégés to provide scholarships to students to develop careers in the safe management of nuclear materials and to participate in the annual wm symposium full-time students enrolled in secondary educational programs in technical or policy fields with the objective of contributing to the safe management of nuclear materials are eligible for these scholarships awarded in memory of dr roy g post
71,a former phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently received the prestigious nsf career award dr shiyan hu formerly in the computer engineering and systems group now serves as assistant professor at michigan technological university in its department of electrical and computer engineering he won the highly competitive award for his research titled career: integrated research and education in physical design automation for nanotechnology and vlsi technology co-design the career award is given to someone who exemplifies the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations under the advising of dr jiang hu hu received his phd at texas a&m in 2008 in computer engineering he focuses his research in the field of computer-aided design vlsi circuits and embedded systems vlsi circuits can be found in smart phones home appliances personal computers and virtually any other modern technology these devices make extensive use of nanotechnology which involves bundling thousands of tiny copper wires to wire transistors this collection of wires will often not have a greater diameter than the size of a single hair unfortunately the small cross-sectional area of these wires creates a large resistance which makes the interconnect delay the limiting factor for the timing of the whole chip hu has devoted his research to making these chips perform increasingly faster through decreasing the interconnect delay he has sought out the use of materials such as carbon nanotubes and grapheme nano-ribbons that will make this more of a reality in the coming years the career award will fund a five-year project headed by hu to develop ground breaking physical layout co-design methodology for next-generation integrated circuits his research will design closure for circuits whose timing cannot be closed with traditional physical synthesis this has exceeding potential to utilize leading nanotechnologies into practical circuit design and it would revolutionize the prevailing circuit design paradigm hu has accumulated numerous accolades throughout his career including serving as guest editors for ieee transactions on industrial informatics acm transactions on embedded computing systems and vlsi design journal he also serves as the technical program committee subcommittee chairs or co-chairs for ieee/acm design automation conference 2014 ieee/acm international conference on computer-aided design 2011 ieee international symposium on quality electronic design 2011 and for many other committees
72,chun-wei yao a phd candidate in the department of mechanical engineering was selected as the dwight look college of engineerings recipient of the george bush presidential library foundation grant yao was selected for the award due to his exemplary academic record and research accomplishments the grant is awarded to provide educational opportunities to texas a&m students in support of travel to conferences research projects study or internships in the united states or abroad under the guidance of dr jorge alvarado of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) yao has been able to publish three journal articles in renowned journals including applied physics letters he has also made presentations at the american physical society annual conference of the division of fluid dynamics and other renowned engineering conferences his ground-breaking work in the area of dropwise condensation using novel micro- and nanostructured surfaces has been praised by many in the engineering community
73,the dwight look college of engineering will participate in texas a&m universitys annual premiere recruiting event aggieland saturday on feb 15 from 9 am – 3 pm the open house will include resource tables from each of the undergraduate programs in the look college for prospective students and their families to visit with faculty and staff the departments will also offer laboratory tours for guests to observe their facilities and to see various research projects underway engineering academic and student affairs and engineering student organizations will have resource tables available for the visitors as well the associate dean scholarships and financial aid and the office of admissions will also give multiple presentations the college of engineerings activities will take place in zachry engineering center the emerging technologies building and the jack e brown chemical engineering building to register visit the aggieland saturday website for questions about the college of engineering events contact engineering academic and student affairs at 9798457200
74,the department of nuclear engineering would like to congratulate all fall 2013 graduates! on december 13 2013 eight graduate and 14 undergraduate students participated in the commencement ceremonies the department would like to congratulate the following graduates on their immense achievement: doctor of philosophy: jarrod edwards zachary kulage rodolfo vaghetto master of engineering: abdulla mohamed bakheet ali al kathiri abdulla mohammed abdulla hamad al nuaimi jinyong feng master of science: kristina yancey weixiong zheng baccalaureate: timothy crook john dubois natalie galegar mitchell gandt ezra ginder kelli humbird kevin kapka jacob leighton lance merchant chad o'hagan lily raabe brian roby eliash trejo trevor williamson joshua loucks (radiological health)
75,"the national academy of engineering (nae) has named m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station and harold j haynes deans chair professor among its 2014 class of new members chairman of the texas a&m university system board of regents phil adams said ""dr banks has been a thoughtful and determined champion for engineering throughout her distinguished career this high honor is well deserved and we are grateful for her leadership in one of americas top engineering programs members are elected to nae membership by current nae members members have distinguished themselves in academic and technical positions as university faculty leaders in government and private engineering organizations of more than one million engineers in the united states only about 65 are elected to the academy annually and only half of these are from academic institutions for its 2014 membership the nae has elected 67 new members and 11 foreign associates as announced today nae president cd (dan) mote jr this brings the total us membership to 2 250 and the number of foreign associates to 214 election to the nae is the highest honor an engineer can receive and indicates recognition by the leaders in the field of significant society-impacting contributions to the profession said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system we are tremendously proud of her for this prestigious honor and are pleased of our affiliation through her leadership of one of the largest engineering enterprises in the nation and a cornerstone of the a&m system banks becomes the eighth faculty member in the nae at texas a&m and the first to be named while serving as the chief executive of the engineering program election of dr banks to the academy is a singular honor particularly at such an early stage in her career said dr b don russell nae member and chair of the texas a&m distinguished professors dr banks is being recognized for seminal technical contributions but also for exceptional leadership and innovation in engineering education our profession will hear a great deal from dr banks in the future and we welcome her to the academy"" banks election citation is for contributions to phytoremediation of petroleum contamination and for leadership in engineering education through engineering design plant biology and environmental chemistry banks research led to the development of a new low-cost treatment approach for removal of petroleum contamination from soil without significant site disturbance as vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering banks has garnered national attention for an unprecedented controlled growth plan to expand enrollment to 25 000 engineering students by 2025 known as 25 by 25 the initiative seeks to transform engineering education through innovative instructional methods while enhancing top-ranked research programs and to do so in a cost-effective manner banks has served as principal investigator for multidisciplinary research grants and received funding from the national science foundation environmental protection agency us departments of defense and energy and nasa as well as industry and state government she served as director of the epa midwest hazardous substance research center as associate director of the nasa center for advanced life support and as co-director of the 21st century center for phytoremediation research in addition to her administrative role banks currently is a professor of civil engineering at texas a&m and previously served on the faculty at purdue university and kansas state university banks received her bachelor's degree in environmental engineering from the university of florida in 1982 a master's degree in water resources engineering from the university of north carolina in 1985 and a doctoral degree in civil and environmental engineering from duke university in 1989 she is a licensed professional civil engineer in texas indiana and kansas and has received numerous awards"
76,the dwight look college of engineering and college of science at texas a&m university hosted more than 120 high school science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) teachers from across texas at the seventh annual teacher summit held at the college station hilton and conference center on january 31 2014 the goals of teacher summit are to increase awareness in stem in high schools; provide high school teachers with materials that can be implemented in their high school curriculum; discuss with high school teachers counselors and administrators the details about how to best prepare their students for success in engineering and science at texas a&m; and provide participants with opportunities to interact with texas a&m faculty staff and students in stem dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering kicked off the teacher summit followed by dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs in the look college and dr timothy scott associate dean for undergraduate programs and development in the college of science the three administrators emphasized the importance of properly preparing high school students for success in a stem major provided overviews of the colleges of engineering and science and applauded the teachers efforts to attend teacher summit in order to better serve their students dr teri reed assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs and assistant dean of academic affairs spoke during the general session about changing the conversation a book authored by the committee on public understanding of engineering messages and the national academy of engineering reed discussed the strategies and market-tested messages that book suggests for presenting a more positive and deeper image of engineering the daylong conference gave each participant the opportunity to experience four hands-on workshops these workshops included a session about energy efficient coffee making given by dr johannes strobel director for educational outreach programs in the look college the teachers engaged in an engineering design process to brainstorm and develop potential solutions to reduce the energy consumed in the coffee making process dr tracy hammond associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering and director of the sketch recognition laboratory gave a workshop on interactive sketching with intelligent education applications which introduced the benefits of educational applications inside and outside the classroom with interactive sketching the workshop also exposed the teachers to several hands-on interactions of emerging intelligent applications for different classroom subjects dr kristi shyrock senior director of retention in engineering academic and student affairs assistant department head for undergraduate program and outreach and instructional associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering presented techniques to bring engineering into the math class shryock used the example of how texas a&m and blinn college worked together to create an engineering approach to prepare students for calculus with a hands-on activities esther johnson a physics teacher from cypress woods high school in cypress texas and josh bergerson a physics teacher at travis b bryan high school in bryan texas gave a presentation on integrating engineering into the high school science or math classroom they presented activities that were designed to follow the engineering design process which combined various mathematical and scientific concepts both bergerson and johnson participated in the enrichment experiences in engineering an nsf-funded program at texas a&m
77,bill heeter an 11th and 12th grade engineering teacher at porter high school in porter texas and a 1973 industrial distribution graduate from texas a&m has attended teacher summit multiple times i always get great ideas that i bring back to my classroom heeter said there is tremendous knowledge each time i attend that i can pass on to engineering and science teachers as well as my students participants of teacher summit also visited resource tables from a variety of vendors and texas a&m colleges who provided information on programs of interest to high schools the summit concluded with a faculty panel presentation that gave the teachers a chance to ask questions directly to texas a&m faculty about how to best prepare their students for college courses hannah werner and courtney hall alumni of texas a&m who now work in industry gave presentations about how their k-12 teachers and experiences directly impacted their choices to pursue stem majors and careers teachers received eight hours of continuing education credit for attending the teacher summit was offered at no cost to the teachers through the generous donations of the nuclear power institute phillips 66 chevron phillips and the support of the texas a&m engineering experiment station resources and networking with other teachers is always a rewarding experience for me said linda obrien a teacher at jasper high school in jasper texas but the main benefit of this day was interacting with the university environment i truly felt like i was more qualified and prepared to come into my classroom and help my students start to understand what stem is and to start teaching concepts as well as habits to prepare them to handle the next step in that direction the university-high school connection seems a very important step in the right direction to helping our students be successful in the stem world for more information on teacher summit call the office of engineering academic and student affairs at 9798457200
78,the federal aviation administration has selected texas as one of six test center sites to develop drones or unmanned air systems (uas) for commercial use by businesses farmers and researchers the decision was based on a statewide proposal led by the lone star unmanned aircraft systems center (lsuasc) at texas a&m university-corpus christi the proposal a collaboration between texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) along with camber corporation designates 11 test ranges in the state led by researchers at campuses in college station and corpus christi the lsuasc focus will be on developing system safety requirements of uas vehicles and operations with a goal of protocols and procedures for airworthiness testing and conducting sponsored research the competition for a test site was fierce with 25 entities from 24 states submitting proposals alaska nevada new york north dakota texas and virginia will host the initial research sites providing diverse climates geography and air traffic environments as the faa seeks to safely introduce commercial uas into us airspace the test sites will be used to help the faa develop certification standards for unmanned aircraft and procedures for how they can be operated within the air-traffic system dr john valasek professor with the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m explained that texas was one of the sites ultimately chosen for two basic reasons the site in texas is very geographically diverse because texas has mountains prairies forests desert and seashores and testing can be conducted in all of these areas he added that texas has six universities that are teamed together under the lsuasc and all of them have significant basic and applied uas research programs its a very diverse set of technologies and capabilities and students are very excited to be working on them researchers from tees and all divisions in the college of engineering will be conducting specific uas research that aligns with faa focal areas such as security systems path planning and obstacle avoidance improved autonomy and human factors reconfigurable antennas command and control link issues and airworthiness the airfield complex at the riverside campus in bryan is currently one of the 11 lsuasc test ranges and a new complimentary facility is being planned by the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) called the riverside range the test site improvements and its new building will facilitate the development and testing of unmanned underwater ground air and space vehicles the facility will open in 2014 dr valasek leads the fixed-wing uas research and testing program at texas a&m university in college station and his research is a perfect fit to the focus on developing system safety requirements of uas vehicles my students and i broadly seek to improve trust in autonomous systems by improving the safety and airworthiness of uas systems we hope to ultimately make them acceptable for widespread use with the public with federal agencies and with the private sector too besides working on the flight critical systems in uas valaseks team is designing and developing custom fixed-wing uas for humanitarian relief precision agriculture and crop dusting infrastructure assessment and environmental monitoring this historic decision has huge financial implications for the state of texas with a statewide impact of around $8 billion over the next 10 years $260 million of that in south texas creating roughly 1 200 jobs
79,after more than 30 years of support for texas a&m university susan and robert williams of ohio have endowed a scholarship benefiting undergraduate students pursuing a degree in the dwight look college of engineering their gift will establish the susan e williams md and robert c williams 64 endowed scholarship students who maintain a minimum cumulative 32 gpr are eligible for this scholarship the williamses gift will ensure that future aggie engineers have the opportunity to continue their education robert williams received his degree in electrical engineering in 1964 from texas a&m the williamses have two sons james 92 and rob 91
80,mike and dianne pfister of katy texas have established the michael 78 and dianne 79 pfister scholarship the endowment will create one or more scholarships for full-time students pursuing an undergraduate degree in the department of computer science and engineering dianne and i realize what an outstanding education our family received at texas a&m university mike pfister said we wanted to share that opportunity with others the scholarship will be awarded annually and preference will be given to applicants that are members of young life the pfister family has participated in young life for many years young life is a non-denominational christian ministry committed to making a positive difference in the lives of kids through the friendship and influence of caring adults our familys participation with young life means a great deal to us mike pfister said we believe the principles of young life provide a foundation for success that would be beneficial to a college career conocophillips mike pfisters employer contributed to the scholarship through its matching gifts program; he is the companys chief information officer mike earned his bachelors in computer science in 1978 and dianne received her bachelors degree in 1979 in physical education the couple have three children all graduates of texas a&m: lauren pfister huff 07 sports management; matt 11 industrial distribution and kendall 13 management information systems and business honors
81,nuclear engineering graduate student megan pritchard former department head dr alan walter and former student dr braden goddard traveled to doha qatar to participate in the 3rd wnu school on radiation technologies held march 7-20 2014 the two-week program was aimed at future leaders in the radiation and radioisotope field with an emphases on broadening the knowledge of the students familiarizing them with the main issues encountered by practitioners in the field and developing a worldwide network of contacts for the participants the 61 student participants of the program represented 30 different countries with varying backgrounds in the nuclear field the discussed topics encompassed the production of radio isotopes medical applications industrial applications radiation safety nuclear security economics environmental concerns decommissioning and transportation lectures were limited to the morning sessions with working groups leaving lecture discussion site tours and cultural excursions to occur in the afternoons and evenings to better enhance the learning experience the wnu rt school is organized by the wnu coordinating centre in london and in association with leading institutes of nuclear learning the rt school receives technical support from the international atomic energy agency and the world council on isotopes previous rt schools have been run in cooperation with australian nuclear science and technology organisation (ansto) and with the association of imaging producers and equipment suppliers (aipes) the next wnu school on radiation technologies will take place in 2016 with the location yet to be determined
82,meagan harris a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2014 us senator phil gramm doctoral fellowship harris received the fellowship based on her outstanding academic record and contributions in research teaching and mentoring noted associate provost for graduate studies karen butler-purry in a congratulatory letter to harris as a 2014 gramm fellow harris who is advised by assistant professor kristen maitland will receive a cash award of $5 000 and a framed certificate meagan has excelled at balancing research and training maitland said she has mentored more than 10 undergraduates in research with all graduates continuing their research careers in graduate school and many earning fellowships and awards of their own she has had a lasting impact on her mentees and colleagues the gramm fellowship promotes encourages and rewards outstanding teaching and research by doctoral students whose command of their respective disciplines exemplifies the meaning of scholar/mentor in the highest sense students who are awarded this fellowship excel in both research and teaching in 2007 the universitys office of graduate studies began awarding deserving graduate students with the fellowship from an endowment created by the texas a&m foundation the endowment was created from donations given in honor of gramm who in addition to leading a distinguished legislative career served as professor of economics at texas a&m gramm spent two decades serving in the us congress and senate using his economic and financial expertise to create important laws and policies and to provide advice to legislators and the white house gramm is senior partner of gramm partners a public policy firm in washington dc
83,the department of mechanical engineering hosted its spring industrial advisory council (iac) meeting on march 28 2014 the meeting was attended by distinguished board members of the iac who are leaders in industry and government agencies and guide the department by providing a broad perspective on the changing requirements for engineering education and identifying new opportunities in research
84,each year the texas a&m association of former students nominates worthy candidates who are distinguished among their peers in the areas of teaching research student relations administration staff graduate mentoring; and for extension outreach continuing education and professional development twenty-four faculty and staff members of the university and only six faculty members within the dwight look college of engineering were chosen for this award dr andreas klappenecker professor of computer science and engineering has been honored with the 2014 distinguished achievement award for teaching the dean of facultys guidelines for this award states this award is designed to distinguish those teachers who maintain high expectations of their students and ensure academic rigor in their courses these teachers recognize their responsibilities in motivating and contributing to the overall development of their students as learners and future professionals dr klappenecker has the ability unique to only the best instructors of setting extremely high standards and then motivating students in a positive way to achieve those standards said timothy g nix phd one of dr klappeneckers past doctoral students and now assistant professor in the dept of eecs united states military academy he has a great sense of humor very positive attitude and receptiveness to ideas which makes him approachable said former student dr pradeep sarvepalli now assistant professor at iit madras in chennai india in my interactions with him both during the courses and later on during my doctoral studies i found him to be a great mentor dr klappenecker continues to make significant contributions to the cse graduate program by being a graduate advisor and assisting in the annual phd review which monitors the progress of graduate students he is committed to the success of each student he has been rewarded with several national science foundation division of computer and communication foundations grants for which he conducts his research and bases his courses these grants are rewarded for his extensive research on improving the reliability of quantum computing resilient quantum error-correction efficient decoherence control algorithms and design of efficient quantum algorithms dr klappenecker holds an undergraduate degree and doctorate in computer science from the university of karlsruhe in germany and his research interests include quantum algorithms randomized algorithms dynamic distributed algorithms and signal and image processing since 1955 the distinguished achievement awards have been awarded to faculty and staff who have exemplified the highest standards of excellence at a&m the awards will be formally presented in rudder theater on april 28
85,cse former student steve swanson has successfully boarded the international space station and is ready to begin his six month stay roughly 250 miles above the earths surface the docking of the soyuz spacecraft that transported swanson and two cosmonauts to the station was delayed due to non-life threatening mechanical problems dr swanson will transition to commander of the russian federal space agency expedition and return to earth in september 2014 to read more about dr swansons journey please read this article from the eagle dr steven swanson received his phd in computer science from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university in 1998 he was honored by the cse department with the distinguished former student award in 2010 and is currently a member of the department's advisory board
86,texas a&m university at qatar leads the gas and fuels research initiative (gfri) and is hosting a workshop on natural gas monetization at la torretta lake resort and spa in montgomery texas march 26-28 gfri is envisioned to be a multidisciplinary research center involving 17 professors from texas a&m universitys main campus in college station and the universitys qatar campus and represents different engineering programs including chemical engineering petroleum engineering and mechanical engineering the centers key objective is to lead the integrated research activities and the resources of texas a&m university to support shale gas and natural gas exploration production and monetization activities this initiative will lead to the establishment of a world-class research center advancing natural gas exploration production treatment and processing said dr nimir elbashir (pictured left) director of texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) gas and fuels research initiative and associate professor of chemical engineering at texas a&m at qatar several members of this initiative are world-leading scientists in their field the center will also support the united states shale gas evolution and will be a part of texas a&m at qatars research strategic plan to support qatar national vision 2030 the workshop sponsored by the us national science foundation (nsf) aims to explore possible collaborations between academia and industry in this field that is so important to the future of energy in the states and worldwide major energy corporations such as shell and sasol have also provided funds and support for junior researchers from qatar to participate in this important workshop and to learn about the potential key role natural gas may play in the energy market besides the tutorials this workshop will be leading scientists and researches from industry and academia to share their insight and expertise on the future of natural gas in the energy market and its potential to become a major source of ultra-clean fuels and value-added chemicals elbashir said maha al mannai university collaboration manager at the qatar shell research and technology centre (qsrtc) said it is with great pride that qatar shell supports young researchers through collaborations with top-class academic institutions such as texas a&m at qatar we are proud to support the next generation of researchers and uphold our commitment to the qatar national vision 2030 that aims to establish a sustainable knowledge-based economy by unlocking the potential of its people this workshop will also highlight the importance of qatars successful experience in natural gas utilization and the lessons to be learned while boosting the us natural gas role in the fuels and energy market specifically after the shale gas discovery two short courses in the form of tutorials on the first day will cover topics such as natural gas monetization: technology fundamentals and the potentials and theoretical and experimental evaluation of natural gas properties marjo louw country president of sasol qatar said were pleased to support texas a&m at qatar on this initiative that highlights the strategic importance of diversifying the monetization of natural gas sasol is pleased to be a pioneer in this area working with qatar petroleum on the oryx gtl plant in qatar which is delivering value to the state of qatar and its people additionally we are delighted to support the attendance of young qataris who will benefit from access to world-leading scientists and research this international endeavor was co-organized by elbashir and his colleagues dr mahmoud el-halwagi (pictured right) mcferrin professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m at college station and dr kenneth hall the jack e and frances brown chair in chemical engineering and associate dean for research and graduate studies at texas a&m at qatar during the two days event the proposed tees gas and fuels research center will be launched and lessons learned from qatars experience in natural gas monetization will also be discussed qatar is home to the worlds largest facilities in gas-to-liquid (gtl) and liquefied natural gas (lng) production in addition to a well-integrated supply chain of chemicals and petrochemicals tees is an engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system about texas a&m university at qatartexas a&m university recognized as having one of the premier engineering programs in the world has offered undergraduate degrees in chemical electrical mechanical and petroleum engineering at qatar foundations education city campus since 2003 and graduate courses in chemical engineering since fall 2011 over 400 engineers have graduated from texas a&m at qatar since 2007 in addition to engineering courses texas a&m at qatar provides classes in science mathematics liberal arts and the humanities all four of the engineering programs offered at texas a&m at qatar are accredited by abet the curricula offered at texas a&m at qatar are materially identical to those offered at the main campus in college station texas and courses are taught in english in a co-educational setting the reputation for excellence is the same as is the commitment to equip engineers to lead the next generation of engineering advancement faculty from around the world are attracted to texas a&m at qatar to provide this educational experience and to participate in research activities now valued at over $159 million and that address issues important to the state of qatar visit wwwqatartamuedu
87,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr david schechter holder of the aghorn energy career development professorship in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering this endowed professorship appointment is effective as of april 1 2014 prior to joining the faculty at texas a&m in may of 2000 schechter headed the naturally fractured reservoir characterization/engineering group at the new mexico institute of mining and technology for 7 years he has been involved in an extensive reservoir characterization effort in the naturally fractured spraberry trend area which has involved geological petrophysical logging interpretation coreflooding and simulation studies he also spent 5 years at the petroleum engineering department at stanford university as a post doctoral research associate and assistant professor he received his phd in physical chemistry from bristol university schechter an associate professor is also the principal investigator of the chevron petrophysical imaging laboratory in the petroleum engineering department
88,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr i yucel akkutlu holder of the george & joan voneiff career development professorship in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering this endowed professorship appointment is effective as of april 1 2014 akkutlu joined the petroleum engineering faculty at texas a&m in january 2013 he holds a phd in petroleum engineering from the university of southern california he has been participating in industry-led research projects on development of new laboratory measurement techniques and protocols in quantifying fluid storage and transport processes in organic-rich resource shales coupled with geomechanics his current research is on fluid thermodynamics and capillarity in nano-porous materials and on the scaling-up and simulation of transport processes in multi-scale pore structures he is executive editor of the spe journal and serves the natural sciences and engineering research council of canada (nserc) and american chemical society (acs) reviewing proposals related to upstream petroleum research he received the 2012 spe a-peer-apart honorary award and spe outstanding service award 2008-2010 akkutlu an associate professor currently serves as the graduate advisor for the petroleum engineering department
89,dr edward white associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been named a recipient of the william and montine p head fellows award by dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering dr white joined the department of aerospace engineering in january 2007 and became the director of the oran nicks low speed wind tunnel (lswt) in march 2011 previously he served as an assistant and associate professor at case western reserve university (cwru) dr whites research uses wind-tunnel experiments to explore boundary layer stability and transition surface roughness and wind-turbine blade aerodynamics his research has been funded by grants from the us air force nasa the national science foundation sandia national laboratory northrop grumman and vestas wind systems and has supported over 20 ms and phd students the students work is conducted in the lswt and the neighboring klebanoff-saric wind tunnel dr white teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in aerodynamics fluid dynamics aerodynamic design and experimental techniques he is an associate fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and served as the technical chair of its 2011 fluid dynamics conference white received his phd in aerospace engineering from arizona state university where he was involved in the swept-wing transition stability and control studies his masters and bachelors degrees are from cwru
90,two aerospace engineering faculty members are among 24 faculty and staff who have been selected to receive the 2014 texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award dr helen reed was selected for teaching and dr dimitris lagoudas was selected for research dr reed regents professor presidential professor for teaching excellence director of aggiesat lab satellite program and director of computational stability and transition group is a professor in the department of aerospace engineering she joined the texas a&m faculty in 2004 and served as department head for four years before returning to teaching and research on a full-time basis widely regarded as an expert in hypersonics energy efficient aircraft and small satellite design reed has led research projects totaling millions of dollars and is a member of the national research councils aeronautics and space engineering board she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics & astronautics (aiaa) the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers she received the atwood award from american society for engineering education and aiaa and she was inducted into academy of engineering excellence at virginia tech (her alma mater) dr lagoudas associate vice chancellor for engineering research for the texas a&m university system senior associate dean for research in the dwight look college of engineering and deputy director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and the director of the texas institute for intelligent materials and structures is a professor in the department of aerospace engineering and the inaugural recipient of the john and bea slattery chair in aerospace engineering he joined the texas a&m faculty in 1992 he earned a diploma in mechanical engineering from aristotle university of thessaloniki greece and a phd in applied mathematics from lehigh university he pursued post-doctoral studies in theoretical and applied physics/mechanics at cornell university and the max planck institute in germany his research involves the design characterization and modeling of multifunctional material systems at nano micro and macro levels to bridge the various length scales and functionalities his research team is one of the most recognized internationally in the area of modeling and characterization of shape memory alloys he has co-authored about 400 scientific publications he is a tees fellow a university distinguished professor a texas a&m university faculty fellow an associate fellow of aiaa and a fellow of asme iop and ses he is recipient of the spie smart structure and materials lifetime achievement award and the asme adaptive structures and material systems prize
91,"majid tabesh a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering working under the advisement of dr james boyd and dr dimitris lagoudas was awarded first place in the spie/asme 2014 best student paper presentation competition spie the international society for optics and photonics held its 21st international symposium on smart structures and materials and nondestructive evaluation and health monitoring (spie smart structures/nde) in march 2014 the award-winning paper ""modeling size effect in the sma response: a gradient theory "" was presented at this conference in san diego ca spie smart structures/nde is a multidisciplinary conference devoted to energy harvesting non-destructive evaluation (nde) damage detection structural health monitoring (shm) dielectric elastomers actuators shape memory alloys and polymers magnetorheological fluids electroactive polymers (eap) bioinspired and robotic systems and smart materials sensors systems and networks majid's research is related to the understanding and modeling of the behavior of shape memory alloys (smas) at sub-micron scales smas can be used as small-scale actuators in sensor applications for various industries such as bioengineering aviation and oil and gas the texas institute for intelligent materials and structures (tiims) as part of its effort on development and understanding of active materials supported this research activity nearly 120 papers were submitted toward this year's student paper competition at the spie smart structures/nde conference six finalists were chosen for presentation at the competition based on their contribution to the field of smart structures and materials and advancement of the state-of-the-art of these finalists majid was selected by a panel of judges representing academia industry and national labs to have given the best overall technical presentation our congratulations to majid for his great representation of texas a&m and the department of aerospace engineering"
92,a team from the texas institute for intelligent materials (tiims) at texas a&m university along with researchers from the asme active and multifunctional materials technical committee at nasa-langley have begun collaborations on the development of a new implementation of shape memory alloys (smas) for the purpose of reducing airframe noise the leading-edge-slat device of high-lift systems for typical transport aircraft is a prominent source of localized unsteady flow with aeroacoustic consequences that contributes significantly to environmental noise in the vicinity of airports one solution first proposed a decade ago is the concept of a slat-cove filler (scf) which greatly reduces these aeroacoustic effects by eliminating a key structural cavity and many of the accompanying unsteady flow mechanisms practical implemental of this concept has proven difficult however due to the substantial geometric change that is required during the transition from cruise to/from takeoff and landing researchers at nasa larc led by travis turner have developed a highly deformable scf concept enabled by pseudoelastic smas bench-top models have been developed to demonstrate concept feasibility and explore the parametric design space to expand and improve these efforts tiims researchers darren hartl (tees assistant research professor and tiims director of operations) and will scholten (aerospace engineering senior) have developed a high-fidelity and fully-parameterized computational representation of this novel device the tiims team has begun the process of analysis-driven design exploration using a combination of commercial open source and custom-created tools according to dr hartl the efforts of will have resulted in both an optimized design for the bench-top prototype being further developed at nasa langley as well as a comprehensive understanding of design trends that may facilitate implementation of a pseudoelastic sma slat-cove filler on future transport aircraft preliminary results have validated the accuracy of the computational framework as a valuable alternative to physical prototyping of complex morphing structures this work will continue this summer as will scholten as been granted a second consecutive summer of support through the nasa langley aerospace research summer scholars (larss) program dr hartl is clearly a strong supporter of this research opportunity saying all aerospace engineering students in our department should be actively applying for positions through the larss program it is a great way to obtain real-world engineering research experience source: http://asms-tcorg/newsletters/asmsnewsletterspring2014pdf
93,dr helen reed professor in the department of aerospace engineering has been appointed to the endowed edward pete aldridge 60 professorship in the dwight look college of engineering this endowed professorship appointment will be effective april 1 2014 for a term of three years with a $10 000 annual stipend and is in recognition of dr reeds exceptional record as a researcher and educator dr reed joined the texas a&m faculty in 2004 and served as department head for four years before returning to teaching and research on a full-time basis widely regarded as an expert in hypersonics energy efficient aircraft and small satellite design reed has led research projects totaling millions of dollars and is a member of the national research councils aeronautics and space engineering board she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics & astronautics (aiaa) the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers she received the atwood award from american society for engineering education and aiaa and she was inducted into academy of engineering excellence at virginia tech (her alma mater) at texas a&m she has been named a 2013 presidential professor for teaching excellence with teaching and mentoring students as top priorities reed has directed 17 doctoral students 32 masters degree students and more than 1 000 undergraduate students during her career over her career reed has been lead computationalist in various nasa and air force flight and wind-tunnel programs with applications to high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles transports and hypersonic trans-atmospheric vehicles reed also directs the aggiesat lab satellite program a student satellite program housed within the department of aerospace engineering the goal of the lab is to develop and demonstrate modern technologies by using a small-satellite platform while educating students and enriching the undergraduate experience the program is a partnership with nasa johnson space center and the university of texas to promote space engineering education and develop new technologies used in space exploration through this program her students designed launched and operated texas a&ms first satellite in 2009 with another mission planned for this year reed earned an ab degree in mathematics from goucher college and an ms and phd in engineering mechanics from virginia tech
94,"steven m drucker a principal researcher and manager of the vue group in vibe at microsoft research will be the department of computer science and engineering's first distinguished lecturer for the spring semester dr drucker will present ""dealing with your digital stuff: managing digital collections "" on monday march 31 2014 at 4:10 pm in room 124 of the hr bright building on the texas a&m university campus he will explore an assortment of diverse projects and share ""some common techniques for dealing with our digital 'stuff'"" immediately following his talk there will be an open reception in the atrium outside room 124 dr drucker received his phd from the computer graphics and animation group at the mit media lab before joining microsoft in addition to his work at microsoft research dr drucker is an affiliate professor in the computer science & engineering department of the university of washington he has filed more than 100 patents and published papers on exploratory search information visualization multi-user environments online social interaction hypermedia research human and robot perceptual capabilities robot learning parallel computer graphics spectator oriented gaming and human interfaces for camera control"
95,the department of electrical and computer engineering and the computer engineering & systems group at texas a&m university along with the nsf science and technology centers center for science of information are sponsoring the texas a&m science of information days on april 3 and 4 the workshop which will bring together research groups working at texas a&m and other institutions on science and information topics including information theory control theory and statistics will be held in room 601 of the rudder tower on the texas a&m campus the focus of the workshop is connections between these disciplines and biological information processing the workshop aims to publicize collaborative efforts of members of the nsf center for science of information and to foster interaction with non-member local faculty and leaders there will be six talks by invited speakers as well as a tutorial and a poster session
96,on friday march 28 texas a&m university has the pleasure of hosting texas systems day at rudder tower this workshop brings together researchers from universities around the state in the fields of systems controls and robotics it is planned to make this an annual event with locale rotating among the universities the plenary speaker is professor jessy grizzle of the university of michigan who will discuss the subject of underactuated 3d walking by robots there will also be a panel discussion on the topic future directions in systems control & robotics other talks include translational control design for lower-limb prosthetics and orthotics: lessons from robot locomotion by professor robert gregg from the mechanical engineering and biological engineering department at ut dallas multiscale robotics and control: from microns and millimeters to human size by professor dan popa from the electrical engineering department at next generation systems lab and ut arlington research institute and architectures for learning and representation in robotics by professor mohan sridharan from the computer science department at texas tech university texas a&m also will have two professors giving presentations professor bryan rasmussen from the mechanical engineering department will present distributed control of building energy systems and professor raktim bhattacharya from the aerospace engineering department will present computational uncertainty in cyber physical systems to conclude the day there will be a poster presentation and reception in room 110 of the koldus building the steering committee of the conference consists of professor p r kumar texas a&m dean mark spong of the college of engineering at the university of texas dallas and professor ari arapostathis of the university of texas austin bhattacharya serves as the chair of the 2014 organizational committee with members consisting of professors steve yurkovich from ut dallas kamesh subbarao from ut arlington beibei ren from texas tech fathi ghorbel from rice and ari arapostathis from ut austin
97,sean p merrell a graduate of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was named the engineer of the year by the american society of civil engineers (asce) dallas branch merrell who received his bachelors degree in 2000 and his masters in 2001 worked for the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) for three years while completing his degrees merrell is a project manager in the traffic engineering department at brown & gay engineers inc and manages all traffic engineer related projects for three north texas offices including projects involving traffic signal design traffic signal timings intelligent transportation systems traffic operations signing and pavement markings illumination and traffic studies he has also worked for the city of frisco as a senior traffic engineer
98,"six students along with dr yassin hassan nuclear engineering department head dr william charlton professor and nsspi director and dr richard macnamee of the bush school traveled to tokyo japan to attend the international symposium and seminar on global nuclear human resource development for safety security and safeguards from feb 25 - march 7 the symposium was organized by the academy for global nuclear safety and security agent at the tokyo institute of technology (ti-tech) in cooperation with nsspi the embassy of france in japan the japan atomic energy agency (jaea) the japan chapter of the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) and the international nuclear research collaboration center at ti-tech while at the symposium and seminar the students were able to hear speakers from the international atomic energy agency (iaea) the comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty organization (cbtbo) the russian federation national nuclear corporation (rosatom) the japan institute of international affairs (jiia) the japan atomic energy agency (jaea) the world institute for nuclear security (wins) and the japanese nuclear regulation authority (nra) among others the sessions covered a wide range of topics that included nuclear security risk analysis nuclear technologies nuclear security culture nuclear energy in the future and non-proliferation issues and global education on nuclear power and safety security and safeguards the students participating in the conference were also from various nuclear disciplines backgrounds and nationalities allowing for dialogue among students from many different points of view dr charlton spoke about nuclear security education at texas a&m as part of the plenary session and gave lectures on ""technologies for applied nuclear security: detect delay and response"" and ""forensics and law enforcement"" as part of the technical seminar session dr macnamee also gave a lecture titled ""threats to nuclear security"" as part of the seminar session and nsspi student robert zedric presented the activities of the texas a&m university student chapter of the inmm in the student session field education was another vital aspect of the symposium and seminar during the field education experience the students traveled to hiroshima to visit the radiation effects research foundation (rerf) and the hiroshima peace memorial museum the trip to the hiroshima peace museum was intended as poignant reminder to the next generation of nuclear security professionals of the importance of preventing (whether through safety security or safeguards) an incident such as hiroshima and nagasaki from ever happening again a survivor of the hiroshima bombing presented her first-hand account of the destruction and sorrow in the aftermath of the hiroshima bombing to the group other educational experiences included a visit to the monju fast breeder reactor in tsuruga japan where students visited their sodium handling training facility secondary cooling loop control room and the area where the liquid sodium leak occurred the field experiences also included cultural and historical visits giving students a taste of japanese culture and exposing them to cities all across japan including hiroshima miyajima kyoto tsuruga and tokyo"
99,the department of mechanical engineering is hosting their fowler distinguished lecture series on wednesday march 26 2014 the invited guest is dr pramod khargonekar assistant director of the directorate of engineering at the national science foundation please click the link below for more information about the lecture lecture title: contemporary issues in engineering research and education - a view from nsf the event will be held from 410 to 500 pm in 202 enph building followed by a reception the slideshow of the lecture is available here the fowler distinguished lecture series is endowed by mr donald fowler ‘66 and dr joe fowler ‘68 this endowment allows the department of mechanical engineering to invite nationally recognized scientists engineers and researchers to texas a&m university to present lectures of interest to students faculty and industry representatives mr donald fowler is the owner of fowler energy company and is currently a member of the presidents council of advisors at texas a&m university dr joe fowler is the president and co-founder of stress engineering services inc and is a former member and chair of the department of mechanical engineering industrial advisory council
100,michael penny master of science graduate student and former student (class of 2011) in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the first place in artistic merit at the central states section of the combustion institutes 2014 spring technical meeting in tulsa oklahoma the section holds an annual art competition to reveal the beauty and expanse of combustion in its nearly infinite different forms design entry by michael penny bs mechanical engineering texas a&m university for his design entry mr penny presented a compilation of images depicting diesel fuel burning in an open atmosphere superimposed on the word combust he ensured minimal repetition of similar-looking flame structures in order to reproduce the complexity and beauty of an actual fire he used a repurposed piston head from a large bore gasoline engine as a stand to maintain a consistent automotive engine motif a floating glass frame held together by rare earth magnets in his design brings a modern and forward-looking feel to the artwork hinting toward future improvements yet to be made in engines mr pennys design won the first place among seven entries michael penny is advised by dr tim jacobs dr jacobs leads the advanced engine research laboratory at texas a&m which serves as a research education program with the long-range purpose of advancing energy conservation for internal combustion engines in the lab dr jacobs and his research team of mechanical engineering students conduct fundamental experimental and theoretical investigations of in-cylinder combustion processes the coupling to advanced concepts the use of alternative fuels and the integration of exhaust after treatment systems students working on a project in the advanced engine research laboratory headed by dr tim jacobs students interested in combustion research at texas a&m university please contact professors kalyan annamalai jerald caton timothy jacobs eric petersen and andrea strzelec
101,dr xinghang zhang associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering is a recipient of the 2013-14 college of engineering faculty fellow awards dr zhang was awarded the holleran-bowman faculty fellowship by dr katherine banks dean of the dwight look college of engineering dr zhang joined texas a&m university as an assistant professor in january 2005 he received his phd in 2001 from the department of materials science and engineering at north carolina state university he was also awarded the prestigious director funded postdoctoral fellowship at los alamos national laboratory where he spent approximately two years working on metallic nanolayers he was awarded nsf early career award in 2007 dr zhang became a tenured associate professor in 2011 dr zhang is an excellent teacher and has achieved international recognition as an expert in several critical research fields on mechanical behavior of nanotwinned metals (funded by doe-office of basic energy science) radiation damage in nanostructured metals (funded by nsf) hydrogen storage in mg based nanolayers (funded by nsf) and magnetic shape memory alloy thin films (funded by nsf) among 8 of his former phd students 2 have become faculty in china including peking university 5 are at doe national laboratory as technical staff members or postdocs and 1 works at intel corp his group has published over 130 journal articles with more than 2900 citations he is also one of the key readers for an international materials science journal metallurgical and materials transaction a
102,"the department of physics and astronomy and department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university invite audiences across texas to get up-close and personal with science and technology this saturday (march 22) at the 2014 physics & engineering festival an entertaining and informative weekend scientific extravaganza for all agesno fees or tickets are required for the free annual event from 10 am to 6 pm at the george p mitchell '40 physics building on the texas a&m campusactivities will begin at 10 am with hands-on science exhibitions and engineering technology demonstrations and conclude with a 5 pm public lecture by internationally recognized astronomer and author of slate magazine's bad astronomy blog dr phil plait about his most recent book ""death from the skies!""throughout the day participants are encouraged to unleash their inner scientists aboard a square-wheeled bicycle run through a pool of cornstarch and try their hands at generating electricity or shooting balloons with lasers -- four of the more than 100 fun experiments and displays illustrating basic scientific and engineering technology-related concepts and principles all exhibits are manned by texas a&m faculty staff and students the departments of physics and astronomy and aerospace engineering will be joined by representatives from the departments of chemistry mathematics atmospheric sciences and biochemistry and biophysicsfor the second consecutive year the festival will showcase dozens of exciting new demonstrations built by student teams affiliated with the university-funded deep (discover explore and enjoy physics and engineering) program more than 60 deep students were involved in creating the new demos and many will be on hand to present their workin addition to exhibits the daylong festival will feature three fantastic performances of the science circus (11 am 1 pm 2:30 pm) by physics showman rhys thomas who teaches newtonian physics through a rare blend of science comedy and circus arts in a performance often compared to a pixar movie attendees also will have the opportunity to meet nasa astronaut and professor dr gregory chamitoff a former flight engineer and science officer aboard the international space station who in 2011 performed the final spacewalk of the overall space shuttle program as well as nobel prize-winning texas a&m physicists dr dudley r herschbach and dr david m lee in three successive lecture sessions scheduled for 11 am 1 pm and 2 pm respectively in the stephen w hawking auditoriumat 5 pm plait will close out the festivities with a keynote presentation based on his 2008 book ""death from the skies!"" in the primary lecture hall of the mitchell physics building plait a well-known astronomer writer and science advocate who worked on the hubble space telescope will discuss the various ways in which the human race could be rendered extinct by astronomical phenomena -- asteroid impacts supernovae explosions solar flares and gamma ray bursts -- and also explain the science behind each possibilityprior to saturday's events dr carter emmart director of astrovisualization at the american museum of natural history will deliver a free public lecture ""we are the 4%!"" on friday (march 21) at 7 pm in the hawking auditorium tickets are not required for the event in which emmart will demonstrate the digital universe 3d atlas the same software he developed for use in the museum's world-famous hayden planetarium emmart also will show clips from their recent production ""dark universe"" detailing how we now know so much more than meets both eye and instrument about the known universe which amounts only to roughly four percent of itall events are sponsored by a texas a&m tier one program (top) grant the department of physics and astronomy the department of aerospace engineering the george p and cynthia woods mitchell institute for fundamental physics and astronomy and the texas a&m college of science the event is an affiliate festival of the 4th annual usa science and engineering festivalfor the latest details regarding the 2014 physics & engineering festival including event directions and parking information please visit http://physicsfestivaltamuedu"
103,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has announced the recipients of the 2013-2014 college of engineering faculty fellow awards recipients of this year's awards are william and montine p head fellowsdr edward white aerospace engineeringdr peng li electrical and computer engineering barbara & ralph cox '53 fellowsdr sandun fernando biological and agricultural engineeringdr ricardo gutierrez-osuna computer science and engineering charles h barclay jr '23 fellowsdr elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez biomedical engineeringdr tahir cagin materials science and engineering eugene webb fellowsdr vladislav yakovlev biomedical engineeringdr arum han electrical and computer engineering george armistead jr '53 fellowdr mark holtzapple chemical engineering herbert h richardson fellowdr lawrence rauchwerger computer science and engineering holleran-bowman fellowdr xinghang zhang mechanical engineering each faculty member will be recognized at a banquet in may in the bethancourt ballroom of the memorial student center on the texas a&m campus
104,"dr jun kameoka an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and several co-authors recently had their paper published in the prestigious research publication science signaling the paper titled ""mmaps: a flow-proteometric technique to analyze protein-protein interactions in individual signaling complexes"" can be found at http://stkesciencemagorg/cgi/content/abstract/7/315/rs1 in his paper kameoka says signal transduction is a dynamic process that regulates cellular functions through multiple types of biomolecular interactions such as the interactions between proteins and between proteins and nucleic acids however the techniques currently available for identifying protein-protein or protein–nucleic acid complexes typically provide information about the overall population of signaling complexes in a sample instead of information about the individual signaling complexes therein his team developed a technique called ""microchannel for multiparameter analysis of proteins in a single complex"" (mmaps) that simultaneously detected individual target proteins either single or in a multicomponent complex in cell or tissue lysates they expect that this technique may reveal new aspects of molecular interaction dynamics for cancer research kameoka received his phd in electrical engineering from cornell university in 2002 after working as a postdoctoral associate at cornell he joined the electrical engineering department at texas a&m as an assistant professor in 2004 kameoka has been working on a number of projects including research on nano and microfluidics nanosensors and molecular manipulation bio-micromachining and biomems he is the author of numerous publications and has received several patentsscience signaling is the premier journal of cell signaling in physiology and disease"
105,dr b don russell professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was recently named vice chair for membership of the national academy of engineering (nae) in washington dc russell regents professor and distinguished professor in the department is a long-term member of nae having been elected to the academy in 1999 for his seminal work characterizing power system faults and his development of new protection and diagnostic tools during his time with the academy he served in several responsible positions including serving as chair of the electric power and energy engineering section for the academy he also previously has served as liaison to the national research council in his new role russell will manage the membership election process wherein hundreds of nominations result in approximately 70 new members each year russell who also is the harry e bovay jr chair professor in the department is director of the power system automation laboratory and has been a member of the faculty of texas a&m for 37 years he is past president of the power and energy society of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and was named recipient of the ieee halperin award the highest recognition for electric power engineering given by ieee and is considered an expert on monitoring and protection of electric power systems russell is internationally recognized for his development of automated techniques for detecting arcing faults and failures on electric power systems his recent work has emphasized predictive diagnostic tools for detecting failing power system equipment before catastrophic failure this will allow utilities to repair systems before an outage occurs his work is currently being extended to detect power system failures that cause wildfires an area of great importance given the increasing drought conditions in the united states
106,"dr erick moreno-centeno assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering has won this years award for excellence in teaching operations research from the institute of industrial engineers (iie) operations research division each year iie presents a single award for excellence in the teaching of operations research to be eligible a nominee must be a member of iie; the course for which he/she is being recognized must be an undergraduate operations research course within an industrial engineering program; and the candidate must have developed the course materials the nomination can be made by a colleague or a student who has taken the course from the nominee department head cesar malave said he was not surprised by moreno's recognition ""erick is a very dedicated mentor to his students and approaches his classes with infectious enthusiasm"""
107,dr valerie taylor senior associate dean of academic affairs participated as the moderator for the microsoft-sponsored fireside chat discussing the hard-hitting problems at the 2014 richard tapia celebration of diversity in computing conference in seattle the chat discussed issues being addressed by industry such as living in a digital and connected world opportunities that are available for innovation and being a part of a digital ecosystem dr qi lu executive vice president of microsofts applications and services began the chat with a presentation which lead to a conversation among the other panelists; dr stuart feldman vice president of engineering at google; dr pardha pyla a designer and user experience team lead at bloomberg l p new york; and andrés monroy-hernández a researcher at microsoft research taylor directed the conversation with questions to the panel the first topic addressed the key trends shaping the technology industry lu noted three massive areas that shaped the industry in a dramatic manner his examples included current computer architectures the computer moving well beyond the pc into mobile devices (which are now cloud tethered or connected) and lastly the digital connection between humans quickly reaching a new level that the industry has not seen before taylor also asked the panel to talk about their perspective on the issues about privacy and trustworthy computing monroy-hernandez said privacy and data ownership are the central issues of computing today taylor concluded the fireside chat with questions from the audience which included how students can become more engaged by working on some of the problems addressed by industry pyla highly recommended that students seek out internships and attend conferences to meet with people in the industry another suggestion was for the students to find their niche and become involved in that network feldman stressed the importance of learning the fundamentals of computer science which plays a crucial role for success in the industry the tapia conference is sponsored by the association of computing machinery organized by the coalition to diversify computing and presented by the center for minorities and people with disabilities in it
108,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr amy epps-martin holder of the ap & florence wiley faculty fellow in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university the endowed professorship was effective march 1 2014 epps-martin is a professor in civil engineering and the division head of transportation and materials engineering her research interests include pavement materials performance and specifications and sustainable pavement materials epps-martin earned her phd from the university of california berkeley in 1997
109,six engineering faculty members are among 24 faculty and staff who have been selected to receive the 2014 texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award the 2014 recipients from the dwight look college of engineering are: for teaching dr arul jayaraman department of chemical engineering dr andreas klappenecker department of computer science & engineering dr joseph morgan department of engineering technology & industrial distribution dr helen l reed department of aerospace engineering for research dr akhil datta-gupta department of petroleum engineering dr dimitris c lagoudas department of aerospace engineering the university-level distinguished achievement awards were first presented in 1955 and have since been awarded to 978 professionals (including this years recipients) who have exhibited the highest standards of excellence at texas a&m the 2014 distinguished achievement awards will be formally presented at 1:30 pm april 28 during ceremonies in rudder theatre on the texas a&m university campus in recognition of their achievements each recipient will receive a cash gift an engraved watch and a commemorative plaque
110,mechanical engineering graduate student huaping xiao's research paper titled spatial evolution of friction of a textured wafer surface was awarded the ‘2013 best research paper by the friction journal in vol1 no 1 92-97 the other authors of the paper ke wang and grant fox are former graduate students from texas a&m university mechanical failure of integrated circuits and mems devices is a major concern this research demonstrated a new and in situ approach to evaluate friction on a patterned wafer surface through measurement of friction electrical contact resistance and elemental tracking the kinetics of material transfer due to a mechanical force have been studied this research reveals insight into the failure mechanisms of materials of miniature systems and devices that are heterogeneous it will help semiconductor manufactures to make durable electronic devices that last longer friction is an open access journal published quarterly by tsinghua university press and springer and sponsored by the state key laboratory of tribology (tsinghua university) and the tribology institute of chinese mechanical engineering society the journal covers all aspects of progress in theoretical and experimental research works related to the friction lubrication wear surface engineering and basic sciences
111,"update (3/28): news article featured in the battalion can be found here aggies robert (bob) timm computer science junior eleni mijalis biology sophomore and rafael (rafa) moreno computer science sophomore took first place at the facebook texas regional hackathon held february 28 - march 1 2014 in austin texas coulton vento a blinn team freshman teamed up with two high schoolers and won third with an iphone app ""that matched up potential college roommates in the same way tinder matches up couples "" said rafa moreno there were approximately 120 participants from the university of texas rice university and texas a&m university also attending from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m were computer science majors nicolas botello jose manriquez and roel orduño who worked on a social network project called university-notes this is a work in progress with a feature that will calculate gpa and the highest course grade possible based on grade input and remaining assignments quizzes and tests the winning texas a&m team's idea was a ""web based application that allows facebook users to 'tag' individuals before they even join facebook "" commented rafa ""when users join facebook they can then utilize our tool to consolidate all of that generated content into one profile in the chronological order that it was created"" a neat feature for parents whose newborns eventually grow into a facebook profile ""our facebook app was acclaimed for it's ingenuity and simpleness "" said rafa ""the idea was eleni's who although she could not code outside of a classroom c++ setting (this hackathon inspired her to begin learning web android etc) was the main contributor to the apps features and our final presentation which facebook said was a big key in their selecting us as winners bob worked on implementing the app functionality using the facebook api and php and my main role was the design and some website programming"" rafa has started a hackathon initiative at texas a&m hoping to attract more aggie participation and more financial support for travel to and from events ""these hackathons are a relatively new concept and are starting to blow up all around the united states jose and i have gone to rice ut upenn and facebook representing a&m and coulton has gone to michigan as well as rice and facebook photo: aggies: (l-r) roel orduño jose manriquez coulton vento rafa moreno nicolas botello eleni mijalis and robert timm"
112,"the workshop on the impact of pen and touch technology in education (wiptte) coordinated by the sketch recognition lab and the department of computer science and engineering (cse) at texas a&m university will be hosted on the texas a&m campus march 12-15 2014 the workshop is open to anyone with an interest in instructional technology conference registration will begin at 7:00 pm on wednesday march 12 at the benjamin knox gallery in college station and continue at 7:00 am on thursday in the first floor hallway of the wehner building on west campus ""this is the first conference i have seen that brings together participants from multiple contexts and levels it includes higher education researchers industry researchers product managers and developers who bring technologies to the classroom as well as curriculum developers who decide what technologies to implement teachers who use the technologies and students who experience the technologies "" said dr tracy hammond cse associate professor and wiptte general co-chair wiptte has been going strong for seven years now with this being the eighth annual instantiation of the conference each year approximately 150 participants from industry academia (both developers and users) k-12 teachers and junior/high school students come to share their tools experiences ideas and innovative uses with this new hands-on technology wippte will include a diverse set of enriching experiences including academic and practicum talks and tutorials campus research tours grant and networking breakout sessions and social events ""this conference is a wonderful opportunity for texas a&m in a time when it is growing significantly †particularly with the 25 by 25 initiative and the increasing importance of innovative approaches to learning such as moocs and flipped classrooms wiptte brings great opportunities for university instructors to revolutionize their classroom technologies "" dr hammond said texas a&m sponsors of wiptte are the texas a&m engineering experiment station dwight look college of engineering and dean of faculties a student teacher faculty member or researcher can participate by submitting short or long papers (archival) posters ""let me try it"" workshop sessions or by serving as a volunteer each wiptte paper and presentation includes an assessment component as an important part of the presentation the wiptte program also includes keynote talks poster presentations vendor booths panels and special sessions for more information visit wwwwiptteorg"
113,aggieland saturday is texas a&m universitys annual open house where current students and staff of the university get a chance to introduce to prospective students and their families what texas a&m is all about prospective students have the opportunity to tour the dorms visit libraries and research labs on campus and also learn about individual programs and majors offered financial aid and scholarship information is also available to students it is a wonderful opportunity for prospective students and current students to come together this year aggieland saturday was held on february 15 2014 the department of computer science and engineerings booth was located in the zachry engineering center current cse students had a lot of fun as they welcomed prospective students to the aggie family bekah holle senior office assistant for the department directed the event alongside her were 26 student volunteers who helped make the entire day a success there was also a seminar held in the bright building (hrbb) called calling the computer science and engineering class of 2018 at which interim department head dr nancy amato gave a welcome speech there dr jennifer welch also spoke to the students and parents about ace scholars which is the departments honors program at this seminar a cse student panel led by dr john keyser associate department head for academics was available to the visitors he asked the students in the panel to introduce themselves to explain why they chose to attend texas a&m and to share some experiences that have stood out to them along with advice that they would give to incoming freshman student organizations such as upsilon pi epsilon texas aggie game developers and aggie women in computer science were also there from the cse department which gave prospective students the opportunity to get a glimpse into how current students get involved with the success of aggieland saturday cse hopes to welcome many new students to the department and to the university
114,"dr jorge vanegas ms magda lagoudas dr john criscione and dr jay porter texas a&m university is one of 12 universities selected to participate in the inaugural cohort of epicenters pathways to innovation program the programs mission was developed by the nsf-funded national center for engineering pathways to innovation (epicenter) to assist universities by incorporating innovation and entrepreneurship into undergraduate engineering education the pathways to innovation program goal is to enable engineering programs to develop widespread effective and accessible innovation and entrepreneurship offerings for undergraduate engineering students embedded into formal and informal undergraduate engineering education"" the guiding principles of the program are research-based context-specific transformation of engineering education at each institution and with institutional impact at the core of the engineering program the program will provide students with opportunities to learn understand and apply innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the next two years the pathways program will lead teams of faculty and administrators to design and implement unique curricular and extra-curricular programs for each institution the texas a&m team includes faculty and administrators from three colleges: the dwight look college of engineering (magda lagoudas executive director for industry and nonprofit partnerships dr john criscione assistant dean for graduate programs and a faculty-entrepreneur in biomedical engineering and dr jay porter program director and professor in electronics engineering technology) mays business school (dr dick lester executive director for the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship) and the college of architecture (dr jorge vanegas dean of architecture and dr rodney hill presidential professor for teaching excellence) lagoudas and criscione are the co-team leaders engineering faculty members who engage in entrepreneurship such as criscione and porter who work together with innovation experts in business and architecture (lester and vanegas respectively) and the texas a&m team anticipate the introduction of high impact learning experiences for students who aspire to be leaders and innovators the team has completed an extensive inventory of all relevant curricular and extracurricular programs and spaces which are available across the texas a&m campus and will be used as a foundational tool for setting goals and priorities for integrating innovation and entrepreneurship in the texas a&m curriculum in addition members of the team completed a two-day workshop on feb 26-28 2014 in phoenix az where they identified strategic opportunities for immediate implementation which leverage existing programs and resources and have high potential impact among engineering students the pathways program will help augment the 25 by 25 initiative already in place in the look college dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering supported lagoudas in the pathways program the 25 by 25 initiative is transforming the educational experiences of our students and better preparing them to engage in and meet the future needs of the engineering marketplace said banks the pathways to innovation program aligns well with our efforts to transform engineering education by providing students with opportunities to develop innovative ideas test them with prototypes and further improve them to become design solutions for problems in our society participating in the inaugural pathways to innovation program will provide texas a&m access to resources networks and ongoing coaching and advice from national leaders in engineering and technology innovation and entrepreneurship to support the efforts to develop and implement successful programs faculty and staff interested to learn more about the activities of this program on our campus and/or how to participate in the program should contact magda lagoudas at m-lagoudas@tamuedu"
115,dr duncan j maitland has been appointed assistant agency director for commercialization for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering announced recently dr maitland has a broad background as a successful faculty member and experience in developing and commercializing biomedical devices said banks his service in this capacity for tees will enhance our commercialization efforts by helping our researchers identify promising technologies and pursue their commercialization which ultimately contributes to economic development for the state of texas maitland currently serves as an associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering and is also the director of graduate programs for the department his research focuses on novel treatments of cardiovascular disease with a focus on strokes maitlands research projects include endovascular interventional devices microactuators optical therapeutic devices and basic device-body interactions/physics including computational and experimental techniques maitland also is the group leader of the biomedical device laboratory (biomeddevicetamuedu) that develops a number of interventional devices including those based on shape memory polymer (smp) smps have attracted increased attention from the scientific community for numerous applications ranging from aerospace applications to the biomedical industry
116,dr rusty harris assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently joined the cryogenic dark matter search (cdms) collaboration in announcing a new threshold of dark matter detection with extremely improved background rejection capabilities dark matter is the nearly unseen material that is hypothesized to not interact with matter that we observe through normal means (eg electromagnetic or nuclear forces) but is present in such large quantities that it has a significant impact on gravitational observation in the universe an intense search has been underway for nearly 20 years to validate the hypothesis and it is considered one of the most urgent unanswered questions in physics cdms scientists including harris who holds a joint appointment in the physics department along with drs rupak mahapatra and david tobak in physics make detectors out of large masses of ultra-high purity ge and si statistically as dark matter passes through the earth it interacts with mass to a small extent when buried deep underground (to block cosmic background radiation) and cooled to very low temperatures the collision of dark matter particles with the ge/si detectors releases heat and charge that can be detected when that temperature is below 100 millikelvin (very close to absolute zero) comparison of the amount of charge and heat released can distinguish whether the collision event was a result of a known high energy particle/photon or that of a weakly interacting massive particle (wimp) as dark matter is commonly called this research was partly made possible using nanotechnology and materials processing research common in nanotechnology manufacturing the charge and heat detectors have to be formed on the surface of the ge/si detectors and harris application of process control and in situ materials characterization techniques has improved reliability and interpretability of data collected in the cdms collaboration the announcement shifts the border of the wimp search down to a dark-matter particle mass and rate of interaction that has never been probed previous collider experiments have all but eliminated potential mass greater than 20 gev/c2 (the common expression for particle mass derived from einsteins famous e=mc2 equation) the increased interest in low-mass dark matter is challenging: the lower the mass of the dark-matter particles the less energy they leave in detectors and the more likely it is that background noise will drown out the wimp signals the work of cdms and the texas a&m collaborators has demonstrated the capability to probe below 6 gev/c2 with excellent background rejection harris joined the department in 2008 from advance micro devices (amd) his expertise is in complex integration of nano systems wide band gap materials high voltage and high frequency devices and process integration he is author and co-author of more than 70 peer-reviewed journal papers conference proceedings and invited talks in addition to his joint appointment in physics he holds a courtesy appointment in the department of materials science and engineering expansion of the research into low temperature semiconductors and superconductors is a natural progress as it applies to the cdms research since harris has extensive process and materials experience with ge and si the collaboration has detailed its latest results in a paper published in arxiv (http://arxivorg/abs/14027137) their work is funded by the department of energy (doe) and the national science foundation (nsf) as well as the natural sciences and engineering research council of canada (nserc) for more information on the cdms experiment go to http://cdmsberkeleyedu/ to learn more about texas a&m's involvement with the collaboration and related research visit http://facultyphysicstamuedu/mahapatra/
117,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering and director of the center for robot assisted search and rescue (crasar) will moderate a panel at the 2014 south by southwest festival in austin the panel drones: policy privacy & public safety is part of the ieee technology for humanities series and is slated for monday (march 10) from 5-6 pm the panel will look at both the positive and negative impacts of drones murphy will be joined by helen greiner co-founder of irobot and ceo of cyphy works dr noel sharkey a noted critic of us drone policies and ardyth williams a former faa official additionally murphy will hold a book signing to promote her new book disaster robotics murphy joined the faculty at texas a&m in 2008 and is best known for her work with search and rescue robots which have been used in the rubble of the world trade center following the attacks on sept 11 2001 as well as hurricane katrina and the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident
118,"dr guofei gu assistant professor of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was chosen by the google faculty research awards program as a recipient of financial support for his proposal ""exploring network security innovations in the new paradigm of software-defined networking (sdn)"" this project is one of 115 chosen from a total of 691 considered by google during its winter 2014 call for research project proposals ""software defined networking (sdn) is an emerging technology that enables researchers and practitioners to design new innovative network functions/protocols in an easy flexible and powerful way "" said dr gu ""we envision that sdn can impact network security research in many different ways in particular this project will investigate how sdn can help enhance network security by enabling novel threat mitigation/response applications and how sdn will bring new security vulnerabilities not seen in traditional networks"" dr gu joined the computer science and engineering faculty at texas a&m university in 2008 shortly after receiving his phd in computer science from the georgia institute of technology he is the director of the secure communication and computer systems (success) lab where he and his students conduct investigations into internet malware/botnet detection defense and analysis web and social networking security software-defined networking (sdn/openflow) security mobile and android security intrusion detection and anomaly detection ""i'm interested in all aspects of network and system security to solve practical security problems i use networking and system techniques as well as applied cryptography machine learning probability/statistics and information theory "" said dr gu in addition to his google research award dr gu received the 2013 air force office of scientific research young investigator award for his investigation entitled ""go ahead of malware's infections and controls: towards new techniques for proactive cyber defense "" and a 2010 nsf career award for his project ""coordination- and correlation-based botnet defense"" one of the goals of the google faculty research awards program is to fund leading edge advancements in new technology projects in computer science engineering and related fields its next submission deadline is april 15 2014 to learn more about the google research awards program visit http://researchgooglecom/university/relations/research_awardshtml"
119,three graduate students from the genomic signal processing laboratory of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won awards from the texas a&m science of information days workshop mohammad shahrokh esfahani (left) won the first place poster presentation for his poster entitled prior probability construction using biological signaling pathways in this poster esfahani presents his new method for quantifying the prior knowledge in the biological signaling pathways from a bayesian perspective whose final output is a prior probability on an uncertainty class of models his work has been supervised by dr edward dougherty esmaeil atashpaz-gargari (center) and priyadharshini (prya) s venkat (right) won the second and third places respectively for the best poster presentations gargaris poster entitled improved branch-and-bound for u-curve optimization problem presented his new algorithm for feature selection inspired by a well-known phenomenon called peaking phenomenon his method provides the best set of features based on an optimization framework his work has been supervised by dr ulisses braga-neto and dr edward dougherty venkat 's poster entitled belief propagation in a probabilistic graphical model of the pancreatic cancer signaling pathway introduces their work on using belief propagation to infer the state of genes from data obtained from biological techniques whereas as an application the method is applied on pancreatic signaling pathways her work has been supervised by dr aniruddha datta the texas a&m science of information days workshop was sponsored by national science foundation center for science of information and the texas a&m electrical and computer engineering department and computer engineering and systems group esfahani received the bs degree from the university of tehran iran in 2007 and the ms degree from sharif university of technology iran in 2009 all in electrical engineering since 2009 he has been a phd student in the genomic signal processing laboratory he has been awarded the dwight look college of engineering travel award in 2013 and the second-place top poster presentation from the eight mid-south computational biology and bioinformatics society (mcbios) conference in 2011 his current research interests include uncertainty quantification and small sample classification with the application in genomics atashpaz-gargari received his electrical engineering bs degree from tabriz university iran in 2004 and msc degree from the university of tehran iran in 2007 he is currently a phd student in the genomic signal processing laboratory his current research includes proteomics and error estimation in small-sample classification problemsvenkat also is a phd student in the department her research is primarily focused on genomic signal processing she graduated from the indian institute of science in 2012 with masters degree in instrumentation
120,the department of computer science and engineering held its annual spring banquet and awards ceremony on thursday april 24 2014 at the memorial student center this was the largest spring banquet to date and it was a phenomenal success several differences set the 2014 spring banquet apart from previous years banquets this year the banquet was open to the entire department; undergraduates were invited as well as advisory council and industrial affiliates program members upsilon pi epsilon inductees were announced and graduating ace honors scholars and peer teachers were recognized for their achievements and service almost twice as many people attended this years banquet as compared to last year interim department head dr nancy amato presented bill crane mike pfister and al white with the departments distinguished former student awards each recipient was given a commemorative plaque and three deserving students received a $1 500 scholarship in the distinguished former students names bill crane received his bachelors degree in computer science from texas a&m university in 1983 and was most recently the vp of engineering for linkedin he also served as the vp of engineering at redline networks and proofpoint and is currently a technical advisor for early-stage start-ups in silicon valley senior computer science major michael gyarmarthy received a scholarship in cranes name mike pfister graduated from texas a&m university with a bachelors degree in computer science in 1978 and is the chief information officer for conocophillips he has worked as a computer science engineer for over 30 years for halliburton and atlantic richfield he has assisted in the apis standardization efforts within it and serves on several advisory boards including the cse advisory council senior computer science major kyle eaton received a scholarship in pfisters name al white is a business area manager at ticom geomatics inc he is responsible for signals intelligence geolocation and cyber systems that support the intelligence community and department of defense he also served 20 years in the united states air force special operations command as a command pilot he taught computer programming and systems engineering during his time as an assistant professor in the us air force academy and also helped establish an unmanned aircraft systems research group while there junior computer science major alexandria davis received a scholarship in whites name following the distinguished former student awards jory denny csegsa president presented the student faculty and staff excellence awards: tony moma: peer teaching excellence award nick melnyk: peer teaching excellence award jory denny: teaching assistant excellence award student selected and the graduate leadership excellence award tiffani williams: undergraduate faculty teaching excellence award lawrence rauchwerger: graduate faculty teaching excellence award taffie behringer: staff excellence award student selected bekah holle: staff excellence award student selected amin hassanzadeh: teaching assistant excellence award faculty selected yue li: graduate research excellence award robert baykov: undergraduate research excellence award larry powell: undergraduate leadership excellence award chien-an chen: mentoring excellence award laurie picklo: staff excellence award staff selected bruce veals: staff excellence award staff selected dr nancy amato then introduced the inaugural class of ace scholars graduates matthew barry and jose andres medina vargas afterwards amato presented the certificates to the graduating peer teachers: jenny chen kira jones jinsoo kim thomas klingshirn margaret ligon nick melnyk tony moma ryan oji rosbel sanroman andrew song curtis wendel christine woods the banquet ended with the announcement of the 2013-2014 upsilon pi epsilon inductees by upe president larry powell: matthew barry tyler biehle roberto enriquez nicholas hanemann benjamin martin ryan olivieri taylor patton angela ramsey juan reyes richa surbhi paul taele ricardo andres zavala shihua zheng the banquet and awards ceremony is funded by the department's industrial affiliates program and hosted by the student organizations within the department of computer science and engineering
121,"texas a&m university and the association of former students have announced the recipients of the 2014 distinguished alumnus award and among them are five graduates of the college of engineering: cr ray holbrook jr chemical engineering class of 1948 of santa fe texas; william w bill hanna civil engineering class of 1958 of wichita kansas; dr stephen a holditch petroleum engineering class of 1969 of bryan texas; charlie w seely sr petroleum engineering class of 1955 of fort worth texas; charles a charlie mattei mechanical engineering class of 1949 of the woodlands texas cr ""ray"" holbrook jr '48 an engineer and attorney was galveston county judge from 1967 to 1995 he received bachelors and masters degrees in chemical engineering from texas a&m while at a&m he was in the corps of cadets the aggie band and student government he was named to whos who among american universities and received the engineering achievement award he also won four varsity track letters won several conference championships and was a member of the 1948 national-champion mile relay team after serving in the us navy he began his career as an engineer with monsanto chemical co in 1952 and after earning a law degree transferred to monsantos patent department in addition to service as county judge he served on the texas state board of education for a six-year term the board of visitors for texas a&m university at galveston the gulf coast water authority and was a founding member of the texas a&m lettermens association he is an endowed century club donor to the association of former students has been active with the galveston county a&m club for more than 50 years and is a member of the texas a&m athletic hall of fame he is an eagle scout and serves on the executive board of the bay area boy scouts he has been a member of the episcopal church for over 70 years and is currently a member and serves on the vestry of st michaels church in la marque holbrook and his wife mary ann have been married for nearly 60 years and have three children william w ""bill"" hanna '58 a veteran of the us army is former president and chief operating officer of koch industries he serves on the texas a&m college of engineering external advisory and development council and served on the nucleus fund committee for the texas a&m university campaign at texas a&m he was a member of the corps of cadets and earned a bachelors degree in civil engineering hanna has been honored as an outstanding alumnus of the dwight look college of engineering and has endowed scholarships for engineering students he is an endowed century club donor to the association of former students and his many gifts to the 12th man foundation and the texas a&m foundation have earned him recognition as an eppright distinguished donor and member of the legacy society in 2013 he received the charles g berwind lifetime achievement award the highest honor bestowed by big brothers big sisters of america hanna lost janice his wife and sweetheart of 51 years in 2010 he has three sons and seven grandchildren and is a liftetime member of the united methodist church dr stephen a holditch '69 is a former head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and former director of the texas a&m energy institute he also founded sa holditch and associates which had a worldwide reputation for being able to solve the most difficult petroleum engineering problems a member of the corps of cadets and ross volunteers he received bachelors masters and doctoral degrees from a&m all in petroleum engineering he and his wife ann have funded multiple scholarships in petroleum engineering as well as a sul ross scholarship they are endowed century club donors to the association of former students and their many gifts to the 12th man foundation and texas a&m foundation have earned them recognition as eppright distinguished donors and members of the legacy society holditch has been honored as a member of the petroleum engineering academy of distinguished graduates and as an outstanding alumnus of the dwight look college of engineering he was elected to the national academy of engineering in 1995 and has been honored with most of the society of petroleum engineers top technical honors including the legends of hydraulic fracturing award which he received in 2014 he and ann have been married 43 years and have two daughters and five grandchildren charlie w seely sr '55 a us army veteran is an independent oil and gas producer president of seely oil co and chairman of three companies that manufacture plastic products one of his companies has been honored as part of the aggie 100 which spotlights the fastest-growing aggie-owned or aggie-led companies he is a past chair of the association of former students board of directors past president of the fort worth tarrant county a&m club a former class of 1955 agent former board member for the 12th man foundation and serves on the presidents council of advisors he was a member of the corps of cadets received a bachelors degree in petroleum engineering from texas a&m and was a distinguished military graduate he is an endowed century club donor to the association of former students and his many gifts to the 12th man foundation and texas a&m foundation have earned him recognition as an eppright distinguished donor and member of the legacy society he has given of his time and resources to organizations beyond texas a&m including tangible support provided to an orphanage in russia seely has three children charles a ""charlie"" mattei jr '49 a veteran of the us army and chairman emeritus of united business corp is the former chairman and ceo of cit-con oil co and a former vice president of both gulf oil/chevron and citgo he served as president of the beaumont and tulsa a&m clubs class of 1949 agent president of the 12th man foundation and the sul ross group and as a member of the vision 2020 task force presidents board of advisors and the corps development council he received a bachelors in engineering from texas a&m mattei was named outstanding aggie by the houston a&m club and has been inducted into the corps of cadets hall of honor he and his wife bettie are endowed century club donors to the association of formers students and their generous gifts to the texas a&m foundation and the 12th man foundation have earned them recognition as eppright distinguished donors and members of the legacy society their gifts to texas a&m include a presidents endowed scholarship a 12th man endowed scholarship and a sul ross scholarship in addition to his service to texas a&m mattei also filled leadership roles with his local rotary club the muscular dystrophy association and his local united way mattei who passed away april 18 and bettie are parents to four children and seven grandchildren since the inception of the award in 1962 only 237 of texas a&ms 410 000 former students have been recognized with the distinguished alumnus award the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of texas a&m university awarded jointly by the university and the association this award recognizes those aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions and made meaningful contributions to texas a&m university and their local communities texas a&m is one of the nations great public land-grant institutions in large part because of the contributions these outstanding aggies have made to their professions their communities and their alma mater said texas a&m interim president dr mark hussey 79 the recipients learned of their honor when surprised in their places of business and other locations by a group of university and association representatives including hussey the association of former students 2014 chair of the board of directors kathleen gibson 81 association president and ceo porter s garner iii 79 a ross volunteer along with reveille viii and her handler while our outstanding 2014 distinguished alumni represent a broad set of backgrounds and experiences they all share a common love and appreciation for texas a&m gibson said they well represent and actively live our core values of excellence integrity leadership loyalty respect and selfless service garner echoed the sentiments of hussey and gibson and offered his congratulations on behalf of the aggie network the aggies selected as distinguished alumni represent the highest levels of achievement and service within the aggie network garner said in the 52 years this award has been presented it has been bestowed upon less than one-tenth of one percent of our former students the association of former students will further honor all recipients of this award during its annual distinguished alumni gala on oct 10 in addition the 2014 recipients will be recognized during the texas a&m football game against auburn on oct 11 nominations for the 2015 distinguished alumnus award will be accepted beginning may 1 through oct 1 the association of former students established in 1879 is the official alumni organization of texas a&m university the association connects the nearly 650 000 members of the worldwide aggie network with each other and the university and provides $106 million a year in impact to university scholarships awards activities and enrichment for students faculty staff and former students for more information about the distinguished alumnus award or the association contact kathryn greenwade at kgreenwade88@aggienetworkcom or visit wwwaggienetworkcom"
122,the thomas and joan read center for distribution research & education a center within the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and part of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university launched an industry funded large research consortium with a kick-off meeting on april 11 seventeen companies to date fund the optimizing human capital development consortium that is focused on the distribution industry each member pays a membership fee of $25 000 to participate in the consortium dr f barry lawrence leonard and valarie bruce chair and director of the read center stressed the importance and significance of the development of human capital for distributors at the consortium meeting he added that the speed at which most distribution firms can grow (profitably) doesnt solely depend on the distributors geographic reach physical assets product selection access to capital or innovative services it depends on its human resources human resources are the most significant factor in distributor success not on the balance sheet and only listed on the profit and loss statement as an expense the value of human resources within a company is often underestimated distributors have expended tremendous energy in optimizing operations with information technology facility development inventory control transportation management and so forth human resources are often left behind due to a lack of resources for training a poor understanding of the return-on- investment (roi) for human resources development and the perception that people are more expendable than other assets within the business the consortium will conduct a second kick-off meeting on august 15 2014 for companies joining between now and august this will be followed by company specific workshops between august and january 2015 the research team will then develop tools and methods for human capital assessment development and linking it to return-on-investment these tools will be delivered to the companies along with their confidential assessment during the closing meeting in april 2015 the consortium is conducted in partnership with the national association of wholesaler-distributor institute the largest distribution association in the world with more than 40 000 members this consortium is preceded by successful distribution focused consortia on pricing optimization optimizing distributor profitability optimizing sale & marketing optimizing distributor growth and market share and optimizing channel compensation the research team includes industrial distribution faculty dr f barry lawrence dr kris rana mark johnson norm clark dr jia wang (department of educational administration & human resource development within the college of education) and bharani nagarathnam associate director of the read center for more than 30 years the read center has been the leader in wholesale and industrial distribution research and education the read center is the only distribution focused research center on any university campus in the us the center conduct applied research projects consortia and technical services to the distributor and manufacturing community the center has been offering distributor sales operations and finance courses since the early 1980s each year the center conducts more than 25 professional development programs at both on-campus and off-campus locations all over the us more information on the consortium at: http://idtamuedu/research-solutions/research-consortiums/optimizing-human-capital-consortium
123,the dwight look college of engineering participated in the exxonmobil texas science and engineering fair march 22 in san antonio but not in a way you would normally expect the look college sent aggiebot a vgo to judge the junior category of the fair a vgo has the capability to replicate a person in a distant location and move around freely by remote control the vgo itself could not judge the students projects instead the vgo was controlled and judged from the texas a&m university campus in college station by dr johannes strobel director for educational outreach programs strobel maneuvered the vgo around the henry b gonzales convention center as he conversed with the students and observed and judged their projects i saw some really excellent projects strobel said people showed me a lot of passion showed a lot of ingenuity great ideas and great execution amber muenzenberger director of remote learning and outreach education accompanied the vgo and experienced the reaction of onlookers students were very interested in aggiebot she said the students that were judged using aggiebot were very enthusiastic and exited about this new opportunity in addition to aggiebot the look college was also represented by keynote speaker cortlan wickliff wickliff an attorney and interdisciplinary engineering phd student in the college of engineering encouraged the audience to get involved in stem research and stay motivated when times get tough he also encouraged students to become stem professionals and provide some tips to being persistent in stem disciplines while still in college to learn more about the science fair visit http://emtsefutsaedu/
124,fifteen students from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university were named recipients of the national action council for minorities in engineering (nacme) scholarship the students were honored during a reception on april 11 nacme aims to increase the proportion of african american american indian and latino graduates in science technology engineering and math education and careers nacmes vision is to help shape the united states engineering workforce much like the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university therefore the scholarships are the result of a five-year grant awarded to the college of engineering by nacme to help support talented underrepresented students studying engineering the scholarship recipients were recognized for their academic achievements and received a $3 000 award which is renewable as long as the students maintain a 30 gpa the nacme scholarship recipients are also expected to participate in a college-related student leadership program such as the engineering ambassador program and the explore engineering summer camps the 2014 nacme scholars are: samantha aguilar biomedical engineering carley amador aerospace engineering israel casillas aerospace engineering david cavazos biomedical engineering emmanuel hernandez civil engineering jacob lozano chemical engineering daniel maldonado nuclear engineering corinne martinez biomedical engineering sean obeirne aerospace engineering anthony ramirez electrical engineering kyrone riley nuclear engineering matthew rodriguez civil engineering veronica rodriguez chavarria computer science julia lisa saenz industrial engineering mattias turner mechanical engineering
125,"zachary cannon a computer science senior in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university received the 2014 community student employee of the year award at the student employee of the year ceremony held on april 16 in the robert m gates student ballroom at the texas a&m memorial student center he was nominated by improving enterprises a member of the department's industrial affiliate program zachary works as an associate consultant at improving enterprises cited in the award presentation was zachary's work on software development projects for the company high levels of collaboration day to day interaction with clients and strong problem solving abilities are required on company projects zachary developed an action plan that kept the customer up-to-date and satisfied with his team's progress ""zach follows through on his commitments and regularly seeks out feedback to improve the quality of his work"" zachary's professionalism interpersonal skills and technical knowledge were praised in the presentation as well as his willingness to assist in other areas such as helping with the creation teaching and grading of a three week texas a&m course project for a sophomore computer science class national student employment week (nsew) is celebrated annually and at texas a&m it is held the second full week of april texas a&m scholarships & financial aid partners with local businesses to say thank you to student employees for the contributions they make during nsew festivities the student employees of the year awards ceremony honors two students one from on-campus employment and one from off-campus winners receive scholarships sponsored by the association of former students to learn more about national student employment week visit https://utamuedu/6yjmgaya"
126,"yale n patt will give two lectures hosted by the department of computer science and engineering on friday may 2 2014 the first at 11:00 am and the second at 4:00 pm both on the texas a&m campus in room 2005 of the emerging technologies building dr patt holds the ernest cockrell jr centennial chair in engineering and is the university distinguished teaching professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the university of texas at austin he is an educator engineer and inventor who was elected to the national academy of engineering this year his first presentation this friday is ""the correct first course in computing for serious students "" which explains why he introduces his students to the ""switch level behavior of a transistor"" and then to ""to gates to muxes decoders gated latches finite state machines memory the lc-3 computer machine language programming assembly language programming and finally c programming"" in dr patt's second talk ""parallelism: a serious goal or a silly mantra ( and what else is needed for the microprocessor of 2024) "" he will ""try to show how the transformation hierarchy can turn the bad news of moore's law into good news and play an important role in the microprocessor of 2024"" immediately following the 4:00pm talk there will be an open reception for dr patt in the atrium of the emerging technologies building"
127,joey jabbour a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2014 george w kunze prize jabbour was selected for the award based on her superior academic achievement and her publications in a refereed journal of national or international stature as an honoree of the kunze prize jabbour also has demonstrated good residentship through contributions to the university and community jabbour who is advised by assistant professor kristen maitland received a $1 000 cash award and was formally recognized at the graduate student council banquet during her time as a graduate student at texas a&m jabbour has designed built and tested an in vivo confocal microscope to provide high-resolution images of tissue in the oral cavity to detect cancer in its earliest stages her research involves the development and characterization of the instrument and preclinical and clinical testing of the device to date she has six peer-reviewed publications joey is highly productive and creative in her approach to problem solving and she is passionate about research and teaching maitland said george w kunze was long-time dean of the graduate college at texas a&m at the time of his retirement university faculty and friends generously contributed an endowment in honor of kunze to provide an annual $1 000 award for a doctoral student nearing completion of the degree program the kunze prize is sponsored by the office of graduate studies
128,"caleb davis a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the whitaker international fellowship as a fellowship recipient davis will have the opportunity to study at queen mary university of london and at imperial college in the labs of professors steve greenwald and james moore during the fall 2014/spring 2015 academic year while there davis who is advised by tees research assistant professor michael moreno will work on the mechanical testing of arteries and fitting constitutive mathematical models to that data that include the multilayered arterial wall structure this will provide a powerful tool for future studies to investigate the effects of arterial structure and function on vascular disease he notes ""caleb is an exceptional student moreno said his work is always precise accurate and professionally presented i believe his knowledge personality strong verbal and analytical skills intrinsic desire to learn and commitment to excellence serve as evidence that his potential as a scientist has no bounds"" the whitaker international program sends emerging leaders in us biomedical engineering (or bioengineering) overseas to undertake a self-designed project that will enhance their careers within the field the goal of the program is to assist the development of professional leaders who are not only superb scientists but who also will advance the profession through an international outlook along with supporting grant projects in an academic setting the whitaker international program encourages grantees to engage in policy work and propose projects in an industry setting the whitaker international fellows and scholars program was created by the institute of international education with a grant from the whitaker foundation its mission is to promote international collaboration in the growing field of biomedical engineering whitaker international fellows are those who have received a degree in biomedical engineering but have not yet obtained a phd whitaker international scholars are biomedical engineers who have already received a phd within two years of application"
129,carlos f lopez a mechanical engineering masters student won two graduate poster awards at student research week 2014 his poster lithium-ion battery thermal management for space applications was awarded first place in engineering/architecture and second place for the sigma xi symposium theme award among graduate students carlos work focuses on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (libs) with improved performance safety and life for aviation and automotive energy storage despite the numerous recent advancements a critical concern for the state-of-the-art libs centers on thermal safety because of these concerns it is a critical imperative to accelerate the development of safe and abuse tolerant libs this requires an integrated approach toward advancing the fundamental understanding of failure modes leading to thermal runaway scenarios which could pave the way toward devising novel thermal management strategies (active/passive) for state-of-the-art lib systems carlos work is centered on the thermal issues pertaining to electrochemical energy storage in automotive and space industries carlos works at the energy and transport sciences laboratory (etsl) under the direction of dr partha mukherjee etsl specializes in exploring mesoscale physics and stochastics pertaining to physicochemical reactive transport phenomena coupling electrochemistry and electro-kinetics/-statics functional materials and manufacturing in clean energy carlos work on battery thermal issues is sponsored by nasa-johnson space center through the harriet g jenkins graduate research fellowship
130,dr ibrahim karaman has been appointed head of the newly formed department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university karamans appointment is effective beginning may 1 dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and dr h joseph newton dean of the college of science made the announcement jointly karaman who has been serving as the interim head since the formation of the department in april 2013 joined the texas a&m mechanical engineering faculty in 2000 he has made numerous contributions in the areas of processing and characterization of crystalline materials and has published more than 160 refereed journal articles in prestigious journals his contributions have been recognized through several awards and honors including the american society of mechanical engineers and the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics gary anderson early achievement award; the minerals metals and materials society robert lansing hardy award; and the texas a&m engineering experiment station senior fellow award he earned the national science foundation career award in 2001 karaman earned bachelor's and master's degrees from bogazici university in istanbul turkey and a phd from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign all in mechanical engineering
131,from left to right: vanessa ndonhong bill hunter johannes alvarez dan hill katherine banks shariq yosufzai david schechter glenn weckerlin and francisco tovar the chevron corporation and the harold vance department of petroleum engineering held a ribbon cutting ceremony on tuesday april 22 for the newly established chevron petrophysical imaging laboratory at texas a&m university dean katherine banks department head dan hill and associate professor and lab director david schechter as well as representatives from chevron including shariq yosufzai (vice president global offices of diversity and ombuds executive sponsor for the tamu partnership) glenn weckerlin (manager university associations) bill hunter (portfolio manager for university affairs) and niccole boswell (diversity and veterans recruiting specialist) attended the ceremony the chevron petrophysical imaging laboratory has a state of the art toshiba aquilion rxl ct scanner with 3d advanced visualization software the scanner is a high-precision instrument that can measure the porosity fluid density and changes in saturation in core samples and enhanced oil recovery flood experiments such as water gas or co2 flooding it can also be used to visualize natural fractures in core samples and wormhole propagation in cores exposed to acid treatments chevron is one of the world's leading integrated energy companies with subsidiaries that conduct business worldwide the company is involved in virtually every facet of the energy industry chevron explores for produces and transports crude oil and natural gas; refines markets and distributes transportation fuels and lubricants; manufactures and sells petrochemical products; generates power and produces geothermal energy; provides energy efficiency solutions; and develops the energy resources of the future including biofuels chevron is based in san ramon california
132,lisa larsen a graduate student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to participate in the eno center for transportations 22nd annual leadership development conference (ldc) larsen was one of 20 students selected as an eno fellow and will attend the conference in washington dc june 1-5 the weeklong conference provides eno fellows the opportunity to learn about policy formulation decision-making and executive responsibilities facing industry leaders the eno center for transportation is a neutral non-partisan think-tank that promotes policy innovation and provides professional development opportunities across the career span of transportation professionals
133,the smart grid center established in august 2012 organized a workshop to develop further collaborative efforts with industry government and partner institutions the workshop was held at the main campus of texas a&m university on april 8 2014 for the invited talks panel sessions and focus group discussions 177 attendees gathered including 28 faculty members from the texas a&m system in texas 21 experts representing industries such as ercot ge abb ibm ni alstom honeywell swr and government agencies (national institute of standards & technology lawrence berkeley national laboratory lawrence livermore national laboratory oak ridge national laboratory national renewable energy laboratory) and 103 students visitors from qatar brazil and mexico also participated in the workshop in the poster session research results were showcased by 41 posters details and slides of the workshop can be viewed at website of the smart grid center at http://smartgridcentertamuedu/sgc/
134,"congratulations to third year computer science student aaron lindsey on receiving honorable mention in the computing research association's (cra) outstanding undergraduate researcher award (male) 2014! aaron is recognized for his research team's project ""improving decoy sets for protein folding simulations"" his faculty mentor for this project is dr nancy m amato interim head of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and co-director of parasol lab his project collaborators are dr shawna thomas postdoctoral research associate cindy (hsin-yi) yeh and chih-peng wu his graduate student mentors aaron and his project members from parasol's algorithms & applications group evaluated the quality of decoy protein structures as they affect protein folding simulations ""a decoy is a computer-generated protein structure that is similar to the native state of a protein but is not biologically real "" said aaron ""these structures are used to test the ability of a protein folding algorithm to choose the protein's native state among incorrect protein conformations ""better decoy sets allow scientists and engineers to create more accurate protein folding simulations leading to new treatments for diseases such as alzheimer's and mad cow disease which are commonly associated with protein mis-folding ""we present a method to evaluate and improve the quality of decoy databases by adding novel structures and/or removing redundant structures we test our approach on 14 different decoy databases of varying size and type and show significant improvement across a variety of metrics"" aaron's research interests are focused on computational biology and specifically algorithms for protein folding simulations he has authored a paper in motion planning and has a computational biology paper pending publication this past summer he continued research into decoy sets as a participant in the research experiences for undergraduates program sponsored by the cse department among his honors and awards are scholarships from aggieland bound and the cse industrial affiliates program aaron was awarded membership in the phi eta sigma honor society for earning a gpa of at least 35 during his first year of college and he is the technology chair for texas a&m's honors student council aaron plans to graduate with a bs in computer science in december 2014 cra's outstanding undergraduate research award recognizes undergraduate students in north american universities who show exceptional research potential in an area of computing research for more information about this award visit http://wwwcraorg/awards/undergrad"
135,the texas a&m chapter of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) is a membership organization that enables its members to share knowledge develop engineering skills and build professional relationships follow asme on facebook asme hosted its 7th annual golf tournament at the traditions club golf course in bryan texas on april 14 2014 to raise funds toward the mechanical engineering scholarship fund students enjoyed a free round of golf on a beautiful course and networked with representatives from participating companies it is the goal of asme to support as many students as possible in attaining their mechanical engineering degree at texas a&m asme raised over $45 000 in scholarship funds this year the participating companies were: 1 air liquide 2 phillips 66 3 air products 4 cameron 5 stress engineering 6 chevron 7 conocophillips 8 halliburton 9 dynamic systems 10 merit energy 11 exxon mobil 12 ppg 13 bp 14 ineos 15 asme (student section) the department of mechanical engineering thanks asme and the participating companies for their effort in raising scholarship funds for students
136,"raniero lara-garduño a computer engineering phd student and larry powell a senior in computer science both students in the department of computer science and engineering (cse) were 2nd place winners in two graduate student categories at student research week 2014 they presented their poster ""enhancing mechanix - interface and algorithms "" in engineering/architecture and in the sigma xi award for interdisciplinary research categories mechanix a free body diagram and sketch recognition workbook is a tutoring and grading system that allows students immediate feedback on their planar truss and free-body diagrams by checking them against an instructor's hand-drawn answer the team's poster shows the enhancement of mechanix with multiple improvements to interface and algorithms the sketch recognition lab researchers under the direction of dr tracy hammond cse associate professor continue with their mechanix investigations and have produced multiple well-received papers and presentations since the beginning of the project in 2012 mechanix research is supported by the nsf darpa and the computing research association raniero lara-garduño is a first year phd computer engineering student in the field of human-computer interaction this year he is the graduate advisor of the upsilon pi epsilon (upe) honors society on the texas a&m campus and in previous years raniero was upe president and treasurer among his honors are the cse department's 2013 undergraduate leadership excellence award and a texas a&m system louis stokes alliance for minority participation fellowship in 2010 raniero worked as a cisco choice intern at cisco systems in san jose california as upe president larry powell was recently involved in an undergraduate programming challenge a first time ever event hosted by upe in the cse department under his leadership upe has hosted multiple successful events this spring enhancing graduate and undergraduate student social and academic involvement in cse photos: (l-r) raniero lara-garduño and larry powell with poster awards mechanix poster"
137,gurlovleen rathore an interdisciplinary engineering major with a concentration in engineering education has been named a university innovation fellow by the national center for engineering pathways to innovation (epicenter) rathore who is supported by dr john c criscione is one of 66 students from 45 higher education institutes across the united states who received the honor rathore joins fellow texas a&m students dean tate and graham leslie who have been part of the program since 2013 the university innovation fellows are a network of student leaders working to create lasting institutional change that will increase student engagement with entrepreneurship innovation creativity design thinking and venture creation the program is part of a national movement to help all students gain the attitudes skills and knowledge required for them to compete in the economy of the future the program is run by epicenter which is funded by the national science foundation and directed by stanford university and the national collegiate inventors and innovators alliance (nciia) it is no longer enough for engineering students to graduate with a purely technical education said tom byers director of epicenter and professor at stanford university whether they start their own companies or join established organizations engineers need to have an entrepreneurial mindset to identify and seize opportunities bring their ideas to life and solve global problems the program offers undergraduate students in engineering and other fields the guidance and support to become agents of change on their home campuses the fellows have made it their mission to expand the number and quality of resources available to students and to advocate for necessary advancements with external advisory boards trustees and institutional leaders fellows are sponsored by faculty and administrators at their schools and selected through an application process each spring and fall following acceptance into the program students complete six weeks of online training during which they connect with their new network of fellows examine their current entrepreneurial ecosystems and formulate action plans for their ideas at their schools fellows have founded entrepreneurship clubs and organizations worked with faculty to create courses hosted events and workshops and created student design and maker spaces university innovation fellows help their peers complement their coursework with interdisciplinary projects that build on their passions career goals and desire to make a real impact in the world said humera fasihuddin leader of the university innovation fellows program for epicenter and senior program officer at nciia students are capable of honing their leadership abilities by leveraging creativity design thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset to solve problems on campus in the local community and around the globe – all while still enrolled in school
138,five students representing the electronic systems engineering technology program (eset) at texas a&m university presented papers on a number of topics at the asee gulf southwest regional conference in new orleans april 2-4 tanner perkins was awarded best student paper for his paper and presentation focusing on a new development partnership between eset and the nasa-jsc control and data handling (c&dh) branch to develop the modular integrated stackable layer or misl architecture the paper discusses how the partnership seeks to continue the space-qualified hardware development platform initiated by paul delaune and his engineering team within the c&dh branch in his paper tanner describes the three primary components of the initiative: new layer development; integration of the architecture into embedded system educational courses and laboratories; and creation of an open development community perkins presented the paper which was written by his capstone design team the capstone project being supported by nasa adds a new more capable microcontroller intelligence layer to the stack architecture and uses a misl stack properly configured to control a four-wheeled robot that employs gps and imu sensors and a labview graphical interface sean kogucz (krisys robot: experimental learning is product development); isabel carrillo and tyler kates (hand activated non-obstructive system) and lindsey jenschke (utilizing commercially available products to demonstrate reverse engineering concepts in electronic sysytems product development courses) also presented at the three-day conference
139,"in-situ nanoindentation study of phase transformation in magnetic shape memory alloys texas a&m university researchers led by dr xinghang zhang in the department of mechanical engineering have examined stress induced martensitic phase transformations in magnetic shape memory alloys via in-situ nanoindentation technique the paper titled ""two types of martensitic phase transformations in magnetic shape memory alloys by in-situ nanoindentation studies"" was published in the march 31 issue (2014) of advanced materials the first author of the paper is mr yue liu a phd candidate in dr zhang's research group mr yue liu ni based magnetic shape memory alloys (msmas) have broad applications for actuators and microelectromechanical systems (mems) devices two-stage stress induced martensitic phase transformation a widely observed phenomenon in these alloys is described conventionally as a first stage l21 (austenite)-to-10m/14m (m: modulated martensite) transition followed by a second stage 14m-to-l10 (tetragonal martensite) transformation at higher stresses during their in-situ nanoindentation experiments on ni54fe19ga27 in a transmission electron microscope zhang and his graduate student mr yue liu discovered two distinctive types of martensitic phase transformation: a reversible gradual l21-to-10m/14m phase transformation at low stress and an irreversible abrupt transition from residual l21-to-l10 martensite at higher stress this study provides new perspectives on understanding stress induced phase transformations in msmas the co-authors of this paper include dr ibrahim karaman in the department of materials science and engineering and dr haiyan wang in the department of electrical engineering at texas a&m university this research in zhangs group is supported by the national science foundation (nsf) the civil mechanical and manufacturing innovation (cmmi) division under grant no 1129065 zhang is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m his research group expertise is nanomechanics in nanostructured metallic materials nanotwinned metals and magnetic shape memory alloys mr yue liu received his bs in electrical engineering at fudan university in china and ms in mechanical engineering at texas a&m university he is expected to complete his phd in may 2014"
140,approximately 600 students will participate in one of the largest nation-wide events of its kind the second-annual texas a&m university engineering project showcase on april 25 from noon to 4 pm in reed arena the event presented by engineering academic and student affairs is free and open to the public the showcase will feature work developed by about 150 teams from areas such as capstone design classes aggie-challenge projects student design teams and startup aggieland some texas a&m university at qatar students will also participate providing an international component attendees will have the opportunity to meet with the students involved in each project to discuss the details of the projects and learn how the students have applied their knowledge from the classroom to the solution in their projects industry representatives are invited to attend to see the work of the engineering students and discuss collaborations on future students projects with faculty aggiebot a vgo will also be roaming around reed arena to give prospective high school students the opportunity to attend the showcase from their school
141,christie bergerson a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the philanthropic educational organization (peo) scholar award the award which was established in 1991 provides educational support for women who are pursuing a doctoral-level degree at an accredited college or university as a recipient of the highly competitive merit-based award bergerson will receive $15 000 bergerson who is a graduate research assistant for tees research assistant professor michael moreno is working on the development of a device that encourages osteoregeneration of long bones using guided tissue-regeneration techniques and tunable biomechanical microenvironments that influence stem-cell differentiation during her graduate career bergerson has co-authored a book chapter for the handbook of medical devices; a review article on mechanical factors in cardiac growth development disease and therapeutic intervention; and a research article on the development of constitutive models for biodegradable polymers she recently presented her dissertation work at student research week and won first place for her podium presentation in the medical category her work was subsequently presented at the american society of mechanical engineers 2013 summer bioengineering conference prior to joining morenos biomechanical environments lab bergerson earned her bachelor of science in biomedical engineering from texas a&m the fast growth of my lab has been possible only because of christies versatile skill set and ability to serve as lab manager moreno said in addition to her own dissertation project christie has been involved to varying degrees in many of the ongoing projects in my lab her work ethic has been exceptional peo was founded on january 21 1869 at iowa wesleyan college in mount pleasant iowa originally a small campus friendship society peo has grown to almost a quarter of a million members in chapters in the united states and canada peo aims to makes a difference in women's lives through six philanthropies that include ownership of cottey college a womens college with two-year and selected four-year programs and five other philanthropies that provide higher educational assistance including the peo scholar awards
142,twitter is a highly used and very popular social media platform however when switching back and forth between several tabs and windows its very easy to lose track of what you initially set out to explore associate professor andruid kerne with the interface ecology lab in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university along with his graduate students ajit jain nic lupfer yin qu and rhema linder have developed tweetbubble a free chrome extension that allows users to expand an @tweeter handle or #hashtags in the same window without having to switch back and forth across tabs and windows
143,its very easy to lose the context of your original thought once you start following different links says kerne tweetbubble is designed to make twitter more effective and easier for users to put together the big picture of who is connecting with whom tweetbubble is a free and open source chrome extension that helps users explore social media network connections in twitter download tweetbubble from the chrome store to learn more about dr kerne's research visit the interface ecology lab website
144,the 2014 and 2015 summer institutes on flooding brings together domain experts from invited federal state municipal and ngo stakeholder agencies with academics and industry in a highly interactive visioneering format with talks demonstrations and walkthroughs at disaster city register now: summer institute on flooding with prizes for posters june 3-5 2014 disaster city sponsored by the center for emergency informatics researchers will come away with an understanding of the information needs of stakeholders and the state of the practice agencies will be exposed to emerging information technologies from industry and academia together the group will create agency-university-industry partnerships and produce a multi-disciplinary roadmap for research development and technology transfer on all aspects of flooding and coastal resilience the texas a&m community is invited to participate and present! there will be a poster session on june 4 with awards of $500 for 1st place $300 for 2nd and $200 for 3rd schedule: june 3 practitioner talks and process walkthroughs 8am-8pm including working dinner june 4 practitioner talks continued selected academic and industry short presentations technology demonstrations 8am-8pm including working dinner june 5 follow up day for industry for related one-on-one meetings with teex product development center tees center for applied technology tees small business program research valley partnership for economic development and lone star uas center at texas a&m by appointmentjune 5 training for the roboticists without borders program members space is limited so apply now by contacting kimberly mallett at kimberly@csetamuedu
145,for the second consecutive year a graduate student from the department of aerospace engineering has been awarded a graduate research fellowship program fellowship from the national science foundation steven anderson a graduate student working on his doctoral degree in aerospace engineering has been named one of the 2014 winners the nsf graduate research fellowship program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in nsf-supported science technology engineering and mathematics-based masters and doctoral degrees at accredited united states institutions as the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind the grfp has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers competition is fierce and selection is based on outstanding abilities and accomplishments as well as the potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the us science and engineering enterprise with only 12 aerospace engineering students nationally being selected each year these awardees share in the prestige and opportunities that become available when they are chosen fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $32 000 along with a $12 000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees (paid to the institution) opportunities for international research and professional development and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited us institution of graduate education they choose andersons field of research is plasma-based space propulsion under the guidance of dr sharath girimajii professor in the department of aerospace engineering
146,conocophillips (nyse: cop) and texas a&m university recently announced a $6 million contribution by conocophillips to the universitys dwight look college of engineering the multi-year donation will support construction of the new engineering education complex (eec) during an event at the companys houston headquarters conocophillips chairman and chief executive officer ryan lance presented the check to dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university an educated workforce drives our global economic future and were proud to continue to support some of the best and brightest minds through this donation said lance texas a&m consistently delivers top-tier graduates that continually make a substantial impact within our company and around the world the eec will be dedicated solely to undergraduate engineering education and will be built adjacent to the existing zachry engineering center which will be renovated during the new construction project when completed the two centers will feature 600 000 square feet of state-of-the-art learning space an innovative learning environment the complex will feature flexible classrooms design and fabrication shared-use laboratories collaborative space tutoring services and will be the hub of undergraduate engineering in recognition of the companys support the eec lobby will be designated as the conocophillips atrium we are appreciative of conocophillips for its continued support of texas a&m engineering and for sharing our vision in this endeavor to provide a unique educational environment for our undergraduate students said banks these new facilities will allow for hands-on experiential learning and access to a wide range of multidisciplinary learning opportunities this new approach to engineering education will produce technology leaders who are uniquely prepared to address tomorrows challenges conocophillips remains a committed supporter of the look college and texas a&m university giving more than $25 million to the university during the past 49 years by supporting education charitable giving volunteerism and civic leadership the company helps build skills critical for the future through this and other educational contributions conocophillips aims to advance research in secondary and technical education; support diversity of the talent pool in math science and engineering disciplines; and improve effectiveness of primary education about conocophillips conocophillips is the worlds largest independent e&p company based on production and proved reserves headquartered in houston texas conocophillips had operations and activities in 27 countries $54 billion in annual revenue $118 billion of total assets and approximately 18 400 employees as of dec 31 2013 production from continuing operations averaged 1 502 mboed in 2013 and preliminary proved reserves were 89 billion boe as of dec 31 2013 for more information go to wwwconocophillipscom contacts conocophillips andrea urbanek 281-293-3472 andreaurbanek@copcom dwight look college of engineering pam green 979-845-4960 p-green@tamuedu
147,four aggies three of whom took first place at the facebook texas regional hackathon last month will compete again at la hacks on april 11-13 this 36-hour long hackathon is being held at ucla where the team eleni mijalis bob timm walter pospick and rafael moreno will compete against 1 500 other hackers from across the country this event is much larger than the previous hackathon held in austin which was hosted by facebook in its office which had a cap of 120 people la hacks is sponsored by 60 different companies and more than 1 200 people are expected to attend and compete this event with how large it is brings in some of the best innovators in the industry said timm a sophomore computer science major many of the la hack judges are pioneers and leaders in their industry it is a great medium between engineering students and potential careers in the early days of facebook when someone had an idea for the company they would stay up all night and build a prototype as facebook grew hackathons became organized events where people from around the country could do the same while also being in a learning environment surrounded by peers this atmosphere provides opportunities for computer engineers of all backgrounds to collaborate together and efficiently execute ideas as a team i like going to these events for two reasons said moreno number one being that the computer science curriculum does a great job of giving you the critical thinking skills and the foundation for being a great developer but at these events you are forced to go out of your comfort zone to build something on a platform that you have never used such as android ios a web app windows phone etc the impact of these hackathons continues to grow as more and more students and engineers compete mijalis timm pospick and moreno will have 36 hours to show la hacks what texas a&m is all about
148,dr gretchen miller assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has received a 2014 national science foundation (nsf) career award for her research in groundwater management the nsf awards the prestigious career grants to outstanding junior faculty members to help them advance their research and teaching activities millers project science for sustainable and resilient groundwater management will continue through may 2019 i am excited to be receiving the career award said miller groundwater is a critical natural resource particularly for the state of texas and it is important that we continue to develop smart ways of managing it ones that balance economic social and environmental needs in the near future population growth and increased urbanization will have large impacts on our consumption of groundwater while climate change will affect its supply in uncertain ways it is critical that we have both the scientific tools to help inform our decision making and the professionals trained to address these issues in a holistic fashion the research in millers project has three specific goals the first is to improve the detection and modeling of groundwater dependent ecosystems such as those associated with springs riparian areas and deep-rooted vegetation the second is to test and create improved metrics for quantifying sustainability and resilience of groundwater resources which would be applied to ratings systems similar to leed certification for buildings the project will then explore management strategies for optimizing groundwater withdrawals to reduce impacts on ecosystems and prevent water system failures; new methods for improved timing and location of pumping as well as aquifer storage and recovery will be developed along with these research aims the project will address the teaching of sustainable engineering practices across the civil engineering curriculum and offer new continuing education opportunities for groundwater managers consultants and policy makers miller received her phd in civil and environmental engineering from the university of california-berkeley in 2009 and joined the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m the same year her teaching and research interests include groundwater ecohydrology vadose zone hydrology groundwater-soil-plat atmosphere interactions and earth systems modeling the nsf established the career program to support junior faculty within the context of their overall career development combining in a single program the support of research and education of the highest quality in the broadest sense through this program the nsf emphasizes the importance of the early development of academic careers dedicated to stimulating the discovery process in which the excitement of research is enhanced by inspired teaching and enthusiastic learning for more on the nsf and the career program visit http://wwwnsfgov
149,a high school student working in an engineering research lab has won several awards for her researchshreya shankar a junior at a&m consolidated high school began working in june 2013 on a research project titled supporting 3-dimensional movement through etherware a middleware for networked control systems in the cyber-physical systems lab of professor p r kumar the college of engineering chair in computer engineering working under the supervision of his phd student woo-hyun ko since she began her research shankar has won the intel excellence in computer science award the us navy science award the yale science and engineering association award the society of women engineers award and the energy day academic awardshankars honors also include being one of the 40 students worldwide to be selected for the 2013 stanford university mathematics camp and being chosen as one of the 30 students worldwide to be chosen for catapult a business incubator program at harvard university she also is an american invitational mathematics exam qualifier plays first violin in varsity orchestra and represents her school in swimming she plans to major in computer science and engineering in college
150,"the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university honored six alumni april 3 during the outstanding alumni awards banquet receiving the outstanding alumni honor award were william a coskey 75 chairman ceo and president of englobal corporation; mark a fischer 72 chairman ceo and president of chaparral energy inc; gregory e hall 82 president of drillers supply international; and george k hickox 80 general partner of heller hickox & co receiving the outstanding early professional achievement alumni honor award were ashok gowda 98 president of biotex and coo of visualase; and chris jones 99 director of strategic technology development of irobot corporation william a coskey 75 chairman ceo and president englobal corporation coskey is the founder of houston-based englobal corporation and currently serves as the companys chairman and chief executive officer englobal is a leading provider of engineering automation and project services to all sectors of the energy industry throughout the united states and internationally the companys engineering segment provides consulting services for the development management and execution of client projects requiring professional engineering construction management and related support functions englobal's automation segment offers a wide range of services dedicated to the implementation of automation control and process analytical systems the companys government services group specializes in the turnkey installation and maintenance of automated fuel handling facilities for branches of the us military at installations worldwide coskey a 1975 summa cum laude graduate of texas a&m university received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering his career has been marked by entrepreneurship as both a founder and investor in numerous oil industry service firms coskey has served on the texas a&m university electrical engineering department advisory council since 1999 and as chairman of the council since 2006 mark a fischer 72 chairman ceo and president chaparral energy inc fischer graduated from texas a&m university in 1972 with a bachelors degree with honors in aerospace engineering he began his career with humble oil company now exxon company usa in 1988 fischer founded chaparral energy inc as a privately held independent oil and gas production and exploration company with headquarters in oklahoma city he has served as its chairman chief executive officer and president since its inception chaparral energy under fischers guidance has been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies and has been an oklahoma city metro 50 award winner eight times and texas a&m aggie 100 award winner four times fischer is a member of the society of petroleum engineers and the american petroleum institute and has served as a director of the api from 1984-1986 in 2012 fischer was a national finalist for the ernest and young entrepreneur of the year award he sits on several non-profit organization boards including the boy scouts of america and he is currently serving on the dwight look college of engineering advisory council and the board of the association of former students for texas a&m gregory e hall 82 president drillers supply international hall developed the drilling plan that freed 33 chilean miners trapped underground after a copper-gold mine caved in the atacama desert chile on aug 5 2010 hall worked on the complex rescue plan for months before putting the plan into action on oct 12 2010 all 33 miners were brought to the surface safely he is also the owner and chief executive officer of drillers supply international (dsi) hall started dsi in 1986 in houston seven years later he opened the branch drillers supply sa in chile and another branch of dsi in minnesota in 2000 hall has received many accolades and awards such as the 1991 presidential ""e"" award for export excellence from president hw bush and the aggie 100 award in 2008 for his company being one of the 100 fastest growing companies owned by a texas a&m alumni he received his degree in engineering technology from texas a&m george k hickox 80 general partner heller hickox & co hickox has been general partner in the private equity firm of heller hickox & co since 1991 the partnership was formed to make oil and gas company equity investments and is focused on transactions involving recapitalizations restructurings bankruptcy workouts and special situations hickox joined texas oil and gas corporation in 1981 where he held both drilling and production engineering positions in 1983 he accepted a position at interfirst bank houston na as assistant vice president in the energy lending group and subsequently worked in the banks energy loan workout group hickox worked in investment banking and energy finance from 1986 until forming his current partnership hickox served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the wiser oil company from june 2000 until the sale of the company in june 2004 and presently serves as a director of natco group inc and as a director and officer of several other private companies hickox received a bachelors degree in geology in 1980 and a bachelors degree in petroleum engineering in 1981 both from texas a&m university and an mba in finance from the university of houston in 1985 hickox is a member of the american association of petroleum geologists the society of petroleum engineers and the industry board of the department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university ashok gowda 98 president biotex and coo visualase gowda received his bachelors degree in biomedical engineering from vanderbilt university in 1991 and his masters and doctoral degrees in bioengineering from texas a&m university in 1994 and 1998 respectively while completing his graduate work he co-founded a medical technology incubator biotex inc to date under his direction as president of biotex the company has raised more than $20 million in funding through various grant mechanisms successfully licensed a number of technologies spun-out two separate commercial stage companies visualase inc and base pair biotechnologies and continues to thrive as a medical device research development and manufacturing firm gowda has served as principal investigator on more than 15 national institute of health grants has authored more than 40 peer reviewed publications and is an inventor on more than 20 issued patents he continues to direct research and development efforts at biotex while also serving as chief operating officer for visualase where he oversees numerous aspects of the companys commercial efforts chris jones 99 director of strategic technology development irobot corporation jones is the director of strategic technology at irobot corporation he has more than 15 years of experience in robotics research and development and got his start in robotics at texas a&m university in 1997 as an undergraduate working for dr nancy amato his contributions to robotics have included developments in the areas of autonomous robotic systems natural interfaces for intuitive human-robot interaction and novel robotic mobility and manipulation systems in addition to multiple technology and leadership roles at irobot since 2005 he has been involved in robotics research and development at the center for robotics and embedded systems at the university of southern california the intelligent systems and robotics center at sandia national laboratories and the robotics research lab at texas a&m jones also co-founded sbir source a web-based platform empowering small high-tech businesses and researchers to find and win funding through the federal small business innovation research (sbir) program to commercialize their technology and grow their business he received his bachelors degree in computer engineering from texas a&m and his masters and doctoral degrees in computer science from the university of southern california"
151,the promise of nanoparticles stems from their potential to modify the physical and mechanical properties of polymers for diverse applications such as photovoltaic cells sensors and separation membranes methods currently used to create desired nanostructure however rely on complex and energy-intensive techniques such as layer-by-layer or patterning approaches which are limited in scale and often have poor stability publishing in nature communications (doi: 101038/ncomms4589) dr minhao wong a former graduate research assistant in the polymer technology center of dr h-j sue department of materials science and engineering and dr ryohei ishige of i2cner (international institute for carbon-neutral energy research) kyushu university in japan have developed a simple approach of applying a surface coating of thin flat nanoplatelets using a common spray gun such as can be purchased off-the-shelf from an art supply store to create a surface coating in which nanoplatelets spontaneously self-assemble into nano-walls the nano-walls act as rigid barriers that prevent oxygen gas from reaching the surface and are effective at low and high humidity levels using this scalable and simple processing method researchers have achieved extremely fine and highly ordered nano-scale features that are conventionally achieved with complex and energy-intensive manufacturing techniques this new technology is expected to be immediately useful in any application where blocking oxygen molecules is important such as anti-corrosion paints for metal surfaces the technique is simple and could be easily extended to other functional nanosheets to understand this process imagine a bricklayer who dumps a barrow of bricks and the bricks spontaneously build up into a wall on their own a similar process of self-assembly occurs for the nanoplatelets to create nano-walls that increase the barrier efficiency of the film by more than twenty times the advantage of the spray-coating method is its simplicity it is now possible to achieve very fine and highly ordered nanoscale features that are usually seen only through the use of photolithographic manufacturing techniques this means that the same degree of order can be achieved without the need for clean room facilities in the future researchers hope to adjust the composition of the nanoplatelets to control the passage of gas molecules through the nano-wall for very inexpensive yet efficient gas separation membranes useful in industrial processes they are also interested in introducing new functionalities such as electrical conductivity or sensitivity to magnetic fields so that large-area smart nano-walls can be fabricated many different kinds of nanoplatelets may potentially be used with this technology so there are potentially countless possibilities for applications in addition incorporating different nanoplatelets to create hierarchical structures with improved properties is seen as another promising application for this technology for more information dr h-j sue department of materials science and engineering polymer technology laboratory
152,dr jodie lutkenhaus the william and ruth neely faculty fellow in chemical engineering and an assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a 3m nontenured faculty award lutkenhaus was recognized for her work on electroactive polymers for energy storage 3m provides this grant to exemplary new faculty in order to help them advance their careers and achieve tenure in 2011 lutkenhaus received the prestigious faculty early career development (career) award sponsored by the national science foundation (nsf) she has also received the us air force office of scientific research (afsor) young investigator award (yip) earlier this year lutkenhaus was a presenter at the polymeric materials science and engineering young investigators symposium at the spring 2014 american chemical society meeting she was one of 13 individuals selected to present lutkenhaus joined the faculty at texas a&m in 2010 and her research interests focus on designing organic thin films and nanostructures to enable the development of novel organic energy systems and smart coatings
153,dr krishna narayanan will receive the 2014 professional progress in engineering award from the college of engineering at iowa state university on april 10 the award was created to recognize outstanding professional progress personal development and distinguished community service by iowa state engineering alumni under the age of 46 narayanan received his ms from iowa state in 1994 he currently is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and serves as the departments director of graduate studies his research interests are in information theory coding theory and signal processing with applications to wireless networks and data storage he has authored more than 110 peer-reviewed papers he says he is passionate about teaching and is particularly interested in using technology to personalize the educational experience of students he also has taught graduate and undergraduate level courses on digital communications signals and systems; both basic and advanced channel coding; information theory and wireless communications narayanan has been recognized with a variety of awards for both his teaching and research including the 2012 texas a&m association of former students college level teaching award the 2009 halliburton professorship the 2006 best paper award from the data storage technical committee within the ieee communications society the 2002 outstanding professor award from the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m the 2001 outstanding young faculty award from the college of engineering at texas a&m and the 2001 national science foundation career award contributed by jessi strawn
154,helen and dennis sander of houston recently endowed the helen and dennis sander 62 scholarship in civil engineering the sanders have supported texas a&m universitys athletic and academic programs for more than 35 years their scholarship is focused on assisting in-state undergraduate students who are active members of the corp of cadets dennis and helens gift will provide important support for undergraduate students at texas a&m said dr robin autenrieth interim department head of the zachry department of civil engineering their scholarship will truly make an impact on many aggies pursuing their degree in civil engineering dennis is a two-time past president and current member of the board of directors for the american council of engineering companies (houston) a board member of the harris-galveston subsidence district as well as a past board member of the houston regional mobility association he also is a 2012 recipient of the zachry department of civil engineerings distinguished graduate award dennis received his bachelors degree in civil engineering and business administration in 1962 he and helen have two children kelly and john
155,from january 15 through february 16 2014 nuclear engineering phd student mathew swinney presented a series of 27 lectures on nuclear safeguards and security to a group of 11 first-year master's degree students at pandit deendayal petroleum university (pdpu) in india the program is primarily supported by the us department of state through the partnership for nuclear security (pns) and texas a&m university through the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) this is the third time that nsspi has sent a phd student to pdpu to present lectures on nuclear safeguards and security the intent of the program is to introduce the pdpu students to nuclear security topics that are not currently covered in their university's nuclear engineering curriculum but are considered to be of vital importance to india's next generation of nuclear professionals the overwhelming majority of the lecture material presented at pdpu was adapted from three courses taught annually at texas a&m by nsspi faculty: nuclear nonproliferation (nuen 650) nuclear fuel cycles and safeguards systems (nuen 651) and nuclear security system design (nuen 489) some material from the nuclear materials measurements course (nuen 605) was also incorporated into the curriculum swinney's interaction with pdpu faculty during his trip also served to help their program begin to incorporate nuclear safeguards and security material into their own curriculum because pdpu has had the unique privilege of collaborating with nsspi for several years they are expected to become a center of expertise in india with regard to nuclear security and safeguards during the course of the lecture series pdpu also hosted mr daniel miller from pns nsspi faculty member dr sunil chirayath and dr robert finch from sandia national laboratories who met with pdpu faculty to discuss further collaborations between pns nsspi sandia and pdpu texas a&m and pdpu signed a memorandum of agreement in january 2013 to support interactions between pdpu and the texas a&m department of nuclear engineering nsspi and the nuclear power institute (npi) mathew swinney is a phd student in the texas a&m department of nuclear engineering and nsspi working with dr chirayath on research related to the experimental and computational assessment of unique forensics signatures in plutonium from uranium irradiated in fast reactor blankets his research is sponsored by the national science foundation and the domestic nuclear detection office (dndo) under their academic research initiative
156,"student research week 2014 was held march 2428 at texas a&m university department of computer science and engineering senior capstone design students ruiz akpan stephen chen and stephen ten eyck took second place in the poster competition's mathematics/statistics/computer science category with their project called spiral spiral is a revisualization of the modern calender and is ""inspired by future concept visions that are occasionally released by corning microsoft and other groups "" said the three spiral designers ""spiral is a proof of concept that focuses on giving users a new perspective of calendars by steering them away from the traditional grid-like design and towards a new one that is different yet intuitive""their design choices included diagonal lines rings and spirals the students ultimately went with a 3d tunnel-like spiral which visualizes time as continuous but also repetitive under the supervision of sketch recognition lab director dr tracy hammond and teaching assistant paul teale the capstone group developed a spiral calendar that can be used from a web browser without downloading unnecessary software spiral is a work in progress: chrome is currently the only browser supported but this capstone group will be considering others and the group will be putting together a user study where the participants will use touch gestures on a flat surface ruiz akpan is a computer science student whose skills include computer maintenance and repair game development android apps and arcade controller building and customization he will be graduating this may and plans to work for ibm as a software engineer last summer stephen (te yang) chen interned with thomson reuters the world's leading news and information company in quality analysis stephen's current project priority is in perfecting the spiral calendar he will get his bs degree in computer science in august 2014 computer science senior stephen ten eyck currently works as a computer systems assistant for texas a&m's department of chemistry in 2013 he interned for homeaway the world's leading online marketplace for the vacation rental industry where he developed and launched a web application to serve as an end to end testing dashboard photo: (l-r) stephen chen ruiz akpan and stephen ten eyck with spiral"
157,if youre new to programming with labview or looking to improve your existing skills the labview boot camp is a free hands-on course that introduces you to graphical programming with labview system design software youll learn fundamental skills to develop data acquisition instrument control data logging and measurement analysis applications as well as have an opportunity to take the certified labview associate developer (clad) exam a globally recognized entry-level certification exam for free
158,"randall p shumaker director of the institute for simulation and training (ist) at the university of central florida will present his talk entitled ""human-robot collaboration "" as part of the emergency informatics distinguished lecture series the lecture will be held on friday april 11 2014 at 9:00 am in room 333 of the hr bright building on the texas a&m university campus dr shumaker will discuss ist's research into allowing robots to collaborate naturally with humans in complex high consequence situations ""ist is among the largest and most diverse research groups in the us dealing with applications of modeling and simulation research in a wide range of applications "" said dr shumaker it has a staff of 250 dr shumaker's research is in the areas of human-agent interaction adaptive systems and biomorphic computing he has a phd in computer science from the university of pennsylvania and is a registered professional engineer"
159,the sae aero design team from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won first place overall in the regular class of the international sae aero design west competition in fort worth tx over the weekend of march 28 – 30 2014 competing against 33 schools from five countries the team also took first place in oral presentation and a second place in the design report competition the 2014 team was led by technical captain russell trahan along with business captain and stability & control lead brookelynn russey aerodynamics lead chris lizaso structures lead armando padilla and metrology & operations lead chris bertagne the is just the sixth year that the sae aero design team from texas a&m has competed and the competition was the most exciting and dramatic in the teams history the sae aero design competition is intended to provide undergraduate and graduate engineering students with a real-life engineering challenge: design build and fly an original r/c aircraft capable of lifting as much weight as possible within the competitions design constraints the competition has been designed to provide exposure to the kinds of situations that engineers face in their real-life work environment first and foremost a design competition students find themselves performing trade studies and making compromises to arrive at a design solution that will optimally meet the mission requirements while still conforming to the configuration limitations the overall score is a combination of three scores: the oral presentation the design report and the flight performance the flight performance consists of 5 rounds where the teams score points for each successful flight after three rounds texas a&m had a substantial 32 point lead however in round four texas a&m crashed and destroyed the entire front of their aircraft another team then lifted over twice the payload of any other team and jumped to 1st place with an 8 point lead the aggies pulled together and repaired the whole front of the aircraft including all the mountings for the electronics motor and landing gear in the fifth round the leading team crashed texas a&m had one chance to lift enough weight to win the plane landed hard and the motor mount fell off however the rules state that the flight is successful if you can pick up the aircraft all in one piece the motor held on by two wires texas a&m won first place overall by 13 points with a total score of 166 points team members include chris lizaso austin mcshan alex voss gabino torres kevin hainline nico hurst brookelyn russey russell trahan armando padilla akshay shankar taylor thomas nick page chris bertagne chase lookofsky and taylor dickens all under the direction of dr suman chakravorty associate professor in the aerospace department
160,bethany mayer senior vice president and general manager of hp networking szu-wei wang szu-hsuan lin and mu-fen hsieh hp partnered with texas a&m university and geeks without bounds an accelerator for humanitarian projects to host a code-a-thon with the challenge to create an application to help manage peoples health the event hack for health was open to texas a&m students on november 15 and 16 2013 the winning team developed baby allergy journal a user-friendly website that helps parents manage their childrens allergies electronically and record symptoms triggers and treatments the team was made up of three students: szu wei wang a computer science masters student; szu hsuan lin a doctoral candidate at the texas a&m health science center school of rural public health and mu-fen hsieh a computer science doctoral student the winning team was awarded an all-expense paid trip to san francisco where the team attended the womens innovation council dinner on february 11 the womens innovation council was founded in 2013 by senior vice president and general manager of hp networking bethany mayer the council brings together leaders across industries to share ideas about how to use technology to benefit their communities the team from texas a&m showcased its website to the council and each team member was awarded a $1 000 hp gift card and a certificate of participation upon return from california the team is working to develop its application further with startup aggieland a student-run business accelerator for students to learn more about hack for health watch the video from the code-a-thon
161,dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs and the royce e wisenbaker professor in the department of computer science and engineering has been invited by the national research council (nrc) to join the committee on women in science engineering and medicine (cwsem) cwsem focuses on the education and employment of women scientists and engineers the committees mandate is to coordinate monitor and advocate action to increase participation of women in science engineering and medicine dr taylor will serve a two-year term and will work with the committee to investigate many aspects of womens education and employment in science engineering and medicine the committee will focus on womens career pathways and the gender differences in recruitment retention and advancement in addition the committee will assist in dispersing information about mentoring sponsorship and work-life balance and promote women to join technical fields and participate globally the committee is chaired by rita r colwell a member of the national academy of science and distinguished university professor at the university of maryland college park and johns hopkins university bloomberg school of public health
162,"the texas a&m nuclear engineering department proposal was chosen to host the 2015 ans student conference the decision was announced at the most recent student conference at pennsylvania state university anywhere from 550-650 students and professionals attend these conferences each year very similar to the ans conference events at the student conference include paper competitions workshops panels podium and poster sessions a career fair tours socials and speakers the students who made up the proposal committee are: timothy crook (graduate conference co-chair) sarah camba (undergraduate conference co-chair) lane carasik (technical director) matthew fitzmaurice (logistics director) natalie galegar (marketing director) william gordon (finance director) julien clayton (finance liaison) philip jones (sessions coordinator) kevin miller (transportation coordinator) tommy ondara (hospitality coordinator) cody orsak (professional/industry coordinator) marina pulley (activities coordinator) shane seabolt (website coordinator) laura sudderth (workshop coordinator) elizabeth tindle (student/university coordinator) ""[hosting] is a huge undertaking winning just goes to show the strength of our committee in the long run we took all of the feedback from our [2014] proposal that resulted in an initial dead tie between texas a&m and penn state and made a proposal that won handily this time around our theme is 'powering tomorrow together ' as we recognize progress and prosperity in nuclear science and technology is a global undertaking we are so excited to be hosting all of our friends and colleagues in texas and look forward to showing them all this great state school and department have to offer to the world "" crook said while at the conference graduate student timothy crook was also awarded best paper in thermal hydraulics the 2015 conference's specific date is to be determined but will take place either the last weekend of march or the first two weekends in april fun fact: texas a&m hosted the conference in 2001 and 2008 and is the only school to host the conference three times in the past 15 years gig 'em! the contact email for the conference is ansstudentconference2015@gmailcom and the twitter handle is @ansstucon"
163,us news & world report ranks texas a&m nuclear engineering at no 2 among public institutions and no 3 overall nationally this new ranking is a step up from last year's ranking the dwight look college of engineering ranked no 7 among public institutions and no 11 overall the department would like to thank all colleagues students and staff who played a part in fulfilling the department's vision of maintaining a nationally and internationally recognized program providing students with a dynamic education that is constantly challenging and well-rounded will always be a top priority see methodology for how these rankings are determined
164,james m donnell has been appointed professor of engineering practice and william e dark '54 faculty fellow by dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering the course taught by donnell will be designed to enhance and impact entrepreneurship in engineering education in the department of mechanical engineering
165,two department of computer science and engineering faculty members were among the recipients of the 2013-2014 texas a&m college of engineering teaching service and contribution awards dr lawrence rauchwerger was recognized for his overall contribution in teaching scholarly activities and professional service to the college of engineering by being named as the herbert h richardson faculty fellow dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna received the barbara & ralph cox 53 college of engineering faculty fellow award for his development of a strong record of teaching research and service professors rauchwerger and gutierrez-osuna will receive monetary gifts and award plaques at the college of engineering's awards banquet on may 1 2014 dr rauchwerger is co-director of parasol lab a research facility for the development of algorithms and applications and manager of the lab's software and systems group he is a speaker in the acm distinguished speakers program and the deputy director of the institute of applied mathematics and computational sciences at texas a&m among his many awards are the halliburton fellowship award ibm faculty award tees fellow awards (2002 2005) and nsf career award before joining the cse faculty in 1996 dr rauchwerger was a visiting assistant professor at the center for supercomputing r&d at the university of illinois he holds a bachelors in electronic engineering from the polytechnic institute in romania an ms in electrical engineering from stanford university and a phd in computer science from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign his research interests include compilers for parallel and distributed computing parallel and distributed c ++ libraries adaptive runtime optimizations and architectures for parallel computingdr gutierrez-osuna is the director of the perception sensing and instrumentation lab which studies how man-made and biological sensory systems interact with learn from and adapt to their environments his many honors include the nsf career award spain's ministry of education and science ramón y cajal award tenneco meritorious teaching award the 2009 barbara and ralph cox '53 faculty fellow award and the association of former students college-level distinguished teaching award in 2002 dr gutierrez-osuna came to cse from wright state university he has a bs in electrical engineering from universidad politecnica de madrid an ms in computer engineering and a phd in computer engineering from north carolina state university dr gutierrez-osuna's research interests are in the areas of intelligent sensors machine olfaction speech processing wearable sensors machine learning biologically-inspired computation multimodal interfaces mobile robotics
166,"george k hickox jr '81 received the dwight look college of engineering outstanding alumni honor award on april 3 for his distinguished career and leadership within the oil and gas industry; for his continued support of texas a&m university through his service to the harold vance department of petroleum engineering the dwight look college of engineering and texas a&m foundation; for his commitment to education through numerous contributions to texas a&m university hickox is shown in the photo (standing) with his parents virginia and george sr the outstanding alumni honor award was established in 1981 to recognize engineering graduates of texas a&m university who have brought honor to their profession by outstanding leadership in engineering activities by enhancing the professional development of engineers or by their creativity or ingenuity in the field of engineering ""congratulations to george on becoming the latest petroleum engineering alumnus to be named one of the outstanding alumni of the college of engineering said dan hill head of the department of petroleum engineering committed to higher education hickox currently serves on the texas a&m foundation board of trustees the texas a&m foundation is an independent nonprofit organization that raises money to support academics and student leadership programs at the university prior to this he served as an advisory member to the texas a&m foundations investment committee and was a member of the industry board of texas a&m universitys department of petroleum engineering for many years hickox also established the endowed george k hickox jr professorship in petroleum engineering through the texas a&m foundation a few years ago he was inducted into the harold vance department of petroleum engineerings academy of distinguished graduates in september 2011 after receiving bachelors degrees with honors in geology and petroleum engineering from texas a&m university in 1980 and 1981 hickox earned a masters degree in business administration from the university of houston in 1985 since 1991 he has been a general partner of philadelphia-based heller hickox & co a partnership that invests in and sponsors oil- and gas-related transactions such as restructurings recapitalizations and acquisitions of producing properties pipelines gathering systems and oil field service companies from his graduation from texas a&m in 1981 until now hickox has filled such positions as drilling and production engineer for an oil and gas corporation assistant vice president in an energy lending group for a banking firm and worked in investment banking and energy finance until he formed his present partnership he presently serves as a director and officer of several private oil and gas and oilfield service companies he is a member of the american association of petroleum geologists and the society of petroleum engineers"
167,tony akl and brian cummins graduate students in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university each have been named recipient of the 2014 distinguished graduate award for excellence in research-doctoral by the association of former students at texas a&m akl and cummins are advised by professor and department head gerard cote as honorees they each will receive a watch and framed certificate the association of former students at texas a&m each year recognizes graduate students in one of three categories: excellence in research-doctoral excellence in research-masters and excellence in teaching the award recipients are chosen by a panel of reviewers which includes faculty and administrators akl has maintained a 40 gpa while working as a graduate research assistant in the optical biosensing laboratory his research focuses on developing optical imaging and sensing systems for disease detection and monitoring his graduate work at texas a&m has involved the design and testing of an implantable sensor for monitoring organ transplants and detecting graft complications at an early stage after graduating akl intends to continue his research career in biomedical optics with a focus on wearable and implantable devices for health and fitness applications akl has published seven original refereed journal articles with two more in review and 22 conference proceedings and presentations at national and international meetings his work has resulted in two patent applications and he was awarded numerous national and international awards including the 2012 george w kunze endowed graduate award for excellence in academics research and service the 2013 outstanding engineering graduate student and two scholarships from the international society for optics and photonics for his potential contributions to the field of optics cummins doctoral work focused on the development of a fluorescent affinity-based glucose sensor to continuously track glucose concentrations in the interstitial fluid his work has resulted in several publications and presentations and a provisional patent on this technology is being converted into a full utility patent to translate this technology into a commercial product cummins co-founded glucid innovations cummins recently accepted a postdoctoral association position at north carolina state university to develop a point-of-surgery clinical test for parathyroid hormone concentrations in the blood and is collaborating with surgeons at the medical school at the university of north carolina during his graduate career cummins received the texas a&m merit fellowship and was a co-pi on a grant that was named a finalist for the student technology prize in primary healthcare center for integration of medicine & innovative technology cummins also received a summer grant from the whitaker foundation to join the labs of professor duncan graham and professor david birch at the university of strathclyde in glasgow as a visiting researcher
168,dr pramod khargonekar assistant director of the directorate of engineering at the national science foundation presented the fowler distinguished lecture series in mechanical engineering on march 26 2014 in the image above dr kargonekar (extreme left) is presented a certificate by the fowler brothers don fowler '66 (l) and joe fowler '68 (r) dr khargonekar speaks to a packed lecture hall he spoke about contemporary issues in engineering research and education - a view from nsf the lecture was aimed at stimulating a conversation about fundamental engineering research and contemporary engineering education challenges dr khargonekar discussed the key strategic issues in advancing the frontiers strengthening the innovation ecosystem and addressing the critical challenges in engineering education the slideshow of the lecture is available for viewing here dr khargonekar interacts with students the fowler distinguished lecture series is endowed by mr donald fowler ‘66 and dr joe fowler ‘68 this endowment allows the department of mechanical engineering to invite nationally recognized scientists engineers and researchers to texas a&m university to present lectures of interest to students faculty and industry representatives mr donald fowler is the owner of fowler energy company and is currently a member of the presidents council of advisors at texas a&m university dr joe fowler is the president and co-founder of stress engineering services inc and is a former member and chair of the department of mechanical engineering industrial advisory council
169,gerard l coté professor and head of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station's center for remote healthcare technology (crht) announced dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering crht which was established in 2013 has a vision of enabling healthy living by shifting the landscape from disease management to disease prevention the centers mission is to identify and overcome the unmet patient and health care provider needs through development of breakthrough health care devices technologies and information systems towards this goal the center serves as a focal point to facilitate significant advances in the remote health care field through next-generation wireless & remote medical information systems translational research in biomedical devices and development of innovative algorithms and test and measurement systems researchers at the center are not only developing innovative prototype and information systems but also engaging state and federal and regulatory agencies the medical community and the medical device industry in an effort to further the design development testing and deployment of those systems coté who joined texas a&m in 1991 is holder of the charles h and bettye barclay professorship in engineering in addition he holds the rank of fellow in the institute of electrical and electronics engineers the international society for optics and photonics the biomedical engineering society and the american institute for medical and biological engineering cotés primary research interests include the use of optics for medical diagnostics and biomedical sensing within the department of biomedical engineering he directs the optical biosensing laboratory which focuses on the design development theoretical modeling and analysis of optical sensors for biomedical measurements he also is founder of three houston-based medical device companies biotex inc visualase inc and base pair biotechnologies a recipient of numerous awards throughout his career for teaching and research cotés honors include receiving the mary jane kugel award from the juvenile diabetes research foundation international; the association of former students (afs) faculty distinguished achievement award in teaching; and the afs distinguished achievement award for research coté completed his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from rochester institute of technology and earned his masters degree and phd in bioengineering from the university of connecticut
170,texas a&m university will host a workshop entitled science of information days at rudder tower this week on april 3rd and 4th sponsored by the nsf science and technology center for science of information the workshop organized by professors p r kumar and alex sprintson of the computer engineering and systems group of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university will focus on information theory control theory and statistics in biological information processing it will begin on the evening of april 3 with a tutorial on engineering methods and information science in biology by professors xiaoning qian and byung-jun yoon of texas a&m reviewing biological mathematical and statistical analysis concepts qian will discuss molecular biology mathematical models for modeling biological networks and boolean networks while yoon will address modeling and analysis of biological networks and sequences on april 4 there will be talks by six distinguished researchers from multiple backgrounds professor m vidyasagar from the university of texas at dallas will discuss machine learning methods for the stratification of cancer patients professor john goutsias of john hopkins university will focus on statistical thermodynamic analysis reveals the emergence of critical behavior in complex reaction networks dr christina leslie of sloan kettering institute will discuss modeling gene regulatory programs in cancer professor todd coleman of the university of california at san diego will discuss statistical thermodynamic analysis reveals the emergence of critical behavior in complex reaction networks professor ed dougherty of texas a&m will discuss operator design in the presence of uncertainty and professor bani mallick of texas a&m will have a discussion on bayesian gaussian graphical models and their applications the workshop will conclude with a poster session on april 4
171,dr jay porter professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the american society for engineering educations 2014 frederick j berger award the award recognizes excellence in engineering technology to include leadership in curriculum scholarly contributions innovative techniques or administration in engineering technology education the award jointly recognizes the contributions of the individual and the school or department that demonstrates leadership in these areas porter was specifically cited for his innovative teaching extensive curricular development creative laboratory development and superb administrative leadership of the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program and his effective coupling of industry with academia porter joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1998 and is the program director of the eset program in that role he manages program resources mentors junior faculty and has successfully led curriculum restricting to merge two related programs into a single stream-lined program focused in the area of electronics product and system development this new focus has been primarily responsible for the 50 percent enrollment growth the program has experienced over the last three years the award will be presented at the annual awards ceremony of the 2014 asee annual conference and exposition on june 16 in indianapolis
172,dr yue kuo the dow chemical professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as a recipient of the 2014 innovation award that is given by texas a&m system technology commercialization the award recognizes individuals whose research and accomplishments exemplifies the spirit of innovations within the texas a&m university system kuo will receive his award during the patent and innovations award event on april 25 at the annenberg presidential conference center kuos research interests include nano and microelectronics with special interests in semiconductor materials processes and devices as well as think films and plasma technology; and new materials novel processes and advanced devices with the ultimate goal of creating high-performance highly reliable manufacturable devices for current and future applications among kuos developments is the fabrication of a new type of led that is capable of producing a wide spectrum light while operating for long periods of time at atmospheric conditions the leds could potentially be integrated into a computer processor dramatically increasing the speed by transporting signals optically rather than by electrons through copper lines they could also has use in various industries entertainment medical commercial and military areas due to the compact size and low cost
173,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr reza langari head of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution langari has served as interim department head since september 2013 langari earned bachelor's master's and doctoral degrees from the university of california berkeley he has worked for measurex corp integrated systems inc and insight development corp and has held research positions at nasa ames research center rockwell international science center united technologies research center as well as the us air force research laboratory he also was program coordinator for mechanical engineering and interim associate dean for academic affairs at texas a&m university at qatar langari's expertise is in the area of computational intelligence with application to mechatronic systems and industrial automation he has played a significant role in the development of theoretical foundations of fuzzy logic control and its applications to problems in mechanical engineering his work on stability of fuzzy control systems is widely recognized as pioneering the use of nonlinear systems analysis techniques to fuzzy logic additionally langari and his students have developed methodologies for modeling complex systems using fuzzy logic in addition to applying these methods to the control of magnetic bearing systems hybrid electric vehicles heavy vehicles and energy management and control systems langari is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) he is co-author of two textbooks and co-editor of two more textbooks he is a dedicated educator who has served as primary adviser and mentor to more than 55 master's and doctoral students
174,elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to the national institutes of health (nih) musculoskeletal tissue engineering study section of the center for scientific review cosgriff-hernandez was selected based on achievement in her scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of her research accomplishments publications in scientific journals and other significant scientific activities achievements and honors noted richard nakamura director of the center for scientific review in a congratulatory letter as a member of the health musculoskeletal tissue engineering study section cosgriff-hernandez will review grant applications submitted to the nih make recommendations on these applications to the appropriate nih national advisory council or board and survey the status of research in her respective field service on a study section also requires mature judgment and objectivity as well as the ability to work effectively in a group qualities we believe dr cosgriff-hernandez will bring to this important task nakamura stated cosgriff-hernandez who was named a charles h barclay jr 23 fellow earlier this year joined the department of biomedical engineering in 2007 her laboratory specializes in the development of hybrid material systems that combine the advantages of synthetic and natural polymers (eg collagen) to advance tissue-engineering design
175,the gulf nuclear energy infrastructure institute (gneii) at khalifa university's abu dhabi campus commemorated the conclusion of the fourth year of the program with a two-day symposium on nuclear safety security and safeguards may 18-19 the event concluded with a graduation ceremony for this year's participants nsspi deputy director dr david boyle who was among the gneii instructors and dr yassin hassan texas a&m university nuclear engineering department head attended the symposium and graduation ceremony on behalf of texas a&m and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) other attendees and speakers at the event included ambassador michael h corbin the united states of america ambassador to the uae ambassador hamad al kaabi permanent representative of the uae to the iaea dr tod laursen president of khalifa university and representatives from the us department of energy us department of state and sandia national labs gneii is the result of a partnership between khalifa university sandia national laboratories and texas a&m university through nsspi it was designed to give future nuclear energy leaders the necessary knowledge to support them in future decision making processes by providing an enhanced understanding of the safety safeguards and security aspects of nuclear energy as well as offering the international community a model for an educational institute that addresses the integrated 3s (safety safeguards and security) methodology this year's gneii fellows came from the federal authority of nuclear regulation (fanr) emirates nuclear energy corporation (enec) and the critical infrastructure and coastal protection authority (cicpa) all in the uae the instructors for the course were from khalifa university texas a&m sandia national laboratories and the world institute for nuclear security this year marked the beginning of a transition to gneii as an autonomous regionally-supported institution staffed entirely by khalifa university whereas in the past the faculty coordinator was dr michael schuller of texas a&m this year the faculty coordinator role was taken over by khalifa assistant professor dr alexander solodov this move is an important first step toward a fully self-sufficient gneii and the development of nuclear security expertise within the region the success of the gneii program has been recognized by the white house and this year the american nuclear society will be devoting a special session to gneii at its 2014 winter meeting in anaheim california participants in this session will include gneii graduates faculty and organizers
176,hieu truong a graduate student pursuing a phd in the department of mechanical engineering was recently awarded the prestigious nasa space technology research fellowship (nstrf) hieu is the president of vietnamese international student association (visa tamu) and vice president of sampe texas a&m chapter for the 2013-14 academic year the nstrf is awarded by nasas space technology mission directorate as a training grant based on a competitive selection of highly qualified applicants the fellowship provides the awardee $68 000 per year ($36 000 for stipend $9 000 for faculty advisor allowance $10 000 for an on-site experience at a nasa center or r&d lab of choice $1 000 health insurance and $12 000 for tuition and fees) and can be renewed for up to three additional years the selected candidates perform research at their respective campuses and at nasa centers and/or at nonprofit us research and development (r&d) laboratories in addition to the faculty advisor each student is matched with a nasa researcher who serves as the students research collaborator hieu has also been awarded the zonta international amelia earhart fellowship the amelia earhart fellowship is awarded annually to women pursuing phd/doctoral degrees in aerospace-related sciences or aerospace-related engineering and who demonstrate a superior academic record this fellowship was established in 1938 in honor of famed pilot and zontian amelia earhart and is awarded to 35 fellows around the globe each year hieu is also a recipient of the sampe student leader experience award this year hieus co-advisors at texas a&m are dr ozden ochoa and dr dimitris lagoudas she has been working under their guidance since she began her graduate studies at texas a&m in 2011 her work is part of the large multi-university research initiative (muri) project funded by the air force office of scientific research (afosr) titled synthesis characterization and modeling of functionally graded multifunctional hybrid multiscale composites for extreme environments hieus research is directed toward solving the increasing need for lightweight and multifunctional structures and materials that can operate and sustain within extreme environment conditions such as high temperature and pressure she designs and characterizes hybrid interfaces between shape memory alloys and high temperature polymer-matrix composite materials that aim to be robust and multifunctional with thermo-mechanical capability and with self-sensing and self-healing properties she develops computational models across the scales utilizing molecular dynamics micromechanics and finite element methods to assist the understanding and interpretation of the complex phenomena observed at the interface and help in designing the interface that meets these specific requirements
177,project members (left to right): mark mcginley james guzek junjing zhang dr ding zhu timothy jansen paola perez kathryn briggs and dr dan hill members not shown: anton kamenov (graduated) and dante guerra in 2012 rpsea the research partnership to secure energy for america funded a project involving advanced hydraulic fracturing technology for unconventional tight gas reservoirs and granted it to the texas a&m department of petroleum engineering with professors ding zhu and dan hill as the principal investigators this project focuses on how the conductivity of the sedimentary rock behaves differently for different shale formations tight gas/oil refers to the fact that hydrocarbon located within these ultra-low permeability reservoirs is not easily extracted the targeted formations within the scope of this research are barnett shale fayetteville shale eagle ford shale and marcellus shale the study began with collecting rock samples from each formation and then progressed to running fracture conductivity tests and measuring rock mechanics properties this led to developing an understanding of and creating simple methods to predict fracture conductivity behavior based on the rock mechanical and mineralogical properties as well as the fracturing design over the last two years this research has attracted many talented students from different backgrounds to the petroleum engineering department especially us students from other disciplines these students bring fresh ideas and strong research backgrounds with them which greatly enhance the progress of the research project over the last two years the project funding has supported eight graduate students who came from the united states china columbia and bulgaria these students work on the research as a team but individually target a specific aspect of it for their thesis or dissertation in return the project provided them a graduate degree along with hydraulic fracture knowledge honed researching abilities and strong teamwork skills the students are: mark mcginley bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering penn state; kathryn briggs bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering boston university; james guzek bachelor's degree in environmental engineering cornell university; junjing zhang master's degree and bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering china petroleum university; timothy jansen bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering texas a&m university; paola perez bachelor's degree in industrial engineering columbia; and dante guerra master's and bachelor's degree in civil engineering ohio state university
178,the inaugural engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research was presented to three texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) researchers and their research teams during the tees inaugural advisory board meeting held may 29 the award which is presented to tees researchers who have secured significant research grants of $1 million or more was given to dr richard j malak dr arum han and dr m sam mannan malak a tees assistant research engineer and an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering was awarded a national science foundation (nsf) grant through the emerging frontiers of research and innovation (efri) program malak and his team are working to discover new techniques for synthesizing complex 3d structures from programmable self-folding 2d elements malaks research team includes co-principal investigators dr dimitris lagoudas (aerospace engineering) dr nancy amato (computer science and engineering) dr ergun akleman (department of vizualization) dr daniel mcadams (mechanical engineering) and senior personnel dr darren hartl (aerospace engineering) han also was awarded a nsf efri award for his teams proposal microlage lab-on-chip photobioreactor platform for genetic screening and metabolic analysis leading to scalable biofuel production hans collaborators include dr tim devarenne (department of biochemistry and biophysics at texas a&m) dr david stern (boyce thompson institute for plant research) dr jefferson tester (cornell university) and dr tzachi samocha (texas a&m-corpus christi) mannan the director of the mary k oconnor process safety center and regents professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering is the principal investigator on a five-year agreement with the bureau of safety and environmental enforcement (bsee) to lead a team of texas institutions to manage the ocean energy safety institute the group will provide a forum for dialogue shared learning and cooperative research among academia government industry and other non-government organizations in offshore-related technologies and activities that help ensure environmentally safe and responsible offshore operations tees is partnering with texas a&m university the university of texas at austin and the university of houston to manage the institute
179,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recognized staff award winners during the 2014 faculty and staff awards banquet banks presented seven staff excellence awards a new employee award a key contributor award and the inaugural engineering team award it is important to recognize the contributions of our staff said banks these award recipients exemplify the core values that make our university and our state agencies so special excellence integrity leadership loyalty respect and selfless service receiving the staff excellence awards were: lori cardenas (engineering academic & student affairs); phaedra hopcus (harold vance department of petroleum engineering); joseph martinez (energy systems lab); sybil popham (department of computer science and engineering); theresa roberts (department of computer science and engineering); bruce veals (department of computer science and engineering); and dori wilson (department of mechanical engineering) ramona aly and bharani nagarathnam both with the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution received the new employee award and the key contributor award respectively the engineering team award was presented to the tees personnel services team of ann perez chantale deuel ninette portales nicole pottberg connie clarno and katie cates
180,john horn a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as a graduate scholar at lawrence livermore national laboratory (llnl) through the livermore graduate scholar program horn will become an official employee of lawrence livermore national laboratory while completing his doctoral degree from texas a&m as a program scholar horn will have the opportunity to conduct research of interest to llnl spending about 75 percent of the year at llnl while earning a highly competitive salary the laboratorys scholar program plays a critical role in helping recruit new scientific and engineering talent and a key feature of the program is the relationship between the student the university thesis advisor and the laboratory technical supervisor while at llnl horn will be supervised by jason ortega of the laboratorys engineering technologies division ortega also will serve on horns dissertation committee as a graduate student at texas a&m horn conducts research under the supervision of duncan maitland associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering horns research interests include using particle image velocimetry and laser induced fluoroscopy to study the effects of cardiovascular devices on the fluid dynamics and heat transfer of blood flow this scholar program provides a highly competitive fellowship that is available to all phd graduate students in us institutions with 10 or fewer awards made each year to students who have passed their preliminary or qualifying exam maitland noted john was selected based on his academic record and his strong preliminary work in multiscale multiphysics simulations of blood clotting in porous media maitland added given that the program also considers long-term employment potential john also was selected as someone that could excel in a national laboratory environment for more than half a century lawrence livermore national laboratory has applied cutting-edge science and technology to enhance national security established in 1952 at the height of the cold war to meet urgent national security needs the laboratory remains focused on ensuring the nations security through scientific research and engineering development responding to new threats in an ever-changing world and developing new technologies that will benefit people everywhere
181,dr thomas k ferris assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering gave a talk at the houston human factors and ergonomics societys seminar held recently at the annenberg presidential conference center in the george bush presidential library the title of ferris talk was supporting human information processing and multitasking performance via novel display design ferris an assistant professor in industrial and systems engineering and the director of the human factors & cognitive systems (hf&cs) lab at texas a&m university researches cognitive function and performance of humans in engineered systems and designs technologies to support humans in cognitively-challenging contexts ferris summarizes his research interests as the study of and design to support human cognition in sociotechnical engineered systems his primary focus involves human information processing and ways to support attention and task management to maximize multitasking performance his recent work includes investigating novel interface design techniques especially employing alternative display modalities such as the sense of touch other research interests include modeling humans in complex systems human error human automation interaction and the effects of stress and time pressure on cognitive functions such as attention and decision making ferris has interest and experience in applying his research to the domains of medicine (anesthesiology neonatal intensive care patient monitoring) military operations (command and control uv control and operations) aviation (cockpit automation air traffic control) and ground transportation in this seminar ferris introduced basic information processing theory and examples of key design contexts such as multitasking while driving and communicating basic instructions to a person under extreme stress he highlighted some past and current hf&cs research efforts to study information processing phenomena and to define a new measure of cognitive efficiency that can be used to describe communication effectiveness for systems involving human and technological components the talk also focused on the design of novel displays to support humans in these contexts
182,"dr david e claridge director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) energy systems laboratory and the leland jordan professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has joined the board of directors of the continental automated buildings association ""the addition of dr claridge and texas a&m to the caba board of directors is a great asset to our organization "" said ronald j zimmer president and ceo of caba ""caba has had an enduring tradition of working with universities dedicated to commercializing energy efficient building technologies we feel the addition of texas a&m in addition with dr claridges knowledge and expertise will greatly enrich the value of the association and its membership"" claridge is internationally known for his work on energy efficiency particularly for pioneering development of existing building commissioning by leading the development of continuous commissioning which has improved energy efficiency in hundreds of large buildings including universities hospitals offices and airports with a typical payback of two years he was also a major contributor to the methods used to measure energy savings in the international performance measurement and verification protocol and ashrae guideline 14 claridge holds eight patents is author of more than 350 journal and conference papers is a fellow of asme and of ashrae and in 2011 was named an honorary international member of the society of heating air-conditioning and sanitary engineers of japan in recognition of his contributions to energy efficiency in buildings he received his bachelors degree from walla walla college and masters and phd degrees from stanford university i am excited to have the opportunity to represent tees and texas a&m on the caba board stated claridge caba offers an excellent forum to collaborate and share research information trends and analysis cabas goals align well with the energy system labs commitment to improving energy efficiency and the instances of building commissioning"""
183,dr jodie lutkenhaus assistant professor and the william and ruth neely faculty fellow in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2014 kaneka junior faculty scholarship for her excellence in research the president of kaneka americas holding shinji mizusawa awarded the scholarship to lutkenhaus at the polymer technology industrial consortium meeting in april lutkenhaus joined the faculty at texas a&m in 2010 and her research interests focus on designing organic thin films and nanostructures to enable the development of novel organic energy systems and smart coatings areas of investigation include learning how polymer thin films behave in confinement; fabrication of polymer nanowires and nanotubules; polyelectrolytes and layer-by-layer assembly; designing lithium-ion battery electrode and electrolyte materials; and understanding electrochemical processes within these materials the kaneka americas holding scholarship fund was established to provide scholarship and award funding to promote and support material science related research activities for students and faculty at texas a&m university the scholarships are set to continue until 2016 (with possibility for continuation) and are awarded to junior faculty exchange students/visiting scholars graduating phd students graduate students and undergraduate students who conduct research in material science or organic chemistry fields or take at least a material science and engineering course for undergraduate students
184,"the thomas and joan read center for distribution research and education part of the industrial distribution program at texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recently offered short courses in el salvador and panama a two-day short course customer stratification & pricing optimization was conducted in el salvador and panama in association with texas a&m former students from el salvador foundation the courses were attended by46participants in el salvador and31participants in panama the course was taught by dr f barry lawrence and dr esther rodriguez-silva lawrence is the leonard & valerie bruce chair professor in industrial distribution and director of the thomas & joan read center for distribution research & education rodriguez-silva is a tees assistant research professor attendees included professionals and management representatives from large medium and small national and multinational companies in these countries attending companies in el salvador included c imberton puma energy diana distribuidora zablah distribuidora nacional banco davivienda and banco agricola attending companies in panama included chevron energy agencias motta cable and wireless panama banco general credicorp petroleos delta grupo goly and industrias express ""our partnership with the industrial distribution program from texas a&m has allowed us to bring excellence in education to central america and panama "" said felipe torres president of the texas a&m former students from el salvador foundation ""we have impacted more than 350 executives over the past four years and will continue to do so in a much broader range in the years to come"" the thomas and joan read center's professional development programs are designed to increase distributor's competitive advantage and profitability read center faculty and researchers focus on relevant and actionable education through proven methods and tools the read center's educational programs are based on research consortia and applied industry projects in various lines of trade the knowledge generated by these industry-funded consortia projects and professional development programs enhances the undergraduate and graduate education by bringing real-world distribution problems case studies and examples to the curriculum for more information please visit http://readcentertamuedu"
185,the department of mechanical engineering welcomes the students selected to be part of the texas center for undergraduate research in energy propulsion a research experiences for undergraduates (reu) program at texas a&m university the students were selected on a competitive basis from a list of qualified applicants from colleges and universities throughout texas and will reside at the texas a&m campus for 10 weeks during the summer months working alongside professors and graduate students conducting research on a broad range of topics related to energy and combustion science the students will be paid a generous stipend and have their room and board covered reu aims to impact society through the involvement of undergraduate students in scientific research by encouraging them to pursue advanced degrees in science and engineering the energy-related research will potentially benefit thousands of people through alternative sources and improved less-polluting combustion devices the texas a&m reu program is led by dr eric petersen professor in the department of mechanical engineering he will mentor the students along with dr staack dr banerjee dr annamalai dr bowersox dr claridge dr mukherjee dr strzelec dr radovic and dr lee reu is sponsored by the us national science foundation (nsf) with esther bolding as the program monitor through reu grants nsf provides federal funding to university investigators on a competitive basis with the goal of encouraging undergraduate students in science and engineering to obtain advanced degrees in their respective research areas
186,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr yunlong zhang the eb snead 25 career development professor ii in the dwight look college of engineering the endowed professorship is effective june 1 zhang is an associate professor and the assistant department head for graduate programs in the zachry department of civil engineering zhang earned both his bachelors degree in civil engineering and his masters degree in highway and traffic engineering from southeast university of china he received his phd in transportation engineering from virginia tech in 1996 zhangs research interests include: traffic operations transportation modeling and simulation intelligent transportation systems computer applications in transportation and operations research applications in transportation
187,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr luca quadrifoglio the eb snead 25 career development professor i in the dwight look college of engineering the endowed professorship appointment is effective june 1 quadrifoglio who joined the faculty at texas a&m university in 2006 is an associate professor in the zachry department of engineering quadrifoglio earned bachelors and masters degrees in chemical engineering from politecnico di milano in milan italy and a masters of engineering management from the university of southern california quadrifoglio received his phd in industrial and systems engineering from the university of southern california quadrifoglios research interests include: modeling design and optimization of demand responsive services analytics and continuous approximation models valid inequalities and logic constraints scheduling algorithms and multi-objective decision analysis
188,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr reza langari holder of the jr thompson department head chair in engineering technology and industrial distribution the endowed chair appointment is effective june 1 langari was appointed head of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution in april after serving as the interim department head since september 2013 langari earned bachelor's master's and doctoral degrees from the university of california berkeley he has worked for measurex corp integrated systems inc and insight development corp and has held research positions at nasa ames research center rockwell international science center united technologies research center as well as the us air force research laboratory he also was program coordinator for mechanical engineering and interim associate dean for academic affairs at texas a&m university at qatar langari's expertise is in the area of computational intelligence with application to mechatronic systems and industrial automation he has played a significant role in the development of theoretical foundations of fuzzy logic control and its applications to problems in mechanical engineering his work on stability of fuzzy control systems is widely recognized as pioneering the use of nonlinear systems analysis techniques to fuzzy logic additionally langari and his students have developed methodologies for modeling complex systems using fuzzy logic in addition to applying these methods to the control of magnetic bearing systems hybrid electric vehicles heavy vehicles and energy management and control systems langari is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) he is co-author of two textbooks and co-editor of two more textbooks he is a dedicated educator who has served as primary adviser and mentor to more than 55 master's and doctoral students
189,henderson (far right) along with the other student paper contest winners carter henderson a junior texas a&m university petroleum engineering student obtained third place in the student paper contest held at the fifth annual east meets west international student petroleum congress and career expo the contest was held in krakow poland last april and gathered 22 students of undergraduate and graduate level from all over the world to display their technical work first and second place were awarded to master level students from the university of texas and the university of leoben in austria hendersons project started last fall as part of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) mentorship program the program is intended to provide guidance and tools for undergraduate students in order to develop their student paper contest work henderson was mentored by ernesto valbuena a phd candidate supervised by maria barrufet and john killough while he did research on the integration of surface and subsurface models to evaluate liquid yield production in tight gas reservoirs and combined this with his summer internship experiences the department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m and the agh university of science and technology student chapter financially supported hendersons attendance of the four-day long conference in poland over 100 students from 30 countries joined the congress to share ideas and learn more about the energy industry the conference included several technical and networking activities to disseminate knowledge and inspire future leaders
190,"a student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently had his paper accepted by a prestigious institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) conferencestephen mcconnells paper titled ""evaluation method for arc fault detection algorithms"" was accepted for presentation at the ieee 40th photovoltaic specialists conference the paper was based on a portion of his undergraduate thesis and dr robert balog was his undergraduate thesis advisor it details a method to gauge the effectiveness of techniques used to prevent electric arcs in photovoltaic arrays the targeted benefit is a reduction in the risk of fire related to solar farms or residential solar panel installationsmcconnell was raised in bryan and graduated from bryan high school after his freshman year at texas a&m he served as a two-year volunteer missionary in thailand where he learned to speak thai during completion of his undergraduate degree at texas a&m mcconnell began working for anuncio digital media and the reynolds & reynolds companies in college station mcconnell participated in the national science foundations (nsf) research experiences for undergraduates program in summer 2011 at texas a&m studying solar power and its applications to the smart grid after completing this first research experience he found opportunities to pursue further research interning at sandia national laboratories in the summer of 2012 and argonne national laboratory in the summer of 2013 mcconnell graduated in may 2014 as an undergraduate research scholar having written a thesis entitled photovoltaic arc-fault detection he also is three time awardee of the ieee power & energy society scholarship which demonstrates student commitment to power and energy related courses and internships now pursuing a master of science degree at texas a&m under the advisement of balog in the renewable energy and advanced power electronics research (reaper) lab mcconnells research interests include applying signal-processing techniques to renewable energy power generationhis hobbies include singing playing the piano tennis and gymnastics"
191,"during a recent visit to gävle sweden texas a&m associate professor dr tracy anne hammond met with representatives of industry and academia to cultivate interest in her team's smart vest research project as well as other ongoing investigations gävle is establishing itself as europe's geographic information system capital as a guest lecturer at future position x (fpx) a non-profit cluster organization in gävle hammond demonstrated the smart vest to fpx members who were inspired by her innovation fpx is spearheading the development of a strong geographic information industry in gävle the smart vest a lightweight haptic navigation vest was a collaborative interdisciplinary effort involving recent texas a&m graduate dr manoj prasad and dr daniel w goldberg assistant professor of geography the vest has been used by the us military paratroopers to communicate in silent and dark missions additionally pre-programming google road maps into the vest allows navigation through vibrating haptic sensors embedded in the material the smart vest also lends itself to aiding motorcyclists ""it is perfect for a motorcyclist who needs to have both eyes and ears focused on the traffic and hands on the handlebars "" says hammond in an article about dr hammond's research ""forget maps and gps "" maria carlsson of the gävle daily newspaper quoted fpx r&d process manager roland norgren as saying ""we have a dialogue with tracy hammond's research team to see what projects we can pursue together"" the news item concluded that collaboration with hammond will bring new business and jobs to gävle hammond who joined texas a&m university in 2006 is the director of the sketch recognition lab in the department of computer science and engineering she holds a phd in computer science and finance technology option from mit and four degrees from columbia university: a master's degree in anthropology a master's degree in computer science a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics hammond's research focuses on human perception sketch recognition computer human interaction and learning she received the 2012 iaai innovative applications of ai deployed application award and was named the 2011-2012 charles h barclay jr '45 college of engineering faculty fellow"
192,the master of industrial distribution (mid) program graduated its 11th and largest cohort of 37 students recently the distance education students (industry professionals) gathered on the texas a&m campus on may 7-8 to present their capstone projects to faculty mid advisory board and fellow classmates during the capstone project students select a project likely from their sponsor company and work closely with faculty and the global supply chain laboratory (gscl) researchers to deliver a high-value solution that is immediately implementable these projects provide invaluable preparation for professional work where students develop a strategy and timetable for work completion the faculty and gcsl team guide students through the research project process establishing a timeline and expectations with the firm suggesting areas to investigate helping students refine a problem pointing out relevant resources imparting relevant technical skills and knowledge and commenting thoroughly on iterations of work from initial drafts to the final product students give an initial presentation of their work to the gcsl team and faculty for feedback and improvement suggestions before giving the final presentation the mid student brings a return-on-investment to the firm with new best practices and a problem solving skill set that goes far beyond graduation the capstone project presentations were held at the memorial student center (msc) in two concurrent sessions for two days representatives from the students companies and year one students attended the session and asked valuable questions the mid program hosted graduation lunch for graduating students and their families at messina hof winery and resort more than 140 individuals including parents and children of the graduating students attended the event addressing the gathering dr dan jennings professor and program director for mid congratulated the students on their achievements and stressed that behind these achievements are stories of family friends and colleagues who supported and sustained them throughout their journey the master of industrial distribution program is a 21-month distance education graduate program specifically designed for working professionals the program is designed to serve the needs of working professionals who require flexibility in their schedules and location courses have been developed specifically to maximize web-based learning advantages for more information visit http://midtamuedu or watch mid video at http://vimeocom/16526280
193,relatives of allen walsh 82 have recently endowed a scholarship in his memory allen walshs brother fred 74 and his wife merri along with niece trecie hoff 96 and her husband randy 97 have created the allen w walsh 82 scholarship in industrial and systems engineering through their gift to the texas a&m foundation this endowment will benefit high-achieving junior- or senior-level students who have completed a study abroad program which is an important program within the college allen walshs family members believe this is a significant preference to consider during the process of selecting recipients because traveling was one of allen walshs passions as demonstrated by his tour of more than 50 countries scholarships like the walsh endowment give students the opportunity to enhance their education by participating in our study abroad program said dr césar malavé head of the department of industrial and systems engineering we appreciate the walsh and hoff families support of our program through this joint endowment fred walsh received his bachelors degree in industrial engineering in 1974 and was recently recognized by the industrial and systems engineering department as its 2014 distinguished alumni award recipient he is the founder and ceo of walsh petroleum inc he and his wife reside in tyler texas the hoffs both received their bachelors degrees from texas a&m university hers in finance and his in industrial engineering randy hoff is the ceo of cenergistic and serves on the department of industrial and systems engineering advisory council the couple lives in dallas
194,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr hamn-ching (hc) chen holder of the ap & florence wiley professorship i in the dwight look college of engineering the endowed professorship is effective june 1 chen is a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering and the ocean engineering program at texas a&m university he received his phd from the university of iowa in 1982 chens research interests include: computational fluid dynamics; turbulence modeling; nonlinear wave-current-body interactions; violent free surface flows; ship motion and multiple-ship interactions; vortex-induced vibration of deepwater risers; and greenwater and hurricane wave loads on offshore structures education
195,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr mark burris holder of the herbert d kelleher professorship in the dwight look college of engineering the endowed professorship appointment is effective june 1 burris who is a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering joined the texas a&m faculty in august 2001 burris also serves as the associate department head for research and operations he holds a phd in civil engineering from the university of south florida a masters degree from the university of new brunswick and a bachelors degree from technical university of nova scotia burris main area of interest is traveler behavior in response to pricing particularly congestion (or value) pricing he is involved in many projects in this area and has published extensively in this area of research he has served in an evaluation and monitoring role for projects around the country including the houston value pricing project and the lee county variable pricing pilot project he has also lead many studies and surveys on how travelers will react to innovative tolling projects and the costs and benefits associated with those projects his research has provided a better understanding of traveler behavior in response to tolls and helped to improve our ability to predict this reaction due to his experience in this area he was asked to serve on the nchrp panel overseeing a research project on estimating toll road demand and revenue was invited by the fhwa to attend an expert forum on road pricing and modeling and is currently serving on an expert panel for the fhwas benefit/cost methods for operations planning project he is the chair of trbs transportation economics committee a friend of trbs congestion pricing committee and a member of the institute of transportation engineers prior to joining texas a&m he was a senior research associate at the center for urban transportation research (cutr) in tampa florida
196,clayton mulvihill a graduate student in the department of mechanical engineering has been awarded the graduate research fellowship from the national science foundation (nsf) clayton is advised by dr eric petersen and performs research in the area of combustion specifically studying chemical kinetics through the use of non-intrusive optical diagnostics the nsf graduate research fellowship is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated potential for significant achievements in science and engineering the students are selected through a national competition the fellowship provides three years of financial support within a five-year fellowship period ($32 000 annual stipend and $12 000 cost-of-education allowance to the graduate institution) for graduate study that is in a field within nsf's mission and leads to a research-based master's or doctoral degree
197,"the lynx cub payload carrier (lcpc) developed jointly by the united states rocket academy and the space engineering research center part of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) is a new research platform that promises to dramatically reduce space flight cost for small science and education payloads designed and fabricated by texas a&m faculty students and tees researchers the first lcpc was delivered recently and will fly on the xcor lynx spacecraft xcor aerospace is an american private rocket engine and spaceflight development company the lcpc is a versatile system that installs in the lynx cabin and allows small experiments to be carried as secondary payloads on any lynx flight said united states rocket academy chairman edward wright it can be installed and removed quickly for frequent low-cost flight opportunities lcpc payloads are based on the popular 1u 2u and 3u cubesat form factors which are de facto international standards for small scientific payloads per chip hill director of the space engineering research center the payload carrier provides physical accommodations electrical power and limited thermal control for lynx cub experiments this project shows the benefit of partnerships between industry government and academia xcor aerospace is currently developing the suborbital fully reusable lynx spacecraft for a variety of scientific and commercial missions the united states rocket academy a non-profit educational organization that studies and promotes the scientific military and commercial applications of human spaceflight has residents in space as its flagship program this program will use the lcpc on 10 lynx missions it will also be made available to other xcor customers as both ready-to-fly hardware or as an open-source hardware design dr justin yates project lead and an assistant professor in the texas a&m department of systems and industrial engineering said ""i am excited by the connection to k-12 education i am proud that texas a&m industrial engineers could play a part in this project that will excite engage and educate the next generation of scientists austin goswick (austin left and cress netherland right) an industrial and systems engineering major who worked on the project added ""the lynx cub carrier development was a great learning experience this project tested me in every way advancing my communication skills as well as my engineering skills i can't wait to hear how it performs in the flight test"""
198,"department of computer science and engineering staff sybil popham theresa roberts and bruce veals received staff excellence awards at the texas a&m engineering faculty and staff awards banquet on may 1 2014 at the inaugural texas a&m engineering annual staff retreat held at the memorial student center on may 14 the over 500 engineering staff attending were introduced to our department's award recipients engineering's senior assistant vice chancellor for marketing and communications marilyn martell introduced sybil popham business coordinator iii as having ""been with the university for 15 years and is described as ethical knowledgeable and hard working a coworker says 'sybil works tirelessly never backs away from a challenge and never gives up'"" of theresa roberts our program and outreach coordinator ms martell remarked that theresa's ""job duties involve working with students and her love for them is apparent says a nominator 'theresa brings joy and a sense of belonging to our students; i cannot think of any staff member who better embraces the core value of selfless service'"" about bruce veals our facilities coordinator ms martell said that bruce is described as being ""one of the most reliable people that i have ever worked with i can assign him a task and know with complete confidence that it will be done and done well"" following the staff introductions dr m katherine banks vice chancellor for engineering for the texas a&m university system and dean of the dwight look college of engineering used our three reward recipients in her definitions of leadership loyalty and respect ""leadership general douglas macarthur once described a true leader as 'having the confidence to stand alone the courage to make tough decisions and the compassion to listen to the needs of others' bruce veals comes to mind described as one of the most reliable people that a nominator has ever worked with"" ""loyalty in today's me-first world selfishness and personal gain are the objective of most endeavors loyalty is the ability to put others before yourself and to stick with them through thick and thin co-workers described sybil popham as one who works tirelessly never backs away from a challenge and never gives up"" ""respect respect is a core value that can be seen in both how a person treats others and how others treat him or her it's not something that can be demanded it must be earned the level of respect in which theresa roberts is held speaks volumes to the kind of person she is with our students coworkers and others"" congratulations to our well-deserving staff! photos: (top-to-bottom) dean banks with sybil popham theresa roberts bruce veals"
199,"at the texas a&m university engineering project showcase held on april 25 in reed arena on campus more than 150 student engineering teams composed of over 600 undergraduates exhibited their projects from senior capstone design courses tied for first place and representing the department of computer science and engineering in the departmental capstone design projects category were the cpsc team capstone project spiral and the cecn team capstone project sdans each team received a plaque and certificate of merit for their achievement spiral team members are ruiz akpan stephen chen and stephen ten eyck under the supervision of the cse sketch recognition lab director dr tracy hammond and teaching assistant paul teale spiral is a revisualization of the modern calender and is ""inspired by future concept visions that are occasionally released by corning microsoft and other groups "" said the three spiral designers jonathan harrison austin dalton trenton jones and zachary l'anglois comprise the sdans team the team under the supervision of dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna director of the cse psi (perception sensing instrumentation) lab and teaching assistant joseph lee were inspired by a project idea from dr jinsil hwaryoung seo an assistant professor in the department of visualization at texas a&m dr seo wanted ""a robotic dance partner for a live performance the team developed a spheric robot (hence the 's' in the name) "" said dr gutierrez-osuna"" in the general category students from the engineering projects in community service class which is a multidisciplinary class open to undergraduates in all engineering majors took the second place ($500) award team members are chokote kamdeu (mechanical engineering) jeremy cantu (computer science) janice rosado (computer engineering) and melissa mcneil (computer science) they won with their project communications network in remote areas the team was mentored by dr richard furuta cse professor and director of both the center for the study of digital libraries and the hypermedia research laboratory and rodney boehm coo for ground force building systems and industry mentor for the engineering academic and student affairs program"
200,al white and judith dietz of austin have established the judith dietz and al white '86 scholarship with the texas a&m foundation the endowment will create one or more scholarships for incoming corps of cadets students who have a financial need and are pursuing degrees in computer science or computer engineering from texas a&m university dietz graduated from vanderbilt university with a bachelors degree in computer science/mathematics in 1991 and white graduated from texas a&m with a bachelors in computer science in 1986 both husband and wife are employed by ticom geomatics inc white is a business area manager responsible for signals intelligence geolocation and cyber systems supporting the intelligence community and department of defense prior to this he served 20 years in the us air force special operations command as a command pilot he was an assistant professor of computer science at the us air force academy where he helped establish an unmanned aircraft systems research group and taught computer programming and systems engineering he is a recipient of the department of computer science and engineerings 2014 distinguished former student award and also serves on the department's advisory council dietz leads the software test division and is the product release manager for ticom geomatics' global network of classified sensors that support the department of defense and intelligence community dietz began her career at ibm in raleigh nc and relocated to austin to work for tivoli after it was acquired by ibm she has also helped several austin start-ups grow including motive and crossroads the department of computer science and engineering is one of 13 departments in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m with 36 tenured/tenure-track faculty members and more than 1 200 students the department offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science and computer engineering and has an industrial affiliates program which helps the department better prepare students for real-world careers assists the placement of students and makes department/industry collaborations more likely the texas a&m foundation is a nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance texas a&ms capability to be among the best universities
201,john mayo a former student of the department of mechanical engineering was awarded the graduate research fellowship from the national science foundation (nsf) mayo graduated in may 2014 with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering the nsf graduate research fellowship is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated potential for significant achievements in science and engineering the students are selected through a national competition the fellowship provides three years of financial support within a five-year fellowship period ($32 000 annual stipend and $12 000 cost-of-education allowance to the graduate institution) for graduate study that is in a field within nsf's mission and leads to a research-based master's or doctoral degree mayos proposal that earned him the award was to create a methodology for designing resilient systems using shape memory alloy (sma) technology resilience unlike reliability not only accounts for the system surviving adverse events but also the encompassment of adaptability to different circumstances through a study of probability analysis for failure causes topology optimization algorithms and engineering analysis tools for sma he proposed to improve upon existing design techniques for sma applications to create new methods that factor in resilience the research proposal is aimed to create a general algorithm for developing resilient sma systems mayo worked on the proposal with mechanical engineering professor dr richard malak who specializes in optimization and design methodologies and has experience applying these techniques to systems that use smas
202,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr arun srinivasa holder of the holdredge/paul professorship in the department of mechanical engineering srinivasa has made outstanding contributions to the mechanical engineering program through teaching student relations and curriculum development he also serves as the associate department head the holdredge/paul professorship was established by thomas paul in 1996 in honor of dr edwin s holdredge who served the department as a professor for more than 40 years and influenced hundreds of aggie mechanical engineers during his career one of them being paul paul graduated from texas a&m university with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1962 he has also served on the mechanical engineering industrial advisory council and the dwight look college of engineering external advisory council
203,the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university have taken the first steps toward establishing a cluster of excellence in the multi-scale systems engineering for energy and environment with the hiring of dr christodoulos a floudas and dr en pistikopoulos floudas who is currently the stephen c macaleer 63 professor in engineering and applied science and professor in chemical and biological engineering at princeton university and pistikopoulos who is a professor of chemical engineering at the imperial college of london both bring strengths in the key areas of process synthesis design control and optimization floudas a member of the national academy of engineering will join the department as a chair professor in february 2015 and will also be appointed as the director of the texas a&m energy institute pistikopoulos a fellow of the royal academy of engineering will join the department in november 2014 as a chair professor dr floudas will anchor our efforts to create an excellence cluster in multi-scale systems engineering for energy and the environment said dr nazmul karim head of the department of chemical engineering building this excellence cluster will require hiring several faculty with specific expertise in addition to dr floudas and one of those senior faculty has been identified as dr en pistikopoulos in addition to the hiring of floudas and pistikopoulos the faculty cluster in multi-scale systems engineering for energy and environment will have multiple faculty openings that will enrich scientifically the department and the energy institute the chancellors research initiative (cri) a $100 million fund at the texas a&m university system is credited for successfully attracting floudas and pistikopoulos as well as two other professors who will join other department within the look college additionally the texas a&m institute for advanced study (tias) played a part in attracting floudas who was instrumental in the recruitment of pistikopoulos the impact these scholars will have on our program is far-reaching said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering each brings expertise in key research areas which will attract other influential scholars and high-quality students to our program the cri is an investment in our future that will play enormous dividends in ways we cannot even calculate at this point floudas is among the top leaders in the world in the areas of process synthesis design control and optimization and conducts interdisciplinary research including contributions in energy healthcare and other areas relevant to the texas economy pistikopoulos is also among the top leaders in the world in the area of process control and optimization and conducts interdisciplinary research including contributions in energy and healthcare their presence in the department will elevate its stature in the academic community making the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering one of the best in the country and perhaps in the world said karim their presence will attract the very best students to the campus and the intellectual conversation will be elevated to levels not seen before
204,world-renowned scholar dr peter michael rentzepis recently joined the faculty of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university as professor and holder of the tees distinguished research professorship rentzepis was one of four scholars who joined or will be joining texas a&m as part of a $100 million fund at the texas a&m university system known as the chancellors research initiative (cri) which is designed to elevate the engineering research portfolio by attracting world renowned scholars and researchers rentzepis is a pioneer in the field of ultrafast spectroscopy especially its use in the study of transition states in chemical and biological reactions including photosynthesis and was the first to apply the ultrafast pulses in the determination of the kinetics transient spectra and lifetimes of excited states and metastable species he also developed an ultrafast table-top x-ray laser which will have numerous applications to biology chemistry and material science he intends to teach an upper level course on lasers and their application to science and technology at texas a&m among his many accomplishments rentzepis was the first scientist to measure and use ultrashort pulses in 1967 he performed the first experiments which measured directly the ultrafast relaxation 45 x 10-12 s of a transient state he also was the first to show that ultrashort pulses are generated by laser by the fast picosecond 10-12 s pulses these pulses are used today in scientific fields that extend from surgery to optical communication and plasma physics to digital entertainment rentzepis was born in kalamata greece he was awarded the phd degree in chemistry from the university of cambridge england immediately after receiving the phd he accepted a position at bell laboratories murray hill nj usa as a member of the technical staff his early years at bell laboratories is when rentzepis contributed to the development of the laser and its application to physics chemistry and biology he later was appointed head of chemistry at bell laboratories where he supervised the research of many phd ms and bs research and development workers in 1985 rentzepis accepted the presidential chair and a professorship at uc irvine where he developed the field of ultrafast time resolved x-ray diffraction and exags to accelerate the understanding of the structure of excited states and ultrafast decaying of metastable intermediate species which lead to his development of his ultrafast table-top x-ray laser rentzepis has published more than 450 scientific papers in refereed journals has written or edited five books and holds 80 patents for his achievements in science he has been awarded numerous national and international prizes including the irving langmuir award in chemical physics awarded by the american physical society and receiving honorary doctorates from syracuse university denison university carnegie-mellon university and the national technical university of greece he also received the peter debye award in physical chemistry-awarded by the american chemical society was named fellow of the new york academy of sciences and american physical society and was a regents professor at the university of california at los angeles and uc irvine he also is a member of national and foreign academies of sciences
205,dr johannes strobel director of education outreach programs for the dwight look college of engineering and the texas a&m engineering experiment station will present a webinar entitled make a difference now why early stem education is essential on wednesday (may 21) he will be joined by dr sara delano moore director of mathematics and science at eta hand2mind which has collaborated with texas a&m to develop a series of classroom-tested hands-on module that strike the perfect balance of rigor and ease of use for prek-5th grade
206,troy and pamela toman of san antonio recently endowed the pamela and troy toman '88 scholarship in computer science and engineering their scholarship is focused on assisting an incoming freshman student from bexar county who is pursuing a degree in the department of computer science and engineering troy toman is the cloud architect at rackspace hosting and pamela toman is the executive director of sa reads a start-up nonprofit community literacy initiative for bexar county troy is currently an active member of the department of computer science and engineering advisory council troy toman started his career as a software engineer at ibm after eight years of holding multiple development and managerial positions at ibm he moved on to senior leadership roles at sun microsystems inktomi corporation kazeon and veritas software in addition to his work on the rackspace cloud he is a member of the board of directors of the openstack foundation and the alamo heights school foundation pamela toman holds a bachelor's degree in history from the university of texas at austin and a master's degree in latin american studies from the university of california los angeles prior to her non-profit work she was a director at sun microsystems in palo alto california and spent time with andersen consulting in buenos aires argentina the couple have two children a girl 11 and a boy 10
207,a team led by arum han associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently had its paper on microfluidic systems for algal biofuel development published in the journal lab on a chip as a cover article microalgae photosynthetic microorganisms present in most water have been envisioned as future sources of renewable biofuel compared to current oil-producing feedstocks such as corn and soybean microalgae are especially more attractive thanks to their significantly higher oil content microalgae also can be grown in wide ranges of water and thus do not have to compete against food production requiring arable land however significant improvements are still required to make algal biofuel commercially viable such as developing better microalgal strains showing higher growth and higher oil productionhans team is developing microfluidic lab-on-a-chip systems that can be used as high-throughput screening tools to quickly evaluate the growth and oil production characteristics of numerous algal strains under various growth conditions their paper describes how the team demonstrated the development of 10s or 100s of pico-liter sized photobioreactors on a business card sized chip the developed microsystem utilizes microfluidic technologies to individually control light conditions (intensity and day-night cycle) for each of the 10s or 100s of photobioreactors and was used to understand how microalgae grow and produce oil under different environment the article also was featured as a lab on a chip hot article using these microsystems han and his collaborators in biochemistry and biophysics at texas a&m dr tim devarenne and in the boyce thompson institute for plant research at cornell university dr david stern are working together to transfer the valuable hydrocarbon synthesis pathway of the slow-growing alga botryococcus braunii to faster-growing algae with commercial potential through metabolic engineering this multidisciplinary team is currently funded under a two million dollar award from the national science foundations (nsf) emerging frontiers in research and innovation (efri) office with the new microsystem technology the team is expected to significantly shorten the development time where testing that previously required up to a year in a standard laboratory environment can be achieved in a week han director of the nanobio systems lab and an expert in microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technologies joined the electrical and computer engineering department in 2005 he received his bachelors degree from the seoul national university in korea his masters degree from the university of cincinnati and his phd degree from the georgia institute of technology all in electrical engineering hans research is at the interface of micro/nano technology and life sciences with interest in solving grand challenge problems in the broad area of health and energy through the use of micro/nano systems technology and multidisciplinary team effort honors include being a eugene webb faculty fellow of the college of engineering (2014) tees fellow (2012) and receiving an outstanding professor award from the electrical and computer engineering department (2012)the paper can be found at http://pubsrscorg/en/content/articlelanding/2014/lc/c3lc51396c#!divabstractlab on a chip is a prestigious journal that publishes cutting-edge research at micro- and nano-scale in multidisciplinary areas of engineering and life sciences
208,the cyber-world was terrorized last month with the surfacing of the heartbleed bug and though a fix for the bug was released many people were impacted fortunately a graduate student in the computer engineering and systems group in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university developed a checker to help those that were potentially affectedallen webb who is pursuing a phd in computer engineering at texas a&m created the checker that can successfully unearth the hidden bug many sites with servers using previous versions of openssl cryptographic software were extremely vulnerable to hackers more than likely this involved at least one destination for every internet user there was a serious flaw within the library that allowed for hackers to potentially recover log-in information through vulnerable users through the vulnerability a persons bank account email or any online information that was sent or received to a particular server would be exposed people can use allens checker to see if they were infected by the bug before the fix was developed while vulnerability doesnt guarantee a loss of information it is more like throwing away poorly shredded sensitive documents webb said someone could collect the shredded paper put it back together and recover sensitive data from it webb who focuses his research in mobile device security sums up the vulnerability this particular vulnerability has the potential to affect a very large number of people he said it is relatively easy to exploit so there is a need for people to act quickly to update affected machines the bug affected numerous major companies including google yahoo facebook amazon and flickr this put the vast majority of internet users at risk and damage control was needed webb developed this checker with the intentions of aiding system administrators in determining what systems need updating and to help people who are concerned about this problem understand what is and isnt vulnerable webbs checker would verify whether or not particular information was at risk of being seen by hackers my checker allows someone to connect with an https client such as a web browser to check if that software is vulnerable he said the vulnerability is seen when processes that use the old openssl shared library are initiatedwebb has a masters degree in computer engineering from the university of texas at dallas and is working on his phd under the advisement of dr narasimha reddy he was awarded the delbert whitaker fellowship in the fall of 2012 webb works to increase the security of mobile devices and smartphones he also has worked with flowgrammable in the 2013 open networking foundation competition the checker can be found here: http://cesgtamuedu/openssl-heartbleed-check/
209,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr robin autenrieth head of the zachry department of civil engineering the appointment is effective june 1 autenrieth joined the faculty of civil engineering at texas a&m university in 1986 she is the ap & florence wiley professor iii and for the past year has served as the interim department head for the zachry department of civil engineering she has served as pi or co-pion $25 million in total research funding that has supported multi-disciplinary teams of engineers scientists and more than 65 graduate students who have developed environmental models testing them in field studies and laboratory experimentation the impact of her research publications and service on national committees can be assessed by their influence on strategies currently utilized for the destruction of stockpile chemicals remediation of contaminated sites and mitigating human exposures throughout her career she has been involved in numerous outreach programs for stem education and brought to campus more than 150 stem teachers from underserved texas communities to participate in engineering research during the summer currently dr autenrieth is a co-pion the nsf-funded advance program; texas a&m university's advance center strives to improve the workplace environment for faculty across campus beginning with those in the stem fields prior to her current position she served in the dean's office administering undergraduate and graduate programs
210,texas a&m university and the engineering program hold many fond memories for jamie and dennis mudd both earned degrees from texas a&m and they credit the engineering program for bringing them together jamie was employed at the texas a&m transportation institute and dennis was studying civil engineering when they met since the engineering program has played a key role in their academic and personal lives the mudds wanted to support their alma mater by endowing the jamie 86 and dennis 85 mudd scholarship the $100 000 gift will support high-achieving students pursuing a degree in civil engineering texas a&m and the department of civil engineering enabled both jamie and i through jobs scholarships and graduate assistantships to complete our undergraduate and graduate studies work said dennis this is our way of saying ‘thanks us news and world report consistently ranks the zachry department of civil engineering as one of the top 10 undergraduate and graduate civil engineering programs because of its academic performance by students and faculty alike donors play an important role in the sustainability of the departments success by endowing scholarships because of the support we receive from former students like the mudds we are able to recruit and retain exceptional students said robin autenrieth interim department head for civil engineering we greatly appreciate their endowment and their support of our department and students the texas a&m connection started with denniss parents je 43 and tillie mudd of yoakum texas who recently celebrated 70 years of wedded bliss in december 2013 jamie is a first generation aggie the mudds currently reside in baytown texas dennis received his bachelors degree in civil engineering in 1985 and his masters in 1987 he currently works as a global project safety consultant for exxonmobil covering the gulf coast and north america jamie received her bachelors degree in secondary education in 1986 and works as a real estate agent for krisher - mckay they have four children and one grandchild brandon 18 galen 10 and his wife katie and grandson rylan 38 shannon 12 and mary frances 15
211,congratulations to the following graduating ece students who were recognized at the honors and undergraduate research ceremony: peter grubb ceen engineering honors foundation honors university honors 2013 undergraduate research scholar taylor chambers elen university honors amanda couch elen university honors 2014 undergraduate research scholar kyle dubek elen foundation honors university honors benjamin hilton elen 2014 undergraduate research scholar richard hofstra elen foundation honors university honors leticia ibarra elen engineering honors 2014 undergraduate research scholar stephen mcconnell elen 2014 undergraduate research scholar daniel miller elen engineering honors honors in mathematics foundation honors university honors 2013 undergraduate research scholar siamak nariman elen 2014 undergraduate research scholar mehna nawal elen engineering honors 2014 undergraduate research scholar zhenxuan zhang elen foundation honors university honors 2014 undergraduate research scholar
212,donna and steven d leist of pantego texas recently established the donna '92 and steven d leist '93 scholarship for the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university steven leist is a president's endowed scholarship recipient and wanted to award a high achieving student from his hometown of yoakum the scholarship will award a high achieving computer science and engineering student who lives in the dewitt/lavaca county area has demonstrated leadership skills and is active in young life steven leist graduated from texas a&m in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in computer engineering he has spent the past 19 years working for american airlines in dallas and he currently serves as the vice president - technology infrastructure where he oversees american airlines' global technology infrastructure donna leist graduated from texas a&m in 1992 with a bachelor's in sociology steven and donna met while at a&m at the baptist student union and were married in 1994 donna spent several years teaching school before their son olsen (named after olsen field) was born they are active members at first baptist church arlington where they serve in various areas for fun they enjoy traveling and following aggie sports recently the leists were able to combine their love of travel and aggie sports by attending the first round of the nfl draft where they watched jake matthews mike evans and johnny manziel represent texas a&m
213,the texas a&m university chapter of pi tau sigma hosted its spring 2014 semi-annual induction banquet and annual awards ceremony on april 30th pi tau sigma is an international mechanical engineering honors society whose members are chosen on a basis of sound engineering ability scholarship personality and probable future success in their chosen field of mechanical engineering the evening started with an introduction and roll call by jordan ellington president of texas a&m pi tau sigma and the pledge class of 2014 was welcomed and recognized as official members of the society texas a&m pi tau sigma chapter dr tim jacobs was introduced and welcomed as the societys new faculty advisor following tradition the incoming advisor was the keynote speaker for the event in his speech dr jacobs presented his plans to further develop pi tau sigma dr jacobs presents the keynote speech this year marks the 50 year anniversary for the sigma delta chapter making it a unique semester for the sigma delta chapter of pi tau sigma at texas a&m it was honored with the distinction of hosting the annual national convention for pi tau sigma the 2014 national convention at texas a&m university was noted by the national president of pi tau sigma dr mun young choi as the best convention he has attended 2014 national pi tau sigma convention at texas a&m university pi tau sigma honored department head dr andreas polycarpou and the department of mechanical engineering with outstanding support awards for helping make the convention a grand success the recognized dr polycarpou for his support during the convention and also for his dedication to the undergraduate program the entire faculty and staff of the mechanical engineering department for their support and guidance throughout the convention a few notable members who played a role in the convention include dr aaron ames dr tim jacobs dr eric peterson dr david staack and dr devesh ranjan for opening up their labs to convention attendees and hemali tanna and mitch wittneben for their help in organizing and coordinating the convention dr jacobs accepting the awards on behalf of dr polycarpou and the department of mechanical engineering pi tau sigma honored dr harry hogan with an ‘outstanding faculty award each year pi tau sigma recognizes one faculty member for their outstanding commitment and contributions to the undergraduate students in the department dr hogan was selected for his outstanding guidance not only to students enrolled in his solid mechanics course but for having served all undergraduate students as the undergraduate program coordinator for the past 10 years dr hogan (r) accepting the outstanding faculty award from jordan ellington (l) finally the officers of pi tau sigma presented the ‘outstanding faculty advisor award to dr devesh ranjan for his commitment to pi tau sigma for the past two years as their faculty advisor under his guidance pi tau sigma has flourished within the department of mechanical engineering and developed several initiatives to assist the growth of the department dr ranjan accepting the outstanding faculty advisor award from pi tau sigma officers
214,dr marvin adams htri professor of nuclear engineering and director of the institute for national security education and research at texas a&m university accepted membership to the committee on international security and arms control (cisac) the national academy of sciences (nas) formed cisac in 1980 as a permanent committee to bring the resources of the academy to bear on critical problems of international security and arms control cisac in the policy and global affairs division draws from the nations finest scientific technical engineering and medical talent to advise the government contribute to the work of non-governmental organizations and inform the public about scientific and technical issues related to international security and arms control cisacs work benefits from a rotating membership of distinguished scientists policy and military experts the committee carries out its mandate through a variety of activities that receive financial support from public and private sponsors for more information on cisac click here
215,dr robert wattenbarger a professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering passed away friday may 9 with loved ones by his side after a serious short illness bob had been a faculty member here in the department and at texas a&m engineering since 1983 and had recently been appointed holder of the john e & deborah f bethancourt professorship his research interests included gas reservoir engineering emphasizing production analysis of tight gas reservoirs paraffin deposition in wellbores and reservoirs electromagnetic heating of reservoirs and well test analysis and well performance bob and his wife julie were patrons of the brazos valley chorale he was also a member of a barbershop quartet and helped them perform the national anthem prior to the opening of a texas a&m vs kentucky baseball game in april of this year a memorial service for bob will be held at first presbyterian church of bryan at 11:00 am on saturday may 17 (1100 carter creek pkwy bryan tx 77802) a brief reception will be held at the church following the service in lieu of flowers please send a donation to the first presbyterian church or the charity of your choice his obituary and other information will soon be available on the hiller funeral home site
216,"on thursday may 8 richard vega former undergraduate and soon-to-be graduate student of nuclear engineering received outstanding thesis award for the undergraduate research scholars program as representation of the best undergraduate research thesis in science technology engineering and math at texas a&m ""it has been a struggle to make the us aware of the precarious situation we are in when it comes to the availability of radioisotopes for medicine i have two grants from the doe on radionuclide production directed at solving some of our research problems here at a & m when i opened this research subject to the undergraduate students in nuclear engineering there were only a few capable of understanding the paradigm richard was the one with the courage and leadership to tackle this significant problem richard is an exceptional student who goes beyond the expected i envision richard becoming a research leader for our nation "" said dr gamal akabani associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering and research advisor to vega vega's thesis was titled ""design of a subcritical aqueous target system for medical isotope production"" the attending audience was made up of about 200 graduating honors and undergraduate research students as well as their families and friends"
217,houston businessman and texas a&m university distinguished petroleum engineering graduate george p mitchell 40 built a billion-dollar energy empire and an international reputation on his penchant for hard work and his belief in a basic but powerful premise: actions speak louder than words nearly a year after his death last july at 94 the secrets of mitchells success are still coming to light revealing more about his legacy of pioneering achievement not only in oil and gas real-estate development sustainability and philanthropy but also in generosity of action that in one particular instance quietly helped revive and later enhance an aggie tradition long before the concept of paying it forward became en vogue each spring without fanfare for the past 60 years mitchell has been helping to cover the costs associated with a prestigious award he won as a student and later singlehandedly resurrected in 1953 an inscribed gold watch recognizing the top students in the texas a&m harold vance department of petroleum engineering in appreciation of mitchells support for generations of aggie petroleum engineers and in an effort to continue his visionary legacy department officials plan to continue providing watches to their most outstanding and deserving seniors in mitchells memory beginning with the 2014 graduation ceremony held friday (may 9) in the richardson building on the texas a&m campus every year a highlight of the departmental graduation ceremony is the awarding of the robert l whiting outstanding senior and the harold j vance most improved senior awards said dan hill professor and head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and holder of the noble chair the outstanding students who receive these awards are always more impressed that they are receiving a watch from the legendary george p mitchell than of any other aspect of the award mr mitchells legacy of 61 years of recognizing the best petroleum engineering graduates is truly remarkable although the latest mitchell philanthropic revelation was news to most texas a&m administrators and staff outside of petroleum engineering even those well versed in the professional and personal exploits of the all-time most generous donor in texas a&m history it came as no surprise to linda bomke who retired in december as vice president after serving 42 years at mitchell energy & development corp and the mitchell family corporation this was one of the many things mr mitchell did for so many people and worthwhile causes throughout his lifetime bomke said hed done it for so long it was in his personal budget the department would send us the invoice for the watches plus the engraving and i wrote the check for many years mr mitchell was extremely generous with his time and his money he did this year after year as a small but personal way of showing how much his texas a&m degree and education meant to him and much he enjoyed his time there i think he would be overjoyed that there are so many bright young people competing for this award now in mitchells senior class valedictorian days the coveted gold watch was provided by the petroleum engineering club texas a&ms version of a student chapter of the american institute of mining metallurgical and petroleum engineers (aime) to the most outstanding senior in petroleum engineering following mitchell in 1940 three additional winners were honored prior to a nine-year hiatus from 1944-52 during which no watches were awarded mitchell personally reinstituted the senior gift in 1953 while also adding a second watch to recognize the top junior in petroleum engineering three years later he revised the awards program to provide the traditional inscribed watches for the most outstanding and most improved seniors as well as petroleum engineering books recognizing the top two outstanding juniors in the major the latter book awards were discontinued in 1963 due to low student enrollment the awards program again morphed in 1976 when the petroleum engineering club established the robert l whiting outstanding senior in petroleum engineering award a monetary award ranging from $500 to $1 000 and named for the beloved veteran professor whiting a faculty member from 1946-88 had stepped down as department head in 1976 after serving the prior 23 years in the role for his part mitchell continued to provide an inscribed gold watch for the recipient of the whiting award as well as for the most improved senior an award henceforth known as the george p mitchell award to the most improved petroleum engineering senior in 1982 mitchell replaced his name in the awards title with that of one of his favorite professors and lifetime inspirations harold j vance namesake of the first named department across the entire texas a&m university system vance served as the department head from 1934-53 and was credited by mitchell for giving him the following sage advice: if you want to drive a chevrolet work for a big oil company but if you want to drive a cadillac be an independent beyond instituting the hat tip to vance mitchell continued to pick up the tab for both watches in 1989 the department added a third award the albert b stevens memorial award in petroleum engineering a $500 to $1 000 monetary honor established by george t mcgehee to help deserving students in financial need to make the transition from student to participating petroleum engineer mitchell in turn continued to provide watches for the whiting and vance award recipients most recently in 2009 the department made all three awards equal providing each of the recipients with $1 000 checks and inscribed watches with the department covering the extra cost beyond the two watches customarily funded by mitchell to date mitchell has provided 120 watches and 14 books since 1953 mr mitchell was a remarkable man and i was fortunate that i got to see him as a business leader as a family man and as well a rock star bomke said i met literally thousands of people through him from us presidents to janitors they ran the gamut he treated everyone with respect and felt that he could learn something from each of them and he did it was the opportunity of a lifetime for additional information on the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and related awards programs go to /petroleum/giving or contact: derek dictson 979-862-4843 or d-dictson@tamuedu
218,ammon berrios receives texas a&m engineering's 100 000th degree the dwight look college of engineering celebrated an academic milestone by awarding its 100 000th degree at the spring 2014 commencement ceremonies held in reed arena on the texas a&m university campus reaching this milestone is cause for celebration said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering there is a need to increase the number of highly qualified engineers in the workforce and we are proud to have awarded 100 000 aggie engineering degrees to date we are eager to continue educating the next generation of engineers through our enrollment growth initiative 25 by 25 more than 1 400 undergraduate masters and doctoral degrees were presented during the ceremony the 100 000th engineering degree was presented to ammon berrios of orange grove texas berrios received his bachelors degree in industrial and systems engineering at the graduation ceremony this is a significant achievement for texas a&m and worthy of special acknowledgement said john sharp texas a&m university system chancellor our goal is to educate the residents of texas and our contribution of 100 000 aggie engineering degrees makes a tremendous impact on the state and nation all engineering graduates received a 100 000 strong lapel pin in celebration of the milestone the 100 000th engineering degree candidate was selected based on graduation data as of may 1 2014 after graduation berrios will begin his employment with quorum business solutions in dallas as a software consultant
219,dr john valasek professor in the department of aerospace engineering has been selected as the recipient of the 2015 leland atwood award in honor of his outstanding work with students at texas a&m university as well as his contributions to the aerospace profession the john leland atwood award of the american society for engineering education (asee) aerospace division and the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) was established in 1985 in honor of john leland atwood an outstanding engineer who played a major role in the development of aviation and aerospace technologies for more than 50 years this award given annually recognizes the accomplishments of a superior aerospace engineering educator and his or her contributions to the profession dr valasek says that to him the spirit of john leland atwood is about making a difference in students lives i feel very blessed to receive this recognition because two professors of mine who made a difference and helped shape my academic career conrad f newberry and jan roskam are themselves recipients i also have five colleagues here at texas a&m who are previous recipients and they continue to mentor me to this day i hope to do the same for my students past present and future valasek joins previous recipients of the leland atwood award in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university: stan h lowy (1977) john l junkins (1988) walter e haisler (1990) leland a carlson (1997) and helen l reed (2007) valasek is the director for the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) his research on cyber-engineering systems is focused on bridging the gap between traditional computer science topics and aerospace engineering topics and has been funded by afosr afrl onr nasa faa nsf and industry valasek has been on the aerospace engineering faculty at texas a&m since 1997 and teaches courses in aircraft design atmospheric flight mechanics modern control of aerospace systems vehicle management systems and cockpit systems & displays he is the author / co-author of three recent books: morphing aerospace vehicles and structures (wiley 2012); advances in intelligent and autonomous aerospace systems (aiaa 2012) and nonlinear multiple time scale systems in standard and non-standard forms: analysis and control (siam 2014) valasek has served as chair of committee to 41 completed graduate degrees including 6 nsf 6 ndseg and 1 smart graduate fellowship recipients and his students have won national and regional student competitions in topics ranging from aircraft design to smart materials to artificial intelligence his phd student anshu narang-siddarth 12 was the 2013 recipient of the texas a&m university award for outstanding accomplishment in research doctoral level for her dissertation titled analysis and control of non-affine non-standard singularly perturbed systems he has also supervised the research of 54 undergraduate students from 2006 – 2008 he served as the national president of sigma gamma tau the aerospace engineering honor society and he served as the faculty advisor to the texas a&m student branch of aiaa from 2000-2009 receiving the national faculty advisor award from aiaa in 2005 valasek is a scholar of the montague center for teaching excellence and a recipient of the association of former students distinguished achievement award for teaching college level in 2004 and university level in 2008 he is a two time recipient of the bp amoco teaching excellence award from the college of engineering and a three time recipient of the thomas u mcelmurry teaching excellence award from the aerospace engineering department valasek earned the bs degree in aerospace engineering from california state polytechnic university pomona in 1986 and the ms degree with honors and the phd in aerospace engineering from the university of kansas in 1990 and 1995 respectively the award is endowed by rockwell collins and consists of a $2 000 honorarium and a distinctive engraved medal dr valasek will be recognized at the aiaa science and technology forum and exposition (scitech) in january 2015
220,the department of aerospace engineering in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university inducted nine alumni into the aerospace engineering distinguished alumni academy april 30 during the aerospace engineering annual awards banquet receiving the outstanding aerospace engineer award were david w lund 79 merri j sanchez phd '85 and michael l slack 73 this award is presented to an alumnus 40 years or older who has proven superior professional achievement community service and service to the university these persons are role models for all to follow and their example of distinguished professional practice deserves recognition david w lund '79 a 1979 graduate of texas a&m university in the department of aerospace engineering david lund has over 30 years experience in research technology transition and education he has a track record of delivering results working for nasa aiaa small business boeing and academia (texas a&m and university of kansas) he has made contributions in unconventional aircraft configurations laminar flow advanced materials & structures supersonic transports and advanced systems his expertise is sought by proposal red teams aerospace instructors non-advocate boards government panels audit teams and strategic planning groups lund currently serves on the aerospace engineering external advisory board for the department of aerospace engineering merri j sanchez phd '85 upon graduation from texas a&m university dr merri sanchez went to work at nasas lyndon b johnson space center she was selected to the nasa senior executive service in 2009 sanchez joined sierra nevada corporations space systems group as the senior director for space exploration systems in july 2010 where she manages the dream chaser program a lifting-body design of a commercial human spacecraft dr sanchez has distinguished herself through over 30 years of service as an aerospace engineer in service to our nations space program with roles as space shuttle integration test engineer x-38 spacecraft deputy project manager space station increment manager nasa executive liaison to the us air force and manager of a team building a human spacecraft for nasa she is recognized for her superior achievement and service to the aerospace profession sanchez currently serves on the aerospace engineering external advisory board for the department of aerospace engineering michael l slack ‘73 michael slack a 1973 graduate of texas a&m in the department of aerospace engineering focuses on the most challenging and demanding areas of civil litigation including aviation law and products liability he is co-founder and manager of slack & davis llc mr slacks aviation law experience includes more than 29 years of litigation arising from air crashes in addition he has received national media attention as an advocate for stronger federal oversight to improve air ambulance safety prior to his legal career mr slack was senior aerospace engineer with nasa in houston working on the apollo-soyuz and space shuttle programs nasa awarded him special commendations for his contributions slack currently serves on the aerospace engineering external advisory board for the department of aerospace engineering the aerospace engineering honorary engineer award is presented to non-texas a&m university aerospace engineering alumni who have made major contributions to the engineering profession and whose support of the texas a&m aerospace engineering department merits recognition the two honorees given this distinction were keith ferris and thomas uriel mcelmurry lt col usaf (ret) keith ferris flight has changed our perception of the world and keith ferris has changed our perception of the world of aviation in his paintings during his time as a student in the department of aerospace engineering ferris went to war and never re-enrolled in school not able to pursue his lifelong dream of being a pilot he turned to his other passion art in 1960 ferris became a member of the society of illustrators this new york professional artist society brought flying into focus and allowed ferris to get back to the excitement and dedication that is the united states air force through this program artists were able to fly missions anywhere in the world in exchange for donating their time and talents - to the art collection the air force art collection now contains over 5 600 paintings and other works donated by more than 900 participating artists ferris has over 21 in the collection at present thomas uriel mcelmurry lt col usaf (ret) thomas mcelmurry is recognized for his achievements during his exceptional careers in the military industry and academia mcelmurry began his lifelong passion for flying in the army air corp which later became the united states air force while in the air force he was a test pilot and later the operations officer at edwards air force base test pilot school mcelmurry along with such well known individuals as frank borman buck buchanan and jim mcdivitt developed the training curriculum for the air forces first aerospace research pilot program and were among its first graduating class mcelmurry retired from the air force as a lieutenant colonel and then joined nasa where he held many roles including chief of flight crew operations in the office of manned space flight in washington dc and chief orbiter atmospheric flight test office director of flight crew operations working on skylab at the johnson space center in houston after retiring from nasa mcelmurry became an associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university where he taught for 13 years four alumni were honored with the highest honor in the academy the distinguished aerospace engineering alumni award this award is presented to an alumnus who is retired or near retirement with outstanding career records this award recognizes sustained and meritorious contributions to engineering and engineering management the four honorees were norman ken dyson 60 lt col usaf (ret) mark a fischer 72 gerald gerry d griffin 56 and walter e haisler jr phd '67 norman ken dyson 60 lt col usaf (ret) after graduating first in his class from the department of aerospace engineering in 1960 dyson went into flight training for the air force and was the top graduate in his class after four years as a fighter pilot dyson attended the usaf aerospace research pilot school prior to testing weapons in the f-100 f-101 and f-4 aircraft he flew the f-100 and f-4 aircraft in the vietnam war before returning to edwards afb as an instructor at the usaf test pilot school and later as an f-15 test pilot and director of the f-15 joint test force he began classified work in 1976 where he flight tested have blue and tacit blue until 1982 after air force retirement dyson joined rockwell and flew throughout the b-1b test program he flew the first flight of the x-31 post stall aircraft in 1990 and flew the x-31 through its early testing he retired from rockwell as chief test pilot and director of flight test in 1993 dyson was awarded the kincheloe award in 1989 for test flying have blue and in 1996 for tacit blue after these programs were declassified he has also received the legion of merit two distinguished flying crosses nine air medals and aviation week & space technologys aerospace laurels dyson is an engineering fellow of the university of alabama a distinguished alumnus of the usaf test pilot school and was named to the aerospace walk of honor in 1997 mark a fischer ‘72 a 1972 graduate of the department of aerospace engineering with honors fischer began his career with humble oil company now exxon company usa in 1988 fischer founded chaparral energy inc as a privately held independent oil and gas product and exploration company with headquarters in oklahoma city he has served as its chairman chief executive officer and president since its inception fischer is a member of the society of petroleum engineers and the american petroleum institute and has served as a director of the api from 1984-1986 in 2012 fischer was a national finalist for the ernest and young entrepreneur of the year award he sits on several non-profit organization boards including the boy scouts of america and he is currently serving on the dwight look college of engineering advisory council and the board of the association of former students for texas a&m gerald gerry d griffin ‘56 a 1956 graduate from the department of aeronautical engineering gerry griffin is the former director of the nasa lyndon b johnson space center in houston in prior positions at nasa he served as the deputy director of the john f kennedy space center in florida and the hugh f dryden flight research center in california griffin laid the foundations for americas space shuttle and space station programs during nasas apollo program he was a flight director in mission control and served in this capacity for all of the apollo manned missions he was lead flight director for three lunar landing missions: apollos 12 15 and 17 during the flight of apollo 13 griffin was scheduled to lead the lunar landing team in mission control when the landing was canceled as a result of the oxygen tank explosion he led one of the teams of flight controllers who were responsible for the safe return of the astronauts today mr griffin is chairman of the board of the golden spike company (gsc) a delaware corporation headquartered in boulder co gsc is a commercial space company planning human lunar expeditions griffin is the recipient of the texas a&m distinguished alumnus award the texas a&m corps of cadets hall of honor award the texas a&m college of engineering alumni honor award and he is a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and the american astronautical society walter e haisler jr 67 phd for over 41 years dr walter haisler has been an outstanding and dedicated teacher an internationally recognized researcher and a willing provider of meritorious service to the department of aerospace engineering texas a&m university and to the aerospace community dr haisler received his bs ms and phd in aerospace engineering from texas a&m university in 1967 1968 and 1970 respectively and joined the faculty in september 1970 dr haisler is recognized by current and former students and faculty alike as an outstanding teacher and as one who considers teaching and education as the most important function of faculty at the university he has earned a number of faculty and teaching awards including two student awards four college awards and the university-level texas a&m university former students award for excellence in teaching at the national level he has received the aiaa/asee atwood aerospace engineering education award haislers research is internationally recognized and he has over 100 publications and technical reports and 40+ conference presentations he has mentored approximately 25 masters and ten phd graduates and has served on numerous graduate student committees both within and outside of the department he has also served on several nasa and dod peer review committees and as a consultant to industry in his research areas in recognition of his contributions and service dr haisler was awarded the charles w crawford service award in 2001 the dwight look college of engineering faculty fellow award in 2004 and the charles w crawford service award again in 2007 he was named an associate fellow in the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics in 1987 a fellow of the american society of civil engineers in 1985 and a fellow of the american astronautical society in 1986 he was selected as a tees research fellow for 1982-83 1983-1984 and then as senior tees research fellow in 1984 in addition he was the halliburton professor of aerospace engineering for 1984-85
221,a $100 million fund at the texas a&m university system known as the chancellors research initiative (cri) is credited for successfully attracting four world-renowned scholars and researchers to elevate the engineering research portfolio: christodoulos a floudas professor of engineering and applied science princeton university; en pistikopoulos professor of chemical engineering imperial college of london; alan needleman professor of materials science and engineering in the college of engineering university of north texas; and peter m rentzepis professor of electrical engineering and computer science university of california at irvine leveraging vast experience in developing and implementing large multi-investigator federally funded programs each brings strength in key areas: floudas and pistikopoulos in the area of process control and optimization; needleman in computational materials and rentzepis in ultrafast spectroscopy and x-ray lasers these are superstars in the academic community in engineering research respected by their peers as members of the prestigious national academies and the caliber of scholar that every university aggressively courts said chancellor john sharp the cri seeks to find outstanding researchers who can not only produce amazing work but also bring in some much needed funding to support that work dr christodoulos a floudas and dr alan needleman were first recruited to texas a&m university as visiting faculty fellows of the texas a&m institute for advanced study (tias) needleman was a member of tias's first class of 2012-2013 and floudas arrived as a member of the 2013-2014 class these outstanding scholars were first chosen by faculty of the college of engineering and were officially nominated by the dean as meeting the very high standards of tias for recruitment for a visiting research appointment the impact that these scholars will have on our program is far-reaching said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering each brings expertise in key research areas which will attract other influential scholars and high quality students to our program the cri is an investment in our future that will pay enormous dividends in ways we cannot even calculate at this point floudas will join the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university as a chair professor in february 2015 also he will be appointed as the director of the texas a&m energy institute dr floudas is a member of the national academy of engineering floudas is one of the top leaders in the world in the area of chemical process systems engineering and has developed powerful theories algorithms and tools for optimization and has found novel pathways for energy conversion and conservation dr floudas will anchor our efforts to create an excellence cluster in multi-scale systems engineering for energy and the environment said dr nazmul karim head of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering building this excellence cluster will require hiring several faculty with specific expertise in addition to dr floudas and one of these senior faculty has been identified as dr en pistikopoulos who is currently a faculty member at imperial college in london dr en pistikopoulos is also among the top leaders in the world in the area of process control and optimization and conducts interdisciplinary research including contributions in energy and healthcare he will join the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering in november 2014 as a chair professor dr pistikopoulos is a fellow of the royal academy of engineering their presence in the department will elevate its stature in the academic community making the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering one of the best departments in the country and perhaps in the world their presence will attract the very best students to the campus and the intellectual conversation will be elevated to levels not seen before said karim needleman will join the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university as a tenured chair professor with a joint appointment as distinguished research professor in the texas a&m engineering experiment station in 2015 needleman is an internationally known researcher in the area of computational modeling of materials and has developed models and methods for predicting the ductile fracture of metals for analyzing the mechanical behavior of composite materials and for the multi-scale analysis of plastic deformation of crystalline solids he is a member of the national academy of engineering dr needlemans accomplishments and agenda are synergistic with several strategic initiatives at texas a&m: national security transportation and energy which have been identified among the grand challenge areas for the university said dr ibrahim karaman materials science and engineering department head in addition dr needlemans emphasis on computational materials science with strong links to the materials genome initiative will take texas a&ms high performance computing environment to new horizons dr peter m rentzepis joined the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m in may 2014 and holds the title of professor and holder of the tees distinguished research professorship he is a member of the national academy of sciences and has many honors to his credit including the irving langmuir award in chemical physics rentzepis is a pioneer in the field of ultrafast spectroscopy especially its use in the study of transition states in chemical and biological reactions including photosynthesis he also developed an ultrafast table-top x-ray laser which will have numerous applications to biology chemistry and material science we are fortunate to have dr rentzepis join our faculty as he brings tremendous experience and leadership from his tenure as department head at bell labs and presidential chair and professor of chemistry and electrical engineering at the university of california irvine said chanan singh interim head of electrical and computer engineering his wealth of knowledge and experience from industry and academia will greatly enhance our research efforts in lasers and life sciences about the a&m system the a&m system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $38 billion through a statewide network of 11 universities seven state agencies two service units and a comprehensive health science center the a&m system educates more than 131 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year externally funded research expenditures exceed $820 million and help drive the states economy contact: steven b moore (979) 458-6023 syscomm@tamusedu about the dwight look college of engineering with more than 360 tenured/tenure-track faculty members and more than 12 000 students the look college is one of the largest engineering schools in the country ranking third in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment the college is ranked seventh in graduate studies eighth in undergraduate programs and second in research expenditures among public institutions by us news & world report with seven of the colleges 13 departments ranked in the top 10 about the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) as an engineering research agency of texas tees performs quality research driven by real-world problems; strengthens and expands the states workforce through educational partnerships and training; and develops and transfers technology to industry tees partners with academic institutions governmental agencies industries and communities to solve problems to help improve the quality of life promote economic development and enhance educational systems tees a member of the texas a&m university system is in its 100th year of engineering solutions contact: pam green (979) 845-4960 p-green@tamuedu
222,the houston section of the society of tribologists and lubrication engineers (stle) awarded scholarships to two engineering graduate students from texas a&m university fevzi ozaydin from the department of mechanical engineering and yunyun chen from the department of materials science and engineering received the scholarships in april the award is to encourage students to study tribology an important area that is related to all engineering and science disciplines fevzi works on creating unique materials to improve the wear problems in metals yunyun redesigns the components in implants to help patients heal quicker from left to right: fevzi ozaydin yunyun chen robert heverly president of stle
223,joshua harris '14 an undergraduate student in the department of aerospace engineering has been awarded a national defense science graduate fellowship (ndseg) for 2014 the department of defense (dod) awarded approximately 200 new three-year graduate fellowships in april 2014 with approximately 12 being awarded to students in aerospace engineering the dod offers these fellowships to individuals who have demonstrated the ability and special aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering harris has conducted research with dr john valasek professor in the department of aerospace engineering in the vehicle systems & control laboratory for the last four years and will graduate with his bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering in may 2014 the national defense science and engineering graduate (ndseg) fellowship is a highly competitive portable fellowship that is awarded to us residents and nationals who intend to pursue a doctoral degree in one of fifteen supported disciplines ndseg confers high honors upon its recipients and allows them to attend whichever us institution they choose ndseg fellowships last for three years and pay for full tuition and all mandatory fees a monthly stipend and up to $1 000 a year in medical insurance
224,"haley marks a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the whitaker international fellowship as a fellowship recipient marks will have the opportunity to study at the university of strathclyde in glasgow scotland in the lab of professor duncan graham during the summer of 2014 while there marks who is advised by professor gerard l coté will work on biosensor technology aimed at allowing physicians emergency responders toxicologists or other researchers to instantly perform blood tests while with the patient for trace levels of carcinogens radiation exposure biomarkers and other environmental agents ""i am excited to have haley work for two months with dr graham; we have collaborated with dr graham for several years and he is a clear global leader in functionalizing nanoparticles for use in biomarker detection for disease diagnosis coté said this experience will provide haley with not only a quality research opportunity but also a global experience to enhance her future career the whitaker international program sends emerging leaders in us biomedical engineering (or bioengineering) overseas to undertake a self-designed project that will enhance their careers within the field the goal of the program is to assist the development of professional leaders who are not only superb scientists but who also will advance the profession through an international outlook along with supporting grant projects in an academic setting the whitaker international program encourages grantees to engage in policy work and propose projects in an industry setting the whitaker international fellows and scholars program was created by the institute of international education with a grant from the whitaker foundation its mission is to promote international collaboration in the growing field of biomedical engineering whitaker international fellows are those who have received a degree in biomedical engineering but have not yet obtained a phd whitaker international scholars are biomedical engineers who have already received a phd within two years of application"
225,the dwight look college of engineering hosted the second-annual texas a&m engineering project showcase april 25 in reed arena to demonstrate and display the diverse projects in the college and exhibit the ways in which engineers build solutions that solve real-world problems more than 150 engineering teams participated with posters and prototypes representing the work of more than 600 undergraduate engineering students representing a 50 percent increase from last years showcase the student participants presented work from senior capstone design courses aggie-challenge projects technical electives undergraduate research projects startup aggieland companies freshman design teams and others the event brought more than 140 industry representatives from 60 companies to campus which is nearly a 50 percent increase in companies that attended compared to last year the showcase provided them with the opportunity to discuss possible collaborations for future industry-sponsored projects with undergraduates and faculty before the showcase began industry representatives were invited to tour texas a&m engineering facilities or exhibits the tours included the texas center for applied technology – mobile healthcare the engineering innovation center the mary kay oconnor process safety center rescue robotics and unmanned air vehicles following the tours industry representatives were invited to a luncheon before the start of the event as one of the largest engineering schools in the country with top-educated engineering graduates we are often asked about how industry can engage with our students magda lagoudas executive director of industry and nonprofit partnerships said this is a wonderful opportunity to bring in industry to see the engineering abilities of our students as well as their innovative side the showcase was created to provide that opportunity to our students and industry many students felt that the showcase was a unique opportunity to show off their work to fellow students faculty and industry for those unable to attend the showcase the event was live-streamed by kamu we are very excited its good to spend as much time on a project and actually having it finished and showing it off to everybody joseph dardar iv senior electronic systems engineering technology major said people seem really interested which makes us feel even more excited to display it an awards ceremony at the end of the showcase recognized the top teams in the showcase the first-place student design team award ($700) went to the formula sae – electrical team the team member was brent james bauer (mechanical engineering) and the faculty mentor was dr make mcdermot the second-place student design team award ($500) went to the formula sae – aerodynamics teams team members were john mayo (mechanical engineering) alexandro monjaraz (aerospace engineering) and marco martinez (mechanical engineering) the faculty mentor was dr make mcdermot the third-place student design team award ($250) went to the putting on the brakes: engineering oil transportation team team members were coleman fincher (mechanical engineering) daniel jaeger (mechanical engineering) and storm rubio (computer engineering) the first-place aggie-challenge team award ($750) went to the noble-metal-nano particle- catalyzed pedot: pss/carbon composite electrode for aqueous lithium-ion batteries team team members were dion hubble (chemical engineering) raul calzada (chemical engineering) deepak bhatia (electrical engineering) aalap ashtamkar (mechanical engineering) sergio cartagena (mechanical engineering) aaron morales (mechanical engineering) and xingliang he (mechanical engineering) the faculty mentors were dr hong liang and dr partha mukherjee the second-place aggie-challenge team award ($500) went to the dna to go: portable low-cost pcr-based diagnostic assays team team members were yuanpeng bi (chemical engineering) mauricio coen moraga (chemical engineering) danielle cope (chemical engineering) miguel carpio (chemical engineering) jacob harris (electrical engineering) richard lim (chemical engineering) james johnson (chemical engineering) stanley lu (biomedical engineering) alex millard (chemical engineering) adriano pangelinan (chemical engineering) and neal patel (chemical engineering) the faculty mentor was dr victor ugaz the third-place aggie-challenge team award ($250) went to the low cost spectrophotometer team team members were claire kalkbrenner (biomedical engineering) andrew van (biomedical engineering) jeffrey smith (biomedical engineering) stanley lu (biomedical engineering) edwin xiao cai (biomedical engineering) john paul hernandez alcala (biomedical engineering) and karla gonzalez (biomedical engineering) the faculty mentor was dr kristin maitland the first-place capstone team award ($700) was seawater desalination plant – power team team members were mohannad hani mohamed (mechanical engineering) and kamel mohamed (mechanical engineering) faculty mentors were dr dan mcadams and dr michael schuller the second-place capstone team award ($500) went to the personal lung fluid analyzer team team members were eric gros (biomedical engineering) michael holtzclaw (biomedical engineering) zachary paulson (biomedical engineering) ana flores (biomedical engineering) phillip simpson (biomedical engineering) and sandeep kancharla (biomedical engineering) faculty mentors were dr michael mcshane dr duncan maitland and dr alan brewer the third-place capstone team award ($250) went to the high-throughput histoglical analysis (austohistobot) team team members were jared newton (biomedical engineering) ritvik bansal (biomedical engineering) and austin smith (biomedical engineering) faculty mentors were dr michael mcshane and dr mary mcdougall the first-place undergraduate research team award ($700) went to the design and characterization of an endovascular mechanical thrombectomy device team with jason szafron (biomedical engineering) dr duncan maitland was the mentor for the project the second-place undergraduate research team award ($500) went to the brillouin microscopy- use and potential applications with zach steelman (biomedical engineering) dr vlad yakovlev was the mentor for the project the third-place undergraduate research team award ($250) went to using ultrashort pulsed lasers to understand and physically model embryonic brain development with brian kelly (biomedical engineering) the faculty mentor for the project was dr alvin yeh the first-place general team award ($700) went to visit a startup aggieland company with derek burgman and nando luna the second-place general team award ($500) went to the communication network in remote areas team team members were chokote kamdeu (mechanical engineering) jeremy cantu (computer science) janice rosado (computer engineering) and melissa mcneil (computer science) the faculty mentors were dr richard furuta and rodney boehm the third-place general team award ($250) went to the trialsconnect team team members were chun-wen chen ying-po liao (ocean engineering) and ya-chieh hsu the first-place tees commercial ready team award ($700) went to the modular integrate stackable layers (misl) team team members were kelson astley (engineering technology) tanner perkins (engineering technology) and ty navarrete (electronic systems engineering technology) the faculty mentor was dr joseph morgan the second-place tees commercial ready award ($500) went to the low energy heat recover ventilator team team members were colin breedlove (mechanical engineering) matt krezinski (mechanical engineering) joe mcdonough (mechanical engineering) and james thorpe (mechanical engineering) the faculty mentors were dr charles culp and dr devesh ranjan the third-place tees commercial ready award($250) went to the mobile behavioral health monitoring system team team members were kaci decock (biomedical engineering) boang liu (biomedical engineering) cameron schaefer (biomedical engineering) joshua silveus (biomedical engineering) and harrison smith (biomedical engineering) faculty mentors were dr javier jo mr john hanks and dr michael mcshane the event was sponsored by the dwight look college of engineering spectra energy texas instruments and emerson for more information about the event visit engineeringtamuedu/project-showcase for project sponsorship information please contact magda lagoudas executive director industry and nonprofit partnerships at m-lagoudas@tamuedu
226,"dr helen reed professor in the department of aerospace engineering has been selected as a piper professor of 2014 by the minnie stevens piper foundation ten awards of $5 000 each are made annually to professors for superior teaching at the college level selection is made on the basis of nominations submitted by each college or university in the state of texas begun in 1958 the roster of piper professors includes outstanding professors from two and four-year colleges and universities public and private candidates must be nominated through the university presidents office dr reed joined the texas a&m faculty in 2004 and served as department head for four years before returning to teaching and research on a full-time basis widely regarded as an expert in hypersonics energy efficient aircraft and small satellite design reed has led research projects totaling millions of dollars and is a member of the national research councils aeronautics and space engineering board she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics & astronautics (aiaa) the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers she received the atwood award from american society for engineering education and aiaa and she was inducted into the academy of engineering excellence at virginia tech (her alma mater) at texas a&m she holds the edward ""pete"" aldridge '60 professorship; she has been named a presidential professor for teaching excellence (in perpetuity) and a regents professor (in perpetuity); and she has received the association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching at both the university and college levels and the mcelmurry award from aerospace engineering with teaching and mentoring students as top priorities reed has directed 18 doctoral students 32 masters degree students and more than 1 000 undergraduate students during her career complementing her outstanding in-class teaching reed also directs the aggiesat lab satellite program a student satellite program housed within the department of aerospace engineering the program is a partnership with nasa johnson space center and the university of texas to promote multidisciplinary systems-engineering education teach engineering practices and develop and demonstrate new technologies enabling future space exploration through this program her students designed launched and operated texas a&ms first satellite in 2009 with another mission planned for this year reed earned an ab degree in mathematics from goucher college and an ms and phd in engineering mechanics from virginia tech the minnie stevens piper foundation was organized in 1950 and incorporated in the state of texas as a non-profit charitable corporation its purpose is to support charitable scientific or educational undertakings by providing for or contributing toward the education of financially limited but worthy students; by assisting young men and women residents of texas attending or wishing to attend colleges and universities in the state of texas to complete their education and obtain degrees; by contributing to community chests and supporting any other non-profit organization or activity dedicated to the furtherance of the general welfare within the state of texas randall gordon piper and his wife minnie stevens piper were the principal donors"
227,dr ralph wurbs arthur mcfarland professor in the environmental and water resources division of the zachry department of civil engineering was recently named an honorary diplomate water resources engineer (hondwre) of the american academy of water resources engineers (aawre) a subsidiary of the american society of civil engineers (asce) in support of aawres mission of 'elevating level of standards' – to broaden and deepen the body of knowledge for practicing engineers aawres diplomate certification was developed to improve the practice elevate the standards and advance the profession of water resources engineers the diplomate water resources engineer (dwre) represents strong professional ethics and a commitment to life-long learning and continuing professional development since the start of aawres diplomate water resources engineer program 600 water resources engineers worldwide have qualified for thediplomate water resources engineer credential the honorary diplomate status is aawres highest honor given to an individual since the founding of aawre in october 2004 only thirty-two individuals have received the honorary diplomate water resources engineers (hondwre) status from the academy previously honorary diplomate status is only granted to outstanding individuals who meet one or more of the following criteria: has attained a position of eminence in the water resources engineering profession has made a singular noteworthy achievement or sustained noteworthy contributions to the advancement of the water resources engineering profession or has rendered outstanding service over a sustained period of time in the field of water resources and to the work of the academy dr wurbs along with other new honorary inductees will be recognized and honored on june 2 during aawres 10th anniversary diplomate ceremony at the 2014 ewri world environmental & water resources congress in portland oregon
228,dr judea pearl will present the science of cause and effect on friday may 9 2014 at 10:20 am in room 169 of the blocker building on the texas a&m campus this cse distinguished lecturer seminar is cohosted by the department of computer science and engineering conflict and development agricultural economics and the department of statistics in his talk dr pearl will review concepts principles and mathematical tools that were found useful in transforming cause and effect relationships he will demonstrate their applications in several data-intensive sciences dr pearl is a professor of computer science and statistics at ucla author of several hundreds research papers he also has written three books: heuristics (1984) probabilistic reasoning (1988) and causality (2000; 2009) dr pearl is a member of the national academy of engineering the american academy of arts and sciences the national academy of sciences and a fellow of the ieee aaai and cognitive science society in 2008 dr pearl received the benjamin franklin medal for computer and cognitive science and in 2011 the david rumelhart prize from the cognitive science society in 2012 he received the technion's harvey prize and the acm am turing award
229,the department would like to congratulate the 2014-2015 american nuclear society (ans) scholarship and fellowship recipients robert pinkston angelo biseti memorial scholarship award william sames walter meyer memorial scholarship award ryan kelly allan f henry/paul a greebler memorial scholarship award mallory carson undergraduate scholarship award christopher pannier graduate scholarship award richard vega graduate scholarship award all scholarship recipients will be recognized in the honors & awards program to be distributed during the ans annual meeting june 15-19 in reno nev congratulations recipients we wish you continued success in your future pursuits!
230,technology capable of sampling water systems to find indicators of fecal matter contamination that are thousandths and even millionths of times smaller than those found by conventional methods is being developed by a team of researchers at texas a&m university working with a team of collaborators vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering has developed an ultrasensitive detection method that can detect molecules associated with human and animal fecal matter in water systems these extremely small indicators he explains have been traditionally difficult to detect but can signal greater levels of contamination which can lead to illness and even death the teams research is funded by the national science foundation and is featured in the journal proceedings of the national academy of sciences it details the development of technology that yakovlev characterizes as affordable highly sensitive easy to implement and capable of delivering analysis of water samples in real time that combination of benefits he says gives the system a leg up on other detection technologies making it ideal for use not only in the united states but in developing countries which often face water quality issues at home and abroad animal and human waste can contaminate both recreational and source waters carrying with diseases such as polio typhoid and cholera this form of contamination can even result in environmental crises such as devastation to the aquatic population and red-tide blooms yakovlev notes these types of contamination events yakovlev explains might be mitigated or even avoided if samples from water systems are more thoroughly analyzed so that they can provide a better picture of what is in the water in other words finding trace amounts of contaminants such as fecal matter in water systems can help sound the alarm for a serious contamination event because these trace amounts likely originate from a larger source in the water system he notes however detecting these trace amounts isnt easy especially in a timely manner yakovlev says high costs sample-size limitations and lengthy analysis times he notes have prevented environmental researchers from employing highly sensitive techniques that can deliver real-time analysis – until now yakovlev and his colleagues are poised to change things with an innovative approach to detecting something known as urobilin urobilin is a byproduct excreted in the urine and feces of many mammals including humans and livestock such as cows horses and pigs urobilin molecules yakovlev notes are small and diffuse quickly so they easily occupy large volumes such as lakes and reservoirs for example in addition urobilin possesses another interesting property; it glows – or more accurately it can be made to glow when mixed with zinc ions urobilin forms a phosphorescent compound yakovlev explains this means if urobilin is present in a water sample – and zinc ions have been added – the sample will give off a greenish glow when examined under an ultraviolet light he says theres just one catch in some samples with low concentrations of urobilin the glow or phosphorescent emission can be weak making it difficult to analyze the sample researchers yakovlev says must be able to thoroughly excite the sample (causing the reaction) observe the glow and then measure it in order to perform an accurate analysis towards that goal yakovlev and his team have developed technology that allows them to thoroughly excite extremely small amounts of urobilin in large samples of water and then efficiently collect the resulting phosphorescent emission regardless of how weak that emission might be its done with the help of device researchers refer to as an integrated cavity the integrated cavity used by the team of researchers is essentially a hollow cylindrical container manufactured in yakovlevs laboratory a water sample is placed inside the cylinder where it interacts with zinc ions and a laser light is beamed into the object and onto the sample through a small hole yakovlev explains the light excites the urobilin compound present in the sample causing it to emit a glow the only way for the light to exit the cylinder he notes is through the hole that it initially entered not only does this ensure that all the light that enters the cylinder is used to excite the entire sample it also enables researchers to efficiently collect the resulting phosphorescent emission so that it can be directed to a photo detector such as a spectrometer for analysis yakovlev says employing the integrated cavity in their detection efforts yakovlev and his team have detected the presence of urobilin down to a nanomole per liter a mole is a common unit of measurement in chemistry and a nanomole is one billionth of that measurement whats more the technology provides actual concentration levels of the contaminant and it does so much quicker than other methods he notes we can demonstrate detection of ultralow concentrations of urobilin in solution yakovlev says this is a huge improvement in terms of sensitivity and our technique has tremendous potential for analysis of global drinking water supplies particularly in developing nations and following natural disasters where sophisticated laboratory equipment may not be available another key element of the technology which can be produced for a few hundred dollars is its ability to analyze large samples yakovlev notes conventional methods are not capable of analyzing large samples this is a problem he adds because it is unlikely that an accurate analysis of an overall water system can be derived from a small sample for example researchers might collect a small sample that is free of the contaminant but that doesnt mean the entire water system is contaminant free a larger sample he says gives researchers a better predictive power about the water system contains the bigger the sample the better yakovlev says and with our technology the sensitivity scales with the amount of water in our sample using one liter will increase sensitivity by a factor of 20 and an additional 10 liters result in another order of magnitude increase in sensitivity as its stands yakovlev and his team are working to commercialize the technology for urobilin detection because it delivers nearly instantaneous results it could serve as the basis for in-home detection systems that alert users if the water coming from their faucets is suddenly contaminated he says think smoke detector for a water faucet equally as important he notes the technology can be used for detection of other types of toxic compounds in both liquids and gases lending itself to anti-terrorism applications among other uses yakovlevs collaborators are marlan o scully and edward s fry distinguished professors in the department of physics and astronomy at texas a&m; and graduate students joel n bixler michael cone brett hokr john mason and ellie figueroa contact: professor vladislav yakovlev at (979) 458-2326 or via email: yakovlev@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 847-5833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
231,on april 14 2014 dr yassin hassan department head of nuclear engineering named david barker 66 a distinguished former student of the department he is currently the director of the aftermarket services business unit at dril-quip inc where he is responsible for the overall aftermarket support and services which includes customer refurbishment projects; capital drilling equipment repair and recertification; and field life management services additional responsibilities include global service for rental tools technical development and writing training and certification of field service technicians barker has over 40 years of cumulative experience in a broad range of businesses including engineering construction manufacturing project management procurement finance and accounting emergency planning and restoration start-up testing quality assurance and control he has spent 10 years with dril-quip inc in positions as head of manufacturing and project management prior to being assigned to lead the aftermarket business unit prior to joining dril-quip inc barker had a progressive career in the nuclear power field working on the ns savannah program the worlds first nuclear powered commercial vessel; served as project manager on the south texas nuclear project and was a key player in bringing the plant to its current operable status; and managed major architectural and construction programs on large commercial real estate projects throughout the state as well as several coal fired electric generating stations he is considered to be an expert in project management across many disciplines for projects that are labeled global barker has a bachelors in mechanical engineering and a masters in nuclear engineering from texas a&m university and an mba from penn state university he is also a registered professional engineer
232,drs william marlow and leslie braby retire from the department of nuclear engineering a retirement reception will be held on friday may 2 at 4 pm on the third floor of the zachry engineering center dr marlow has 29 years of service and has been the undergraduate student advisor for 13 years he earned his bs in physics from mit in 1966 and his phd from the university of texas at austin in 1973 his employment has varied from 1973-74 a post-doctoral research associate for the department of environmental sciences and engineering in the school of public health at the university of north carolina; in 1975-1986 he worked at the department of applied sciences in brookhaven national laboratory; in 1985-86 he was a tees research engineer for the texas a&m civil engineering department; in 1986-2014 he was a faculty member of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m while at texas a&m he held a number of research grants graduated phd students now employed around the world was the college of engineering faculty fellow in 1996 and served on numerous department college and university committees in 2000-2004 he was department coordinator and organizer for abet in 1999-2000 he was wenner-gren visiting professor of solid state physics at uppsala university sweden and japan society for the promotion of science fellow in chemical engineering department hiroshima university his wife dr laurine elkins-marlow is senior lecturer in the department of performance studies their daughter is synnöve marlow dr marlow retires may 31 2014 dr braby has 17 years of service he earned a ba in physics from linfield college and a phd in radiological physics from oregon state university he has worked in the fields of microdosimetry instrument development and the biological effects of radiation he is currently a tees research professor with the department and his research is focused on developing a better understanding of the physical processes responsible for the effects of ionizing radiation on biological systems he is a member of the radiation research society health physics society sigma xi and sigma pi sigma he is active in report committees for the national council on radiation protection national academy of science and the international commission on radiation units and recently gave the h h rossi lecture at the 16th international symposium on microdosimetry he and his wife of 48 years barbara have 3 sons all in the computer science profession dr braby retired on june 30 2013
233,"wireless lan networks such as wi-fi are now the connectivity medium of choice and with wireless traffic expected to exceed wired traffic by the end of 2015 it is becoming crucial for students to gain knowledge and real-world experience with mobility technology aruba networks inc (nasdaq: arun) has created aruba mobility academy educational materials for a mobility-specific education program designed for colleges aruba mobility academy is a global program and texas a&m university is one of the first universities to participate in the program with dr ana goulart teaching networking courses and integrating segments of the academy in three of her courses goulart an assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and a faculty member in the electronics systems engineering technology (eset) program plans to expand the academy into more courses this summer and fall ""we live in a world where we are increasingly relying on wireless technology to live and work so it's important to make sure our students have the opportunity to learn about the fundamentals of building and operating wireless networks "" said goulart ""with the aruba mobility academy curriculum including hands-on lab lessons students gain a pragmatic understanding of wi-fi and learn how to keep the network secure while providing access to a variety of wireless and mobile devices"" upon completion of the course aruba mobility academy students will have the technical understanding and hands-on experience to configure a wireless lan with mobility controllers and access points additionally the courses cover common bring your own device (byod) networking challenges with a focus on wi-fi fundamentals spectrum analysis wireless lan design remote authentication dial in user service (radius) configuration for 8021x and extensible authentication protocol (eap) authentication and mobile device provisioning for employees and guests"
234,refining whether oil or natural gases can be a costly process because of the need to remove impurities found when extracting them from the ground currently expensive materials are used to handle this process texas a&m engineering professors jaime c grunlan and benjamin a wilhite have developed a completely new game-changing gas separation membrane that will make the process of extracting these impurities easier and more importantly less expensive their work was published recently in the journal advanced materials with the title highly size-selective ionically crosslinked multilayer polymer films for light gas separation they have also filed a patent for this technology due to its commercial potential we use a simple polymer-based film to remove the impurities and it has the promise of a less expensive method for producing purer oil said wilhite associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering it is all polymer and we are able to get performances comparable to really expensive materials such as mixed matrix membranes and zeolites the technology is separating gases added grunlan associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering gas where they mine it is impure and contains different poison gases you dont want if you run gas through this membrane what comes out is much purer than what went in on the other side the membrane that grunlan and wilhite have developed is a layer-by-layer polymer coating that is comprised of alternating individual layers of common low-cost polyelectrolytes the coating can be made by dipping or spraying making it very easy to apply to existing gas separation systems these films separate molecules based on size the smaller ones such as hydrogen pass through while larger ones such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen are slowed down you can have multiple membranes in a row and it would keep getting purer and purer each time it went through the membranes said grunlan except for a sheet of metal nothing has higher selectivity than our coating this cheap easy coating is the best thing after a pure sheet of metal the processing is easier and the materials are cheaper the oil and gas industry could stand to be one of the main benefactors of the new technology both oil and gas contain impurities that have to be filtered for example crude oil comes out of the ground with sulfur if the amount of sulfur is greater than 05 percent the crude is considered sour crude with less than 05 percent sulfur is considered sweet and is commonly used for processing into gasoline kerosene and high-quality diesel
235,traditionally we have operated just off sweet crudes said wilhite as all the sweet stuff is pretty much gone now we are increasingly having to tap the holes in the ground we didnt want 50 to 100 years ago in order for the sour crude to be refined into gasoline the sulfur has to be removed which is currently done through hydro treating an expensive process that in turn leads to higher-priced gasoline you need hydrogen in order to sweeten crudes wilhite said we can use our membrane right now as a hydrogen purifier which is valuable because hydrogen is extremely useful in the refining industry for more information contact dr jaime c grunlan (jgrunlan@tamuedu) or dr benjamin a wilhite (benjaminwilhite@mailchetamuedu)
236,on monday april 14 the department of nuclear engineering held its annual awards and recognition banquet in the memorial student center the primary purpose of this event is to highlight achievements of students faculty and staff and former students over 75 attended including former students donors faculty staff and students representing their endowed scholarships were mr david barker '66 mr thomas jordan '74 and wife linda dr marvin adams and wife jenny and mrs marna stepan '90 as part of the program two former students received a department award mr david barker '66 and mr ramiro martinez '50 both were recognized as distinguished former students of the department for 2014 following the former student awards was the recognition of two retiring faculty drs william marlow and leslie braby dr marlow retires with 29 years of service and dr braby with 17 years concluding the evening were the undergraduate and graduate awards and student organization recognition twenty-eight graduate students received fellowships and 21 undergraduates received scholarships the department thanked the alpha nu sigma honor society american nuclear society health physics society institute of nuclear materials management and women in nuclearfor more photos visit our flickr site here
237,summer 2014 marks the 11th year that the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is offering a summer research experiences for undergraduates (reu) program the program spans 10 weeks and involves undergraduate students from texas a&m as well as students from other colleges and universities from across the united states the hope is that students participating in the reu program will make significant contributions to ongoing faculty research and more importantly will gain an appreciation for and an interest in graduate school and a future research career among the schools and universities participating students attend are arizona state dallas baptist university georgia state university jimmy carter early college high school/south texas college maine maritime academy oberlin college oklahoma christian university purdue university purdue university north central texas a&m university texas a&m university-corpus christi university of alaska–anchorage university of puerto rico in arecibo university of the south ut arlington and vassar the faculty mentors for the participants in the reu summer 2014 program are dr nancy amato dr riccardo bettati dr yoonsuck choe dr guofei gu dr tracy hammond dr daniel jimenez dr andruid kerne dr andreas klappenecker dr robin murphy dr lawrence rauchwerger dr scott schaefer dr dylan shell and dr dezhen song the reu program includes participants from several programs including the computing for disaster reu site the cra-w/cdc distributed research experiences for undergraduates (dreu) program the dwight look college of engineering undergraduate summer research grant (usrg) program students from mexico participating in the engineering and english intensive internship program sponsored by canieti and students funded by individual faculty members this 10-week program is designed to be an opportunity for students who qualify to learn more about the department the college and the university while also contributing to ongoing faculty research there are weekly brown bag meetings at which speakers lecture on various relevant subjects and the students are able to discuss their research and experiences this summer with each other other reu events scheduled include a brazos valley bombers baseball game and a visit to nasa the program will conclude on august 8 with an undergraduate summer research grants poster presentation and awards ceremony this is such a great opportunity for all undergraduate students said theresa roberts reu program coordinator i really look forward to finally meeting the students it is an exciting time to get to know them and hope that their time here in aggieland is both educational information and enjoyable!
238,the computer science and engineering graduate student association (csegsa) recently hosted the csegsa summer kickoff picnic for the texas a&m computer science and engineering research experiences for undergraduates (reu) summer 2014 program the picnic was the first social event for the summer and was held at hensel park the purpose of the event was to welcome the reu students to the department with a fun social event build community within the department and promote csegsa for the reu participants said jory denny csegsa president approximately 80 people attended the picnic that included activities such as frisbee football soccer chess cards and puzzles among them were visiting reu students graduate students and two professors who came to partake in the fun we were thrilled with the turnout and the community-building atmosphere at the event said stephanie valentine csegsa secretary we intend for the csegsa summer kickoff picnic to become an aggieland summer tradition welcoming new students each summer
239,(from left to right) dan hill david burnett david schechter and thomas blasingame the society of petroleum engineers (spe) recently notified those fortunate individuals and companies who have been awarded some of the highest honors in their organization for 2014 the spe international awards that will be given at the annual technical conference and exhibition in amsterdam have just been announced and again we have several winners on our faculty please join me in congratulating dave burnett and david schechter for their selection as spe distinguished members a distinction restricted to a small percentage of spe members in addition join me in congratulating tom blasingame this years recipient of the distinguished achievement for petroleum engineering faculty award toms selection gives the department consecutive winners as hisham nasr-el-din was the 2013 recipient congratulations to our international award winners! said dan hill head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university spe international awards recognize individuals and companies that make significant technical and professional contributions to the petroleum engineering profession and to the worldwide oil and gas industry award recipients are formally announced in july posted on the spe website and published in the journal of petroleum technology the awards are presented during the spe annual technical conference and exhibition specifically at the annual reception and banquet held on october 27 in the rai center amsterdam the netherlands dan hill department head professor and holder of the noble endowed chair will receive the 2014 john franklin carll award this award recognizes distinguished contribution in the application of engineering principles to petroleum development and recovery david burnett director of gpri and david schechter associate professor and george k hickox jr development professor have been named spe distinguished members established in 1983 the distinguished member award recognizes spe members who achieve distinction deemed worthy of special recognition this award acknowledges members who have attained eminence in the petroleum industry or the academic community or who have made significant contributions to spe distinguished membership is restricted to not more than 1% of spe membership and is equivalent to fellow status in other professional societies thomas blasingame professor and holder of the robert l whiting endowed professorship will receive the distinguished achievement for petroleum engineering faculty award this award recognizes superiority in classroom teaching excellence in research significant contributions to the petroleum engineering profession and/or special effectiveness in advising and guiding students i am proud of all we do and all we have accomplished as individuals and collectively as faculty (and) staff but most of all i am proud of our students and former students who provide world-class innovation service and leadership to the petroleum industry said tom blasingame spe is the largest individual member organization serving managers engineers scientists and other professionals worldwide in the upstream segment of the oil and gas industry with more than 86 000 members worldwide
240,four researchers in the department of electrical and computer engineering were recognized for their research at the texas a&m technology commercialization patent awards event gwan choi jun kameoka b don russell and tees sr research engineer carl benner along with their collaborators received patent awards at the event the texas a&m technology commercialization presents these patent awards to individuals that are employed by the a&m system and whose inventions are granted patent protection form the united states patent and trademark office in 2013 choi associate professor in the department and part of the computer engineering and systems group (cesg) had three patents he has served as a program committee member on several international conferences and was a vice-chair for the iee international performance and dependability symposium choi received his bachelor's degree master's degree and phd in electrical and computer engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign he has published more than 120 articles in international conference proceedings and journals he also has received the presidential academic award in 1985 and he was awarded the prestigious nsf career award in 1997 he has worked for cray research and interned at tandem computers inc his current research topics include fault-tolerance asynchronous circuits and communication high-performance vlsi circuits energy harvesting for sensors design and testing of radiation detection sensors and verification simulation kameoka associate professor in the department had one patent during the year he received his phd in electrical engineering from cornell university in 2002 after working as a postdoctoral associate at cornell he joined the electrical engineering department at texas a&m as an assistant professor in 2004 kameoka has been working on a number of projects including research on nano and microfluidics nanosensors and molecular manipulation bio-micromachining and biomems he is the author of numerous publications and has received several patents russell the harry e bovay jr chair professor in the department and benner received two patents russell is director of the power system automation laboratory and has been a member of the faculty of texas a&m for 37 years he is past president of the power and energy society of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and was named recipient of the ieee halperin award the highest recognition for electric power engineering given by ieee and is considered an expert on monitoring and protection of electric power systems russell is internationally recognized for his development of automated techniques for detecting arcing faults and failures on electric power systems his recent work has emphasized predictive diagnostic tools for detecting failing power system equipment before catastrophic failure this will allow utilities to repair systems before an outage occurs his work is currently being extended to detect power system failures that cause wildfires an area of great importance given the increasing drought conditions in the united states benner who has worked for the department more than 25 years is assistant director of the power system automation laboratory as a senior research engineer he focuses on electric power system monitoring and diagnostics primarily for electric utility companies originally from el campo texas benner came to bryan in 1983 to study at texas a&m and graduated with a bachelors degree in 1986 and a masters degree in 1988 both in electrical engineering when he began his research his main focus was computer-based monitoring technology to detect when power lines break fall to the ground and remain energized creating fire and safety hazards this technology was patented and licensed by ge in the early 1990s and is now broadly used by pepco the utility company that serves the nations capital benner and his co-researchers hold multiple patents for developing this technology they also won an r&d 100 award dubbed the oscars of invention in 1996 from r&d magazine for developing this system benners current focus has broadened to developing computer-based real-time monitoring systems to detect and indicate that line hardware is nearing a point of failure before it happens this provides a utility company with the ability to proactively take steps to avoid or mitigate the consequences of outages in addition to his role at texas a&m benner is a frequent speaker at industry trade meetings and serves as a peer reviewer for multiple professional trade journals benner also is a registered professional engineer in texas and an ieee fellow
241,dr eric petersens research paper titled ‘effect of shock strength on dust entrainment behind a moving shock wave was awarded the best paper award at the tenth international symposium on hazards prevention and mitigation of industrial explosions (x ishpmie) that took place in bergen norway each year the symposium brings together researchers and engineers in the field of industrial explosion safety to discuss state-of-the-art technology for controlling the hazard posed by accidental explosions petersens co-authors for the paper are brandon marks and greg johnston graduate students in the department of mechanical engineering and amira chowdhury and m s mannan from the mary kay o'connor process safety center in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university a new facility was developed recently by the authors for the study of shock waves over dust layers and petersen presented the findings of this study at the symposium secondary dust explosion is a serious industrial issue because it occurs under conditions corresponding to an increased quantity and concentration of dispersed combustible dust when compared with the primary explosion the problems of lifting and dispersing of a dust layer behind a propagating shock wave must therefore be understood to ensure safety regarding secondary dust explosion hazards a study was performed to demonstrate the capabilities of the new facility and to compare results with experimental trends formerly established in the literature petersen is a professor in the department of mechanical engineering and his research interests include combustion propulsion shock waves chemical kinetics solid rocket propellants laser diagnostics spectroscopy compressible flow shock tubes gas turbine combustion fluid mechanics aerosols advanced additives high-speed aerodynamics and liquid rocket combustion
242,the texas a&m formula sae team won 2nd place overall and 1st place in the endurance event in the 2014 formula sae lincoln student design competition held at the lincoln airpark in lincoln nebraska from june 18th to june 21st in the endurance event texas a&m completed 14 laps split into two seven lap segments with a driver change in the middle with the fastest lap time winning first place out of the 60 schools that participated in the endurance event only 29 were able to finish the formula sae team and dr make mcdermott the texas a&m formula sae team conceives designs fabricates tests and develops a small formula style competition racecar to participate in the formula sae series competition each year the project is undertaken as a two-semester capstone design sequence in the courses interdisciplinary design i and ii conducted by dr make mcdermott in the department of mechanical engineering students design the car in the fall semester and build and develop it in the spring semester the texas a&m racecar the formula sae series competitions challenge teams of university undergraduate and graduate students giving them a chance to demonstrate and prove their creativity and engineering skills in comparison to teams from other universities in the nation and around the world there are only a few restrictions on the overall vehicle design allowing the teams great design flexibility and freedom to express their creativity and imagination the cars are judged on the basis of a series of static and dynamic events that include technical inspection cost presentation engineering design solo performance trials and high performance track endurance
243,"three students in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university under the advisement of dr robert balog recently were honored for their research at prestigious conferences mohammad shadmand (left) a phd student in the department won best poster award at the center for emergency informatics 2014 summer institute on flooding his poster was titled ""design considerations for long-term remote photovoltaic-based power supply using non-planar photovoltaic surfaces"" shadmand is a member of the renewable energy and advanced power electronics research (reaper) lab under the direction of balog assistant professor in the department stephen mcconnell (center) a master's student and zhan wang (right) a phd student both in balogs reaper lab won best poster award in its category on photovoltaic reliability at the ieee photovoltaic specialist conference in denver their poster was titled ""evaluation method for arc fault detection algorithms this poster presents a portion of stephens undergraduate thesis which he performed under the supervision of balog mcconnell and wang also presented a paper poster titled ""arc fault signal detection - fourier transformation vs wavelet decomposition techniques using synthesized data at the conference shadmand received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from qatar university doha qatar in 2010 he received a master's degree in electrical engineering from texas a&m in 2012 currently he is working toward the phd degree in electrical engineering at texas a&m shadmand has been a researcher with the reaper laboratory since 2010 his research interests include fea of high-frequency magnetic components model predictive control matrix converter performance analysis of pv systems and switching power supplies he was awarded second place in the international ieee industrial application society graduate thesis contest for his master's thesis in 2013 mcconnell received his bachelor's degree from texas a&m in may 2014 he graduated as an undergraduate research scholar with the thesis entitled photovoltaic arc-fault detection he is now enrolled as a master's student and is a member of the reaper laboratory at texas a&m his research interests include signal processing approaches to evaluate dc system performancewang received his b sc in electrical engineering – electric machines and drives from zhejiang university hangzhou china in 2010 he is currently working toward the phd degree at texas a&m his research interests include switching power supplies and renewable energy conversion he is currently working on arc fault detection in photovoltaic dc fields"
244,"one department of electrical and computer engineering undergraduate student at texas a&m university had an outstanding school year winning numerous awards and honors for his scholarly and leadership roles yashwant prakash vyas a junior in the department won the various awards for his service and commitment to the university and his community they include the following: 1 buck weirus spirit award 2014 association of former students & department of student activities & texas a&m university this award honors students each year who demonstrate high involvement create positive experiences throughout the aggie community impact student life at texas a&m and enhance the aggie spirit the buck weirus spirit award named for richard ""buck"" weirus '42 recognizes students for their outstanding contributions to student life programs at texas a&m university 2 margaret rudder community service award 2014 department of student activities the margaret rudder community service award seeks to recognize and award those who significantly impact their community and as a result are themselves impacted by that contribution 3 class star award for leadership 2014 class councils texas a&m university class stars is university-wide awards program aimed to annually recognize outstanding members of each class this program is unique in that students are nominated by their peers in the categories of academics athletics leadership service and spirit 4 diversity certificate 2014 department of multicultural services tamu diversity certificate is an intensive certification program offered by the department of multicultural services at texas a&m university recipients are required to complete an academic component which consists of nine hours of diversity related course work a co-curriculum which consists of 10 hours of participation in diversity related co-curricular activities a service learning component which consists of 20 hours of involvement in an approved diversity related service project and a capstone project which requires participants to demonstrate they have integrated and made sense of their experiences 5 leadership certificate 2014 student government association tamu the sga leadership certificate is based on the social change model of leadership the leadership certificate allows students to experience activities programs and events that take place on campus and within the bryan/college station community reflect upon their learning experiences and connect their learning experiences with the social change model of leadership 6 artfest 2014 first place msc visual arts committee (for my warali paintings story of aggieland in maroon & white) artfest is annual student art competition and exhibition sponsored by the memorial student center's visual arts committee 7 outstanding service award 2014 international student association texas a&m university given to an officer for his/her service and leadership initiative to better the organization and help international students at texas a&m university 8 brazos valley world fest 2013 first prize city of college station/bryan & tamu individual booth on world cultures: what we have in common 9 unicef service honor stole 2014 tamu unicef chapter & unicef given to a member for their outstanding service to unicef vyas is an international student at texas a&m from india studying electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics he transferred to texas a&m in the fall of 2012 from jawaharlal nehru technological university hyderabad india i personally think that in the era of globalization it is essential to have a global mindset - a blend of experience and fluency in other cultures he said during my first year of engineering in india i realized that getting an international exposure would add up to my self-confidence independence and cross cultural skills and my experiences in an international setting would greatly enrich my ability of understanding and communicating with people from different countries which is in a way to gain a competitive edge for myself both in social life and in the future job market so after researching engineering programs all over the world vyas said he finally decided to come to the united states and texas a&m because apart from having a highly ranked engineering program it had lot of opportunities for overall professional development and student activities i was impressed by the resources that a&m has for students and by the leadership and service opportunities that a&m had to offer he said my decision to transfer to texas a&m university is one of the best decisions i have ever taken in my life i am both humbled and proud to be here i couldnt have asked for a better place to find out what i am capable of giving back to the world during his time at texas a&m vyas has belonged on several student organizations at major leadership positions including the international student association the student government association diversity commission the india association the aggie orientation leaders program camp kesem muster 2014 host aggie replant texas a&m university-unicef chapter texas aggies making changes (12th can) student government association indian graduate student association texas a&m emergency care team keep brazos beautiful counselor at fish camp and transfer student ambassador for the office of the dean of student life nsfp"
245,texas a&m engineering hosted the 2014 society of women engineers (swe) summer camp from june 15-20 this year's cam provided a week-long fun and educational camp experience for 62 middle school girls interested in engineering the camp participants stayed in texas a&m dorms for a week allowing them to experience first-hand the college atmosphere as well as what it means to be a woman engineer women engineers from halliburton williams basf and many other companies presented different types of engineering in addition to the presentations various members of the texas a&m staff gave the girls real life examples of stem related fields throughout the week the girls competed in a design project to gain experience in working with groups as well as having to deal with real world obstacles their design project was to build a zoo and a bridge using materials that they purchased with a given amount of money during the week heavier animals were added to the mix forcing each group to modify their designs in order to hold the weight many of the groups excelled in this design competition and received great real-life knowledge participants also took part in various mini-activities such as cleaning up oil spills catapults and irradiated salt for more information on swe visit: https://wwwswetamucom/
246,the department of computer science and engineering has created a number of spaces throughout the harvey r bum bright building that will promote collaboration and learning among students and faculty there are student collaboration spaces on the third fourth and fifth floors of the bright building giving students the ability to gather outside of their own research labs they have also recently set up tables with umbrellas on the back patio of the building i believe that the new collaboration spaces have provided much needed free space for students to socialize practice presentations and study said larry powell upsilon pi epsilon (upe) president i have observed that using these spaces promotes socializing and effective communication with the ample seating areas and whiteboards in each collaboration space upe looks forward to continue to use these areas in the upcoming semesters along with these spaces there is another new collaboration space that has undergone significant remodeling in the hopes that it will create a more engaging setting for students and faculty to gather the new graduate student collaboration and learning space has been created next to the departmental lunch room the faculty is sharing the adjacent faculty lounge with the students as well i think all the students agree that the new spaces are a great addition to our facilities said jory denny computer science and engineering graduate students association (csegsa) president csegsa in particular uses the main student lounge on the third floor for meetings informal gathers and more i think these spaces provide a unique opportunity to students across the department to share ideas and hangout where previously they might not have ever met
247,this fall dr bruce gooch will begin his texas a&m university career in the department of computer science and engineering as an associate professor in digital humanities gooch is well known for motivating undergraduate and graduate students in the development of their computer graphic and critical thinking skills many of his students now pursue their careers at top companies and national labs gooch's research interests are in the fields of non-photorealistic rendering perception and graphics learning and video games and computational aesthetics he has published over 50 research papers on computer graphics and is co-author of the first book on non-photorealistic rendering non-photorealistic rendering categorizes usable techniques in non-photorealistic rendering and provides a summary of some of the algorithms as well as pseudo-code for producing some of the images he is a pioneering member or founder of four international conferences recognized by the acm: computational aesthetics (cae) non-photorealistic rendering and animation (npar) interactive 3d graphics and games (i3d) and foundations of digital games (fdg) gooch has helped 19 start-up companies to patent successfully defend and license their technology in silicon valley hollywood and on madison avenue gooch earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics and his master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from the university of utah he was an assistant professor of computer science at northwestern university from 2003 to 2008 and an associate professor of computer science at the university of victoria bc canada since 2006
248,texas a&m engineering had a strong presence at the 3rd annual national innovation summit and showcase june 16th – 18th the event was held in conjunction with the national sbir/sttr conference and the 17th annual techconnect world conference the national innovation summit is the worlds largest showcase of industry-vetted new technologies that are ready for commercialization; the summit is in support of the white house and congressional call for innovation commercialization initiatives as a university partner representatives from the texas a&m engineering experiment station texas a&m transportation institute texas a&m engineering extension service and the texas a&m system technology commercialization office were able to attend one-on-one meetings with industry representatives from around the world in order to discuss future partnerships and collaboration opportunities the national innovation summit also provided an opportunity for companies to showcase their ideas for new technologies texas a&m engineering also had an exhibit booth at the showcase allowing for industry representatives to connect with and learn more about each of the agencies that were present as a university partner up to 20 texas a&m innovators had the opportunity to submit their technologies into the overall innovation database where they were reviewed by corporate and federal agency partners prior to the show thermal expansion solutions llc represented by dr james monroe and dr ibrahim karaman was selected to attend the summit and give an oral presentation about its new technology known as allvar more than 15 companies expressed interest in meeting with monroe and karaman to learn more about their innovation thermal expansion solutions llc is a startup organization focused on creating scalable and stable allvar (all-variant) thermal expansion alloys that may be used in a wide variety of industries at an affordable rate to learn more about allvar visit wwwallvarnet companies or individuals interested in learning more about the state engineering agencies or the technology commercialization office within the texas a&m university system should contact dr dale cope at (979) 458-7477 dalecope@teestamusedu or ande brenckman at (979) 458-7552 andreabrenckman@teestamusedu
249,"from may 16-31 11 texas a&m university petroleum engineering students attended a study abroad program in china the course taught by professors ding zhu rashid hasan and jiajing lin is pete 325 petroleum production systems and is an introduction to production operations and oil field equipment this was a two-week program the first week the students went to china petroleum university to study production operations such as: multiphase flow in pipes bottomhole pressure prediction inflow and outflow performance production systems and backpressure analysis hydraulic fracturing fluids and equipment; downhole and artificial lift equipment tubulars workover completion and procedures; produced fluids fluid separation and metering safety systems pressure boosting and monitoring the second week the students went to dagang oilfield during the oilfield trip the students visited a rod pump completion and workover facility ""one of the coolest places on earth to visit; learning about production and getting credit for it is the icing on the cake "" said hasan the students were given the opportunity to visit three places in beijing: the great wall the forbidden city chinese history museum and the olympic village while staying in housing at the china petroleum university several chinese students attended the class giving the texas a&m students the opportunity for cross-cultural exchanges and new friendships ""back to the place where i belong but with all the aggies we had joy we had fun we made new friends we learned production and culture aggies are you ready for next year's trip i am waiting for you!"" said lin"
250,graduate student reza h teshnizi was part of this years winning team of hackers at the city of houston 2nd annual open hackathon as well as being a graduate student in the distributed ai robotics lab in the department of computer science and engineering under dr dylan shell teshnizi is also a research assistant in the knowledge engineering laboratory in the department of entomology the winning project executed by the team of five was the city of houston blighted properties plan because city council members and residents of houston would like to be informed about the commercial or residential sites that are vacant uninhabitable and hazardous throughout the city the team set out to make the process of doing that much simpler for the people involved using our gis and programming skill set we were able to provide residents and council members a proactive means of having prompt comprehensive and visual access to such information teshnizi said the hackathon which took place the last weekend in may was a success all around and the city is already preparing for next years event this event was a chance to put my technical and teamwork abilities in practice with a team of people from diverse backgrounds teshnizi said teshnizi is enjoying his research with shell and has had a productive time at the distributed ai and robotics lab after earning his master's degree he plans on expanding his expertise in his research areas of interest i think it is essential for every computer science student to understand that the skill set which we gain throughout our course of study in the cse department is versatile it is our responsibility as engineers to keep an open eye for such problems and apply our knowledge to the benefit of the society many people who are proposing the problems in other scientific areas are not well aware of the capabilities of computer scientists
251,texas a&m university recently recognized 62 engineering students who earned their business management certificates the business management certificate program is a joint program between the dwight look college of engineering and mays business school the program was established in 2005 to provide engineering students with a highly intensive program focused on vital business competencies in the areas of accounting finance management and marketing the annual program is composed of a three-week intensive 120-hour course during may students attend class from 8 am to 5 pm daily students who complete the course are awarded a business management certificate from mays business school center for executive development the program is highly competitive more than 150 students applied for the certificate program this year students provided comments on the benefits of the program such as overall the program was fantastic the course definitely pushed me closer to wanting to pursue an mba and it showed me the value in having a business background with an engineering degree another student noted i had my eye set on this program since i transferred to texas a&m i think the program is excellent and i also think it should be implemented into all engineering curriculum during senior year the program costs more than $1 000 per student with the generous support of its sponsors halliburton chevron phillips chemical company and capitol one the 2014 business management certificate program was offered to students at the cost of $600 per student
252,"the following mechanical engineering students are recipients of the 2014 texas a&m university graduate merit and diversity fellowships matthew westwick ms westwick performs research on ceramic composites with dr miladin radovic june saichua ms saichua's research is on physicochemical interactions in battery electrode degradation and safety aimed for electric vehicle batteries david malawey ms malawey's research interests are control systems instrumentation and mechatronics thomas massey fowler phd fowler works on research related to fluid mechanics and involving development and application of biologically-inspired design robert ""matt"" price ms price's areas of research interest are methodology of design self-folding structures and dynamics / vibrations"
253,pioneer natural resources company recently contributed $600 000 to the texas a&m foundation to benefit the dwight look college of engineerings petroleum and mechanical engineering departments at texas a&m university a portion of the funding will support a multipurpose resource and meeting space within the harold vance department of petroleum engineering construction on the pioneer natural resources company resource room was completed in early spring of this year and is continuously utilized by faculty staff and students the remainder of the gift will be designated to the pioneer natural resources company scholarship in mechanical engineering this scholarship fund will provide financial aid to undergraduate students as well as fund graduate student fellowships and faculty fellows aggie engineers have contributed significantly to the success of our company and we recognize the value of the texas a&m educational experience we are pleased to support the great work of the petroleum and mechanical engineering departments through endowments and building space improvements to enhance the quality of education said ken sheffield 82 senior vice president of operations and engineering of the company and current member of the petroleum engineering industry board in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering in addition to the financial support pioneer has given to the look college the company has also established employee scholarship funds for pioneer aggies to give back to the engineering program employees wishing to contribute through this program will have their gift matched dollar for dollar by the company pioneer natural resources is a large independent oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in irving texas with operations in the united states for more information visit pioneers website at wwwpxdcom
254,dr xinghang zhang associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering recently published a review article titled growth twins and deformation twins in the may issue of annual reviews of materials research (2014) the journal has an impact factor of 16 and is well recognized in the materials science community zhang and his colleagues irene j beyerlein and amit misra from los alamos national labs reviewed studies on nanotwinned metallic materials nanotwins were shown to induce numerous unique properties in metallic materials including high strength and ductility high temperature thermal stability and superior radiation tolerance bright-field transmission electron microscopy (tem) images of magnetron sputtered (a) epitaxial nanotwinned (nt) cu (b) epitaxial nt ag (20) (c) polycrystalline nt 330 stainless steel films (arrows indicate the location of twin boundaries) and (d) electrodeposited (ed) nt cu (14) (e) ebsd image of a defective twin boundary in sputtered nt cu (x indicates a twin boundary that has defectsthe so-called defective twin boundary) ( f ) extremely fine twins in ed nt cu nanopillars (g) nt au nanowires abbreviations: ctb coherent twin boundary; itb; incoherent twin boundary (see http://dxdoiorg/101146/annurev-matsci-070813-113304 for details) zhangs research team the nanometal group has been working on mechanical behavior of nanotwinned metals since 2004 his research on nanotwinned metals is currently supported by the doe-office of basic energy sciences under grant no de-sc0010482
255,president barack obama recently announced that dr kenneth l peddicord was one of four individuals nominated to serve as a member of the nuclear waste technical review board peddicord who is the director of the nuclear power institute and a professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university has served on the board since being appointed in 2012 our nation will be greatly served by the talent and expertise these individuals bring to their new roles obama said i am grateful they have agreed to serve in this administration and i look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead peddicord has held a number of positions at texas a&m including director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) which has since been renamed the texas a&m engineering experiment station senior associate dean for research and vice chancellor for research and federal relations
256,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr choongho yu holder of the gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor ii in mechanical engineering the endowed development professorship was effective june 1 yu is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering yu received his phd in mechanical engineering from the university of texas in 2004 and his masters and bachelors degrees both in mechanical engineering from korea university yus research interests include energy harvesting and cooling; thermal and electrical transport behaviors; energy storage; and thermal management
257,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr xinghang zhang holder of the gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor i in mechanical engineering the endowed development professorship was effective june 1 zhang who is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering joined the texas a&m faculty in 2005 he holds a phd in materials science and engineering from north carolina state university he earned a masters degree in materials science and engineering from institute of metal research shenyang china and a bachelors degree in materials science and engineering from jilin university changchun china zhang has received the national science foundation (nsf) career award and was also named a tees fellow in 2013 zhangs research interests include radiation damage in metallic nanolayers and bulk nanostructured metals; layer- and twin-interface tailored strengthening and deformation mechanisms in thin films; magnetic shape memory alloy thin films for sensors or actuator applications; and hydrogen storage in nanostructured metals
258,the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was ranked among the top 10 electrical and computer engineering schools by salary according to ee timesthe department was ranked sixth ahead of mit and cornell and is among some of the elite schools in the nation the complete list is as follows:1 cmu (school of computer science)2 cal tech3 stanford4 harvey mudd5 u penn6 texas a&m7 mit8 cmu ( school of engineering)9 georgia tech10 cornell
259,computer science and engineering student coulton vento a startup aggieland student entrepreneur-in-residence and self-taught ios and web developer recently won the top student prize at apple's worldwide developer conference (wwdc) in california vento was invited to the wwdc for the first time in 2012 after receiving a scholarship to attend and has continued to be a part of the conference since the wwdc excites me and inspires me to make something awesome if you were to go in the building and look around youd see so many successful developers in the past few years ive met many of the people who make the apps that i use every day their success and experience motivates me to make something new and exciting vento has accomplished many things even before earning this prestigious award his résumé includes co-developing the app that won first place at the conference panoperfect which allows users to discover share and interact with panoramic pictures from all around the world and also being the co-founder and senior programmer for the company twobros with his brother brandon at twobros vento and his brother aim to get startup companies off the ground with custom logos websites and even mobile applications vento is also responsible for the iphone app bzar which is an app designed to make buying and selling online safer and more comfortable for the user along with developing apps for ios he develops websites such as textplay which allows users to create playlists with songs that a targeted audience would want to hear occasionally vento also does freelance work for darnology a web design agency based in houston texas the wwdc is apple's annual week of learning for mac os x and ios developers during the conference developers are able to experience the latest in ios and os x while also having the opportunity to connect with apple experts and developers from around the world panoperfect the winning social sharing app for panoramas was created by vento and his partner nate chiger of halfpeeled llc three years ago at wwdc 2012 apple unveiled a new feature inside of their camera app: the panorama camera i met nate chiger at the conference and we noticed something there really wasnt a place to share all of these amazing photos so we set off and created panoperfect a place where panorama lovers and photographers can come together and share their awesome pictures with each other vento is an excellent example of the quality of students that texas a&m is known for and he continues to be an ambassador of the department
260,"dr tracy a hammond associate professor and director of the sketch recognition lab in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university dr manoj prasad and doctoral candidate paul taele participated in chi 2014 the acm special interest group on computer-human interaction (sigchi) conference is known as the foremost conference on human factors in computing systems chi 2014 was held at the metro toronto convention centre in toronto canada from april 26 to may 1 publication and presentation in the chi conference is highly competitive and the most prestigious venue for publications in the field of human computer interaction google scholar reports its h5-index to be 78 and it h5-median to be 114 higher than any other conference or even journals in the field of hci at the conference hammond presented the full paper: ""haptimoto: turn-by-turn haptic route guidance interface for motorcyclists "" written by dr manoj prasad paul taele dr daniel goldberg (assistant professor of geography at texas a&m) and dr tracy a hammond this work discusses a vest that provides directions for motorcyclists through touch with the use of vibration tactors in the back of a jacket co-author taele additionally participated in the doctoral consortium at the conference presenting his work ""intelligent sketching interfaces for richer mid-air drawing interactions "" on surfaceless sketch recognition the abstract for the paper ""haptimoto: turn-by-turn haptic route guidance interface for motorcyclists "" is as follows: a national study by the australian transport safety bureau revealed that motorcyclist deaths were nearly thirty times more prevalent than that of drivers of other vehicles these fatalities represent approximately 5% of all highway deaths each year yet motorcycles account for only 2% of all registered vehicles in the united states motorcyclists are highly exposed on the road so maintaining situational awareness at all times is crucial route guidance systems enable users to efficiently navigate between locations using dynamic visual maps and audio directions and have been well tested with motorists but remain unsafe for use by motorcyclists audio/visual routing systems decrease motorcyclists' situational awareness and vehicle control and thus elevate chances of an accident to enable motorcyclists to take advantage of route guidance while maintaining situational awareness we created haptimoto a wearable haptic route guidance system haptimoto uses tactile signals to encode the distance and direction of approaching turns thus avoiding interference with audio/visual awareness our evaluations demonstrate that haptimoto is both intuitive and a safer alternative for motorcyclists compared to existing solutions hammond joined texas a&m university in 2006 she holds a doctoral degree in computer science and finance technology option from mit and four degrees from columbia university: master degrees in anthropology and computer science bachelor degrees in mathematics and applied mathematics her research focuses on human perception sketch recognition computer human interaction and learning in 2012 hammond received the iaai innovative applications of ai deployed application award and was named the charles h barclay jr '45 college of engineering faculty fellow prasad graduated this spring with a doctoral degree in computer science in 2007 he earned a bachelor of engineering degree in computer science from birla institute of technology and science india during his years at texas a&m he was a member of the sketch recognition lab and a graduate teaching academy fellow his research interests are sketch recognition touch and haptic interfaces taele also a member of the sketch recognition lab has bachelor degrees in computer science and mathematics from the university of texas at austin and a master of science degree in computer science from texas a&m before beginning his studies at texas a&m paul pursued chinese mandarin language studies as a non-degree option at national chengchi university in taiwan under a full scholarship awarded by taiwan's ministry of education his research interests are in sketch recognition natural user interfaces and interaction design"
261,chevron corporation recently announced a $15 million contribution to texas a&m university through its university partnership program the donation funded through the texas a&m foundation includes gifts to the dwight look college of engineering college of geosciences school of public health and the mays business school chevron and texas a&m have enjoyed a rich partnership together and the university plays a strategic role in chevrons university partnership program the program works with more than 100 college and university partners around the world to help attract and develop talented students and teachers who can help achieve a more technically proficient global workforce including this donation chevron has invested over $28 million in texas a&m during the past eight years in support of sponsored research and initiatives to help build academic excellence over 900 texas a&m former students are currently employed by chevron at locations around the world chevron is proud to continue our longstanding partnership with texas a&m said shariq yosufzai chevron vice president and aggie class of 1974 aggie students have the reputation for being able to hit the ground running when they join our workforce and the ideals and beliefs instilled through the aggie core values are in strong alignment with the chevron way and our business culture aggies serve in numerous leadership positions throughout our company and help us meet the global energy needs the company has been a longtime supporter of texas a&m providing funding for scholarships fellowships laboratories research centers and other needs across the texas a&m campus we value our longtime partnership with chevron which invests generously in several texas a&m programs so that students and faculty have opportunities to further their education and research said jim keller 63 senior director of corporate and foundation relations for the texas a&m foundation chevron is also an active recruiter of our graduates many of whom later create their own gifts for the university so its a productive cycle that we hope will continue long into the future funds from chevrons recent contribution will be used to implement a ct scanner lab that will provide state-of-the-art teaching and research capabilities for the harold vance department of petroleum engineering; create a chevron center of research excellence for geological modeling at the berg-hughes center; and provide curriculum development at the school for public health monies are also designated to provide scholarships and support various student organizations in the college of geosciences the mays business school and the dwight look college of engineering chevron is one of the world's leading integrated energy companies with subsidiaries that conduct business worldwide the company is involved in virtually every facet of the energy industry chevron explores for produces and transports crude oil and natural gas; refines markets and distributes transportation fuels and lubricants; manufactures and sells petrochemical products; generates power and produces geothermal energy; provides energy efficiency solutions; and develops the energy resources of the future including biofuels chevron is based in san ramon calif about the texas a&m foundation: the texas a&m foundation is a private nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance texas a&ms capability to be among the best universities
262,liangfa hu a fourth-year graduate materials science and engineering student co-authored an article in the june/july 2014 issue american ceramic society bulletin analyzing results of a survey of students and recent graduates with ceramics research or interest of their impressions of their education to provide insight on successes and areas for improvement liangfa is chair of the american ceramic societys presidents council of student advisors as well as president of the tamu chapter of material advantage student organization co-author of the article is bradley richards a graduate student at university of virginia analysis of the survey results revealed that students studying ceramics believe their education in terms of ceramics has been broad they perceive considerable demand for materials scientists in the job market and increasing demand for ceramicists many have interaction with materials- and ceramics-related programs and about half have had an internship or co-op this implies an awareness of ceramics and considerable perceived value in the field although focused education in ceramics may be lacking particularly for undergraduates the authors observed most survey respondents had considerable experience with technical oral presentations a skill the authors believe is valuable regardless of career path about 40 percent of undergraduates surveyed intend to pursue graduate study and about 25 percent intend to pursue careers in academia but more than 50 percent see their future in private industry as a materials scientist
263,judy and glenn smith recently endowed the joe 68 and linda fowler scholarship through the texas a&m foundation to honor their longtime friends the smiths and fowlers have been friends for more than 25 years and they share a passion for philanthropy they first met while working together with a charity organization in houston the look college greatly appreciates the smiths creating this endowment especially in honor of two people who continuously give back to the engineering program through contributions and acts of service said andrew acker senior director of development with the foundation the fowlers are committed to enhancing the educational experience for engineering students as demonstrated by their continuous financial support of the look college their most recent contribution was to the engineering education complex which is slated to begin construction in 2015 linda and joe epitomize the aggie spirit of supporting the university by working tirelessly to promote various programs said glenn smith we wanted to demonstrate our appreciation to them by establishing a scholarship in the college of engineering in their honor the smiths reside in the woodlands texas where glenn smith is the president of smith production inc both of their daughters attended and graduated from texas a&m university
264,the texas a&m university concrete canoe team will be competing at the american society of civil engineers (asce) national concrete canoe competition on june 19-21 at the university of pittsburgh at johnstown the team which consists of 17 civil engineering majors and one aerospace engineering major earned a spot in the national competition by winning the texas-mexico regional competition that was held at the university of texas at tyler in april this is the first time since 2006 that a team from texas a&m has made it to the national competition the national competition consists of four parts: submitting a technical paper completing an oral presentation presenting a display of the canoe and competing in five separate races that consist of both short distances and tests of endurance read about this year's competition story on the bryan-college station eagle
265,the texas a&m formula sae team will be competing in the 2014 formula sae lincoln student design competition that will be held at the lincoln airpark in lincoln neb june 18-21 the formula sae series competitions challenge teams of university undergraduates and graduate students to conceive design fabricate test and develop and compete with small formula style competition vehicles
266,there are few restrictions on the overall vehicle design allowing teams the maximum design flexibility and freedom to express their creativity and imaginations teams typically spend from as little as eight months up to two years designing building testing and preparing the vehicles before the competition
267,dr jean-louis briaud the spencer j buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering has been selected as a distinguished member of the american society of civil engineers (asce) the societys highest honor asce representing 145 000 members worldwide selected 11 members for its 2014 distinguished member class the new members will be formally inducted at the global engineering conference in panama city panama this fall briaud was nominated and selected for his varied and pioneering contributions in the field of geotechnical engineering and for his eminent leadership and international service to the geotechnical engineering profession briaud also serves as the program manager for the geotechnical and geoenvironmental group at the texas a&m transportation institute he has served in various leadership roles including acting president of the federation of international geo-engineering societies and past president of the international society of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering with his selection briaud becomes one of 649 distinguished members selected for this honor during the asces 162 year history its always nice to be called ‘distinguished briaud jokes but seriously this is a huge honor certainly a highlight of my career im looking forward to the ceremony in panama which coincides with the 100 year anniversary of the panama canal please see the original story posted on the texas a&m transportation institute news website
268,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr richard malak the morris e foster faculty fellow i in mechanical engineering in recognition of his many accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship appointment was effective june 1 malak is an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in august 2009 he received both his phd and masters degree in mechanical engineering from georgia institute of technology he also received a masters degree in electrical and computer engineering from carnegie mellon university and his bachelors degree in electrical and computer engineering from stony brook university malak is the principal investigator for a texas a&m research team that was awarded a national science foundation (nsf) grant through the emerging frontiers of research and innovation (efri) program in 2012 the four-year was for nearly $2 million malaks research interests include discovering new principles methods and tools for systems modeling and decision making; predictive modeling; multi-attribute decision making; data-driven design evaluation and synthesis; model validation; set-based design; decision making under uncertainty; cyber-physical systems; and computational thinking applied to design processes
269,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr yong-joe kim the pioneer natural resources faculty fellow ii in mechanical engineering in recognition of his many accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship appointment was effective june 1 kim is an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in september 2009 he received his phd in mechanical engineering from purdue university in 2003 he earned his masters degree in mechanical engineering from korea advanced institute of science and technology and his bachelors degree in mechanical design and production engineering from chung-ang university kims research interests include acoustics and applied signal processing; nonlinear acoustics; biomedical acoustics; acoustical/biological field visualization based on array measurements; acoustophoresis in microfluidic devices; acoustics in oil/gas industry; noise and vibration control; structural health monitoring based on array signal processing; vibro-acoustic optimization of composite shell structures; computational mechanics; computational aeroacoustics analysis (caa) finite element analysis (fea); boundary element analysis (bea); and statistical energy analysis (sea)
270,pam and david beers 66 recently established an endowment through the texas a&m foundation to benefit the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university the pamela b and david e beers 66 mechanical engineering scholarship will be granted to an undergraduate student who demonstrates exceptional academic performance extracurricular involvement and financial need the desire to endow a scholarship stems from david beers pride in the education he received when he was a graduate student in the mechanical engineering department the mechanical engineering department of texas a&m made it possible for me to have a rich graduate experience said david beers with much gratitude for what the university did for me pam and i wanted to provide an endowed scholarship to help carry on the texas a&m tradition of financially helping students go through college the ability to offer scholarship opportunities assists the department of mechanical engineering in the recruiting and retention of highly qualified undergraduate students the beers gift reinforces this goal as their contribution increases the available endowment funds designated for undergraduates the department of mechanical engineering has always valued scholarship endowments as we recognize the financial burden for students wishing to seek higher education said andreas polycarpou mechanical engineering department head we are able to use the beers endowment and others like it to both entice and retain top-notch students the beers live in charlotte nc david beers received his masters degree from texas a&m in 1966 and received his doctorate degree from texas a&m soon thereafter
271,dr narasimha reddy electrical engineering professor and tees research engineer has been named assistant agency director for national and global initiatives for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering announced recently it is crucial in todays global economy for tees and the state of texas to position itself as a leader in technology development and implementation said banks dr reddy has a long history of successful collaborations with industry partners and i know he will be able to contribute greatly to tees success in the future reddy is currently the holder of the jw runyon jr 35 professor i in the department of electrical and computer engineering he earned his phd in computer engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 1990 his research interests focus on computer networks storage systems multimedia systems and computer architecture reddy has received numerous awards and honors including the prestigious national science foundation (nsf) career award and he is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee)
272,"christopher bertagne '13 a graduate student pursuing a masters degree in the department of aerospace engineering has been awarded a nasa space technical research fellowship (nstrf) for 2014-2015 nasa's space technology mission directorate (stmd) offers these fellowships to graduate students who show significant potential to contribute to nasas goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our nations science exploration and economic future as a space technology research fellow bertagne will conduct innovative research within the texas institute for intelligent materials and structures (tiims) a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center organized under the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university chris received his bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering in 2013 the nstrf is a highly competitive and prestigious fellowship that requires students to submit a detailed technical proposal describing the work they will conduct under the fellowship bertagne's proposal was entitled ""variable geometry radiators using shape memory alloys"" the research is based on preliminary work performed by dr darren hartl tees research assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering in collaboration with researchers at nasa-johnson the effort builds upon an innovative morphing radiator concept that uses shape memory alloys (smas) to actuate in response to different heat rejection requirements over the course of a mission the device has the potential to greatly improve performance while simultaneously decreasing mass relative to current radiator technology according to hartl ""this type of novel structural concept represents an ideal application of active materials technology as well as a challenging multi-physical analysis and design problem"" the fellowship which is valued at $140 000 includes full tuition coverage a monthly stipend medical insurance coverage and a pi allowance the fellowship will begin august 2014 and lasts for two years during which time bertagne will benefit from the guidance of hartl and co-advisor dr john whitcomb in addition he will be matched with a technically relevant and community-engaged researcher usually at a nasa center who will serve as the students professional research collaborator the research collaborator will serve as the conduit into the larger technical community corresponding to the students research interests"
273,a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won the best poster award at the power systems engineering research center (pserc) industry advisory board meeting in urbana ilyun zhang (center) whose advisor is dr le xie (left) won the award for their poster which described the research from a collaborative project entitled toward standards for dynamics in electric energy systems with professor m ilic of carnegie mellon professor v vittal of arizona state and xie as the investigators (also pictured professor peter sauer of university of illinois the host university of the may 2014 iab meeting)their project introduces systematic wide-area measurement systems (wams)-based control/protection requirements to ensure no system-wide instabilities or large power/voltage swings structure-preserving models are derived in support of control and protection standards in particular zhang and xie have been looking at standards that enable plug and play in future microgrid interconnections zhang received the be and ms degree in electrical engineering from harbin institute of technology harbin china in 2005 and 2007 respectively in addition to pursuing his phd degree in the department zhang completed an internship in the spring of 2014 at centerpoint energy in houston one of the largest utilities in the us his research interests include power management strategies for distributed/alternative energy resources dynamics analysis and control of large-scale systems etcxie is an assistant professor in the department where he is affiliated with the electric power and power electronics group he received his be in electrical engineering from tsinghua university china in 2004 and his sm in engineering sciences from harvard university in june 2005 he obtained his phd from the electric energy systems group (eesg) in the department of electrical and computer engineering at carnegie mellon in 2009 his industry experience includes an internship in 2006 at iso-new england and an internship at edison mission energy marketing and trading in 2007 his research interest includes modeling and control of large-scale complex systems smart grid applications in support of variable energy integration and electricity markets honors include receiving national science foundation career award and the oak ridge associated universities ralph e powe junior faculty enhancement awards he is a tees select young fellow an editor of ieee transactions on smart grid and the founding chair of ieee power and energy society task force on big data analytics for grid operations xie and his students received the best paper award at the north american power symposium 2012 and ieee smart grid comm conference 2012 as the largest national science foundation industry-university cooperative research center the power systems engineering research center (pserc) draws on university capabilities to creatively address the challenges facing the electric power industry its core purpose is to empower minds to engineer the future electric energy system hosting one of the largest power/energy systems programs texas a&m has been a strong participant of pserc
274,"doctoral candidate brittany a duncan recently had an article published about her robotics research in the june 2014 issue of the smithsonian online richard conniff a long-time smithsonian contributor authored ""why are people so comfortable with small drones"" in which he cites the airrobot quadcopter-style robot* used to represent fairies in the texas a&m university student production of ""a midsummer night's dream"" as proof that people find small flying robots nonthreatening when confronted with the audiences' reaction to the ""fairies "" duncan and her adviser dr robin murphy began an investigation of the minimal effect the small drones had on the audiences they found that one possibility for the unexpected response or lack thereof is that small drones are perceived as bird-like by people accustomed to seeing birds flying remotely above their heads and not directly at them rather than unpredictable and menacing this non-excitement elicited by small drones may cause confusion in the future if or when they are used for interactions such as crowd control or package delivery duncan said that small aerial vehicles will need to know how to alert people to danger this is the subject of a study published by duncan and murphy in ieee ro-man 2013 duncan is a national science foundation graduate fellow and a 2009 graduate of the georgia institute of technology with a bachelor's degree in computer science with honors murphy raytheon professor of computer science and engineering is recognized as a founder of the fields of rescue robots and human-robot interaction * the small robots used in the play were the result of a collaborative team project between computer science and electrical engineering departments at texas a&m"
275,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr aaron ames the morris e foster faculty fellow ii in mechanical engineering in recognition of his many accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship appointment was effective june 1 ames is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in august 2008 he received his phd in electrical engineering from the university of california berkeley as well as a masters degree in mathematics he earned bachelors degrees in mechanical engineering and mathematics both from the university of st thomas ames won the prestigious nsf career award in 2010 for his project closing the loop on walking: from hybrid systems to bipedal robots to prosthetic devices and back in 2013 he won a best paper award at the ieee international conference on cyber-physical systems networks and applications ames research interests include dynamical control robotic and hybrid systems with a special emphasis on bipedal robots behavior unique to hybrid systems such as zeno behavior and the mathematical foundations of hybrid systems
276,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr david staack the pioneer natural resources faculty fellow i in mechanical engineering in recognition of his many accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship appointment was effective june 1 staack is an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in january 2009 he received his phd in mechanical engineering from drexel university in 2008 he earned a masters degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from princeton university and masters and bachelors degrees in aerospace engineering from the university of virginia staack won the prestigious nsf career award in 2011 and also received the 3m non-tenured faculty award in 2013 staacks research interests include plasma engineering; non-thermal plasmas; micro- and nano-scale plasmas; electric propulsion for spacecraft; plasma enhanced materials processing and synthesis; plasma enhanced fuel conversion and combustion; biomedical plasma applications; and laser and spectroscopic diagnostics
277,not everyone gets to meet the president of the united states for hudson high (right blue shirt) a texas a&m graduate with a degree in industrial engineering the opportunity was exhilarating and exhausting he went to work at his job at the ford plant in kansas city like he did every day except on this monday his boss told him he had been selected to meet and brief the president on the new procedures he had developed for the end-of-the-line process at the metal stamping line he works on to add to the stress president obama would be accompanied by alan mulally president and ceo of ford motor company so high being a very well-trained aggie began preparing for his presentation to these two visitors sleep that week was fitful thoughts of what if … kept his stress levels high on the day of the visit high went to work as usual was screened by secret service agents and awaited the presidents arrival as is often the case when it comes to vip visitors the president was behind schedule when he arrived and it didnt help that he went to some waiving ford employees before he joined the official party waiting for him as the president approached a member of the president's staff informed the group that because the president was behind schedule there would only be time for a photograph with him but people in charge tend to make their own rules so the president approached and started shaking hands when the president shook high's hand he commented that high looked young enough to be a high school student high reassured him that he was in fact a college graduate and named his alma mater to which the president responded how about that johnny football the presentation went out the door as the president and high discussed texas a&m football while high did not prepare for this conversation his years of dedication as an ardent fan of texas a&m football were enough to sustain the conversation for the presidents remaining time at the ford plant that day while this event occurred last fall a photograph reminded the author that it was worth sharing high visited campus a few weeks after and shared his story with students
278,the dwight look college of engineering hosted the second-annual texas a&m engineering project showcase april 25 in reed arena to demonstrate and display the diverse projects in the college and exhibit the ways in which engineers build solutions that solve real-world problems the student participants presented work from senior capstone design courses aggie-challenge projects technical electives undergraduate research projects startup aggieland companies freshman design teams and others the event brought more than 140 industry representatives from 60 companies to campus and provided them with the opportunity to discuss possible collaborations for future industry-sponsored projects with undergraduates and faculty students got an opportunity to display their creative engineering skills to fellow students faculty and industry seven teams out of the 15 winning teams in various design categories at the engineering project showcase organized by the dwight look college of engineering were comprised of students from the department of mechanical engineering our students swept all of the student design awards they won first places in the aggiee-challenge team awards and the capstone team award they earned second places for the general team award and the tees commercial ready award five of these teams were mentored by professors in the department of mechanical engineering as well here is a list of the winning projects teams and their mentors the first-place student design team award ($700) went to the formula sae – electrical team the team member was brent james bauer (mechanical engineering) and the faculty mentor was dr make mcdermot (mechanical engineering) the second-place student design team award ($500) went to the formula sae – aerodynamics teams team members were john mayo (mechanical engineering) alexandro monjaraz (aerospace engineering) and marco martinez (mechanical engineering) the faculty mentor was dr make mcdermot (mechanical engineering) the third-place student design team award ($250) went to the putting on the brakes: engineering oil transportation team team members were coleman fincher (mechanical engineering) daniel jaeger (mechanical engineering) and storm rubio (computer engineering) the first-place aggie-challenge team award ($750) went to the noble-metal-nano particle- catalyzed pedot: pss/carbon composite electrode for aqueous lithium-ion batteries team team members were dion hubble (chemical engineering) raul calzada (chemical engineering) deepak bhatia (electrical engineering) aalap ashtamkar (mechanical engineering) sergio cartagena (mechanical engineering) aaron morales (mechanical engineering) and xingliang he (mechanical engineering) the faculty mentors were dr hong liang (mechanical engineering) and dr partha mukherjee (mechanical engineering) the first-place capstone team award ($700) was seawater desalination plant – power team team members were mohannad hani mohamed (mechanical engineering) and kamel mohamed (mechanical engineering) faculty mentors were dr dan mcadams (mechanical engineering) and dr michael schuller the second-place general team award ($500) went to the communication network in remote areas team team members were chokote kamdeu (mechanical engineering) jeremy cantu (computer science) janice rosado (computer engineering) and melissa mcneil (computer science) the faculty mentors were dr richard furuta and rodney boehm the second-place tees commercial ready award ($500) went to the low energy heat recover ventilator team team members were colin breedlove (mechanical engineering) matt krezinski (mechanical engineering) joe mcdonough (mechanical engineering) and james thorpe (mechanical engineering) the faculty mentors were dr charles culp and dr devesh ranjan (mechanical engineering)
279,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr stefan hurlebaus holder of the peter c forster career development professor in the dwight look college of engineering the endowed development professorship was effective june 1 hurlebaus is an associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university he received his doctorate and masters both in mechanical engineering from university of stuttgart germany he also received a masters in engineering science and mechanics from georgia institute of technology and a bachelors (equiv) in mechanical engineering from university of stuttgart germany hurlebaus research interests include smart structures structural health monitoring nondestructive testing laser ultrasonics active vibration control semi-active damping active vibration isolation wave propagation in elastic solids and vibrations
280,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr lawrence rauchwerger holder of the eppright professorship in engineering in the dwight look college of engineering the endowed professorship was effective june 1 rauchwerger is a professor in the department of computer science and engineering and joined the faculty at texas a&m university in 1996 he received his phd in computer science from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign his masters in electrical engineering from stanford university and a diploma in electronica engineering from polytechnic institute bucharest rauchwergers research interests include compilers for parallel and distributed computing parallel and distributed c++ libraries adaptive runtime optimizations and architectures for parallel computing
281,last year dr justin yates assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering was presented the opportunity to build a team of students to partner with residents in space and the united states rocket academy in designing and building a device that would carry experiments into space – at a very low cost under guidance from the space engineering research center part of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the team was tasked to develop a new research platform the lynx cub payload carrier (lcpc) with the intent to dramatically reduce space flight costs for small science and education payloads texas a&m faculty yates and tom talley; students austin goswick eric chao donald boyd and cress netherland; and tees researchers chip hill and frank little designed and fabricated the lcpc the first one was delivered recently and will fly on the xcor lynx spacecraft xcor aerospace is an american private rocket engine and spaceflight development company into this picture enters steve heck of cincinnati a retired air force officer middle school teacher and now a member of the teachers in space program as a pathfinder for the teachers in space program heck will be part of a select group of teachers who will be educated in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem); trained for space flight and launched for a sub-orbital flight unlike nasas teacher-astronaut program where the teachers become part of the nasa astronaut corps the teachers in space program puts these astronauts back in the classroom heck will take his extraordinary experiences and return to his milford junior high classroom to share his stories knowledge and passion with his students heck is also very excited about the lynx cub carrier and its k-12 capabilities so much so that he has developed and is testing a k-12 program to fly (suborbital) 10 student-designed experiments on the lynx in fact his school district is the first in the nation to establish a contract with a commercial aerospace company xcor currently heck has over 580 students working in 137 design teams and hoping to have their experiment selected as one of the 10 winners heck also has plans to take the program nationally so yates own personal interest in space convinced him to get a student engineering team involved with the lcpc the result of that effort is now giving heck a way to have his students experience scientific research in a way not previously possible while the texas a&m/tees team of faculty researchers and students knew developing the lcpc was an idea that would benefit they did not anticipate this level of impact additional content for this article was obtained from the milford school districts website
282,dr edward dougherty in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named to thomson reuters list of the worlds most influential scientific minds: 2014 dougherty the robert m kennedy 26 chair professor in the department was honored in the computer science category the list includes more than 3 200 scientists around the world who have published the highest number of articles that are cited the most frequently by other researchers the list was compiled from two separate thomson reuters studies analyzed for publication and citation data from 21 broad fields of study ranging from chemistry to social sciences dougherty an ieee fellow is considered a pioneer in the study of translational genomics via the use of engineering techniques such as signal processing pattern recognition and control theory he is the director of the genomic signal processing lab at texas a&m he also has served as director of the computational biology division of the translational genomics research institute and as interim director of the computational biology and bioinformatics program of the greehey children's cancer research institute of the university of texas health science center at san antonio other honors include being named a distinguished professor and a texas engineering experiment station (tees) fellow both at texas a&m he is author of 16 books and more than 300 journal publications
283,dr satish bukkapatnam professor and holder of the rockwell international professorship in industrial and systems engineering received the award for technical innovation in industrial engineering from the institute of industrial engineers (iie) at this years annual conference in montreal (bukkapatnam is third from left holding the award) the award recognizes candidates who have distinguished themselves by significantly expanding the body of knowledge associated with a functional area of industrial engineering through a variety of means; establishing or adapting through work and reputation a body of knowledge new to industrial engineering so it is accepted theoretically or successfully implemented in industry; or providing exceptional technical leadership in a major interdisciplinary project bukkapatnams award recognizes the body of his work as a distinguished researcher and scholar in the area of quality and integrity monitoring of systems that incorporate the abundant variety of current sensor technology his main research thrust during the last 10 years has been to advance wired and wireless sensor-based dynamic system modeling principles for monitoring and prognostics applications in ultra-precision and nanomanufacturing processes such as chemical mechanical polishing of semiconductor wafers and synthesis of nanotube composites systems cardiology and cardiorespiratory dynamics automotive manufacturing systems and large infrastructure and lifeline systems to date he has attracted more than $46 million in contracts and grants including 15 national science foundation grants where he was the principal investigator or co-principal investigator additionally bukkapatnams research has produced 124 peer-reviewed publications (71 accepted or published in journals and 53 in refereed conference proceedings) and eight invention disclosures his work has been the basis for 11 phd dissertations 10 masters theses and included more than 25 undergraduate research scholars bukkapatnams awards and honors include 11 best paper/best poster awards and recognition four invitations to national strategic workshops and a significant number of awards that include: three faculty fellowships; alpha pi mu-omega rho teacher of the year award 2001; the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) dougherty young manufacturing engineer award 2005; oklahoma state university (osu) college of engineering architecture and technology (ceat) halliburton outstanding young faculty award 2011; the osu regents distinguished research award 2011; the institute of industrial engineers (iie) iie hamed k eldin outstanding young ie educator award 2012; the osu ceat halliburton outstanding (senior) faculty award 2012; and osu presidents (inaugural) cup for interdisciplinary research (first place team) 2012 bukkapatnam holds a courtesy appointment in the department of biomedical engineering and is the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) institute for manufacturing systems
284,"associate professor james caverlee was a keynote speaker at the 37th international acm conference on research and development in information retrieval (sigir 2014) held in gold coast queensland australia from july 6 - 11 caverlee along with microsoft distinguished scientist susan dumais and miles efron associate professor at the university of illinois addressed the challenge of spatial and temporal information access on july 11 during the ""sigir 2014 workshop on temporal social and spatially-aware information access"" with the widespread adoption of gps-enabled tagging of social media content via smartphones and social media services (eg facebook twitter foursquare) caverlee's talk emphasized the new opportunities for mining modeling and leveraging the publicly-revealed spatio-temporal activities of millions of people these ""geo-social footprints"" open new possibilities for understanding how ideas flow across the globe how people can organize for societal impact and lay the foundation for new crowd-powered geo-social systems in his talk caverlee highlighted his recent work on leveraging these large-scale geospatial footprints and suggested new future research opportunities for how geo-social findings can inform the design of better systems and algorithms for real-world impact caverlee's research is generally in the areas of web-scale information management distributed data-intensive systems and social computing most recently his work has focused on both geo-social systems that leverage large-scale spatio-temporal footprints in social media as well as emerging threats to social media and web systems recent projects in his lab have aimed at detecting analyzing modeling and predicting strategic manipulation and adversarial propaganda in social media in 2007 caverlee joined the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university after receiving his doctoral degree in computer science from the college of computing at the georgia institute of technology he holds master degrees in computer science and in engineering-economic systems & operations research from stanford and a bachelor's degree in economics from duke among caverlee's many honors are the 2014 caterpillar teaching excellence award the nsf faculty early career award in 2012 the 2012 air force office of scientific research-young investigator program grant the 2011 center for teaching excellence montague-cte scholar award and the 2010 defense advanced research projects agency young faculty award"
285,"international students from countries near and far interned at the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university for a summer of study and research that concluded with a presentation of related accomplishments and for some plans to return for graduate school this international internship program focuses on recruitment of top students from some very well-known universities in the world eg iit kanpur (india) "" said department head dr nazmul karim ""the goal is to showcase our research projects in the cutting edge technologies with the hope that these students will gain very positive interactions with their faculty mentors and would apply to our phd program in due course with eight new faculty members hired in the last 12 months including researchers such as dr chris floudas from princeton university the department is focusing on becoming a top graduate program in the country this new initiative will help us achieve this goal the interns were paired with expert faculty members and matched according to their research interests amandeep gupta a third-year undergraduate student from india researched two projects with the mentorship of dr benjamin wilhite associate professor of chemical engineering gupta studied the conversion of heat energy into electricity for the purposes of powering portable and microscale devices if these devices are manufactured in the industries they can save a lot of capital costs and space…and could be a remarkable change in the field of electricity and power "" said gupta gupta said he desires to return to the department upon completion of his undergraduate studies in one year i look forward to coming here for graduate school he said adding that his career path would likely include the petroleum sector caption (above right): amandeep gupta presents to students the research he accomplished during his summer internship at the department of chemical engineering at texas a&m caption (right): dr sreeram vaddiraju assistant professor of chemical engineering mentors intern sukriti gakhar marcela alves freire of brazil has three years remaining in her five-year undergraduate degree in the department she supported a research team that studied nanopore crystallization with the mentorship of dr jodie lutkenhaus assistant professor of chemical engineering in addition to the learning opportunities freire gained she said of texas its so much safer than the city i used to live in its a relief to be in a place… where i am not afraid abhilash parvatina of india is a second-year undergraduate student who studied with karim and dr katy kao assistant professor of chemical engineering this internship has given me a chance to learn a plethora of technical skills in molecular biology…[with] hands-on experience of working in a fully-equipped laboratory "" said parvatina ""besides that it has given me a one of a kind opportunity to know about the culture of the us the traditions of the aggies and the working style and professionalism that are present here caption (above): students and faculty gather in the lobby the jack e brown building at texas a&m for a presentation by summer interns of the department of chemical engineering summer 2014: intern projects of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering 1 adaptable and amphiphilic smart systems in enhanced oil recovery – iso silveira de araujo ming zanhg i-cheng chen dr mustafa akbulut 2 apparatus for preparing fluid mixtures –shashank kamdar dr james holste dr kenneth hall 3 curvature-directed crystallization of isotactic poly (propylene) in nanopores – marcela alves freire dariya reid bridget ehlinger lin shao dr jodie lutkenhaus 4 enhancing carotenoid production in s cerevisiae by overproduction of fatty acids – abhilash parvatina michelle olson dr nazmul karim dr katy kao 5 label free detections of membrane protein with plasmonic nanocube sensor – ayushi sullerey nolan worstell dr hung jen wu 6 life cycle assessment of health hazards of carbon nanoparticles – tushti shah yi liu dr m sam mannan 7 lithium-ion battery safety research: studying thermal decomposition reactions in li-ion battery and battery-fire incident database – madan j taldevkar dr m sam mannan 8 simulations of a micro channel propane combustor || gas separation through membrane – amandeep gupta dr benjamin wilhite 9 ""safety in offshore operations: an insight into the human error aspect of offshore safety"" – aditya samant ming zeng delphine laboureur dr m sam mannan 10 ""risk evaluation for oil storage tank zones"" – jian kang dr m sam mannan 11 ""mass production of zn3p2 nanowires"" – sukriti gakhar venkata vasiraju dr sreeram vaddiraju ""these summer internships offer us an opportunity to showcase our research since these students are highly sought after by our peer schools this program gives us an edge in recruiting top students to our graduate program "" said dr arul jayaraman professor of chemical engineering and director of the graduate program these interns from india brazil and china have completed their assignments and are followed by chinese and colombian interns american interns also perform research in the labs the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering established in 1940 has consistently been a leader in chemical engineering education in the united states this trend continues today where the undergraduate program impressively ranked in 2012-2013 as 12th among public institutions and the graduate program ranked 17th by us news & world report throughout its history and still today texas a&m chemical engineering is known for educating the highest quality of students producing engineers who are immediately prepared for industry upon graduation"
286,dr mark lawley tees research professor has joined the department of industrial and systems engineering (isen) before coming to texas a&m he was a member of the engineering faculty at purdue university in west lafayette indiana for 17 years lawley received his phd from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign and has both academic and industry experience to his credit lawleys tees research professor title recognizes his outstanding scholarly accomplishments in research to date he has participated in 30 funded grants totaling approximately $6 million his publications include 60 papers in refereed journals 50 conference papers 10 book chapters and 10 working papers his research focuses on supervisory control and optimal decision making in large man-made systems with applications in manufacturing large-scale infrastructure and healthcare delivery through his research lawley is known for his willingness to engage and work with others inside and outside academia he believes that the essence of university research and engagement involves mutually beneficial collaborations between those working in industry and those in academics further he believes that many of the most compelling research problems evolve through engagement opportunities some of lawleys more recent honors and awards include the provost fellow for engagement purdue university; two institute of industrial engineers (iie) transactions best applied paper awards; receiving the purdue university seeds for success award twice (given to those receiving a grant in excess of $1m); the james h greene graduate educator award; being designated the regenstrief faculty scholar; and receiving the kayamori best paper award institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) international conference on robotics and automation he will hold a courtesy appointment in the department of biomedical engineering and is a registered professional engineer in the state of texas at texas a&m lawley will focus his research in healthcare delivery systems
287,huangye chen kai cheng and assistant professor zoya heidari received special acknowledgements for their presentations given during the 2014 society of petrophysicists and well log analysts (spwla) 55th annual symposium held in the abu dhabi national exhibition center on may 18-22 cheng a graduate student and heidari a chevron corporation faculty fellow in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m presented a paper during the meeting quantifying the impact of petrophysical properties on spatial distribution of contrasting nanoparticle agents in naturally fractured organic-shale formations other authors of this work include aderonke aderibigbe masoud alfi and professor john killough all from the department of petroleum engineering their paper was selected by the 2014 technology committee as the best poster presentation at the symposium as awardees of the best poster presentation cheng and heidari have become part of the distinguished speaker program and will be called upon to share their work with other spwla chapters chengs research interests focus on the application of nanoparticles for enhanced well-log measurements the paper by chen another graduate student and heidari entitled pore-scale evaluation of dielectric measurements in formations with complex pore and grain structures was also selected as part of the distinguished speaker program the program provides the list of distinguished speakers to local spwla chapters so the presenters can be called upon to share their research at local meetings chens areas of research interest include electrical and dielectric properties of organic-rich source rocks the presentation of these awards will be made at the business luncheon during the 2015 spwla annual symposium in long beach california as the formation evaluation team at texas a&m we received two awards for our technical papers said heidari the selections are based on both technical content of the papers and the presentation quality it is a pleasure to hear from spwla that this award is another demonstration of the great success of the graduate program at texas a&m university both of the students are currently involved with the multi-scale formation evaluation research group headed by heidari this joint industry research program is developing methods for reliable evaluations of challenging formations such as organic-shale and carbonate formations using multi-scale formation data in addition to these two awards three of heidaris students (lu chi mehrnoosh sanifar and huangye chen) also received fellowships from spwla
288,steve swanson a former student in the department of computer science and engineering was part of a special live downlink held thursday by the science space and technology committee with astronauts aboard the international space station (iss) the downlink was part of the 45th anniversary of the apollo 11 moon landing swanson who received his phd in computer science boarded the iss in may and will return to earth in september he was honored by the cse department with the distinguished former student award in 2010 and is currently a member of the department's advisory board
289,two nuclear engineering graduate students lane carasik and taylor lane spent a week in the nations capitol informing policy makers on nuclear science and engineering as part of the 2014 nuclear engineering student delegation (nesd) nesd is a student-led organization that gathers the countrys brightest nuclear science and technology students from across the nation during the first three days the delegation met with representatives from: the american nuclear society areva bechtel department of energy environmental protection agency idaho national laboratory nuclear regulatory commission and the white house office of science and technology policy in addition the delegation stormed the hill on thursday and friday and met with the offices of most senators and over one hundred house representatives for a total of over 150 offices! the delegations policy statement which can be found here focused on continuing to fund the integrated university program (iup) opposing stem consolidation licensing support for small modular reactors (smrs) reauthorization of the export-import bank more flexibility in future 123 agreements and a coherent nuclear waste plan carasik (photo right) and lane (photo left) had a very constructive meeting with rep bill flores (photo center) whose district includes texas a&m university flores was very excited to meet the students and voiced his whole-hearted support for their objectives flores was knowledgeable about nuclear issues and was familiar with the nuclear facilities housed at texas a&m he has toured the nuclear science center and agn reactor in the past secondly prior to redistricting his district included the comanche peak nuclear power plant which he has toured previously lane carasik a phd student studying thermal hydraulics under dr yassin hassan department head was a co-vice chair for the delegation he is currently spending his summer abroad as a visiting researcher at imperial college london in the united kingdom taylor lane a master's student studying radiation-hydrodynamics under dr ryan mcclarren was a first-year delegate and is on a summer internship at sandia national laboratories in albuquerque nm
290,"the final 2014-2015 energy institute fellowships were recently announced a selection of 10 students out of over 60 applications from 20 departments and several colleges including the texas a&m school of law among those 10 was bradley beeny of the department of nuclear engineering for his research ""creation and application of computational tools for nuclear energy systems analysis"" beeny received both his bs and ms in nuclear engineering from texas a&m university in 2010 and 2012 respectively since 2007 he has worked as both an undergraduate and graduate student researcher in the nuclear heat transfer systems laboratories under dr karen vierow he has primarily focused on computational analysis of nuclear systems safety and thermal hydraulics using codes such as melcor and gothic he has participated in several melcor code development activities during his several internships with the severe accident modeling group at sandia national laboratories he is currently conducting doctoral dissertation research while participating in other ongoing thermal hydraulics analysis projects his undergraduate and graduate research activities at texas a&m have focused mainly on the application and development of nuclear reactor thermal hydraulics computational analysis tools specifically with respect to systems-level computer codes as they apply to reactor safety past topics of research interest include condensation in the presence of noncondensible gas in nuclear systems systems-level and design-basis event analysis for prismatic and pebble bed high temperature gas-cooled reactors and light water reactor design basis event and severe accident analysis he has applied existing computational analysis tools (computer codes like melcor relap and gothic among others) in the course of my research and have participated in testing and development of new melcor code features as both a student researcher and an intern in terms of creating reactor analysis tools he has developed several computer code input decks for both gas cooled and light water cooled reactor systems additionally he's developed a code coupling routine to enable higher-fidelity predictions of pressurized water reactor primary system and containment response under accident conditions this particular tool finds application in the several ongoing collaborative projects that texas a&m has with members of the nuclear industry at present he plays an active role in development of new melcor code user utilities while conducting doctoral dissertation research with the gothic computer code he is attempting to apply gothics porosity/blockage formulation (based on the fractional area/volume obstacle representation method) and fully three-dimensional momentum solution to model in-vessel pressurized water reactor phenomena more specifically he's concerned with the implications for reactor safety of certain in-vessel debris blockages that may develop during the recirculation phase of core cooling subsequent to a design-basis accident the energy institute fellowship is in the amount of $5 000 for a one-year term and was funded by conocophillips the texas a&m energy institute handled the application/selection process which was open to any graduate students conducting energy research for more information visit http://energytamuedu/"
291,dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering has been named a fellow by cigre the international council on large electrical systems the cigre fellow is a new award that recognizes sustained contributions to cigre technical activities kezunovic who is also the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center was cited for the award for outstanding and sustained contributions in system protection and to the technical mission of cigre he currently serves as the site director of the power engineering research center (pserc) and before joining texas a&m in 1986 he worked for westinghouse electric corp kezunovic has published more than 450 papers in journals and conference proceedings and was invited to give more than 100 lectures worldwide and is listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee pes while at texas a&m he has been the principal investigator on more than 100 research projects and supervised more than 40 graduate students
292,"dr jodie l lutkenhaus assistant professor and the william and ruth neely faculty fellow in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering is the recipient of the montague-cte scholar award for 2014-2015 from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university lutkenhaus came to the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering in 2010 from day one she said she purposed to make complex material comprehensible and to impart enjoyment for learning among her students if youre not having fun the students arent having fun "" she said ""learning is fun you have to integrate what you love so that the students will love it were a team learning together trying to figure out the material togetherwhy things work a certain way namely lutkenhaus has employed multiple sensory-appeals in the instruction of thermodynamics via her introduction of new technology and approaches to complex learning i wanted to change the perception of thermodynamics or at least make it palatable "" she said in the classroom lutkenhaus uses a combination of traditional and millennial methods closing the distance between the textbook and application her tailored use of the livescribe® pen for example has enabled lutkenhaus to provide on-demand instruction of application exercises and problems through recorded simulations that appear in video (visual and auditory) formats for students to reference its one of the highest teaching awards in the college and i was actually really surprised i got it she said ""now i have the funds that are going to allow me to purchase some cool demonstrations for the class a blend of teaching styles in the journey of learning is important to lutkenhaus to some of the students the math can be a little scary but if you practice it its not as intimidating she said drawing upon the multiple delivery platforms she utilizes in achieving understanding in the classroom students receive instruction that is complemented by worksheets traditional lecture formats and youtube® videos for relevant examples of lecture topics in her polymers class lutkenhaus also applies a similar format with additional demonstration scenarios outside of the classroom lutkenhaus said she likes to get to know the students in the role of mentor they want to be treated like adults she said dr naz karim department head said dr lutkenhaus is one of the most effective classroom instructors in the department she has a knack of relating to students at their level and at the same time effortlessly teaching them complex concepts of thermodynamics and polymers she is using all the modern pedagogical methods and tools to make her classroom interactive and fun congratulations to her; she is most deserving of this honor"" earlier this year lutkenhaus was named a recipient of the george armistead jr 23 faculty excellence teaching award 2014 in 1937 kenneth montague graduated from texas a&m university and entered the texas oil industry before he and his wife judy left an endowment to texas a&m in 1991 that funds awards for lifelong learners in the name of the montague-cte scholar award"
293,recently a group of students from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won third place video in a contest sponsored by drs technologies for senior design projects drs technologies student infrared imaging competition (siic) is designed for engineering study programs or senior design projects for all disciplines projects could include but are not limited to the following: image fusion augmented reality robotic vision machine vision thermal imaging as a medium for an artistic interpretation and social media campaigns cooper barry (left center) brian cardinal (right center) hector orozco (center) and ben sullins (left) won third place video for their project titled acquisition tracking and pointing (atp) tracker videos are judged on three main criteria; creative use of infrared imaging legitimate internet viral interest and quality of video george skidmore (right) of drs technologies presented the winners to see their video or learn more about the contest visit their website here drs technologies headquartered in arlington virginia usa is a leading supplier of integrated products services and support to organizations worldwide the network and imaging systems (nis) division develops manufactures and supports electro-optical technologies including advanced cooled and uncooled thermal imaging solutions for industrial security public safety and firefighting purposes as well as for man-portable ground-vehicle airborne and maritime applications
294,this summer there are five high school rising seniors who are participating in a ten week summer research internship with the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m the summer interns include jonathon colbert who is a student at a&m consolidated high school and also returning summer intern and juan aguilar leslie escalante ricardo gonzales and ariana ramirez who are all students from jimmy carter early college high school in la joya texas i am planning on becoming a future aggie after graduation aguilar said this university feels like home people here are so nice and helpful making the atmosphere friendly the la joya high school students are staying at the stack with the students participating in the cse research experience for undergraduates (reu) program and all of the high school researchers are working with cse interim department head dr nancy amato as well as two graduate student mentors jory denny and read sandstrom who are working with them on a daily basis all the students are working on various parts of the same general research project user-guided motion planning in robotics we often need to find valid paths for the robot to move in the world which avoids obstacles denny said humans do this quite effectively everyday so this research looks at combining human intuition with fully autonomous planners to arrive at more effective and customizable robotic motions these individuals are top students who are able to participate in research projects just like undergraduate students if they decide to pursue their higher education here at texas a&m for their undergraduate studies then they will be already prepared to join a lab and be productive in the classroom they are very bright individuals with a lot of passion and drive to work on graduate level research in high school denny said they have exceeded my expectations and are progressing quite well i am excited to be able to help mentor these students and can't wait to see where they end up in life the most influential and rewarding part of this internship has to be the opportunity to have conversations and be inspired by the department head faculty and speakers who talk to us about admissions graduate school and lessons on how to get the most out of being in college station said high school participant ricardo gonzales i've gathered a lot more than just the research project by joining this program
295,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university welcomes dr ruihong huang who will join the cse faculty as an assistant professor in fall 2015 this coming year she will be a postdoc with dr dan jurafsky professor of linguistics and professor of computer science at stanford university huang's research lies in natural language processing and machine learning she is particularly interested in information extraction and knowledge mining from large amounts of text by developing weakly supervised learning algorithms that can leverage human prior knowledge in an efficient and flexible way her other research interests include semantics discourse and the applications of computational linguistics to social sciences huang is enthusiastic about joining the faculty of texas a&m in 2015 and she is looking forward to teaching courses close to her research such as natural language processing (npl) and computational linguistics this summer huang completed her doctoral degree in computer science at the university of utah under the guidance of her adviser dr ellen riloff she has a master's and a bachelor's degree in computer science from the chinese academy of sciences and shandong university respectively
296,"the professor of the practice program was established by the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university as part of its 25 by 25 initiative a transformational program to increase access for qualified students to pursue engineering education at texas a&m university the program brings industry leaders to the classroom to help prepare the next generation of engineers by sharing their real-world experiences in industry dr aakash tyagi joins the faculty of the department of computer science and engineering this fall as its first professor of practice tyagi retired from intel corporation early in 2014 to return to teaching he taught courses in computer architecture logic design and microprocessor design as an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the university of louisiana-lafayette prior to joining intel in 1994 tyagi has a doctoral degree in computer engineering from the center for advanced computer studies at the university of louisiana his career at intel encompassed a wide range of technical and managerial responsibilities first as a circuit design engineer and then as a project design methodology manager and lastly as the project manager of intels next generation knights landing xeon-phi cpu for exascale supercomputing he comes to cse with a passion for teaching ""i want to bring this passion to texas a&m in the capacity of a professor of engineering practice and play a role in the formative years of our bright engineering professionals of tomorrow to me teaching is more than a unidirectional exercise in imparting a lesson; it is an exercise in mutual learning fueled by uninhibited inquisition and centered in teamwork and collaboration"" welcome to our department professor tyagi"
297,"the department of computer science and engineering welcomes assistant professor jeff huang who will join its faculty this fall huang comes to us from the department of computer science at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign where he was a postdoctoral research associate working with dr grigore rosu on ""runtime verification of concurrent and distributed systems"" huang will be teaching courses in software engineering at texas a&m and is well-known as a guest lecturer in the subject his research focuses on developing techniques and tools for improving software performance and reliability based on fundamental program analyses and programming language theory he is particularly interested in applying these techniques to solve problems in real-world large-scale software systems among his many honors are the 2013 acm sigsoft outstanding dissertation award for his doctoral thesis ""effective methods for debugging concurrent software "" and a distinguished paper award from the 2013 acm sigplan conference on programming language design and implementation (pldi) he was also the winner of the 2012 pldi student research competition and a winner of the 2010 professor samuel chanson best teaching assistant award in 2012 huang advised by dr charles zhang received his doctorate in computer science from hong kong university of science and technology he also holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the national university of defense technology in china"
298,"making train traffic safer is the goal of a study being conducted at wellborn and graham roads in college station that sound is tough to miss; the loud horn of a train as it rolls through bryan-college station they are two cities with ties to the railroad industry that go back more than 100 years those ties make college station an appropriate site for a study aimed at making train traffic safer a group of researchers at the texas a&m transportation institute are using hi-tech sensors to test two types of retaining walls to see which one makes the ground underneath the tracks more stable ""as the trains pass by we record how much the wall moves and what stresses the build up behind the wall "" said charles aubeny who is a professor of civil engineering at texas a&m and a tti researcher ""it's a very heavy train hurdling by what are the dynamic loads on that wall and then one of the safety issues is if the wall deflects and moves the track could settle and you know cause a potential safety problem "" said aubeny phd"" the project is funded by a $300 000 grant from txdot through a partnership with union pacific railroad helping charles aubeny with the study is a small team of students and professors from texas a&m and ut-san antonio click to see the full report on kbtx"
299,dr daniel f jennings andrew rader professor of industrial distribution at texas a&m has been recognized as an outstanding alumnus of the industrial and systems engineering department at the university of tennessee jennings who is also the program director of the master of industrial distribution program graduated from tennessee with honors in 1961 jennings joined the texas a&m faculty in 1997 after 13 years at baylor university he earned his masters degree in finance from northeast louisiana university and his phd from texas a&m his research interests include corporate entrepreneurship leadership strategic alliances executive scanning profitability analysis process innovation strategy-structure alignment top management teams and value creating activities
300,this past may dr rabi mahapatra professor of computer science and engineering took 13 students to india for a two-week study abroad the program began in bangalore where the students were able to visit eight it companies such as software technology park india (stpi) tata consultancy services (tcs) tech mahindra and hcl indias leading it and technology company the participants were given the opportunity to deepen their critical and comparative thinking skills on offshore software development and also broaden their global perspective the best outcome of this study abroad experience was that some of the students that participated are now excited about going on to be entrepreneurs themselves after they graduate mahapatra said the course taught during the maymester was special topics in software development globalization and culture this experience was an opportunity for the students to learn about outsourcing in the industry and also current policies and dynamics of offshore centers they saw thousands of software developers working on those sites the students even interacted with some of the ceos and founders during their visit in addition the students attended software assurance classes at tcs to understand the advances in robust software development for all the perspective students considering studying abroad in india it is an incredible opportunity and one of the best decisions i ever made said jr pasch one of the students who participated in this study abroad experience i am extremely glad to have been on the trip because it has opened my eyes on how business is conducted and especially how companies develop software said jean plamin another student from the maymester this trip also gave me the opportunity to be able to build collaboration with those companies in the future if i was to build my own company i would sincerely suggest to any student that has the chance to go on this trip to do so it really gives you inside knowledge about companies and business process
301,"ryan olivieri a computer engineering junior in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university presented a paper at digital humanities 2014 the leading international conference on digital humanities held this year in lausanne switzerland on july 7-12 the paper ""creating a virtual collator to aid scholarly edition "" reports on work carried out in collaboration with graduate student gaurav kejriwal olivieri and kejriwal used this research for an undergraduate research scholars thesis and a master of science thesis respectively the paper describes computer tools that support collation the process of identifying the differences between copies of a document which is a fundamental task carried out by humanities scholars while computer-based collation can be straightforward given a transcription in text form many of the materials used by the scholars are from older sources and are not easy to assemble using optical character recognition software the approach taken in the paper identifies similarities and differences directly on the documents' images rather than first attempting to convert to text both students are advised by professor richard furuta director of the center for the study of digital libraries and the hypermedia research laboratory at texas a&m"
302,the department of computer science at texas a&m university is hosting 16 of 50 canieti students from mexico to be a part of the research for undergraduates (reu) program canieti is the mexican national chamber of electronics telecommunication and information technology and has been in place for more than 70 years it is the entity representative of the three sectors promoting their development in a global environment with high quality services the primary purpose for canieti is to achieve the competitive development of the national industry with legal sense and social responsibility because of this canieti has implemented the summer program in partnership with the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university and the english language institute (eli) canieti chose texas a&m as the partner for this pilot program said maria alves engineering international programs director the program was developed with the intent of preparing mexican students to apply to grad school in the united states and more specifically at texas a&m during the 10 weeks that the students are at texas a&m participating with the cse research experience for undergraduates (reu) program the canieti students will study english which includes a test of english as a foreign language (toefl) preparation class the students will also attend a gre prep class at which they conduct research with faculty members that could potentially be their graduate advisor the ultimate goal of the canieti program is to improve the electronics telecommunication and information technology industry through human capital development this program also benefits our domestic students as we integrated the mexican students in the lab with our current students alves said they are working on projects together learning from each others culture seeing things from a different perspective and learning how to work in a global job market which they will face when they graduate
303,on thursday july 10 the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university hosted the cse ice cream social in order to showcase the new back porch of the harvey r bum bright building marble slab creamery catered the event and dozens of students faculty and staff attended including visiting tamu research for undergraduates (reu) students and members of various cse student organizations such as awics and csegsa the ice cream social was a great opportunity to mingle with students and professors from across the department said jory denny csegsa president it was a nice relaxing and fun event! the cse ice cream social was the very first event to be held outside at our new student collaboration space please stop by soon and enjoy the tables and added shade provided by the umbrellas!
304,lifenet systems inc recently purchased license to a patent on a technology invented in nasas johnson space center by dr william schneider professor in the department of mechanical engineering and dr james locke in 2001 this technology will make highway safety barriers safer by replacing existing concrete and steel barriers by taller barriers made of a softer material concrete and steel barriers can cause extensive vehicle damage and fatalities lifenet systems barriers created with the help of the patented technology will stop a vehicle traveling 80 mph within eight feet safely and securely lifenet systems will begin deployment of the barriers in colombia south america within the next 12 months and will continue to work toward attaining certification for implementation on us roadways
305,dr schneider speaks about the technology signing ceremony of the license agreement lifenet systems worked with the nasa/jsc inventors dr schneider and dr locke in the early stages of business plan development this project is a great example of how government academic institutions and research organizations can collaborate together to create a positive impact in the world by solving technical problems and transferring the technology to the commercial sector for widespread application
306,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering appointed three petroleum engineering faculty members to endowed positions starting july 2014 all of the appointments were given in recognition and support of the accomplishments and future potential of these faculty members please join me in congratulating several of the faculty on their appointments by dean banks to endowed positions professor rashid hasan has been appointed as the larry cress faculty fellow assistant professor hadi nasrabadi has been appointed as the wd von gonten faculty fellow and associate professor jerome schubert has been appointed as the mark albers faculty fellow congratulations to all three for these well-deserved appointments said dan hill head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering a rashid hasan professor was named the larry a cress '76 faculty fellow hasan holds a phd in chemical engineering and has 30 years of teaching consulting and research experience in many areas including fluid and heat flow modeling in wellbores and pressure-transient testing he has also worked with nasa on various aspects of multiphase flow and thermo-hydraulic transients hasan has published extensively and is a co-author of the spe book fluid flow and heat transfer in wellbores he has served on various society of petroleum engineers (spe) committees including editorial reviews for the spe production & facilities and the spe journal and was the recipient of 2011 spe production and operations award hadi nasrabadi assistant professor was named the douglas von gonten faculty fellow he was previously with the texas a&m university of qatar and also served as a research engineer in 2006 with the reservoir engineering research institute in palo alto california nasrabadi has taught reservoir simulation basic reservoir engineering and reservoir petrophysics his research interests include compositional modeling of multiphase and multicomponent fluid flow in porous media; co2 enhanced oil recovery and sequestration; phase behavior of reservoir fluids; modeling asphaltene precipitation in porous media; and shale gas and oil recovery jerome schubert associate professor was named the wf and marilyn albers faculty fellow schubert earned his bs meng and phd degrees in petroleum engineering from texas a&m and has more than 30 years in the petroleum industry with pennzoil co enron oil and gas the university of houston-victoria petroleum training institute and texas a&m he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty as a lecturer in 1994 was promoted to assistant professor in 2004 and became an associate professor with tenure in 2010 in 2012 he was named an spe distinguished member schuberts main research areas include deepwater drilling dual gradient drilling managed pressure drilling and well control schubert is a co-author of the textbook managed pressure drilling and an author of more than 40 technical papers he has been a committee member for several spe and international association of drilling contractors committees conferences and events and a technical editor for spe drilling and completions
307,brad worsham 88 is supporting the dwight look college of engineering and the department of aerospace engineering through two contributions to the texas a&m foundation worsham is contributing $250 000 to the engineering education complex (eec) a state-of-the-art learning facility dedicated solely to undergraduate engineering education his decision is based on a desire to support the educational goals set forth by dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering my contribution to the engineering education complex is my commitment to the vision put forth by dean banks to further texas a&m universitys position as a world-class engineering institution said worsham in addition to his support of the eec worsham is contributing $100 000 to endow a scholarship for undergraduate students pursuing a degree in the department of aerospace engineering the brad worsham 88 scholarship provides financial assistance to at least two students exhibiting exceptional academic performance worsham views this endowment as an investment in the future by promoting the cycle of excellence that starts with the active recruitment of high-caliber students to aerospace engineering his contribution highlights his appreciation for the high-quality education he received while a student as well as the opportunities afforded to him by that education brads support of the aerospace engineering program is invaluable and assists us in our efforts to offer an affordable education to students we greatly appreciate his gift said rodney bowersox department head for aerospace engineering worsham and his wife liz reside in oakton virgina he also serves on the aerospace engineering advisory board
308,come join us for two 2014 cse tailgate parties for the texas a&m vs lamar game and the texas a&m vs ole miss game texas a&m vs lamar september 6 on saturday september 6 the cse department will host a day of fun beginning with open cse lab tours n the harvey r bum bright building the cse tailgate party tent opens at 2:30 pm before the texas a&m vs lamar game giving you time to visit with friends enjoy the festivities and food the cse tailgate tent will be located in cain park across from the aggie fan zone the aggie fan zone opening at 3:00 pm in front of kyle field is an event in itself hosting a variety of vendors food and activities the fan zone offers endless opportunities for fun including events such as kids yell practice team spirit walk and the corps of cadets march-in that precedes each game if you do not have tickets come and enjoy the fun before kickoff then watch the game with us in the cse tailgate tent the tailgate tent will open at 2:30 pm and the game is set to start at 6:30 pm drinks and snacks will be available and the barbeque will begin at 4:00 pm all current and former students friends faculty and staff are welcome to attend to help us plan for the september 6 event click here to rsvp texas a&m vs ole miss october 11 save the date on saturday october 11 the cse department will also be hosting a tailgate before the texas a&m vs ole miss game we are excited about these upcoming events and look forward to catching up with friends and sharing in the fun!
309,the department of computer science and engineering peer teacher program connects students who have a passion for helping others succeed and students who are driven and excited about learning the peer teachers in the program are knowledgeable undergraduate students that have been selected as mentors for the classes in which they have excelled peer teacher central is the location where the peer teachers hold their office hours outside of the classroom it is open all day monday-friday and saturday and sunday afternoons in the fall and spring semesters students in any 100 200 or 300 level csce course are welcome to come by peer teacher central at any time for assistance the program is designed to create a positive learning environment that encourages students to engage with one another many students prefer asking peer teachers for help instead of instructors and tas because they feel more closely related both academically and socially said dr teresa leyk cse peer teacher program coordinator teaching others material that i myself found to be challenging has helped me grow very confident in my own programming skills and has developed my ability to communicate ideas with my fellows especially the non computer science majors who only have to take an entry level course for their majors said grant uland current peer teacher for the program i feel like i will have a competitive edge in our industry after i graduate thanks to the cse peer teaching program there were 31 peer teachers involved in the program in the spring 2014 semester currently there are four peer teachers participating this summer peer teacher central impacts more than 1 000 students a semester supporting all 100 200 and most 300 level courses cse is planning to remodel peer teacher central to better support the program hewlett-packard a member of the departments industrial affiliates program is partially supporting the remodeling costs more information about the peer teacher program can be found in this page on the website
310,understanding how hearing works has long been hampered by challenges associated with seeing inside the inner ear but technology being developed by a team of researchers that includes a biomedical engineer from texas a&m university is generating some of the most detailed images of the inner ear to date while offering new insight into the mechanics of hearing that could lead to new therapies for hearing loss employing a technique that generates high-resolution three-dimensional images brian applegate associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m and colleagues from stanford university are mapping the tissues within the cochlea the portion of the inner ear responsible for hearing their research which appears in the journal of neurophysiology could lead to breakthroughs in understanding of cochlear function applegate says although the hearing process hinges on what takes place inside the cochlea that important area of the inner ear has been traditionally difficult to study applegate says its small size and the fact that in humans its tissues are encapsulated – and therefore obscured – by dense bone create significant access issues researchers he explains cant drill into the bone without risking damage to the tissues within or at the very least altering the mechanics of the delicate system these factors he says have resulted in a general lack of information about how the cochlea amplifies sound and converts vibrations into nerve impulses that dearth of functional and structural knowledge about the cochlea is a chief reason hearing loss diagnoses are typically based on circumstantial evidence as opposed to morphological proof he adds new information about how the cochlea works however is emerging thanks to the system developed by applegate and his colleagues capable of rendering detailed images of tissues within an intact cochlea the system employs a technique known as optical coherence tomography or oct oct is similar to ultrasound but generates images with much higher resolution the images are produced from measurements of the inner ears structure and the incredibly small vibrations within the cochlea applegate says
311,though the technology has been primarily used in animal models to date its already resulted in the first vibration measurements from the apex of an unopened mouse cochlea allowing researchers to image the portion of the cochlea responsible for low frequencies since mammalian hearing is similar across species the model allows the researchers to use the technology on a hearing system similar to the one in humans applegate notes we are the first to use this technique on mice in order to image the cochlea applegate says were working on making measurements of the movement within the cochlea that have never before been made; were finding out new things about the mechanics of the inner ear that have not been known among the teams findings is evidence suggesting different areas of the cochlea are responsible for different things applegate says specifically gain (the amplification of sound) and narrowing of the frequency band (which enables a person to zero-in a specific sound) take place in distinct areas he explains up until now these functions have been thought to be closely linked possibly taking place in the same location he notes what weve found is that while the outer hair cells inside the cochlea generate gain some of the nearby supporting cells are largely responsible for the narrowing of the frequency band applegate says this information contributes to our understanding of the morphology of the inner ear as well as its mechanical functions so that therapies might be developed in the future – but before that can happen we have to understand what it is that were trying to fix towards that goal the oct technology employed by applegate generates huge amounts of data about the cochlea thousands of measurements are taken from myriad points throughout the cochlea resulting in gigabytes – and sometimes terabytes – of information that must be processed and interpreted in order to produce images applegate explains all of this requires a fair amount of math to generate and interpret the results applegate says the signal is digitized and passed to something called a field programmable gated array (fpga) where initial processing is done before sending it to the cpu we collect two channels of data but end up only passing one to the cpu because of the data reduction on the fpga data reduction applegate explains is an important time-saving part of the process made possible by equipment produced by national instruments a global leader in providing test measurement and embedded systems for engineers and scientists with the aid of the equipment the data generated from measurements within the cochlea is processed at a significantly faster rate applegate says we can take a six-hour process and make it happen in a couple of minutes he says we will rely on this data-reducing equipment more and more as we move toward producing a volumetric image that enables us to see an entire sound wave move down the cochlea encouraged by their results applegate and his team have developed a prototype device for use on humans the device a hand-held instrument enables a researcher or physician to pass a probe through the ear canal and tympanic membrane in order to shine a laser through a thin membrane located on the cochlea where they can then image the inner ear tissues with the same technology the point of our research is to better understand hearing to learn more about the actual morphology of the inner ear as well as how it processes vibrations applegate says we also want to understand how different pathologies affect the ear we want to know what happens when a person has progressive hearing loss due to loud sounds traumatic injury or even genetic mutations we want to see how these things change the soft tissue in the ear -30- contact: brian applegate associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university at 9798626521 or via email: apple@tamuedu or ryan a garcia communications manager at 9798475833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
312,"the zero robotics middle school program has come to texas for the first time with the help of dr greg chamitoff professor of practice in the department of aerospace engineering and johannes strobel director of educational outreach programs with the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the dwight look college of engineering the zero robotics middle school summer program is a five-week stem (science technology engineering and math) curriculum that introduces students to computer programming robotics and space engineering and provides hands-on experience programming zero robotics builds critical engineering skills including problem solving the design thought process operations training and teamwork it connects students with prominent scientists and encourages them to pursue careers in the fields of science technology engineering and/or math the program runs june 9 through july 14 with the finals occurring in mid-august directing the program are dr dave hyland professor in the department of aerospace engineering and dr joseph morgan professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution katharine leysath is the program manager and five texas a&m students from the dwight look college of engineering are mentoring the five middle school teams zero robotics is a programming competition where the robots are spheres (synchronized position hold engage and reorient experimental satellites) inside the international space station the competition starts online where teams program the spheres to solve an annual challenge after several phases of virtual competition in a simulation environment that mimics the real spheres finalists are selected to compete in a live championship aboard the iss an astronaut will conduct the championship competition in microgravity with a live broadcast student participants compete to win a technically challenging game by programming their strategies into the spheres each years game is motivated by a problem of interest to defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) and massachusetts institute of technology (mit) students programs control the satellites' speed rotation and direction of travel the students program their satellites to complete competition objectives for example navigating obstacles while conserving resources such as fuel the programs are autonomous - that is the students are not able to directly control the satellites while they are running the middle school students create edit save and simulate projects online they use a graphical editor to write code then simulate their programs immediately and see the results using a simulation the programming interface and simulation are entirely web-based so zero robotics does not require any software downloads or computer configuration the system even allows teams to compete against themselves and against pre-designed standard players so that they can test different strategies before finalizing their competition submissions chamitoff worked with the zero robotics program during his time as an astronaut at nasa he says nasa has called zero robotics one of its most successful stem outreach programs of all time and it has already inspired thousands of students across the country we are very excited about getting students from texas involved too besides learning a great deal about space exploration and robotics theyll have a live link up with the crew onboard the space station the whole experience is a lot of fun zero robotics seeks to inspire the next generation of great minds by allowing them unprecedented access to space at the high school and middle school level by making the benefits and resources of the space program tangible to students zero robotics hopes to cultivate an appreciation of science technology engineering and math through healthy immersive collaborative competition another major goal of zero robotics is to lead young minds to see the concept of working in space as ""normal"" allowing imaginations to go beyond the boundaries of rocket science due to the complexities of programming in space within the context of a middle school program the 2014 middle school summer program is by invitation only the schools participating from texas are home educators around texoma/wichita county 4-h from wichita falls aldine middle school from houston keating middle school and four points middle school from austin and middle school teen program from fort sam houston in san antonio zero robotics middle school summer program is provided through a partnership between the mit space systems lab and the massachusetts afterschool partnership (map) with support from aurora flight sciences and topcoder zero robotics is sponsored by nasa the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) and the center for the advancement of science in space (casis)"
313,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has established an outstanding group to serve as its advisory council membership on the council is by invitation of the department head and based on leadership accomplishments and interest the current council is made up of former students who are or have been corporate and professional leaders there are currently 26 members on the council which is chaired by mr eric marin bs '86 in 2012 marin was honored as a cse distinguished former student at the annual computer science and engineering awards banquet as was council member chris jones bs '99 other council recipients of the prestigious award are steve swanson phd '98 (2010); curtis hite ms '94 (2007); and ronnie ward phd '73 (2005) swanson is currently in command of the international space station crew jones was awarded the dwight look college of engineering outstanding early professional achievement alumni honor award in 2014; hite received the inaugural outstanding early professional achievement alumni honor award from the college in 2013; and ward was the recipient of the 1998 dwight look college of engineering outstanding alumni award the council meets twice a year on campus to brainstorm with faculty on ways to involve other former students in the council's mission to assist cse in its drive for excellence this is accomplished by creating and improving departmental programs providing co-curricular opportunities and calling attention to the many accomplishments of the department's students and faculty recently council members as well as other former students have endowed scholarships for our computer science and engineering students and have encouraged other former students to do the same during the past year 7 endowed scholarships were created which nearly doubles the number of endowed scholarships we have these and other gifts have increased the department's endowment by nearly 60% since september 2013 one of the ideas suggested at last spring's council meeting will be realized this fall in two tailgating extravaganzas for former students they will be held for the first texas a&m football game with the lamar cardinals on sept 6 and for the oct 11 game with the ole miss rebels the cse advisory council helps ensure that the department has the resources to achieve its goals by being a source of financial support and by referring others who can be supportive we are proud to have these dedicated and distinguished former students on our team
314,dr mladen kezunovic professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was one of six principal investigators at texas a&m university who was awarded nearly $300 000 in research grants by texas a&m and brazilian universities the awards come from a program sponsored jointly by texas a&m and the brazilian agency for support and evaluation of graduate education (capes) the capes programs aim is to encourage research collaborations between faculty at texas a&m and faculty at brazilian universities the program is open to researchers in the fields of science technology engineering and mathematics the lead texas a&m principal investigator (pi) must be a tenured or tenure-track faculty and have served as a pi or co-pi on a competitively awarded state federal or major foundation grant in the past five years the lead brazilian pi must have served as a pi or co-pi on a competitively awarded capes research grant in the past five years the awards are for two years kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department collaborated with glauco nery taranto of the universidade federal do rio de janeiro the other texas a&m awardees were: • bradford p wilcox department of ecosystem science and management college of agriculture and life sciences and antonio celso dantas antonino universidade federal de pernambuco • courtney schumacher department of atmospheric sciences college of geosciences and luiz augusto toledo machado instituto nacional de pesquisas espaciais/centro de previsao de tempo e estudos climaticos • michael frederick criscitiello department of veterinary pathobiology college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences and maria paula cruz schneider universidade federal do pará • paul de figueiredo department of veterinary pathobiology college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences and renato de lima santos universidade federal de minas gerais • susanne talcott department of nutrition and food science college of agriculture and life sciences and luciana azevedo universidade federal de alfenas kezunovic also the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center currently serves the site director of the power engineering research center (pserc) nsf i/ucrcs before joining texas a&m in 1986 he worked for westinghouse electric corp pittsburgh pa 1979-1980 and the energoinvest company in europe 1980-1986 kezunovic has published more than 450 papers in journals and conference proceedings and was invited to give more than 100 lectures world-wide and is listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee pes while at texas a&m kezunovic has been the principal investigator on more than 100 research projects and supervised over 40 graduate students recent honors include receiving the council on large electric systems (cigré) technical committee award kezunovic also is a fellow of the ieee a member of cigré and a registered professional engineer in texas
315,dr prasad enjeti a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and associate dean for undergraduate programs in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university won a best paper award from a prestigious power conference enjeti the ti professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering won the award in the renewable energy category for his paper titled medium voltage ac collection grid for large scale photovoltaic plants based on medium frequency transformers at the power conversion intelligent motion (pcim) conference in shanghai china the proposed ac collection grid is shown to increase power density enable faster deployment and improves the system modularity while maintaining high efficiency levels the paper coauthors are: mr bahaa hafez (graduate student ece@tamu); dr shehab ahmed (ece faculty @tamu-qatar); dr ufee borup (@danfoss solar inverters usa) enjeti joined the department in 1988 and is responsible for developing the college's state-of-the-art undergraduate design experience laboratory from 2008 to 2010 he was associate dean of academic affairs at texas a&m university at qatar enjeti's research focuses on power electronics and power quality; advancing switching power supply designs and solutions to complex power management issues; power conditioning systems for fuel cells wind and solar energy systems; and design of high temperature power conversion systems with wide band-gap semiconductor devices
316,the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university welcomes two new permanent faculty members previously associated with the department as visiting professors: dr christodoulos floudas and dr stratos pistikopoulos floudas and pistikopoulos reveal their shared goals in selecting texas a&m: to contribute collaborate and make the department comparable to the top departments in the world under the shared inspiration of department head dr naz karim floudas a distinguished professor from princeton university [will be joining] forces with the most talented people in the world he said in his department appointment as a chair professor effective february 2015 and in his placement as the director of the texas a&m energy institute floudas has served princeton as the stephen c macaleer 63 professor in engineering and applied science and as a professor of chemical and biological engineering he is a member of the national academy of engineering and is a world-renowned authority in mathematical modeling and optimization of complex systems his research interests lie at the interface of chemical engineering applied mathematics and operations research when making the decision for this institutional move he factored these considerations and more into his choice floudas vision for the chemical engineering department is one of reciprocation and enhancement adding it is an opportunity not just to create but to contribute to elevate the stature his efforts will support both the tamu energy institute and a cluster of multi-scale systems engineering for which he will lead in establishing these at the highest level floudas was recently selected as a 2014 thomson reuters highly cited researcher pistikopoulos will join the department as a chair professor in january 2015 from the imperial college in london uk where he has served as a professor in the department of chemical engineering he is a member of the royal academy of engineering in the uk his past research has led the way of theory development of algorithms and computational tools in multi-parametric programming explicit model-based predictive control and process optimization under uncertainty yet he said he was fully certain of his move to tamu the department has tremendous potential to go to the top the ability and opportunity to build a tremendous process systems engineering powerhouse is part of the motivation in coming to texas he added pistikopoulos is inspired by the [significant] initiative for energy and the opportunity to create excellence with the energy institute he said the people of tamu also positively influenced his decision to join forces with the department noting there is ambition the people here want to take the university to the top and i want to be there with them karim said both drs floudas and pistikopoulos are real ‘giants in the field of multi-scale systems engineering their presence in the department has already created a significant buzz around the world we expect to see very high-quality undergraduate and graduate students joining the department to solve the grand challenges of the future and to enhance the stature of the department in the world we look forward to seeing many renowned faculty join our team in the near future both professors offer unique teaching styles similar to each other in many ways each prides himself in the role of mentor floudas reflected on his students i care about them its a long relationship that doesnt end after the phd but throughout their career it continues many times they contribute to my own development floudas will dedicate himself to a three-prong pursuit when he arrives in february research education and external relationships with industry and government rank at the top of his priority list pistikopoulos said i like to be a role model and to develop very strong and in-depth relationships with my research groups and students pistikopoulos extended that the secret to success though it is judged by others comes down to being educated properly having determination patience and passion he added always look at something and see the passion its my driving force the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering established in 1940 has consistently been a leader in chemical engineering education in the united states this trend continues today where the undergraduate program impressively ranked in 2012-2013 as 12th among public institutions and the graduate program ranked 17th by us news & world report throughout its history and still today texas a&m chemical engineering is known for educating the highest quality of students producing engineers who are immediately prepared for industry upon graduation
317,"dr timothy alden davis a world leader in algorithmic research for sparse matrix computations will be joining the faculty of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university in the fall davis will be teaching courses in sparse matrix algorithms and numerical analysis ""i love to delve into the theory and algorithms of graph theoretic and applied mathematical algorithms but i don't stop there i just love to code i collaborate with others with the same passion and i hope to instill the same drive in my students (graduate and undergraduate)"" one of davis' books ""matlab primer eighth edition "" released in 2010 is a popular manual on matlab ""matlab uses my sparse solvers in x=a\b and google relies on them to create google street view and photo tours"" in addition to the primer he has written ""direct methods for sparse linear systems"" and has published more than 60 papers and journal articles on mathematical software numerical methods sparse matrix algorithms high performance computing and parallel computing in recognition of his contributions to sparse matrix algorithms and software davis was named a fellow of the society of industrial and applied mathematics (siam) in 2013 he also serves as a master consultant for the mathworks and as an nvidia academic partner he is an associate editor of the acm transactions on mathematical software and the siam journal on scientific computing based on davis' gpu computing research nvidia has designated texas a&m university as a cuda research center transitioning from classroom and research lab davis releases his passion for computing by combining it with his interest in music and his hobby of creating art with math the result is his fascinating notesart studio he was challenged to create this art by a london design studio for the 2013 london electronic arts festival held last november ""i love an algorithmic challenge "" says davis ""and i had never done algorithmic art for music before i was intrigued"" his resulting artwork for the festival appeared on billboards around london last fall davis comes to texas a&m from the department of computer and information science and engineering at the university of florida he holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from purdue and a doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign"
318,dave lucas a veteran of the oil and gas industry has been appointed as a subsea professor of practice and director of the subsea engineering program in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m lucas who spent more than 35 years working for exxonmobil was enjoying retirement but when the look college came calling with the offer to serve as director of its newly established subsea engineering program it was an interesting opportunity he couldnt pass up a place like a&m with the resources and support it has that was a big selling point lucas said the extensive research capabilities at texas a&m the high quality faculty and student population combined with numerous ocean related programs and initiatives all create a unique opportunity to provide leadership in the subsea field lucas hiring was the first step in making texas a&m just the second university in the united states to offer the discipline the university of houston offers subsea engineering and there are only a handful of universities worldwide offering subsea engineering programs lucas stated that the plan is for texas a&m to offer a masters degree certificate and minor with the first subsea class offered in spring 2015 with additional classes rolled out in fall 2015 and the semester following already weve had a lot of interest lucas said and for this to be most successful well need a lot of industry support for lecturers to present a wide variety of subsea technology topics especially lessons learned and transfer of practical knowledge gained from experience there are also plans for more subsea professors of practice the field of subsea engineering deals with the design fabrication installation and operation of subsea equipment needed to produce oil and gas fields in underwater locations subsea engineering is an emerging field but the availability of training for individuals is limited it has been talked about for a while lucas said of subsea programs but only recently has there been a concerted effort at the university level while subsea engineering programs are somewhat uncommon subsea wells are not as the easier-to-access offshore locations are depleted companies continue to push the water depth limits to drill deepwater exploratory wells and there is a high demand for subsea engineers needed to design and build the equipment needed to produce resources that are discovered experts have said that deep-water locations can produce significantly more barrels of oil per day than conventional shale boom wells but the challenges to extract that oil are greater because of the hostile environments encountered at such depths environmental conditions presented by increasing water depths longer distances from shore and difficult reservoir conditions create major challenges when designing reliable underwater equipment and that is where the field of subsea engineering and the need for qualified individuals in the discipline comes into play its extremely difficult to deal with the challenges that come with engineering design and operations in extreme environments said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m under daves leadership we will make a significant impact upon preparing the next generation of engineers in this important area
319,"dr yue kuo professor and holder of the dow professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has one of the most cited papers in ecs transactions a journal on solid-state and electrochemistry studies ""high-k materials and processing iii"" was published in 2006 and continues to be highly-referenced ranking at the top in solid-state research for the journal (data collected august 2014) ""the high-k gate dielectric in this paper is critical to the success of the next generation of high-speed ics widely used in computers and instruments "" kuo said according to kuo the research in this area continues in terms of how he plans to advance the research into the future generation of nonvolatile memories which are also critical to advanced computers and instruments ""our current result shows that a single electron or hole can be stored in one nanocrystal (of the size of 3-8 nm) embedded in this new high-k dielectric material "" kuo said the research paper can be found at doi: 101149/12209294"
320,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is excited to announce two additions to its faculty; dr gabriel (gabby) silberman executive director of technology strategy and university alliances in dell research is serving as adjunct professor and dr amy gooch research scientist with the scientific computing and imaging institute at the university of utah is now serving as adjunct assistant professor in the department in silbermans role as executive director of technology strategy and university alliances in dell research he is responsible for leading collaborative and innovative research projects involving dell inc and universities worldwide he also manages the invention disclosure/patent process for dell software group silbermans research interests are aligned with the principal technology themes guiding dell research: data insights internet of things mobility and next generation ux next-generation infrastructure and cloud and security he has more than 25 patents in process or awarded 20 refereed journal publications and has presented at over 50 international conferences and workshops as an adjunct i hope to bridge between texas a&m faculty and dell research on a variety of technical topics such as high performance computing big data and analytics and spanning multiple industry verticals of interest to dell such as healthcare security and manufacturing said silberman i also intend to collaborate with my dell colleagues in recruiting texas a&m students and sponsoring capstone and other projects as appropriate goochs current research includes user interfaces that span wall displays to mobile devices and gigapixel computational photography for histology and pathology additionally she is applying for the national institutes of healths small business innovation research program phase 2 funding for application development in collaboration with pams inc headed by norman l foster md professor of neurology and director center for alzheimers care imaging and research at the university of utah and visus llc she will also be actively collaborating with faculty within the department in research areas of human-centered systems and digital humanities at texas a&m i look forward to participating in women in computing group (awics) give seminars in the department collaborate with cse faculty and establish a relationship with the department and my current research group at utah gooch said i look forward to applying for funding to further cement my relationship with the department and its faculty as well as become more involved in the department cse is enthusiastic about bringing these two esteemed researchers on as adjunct faculty and believes they will make a great impact on the department
321,dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs and the royce e wisenbaker professor in the department of computer science and engineering is a co-pi on a national science foundation (nsf) project establishing an i-corps node focused on promoting innovation in the southwest region of the united states the southwest alliance for entrepreneurial innovation node (saein) will leverage the combined entrepreneurial experience and extensive research capabilities of the university of texas at austin texas a&m university and rice university the three universities received a three-year $375 million grant from nsf to become a regional innovation hub that translates academic research into useful technologies with commercial applications the saein will be based at ut-austin which is the grants principal investigator in addition to taylor dr richard lester clinical associate professor and executive director of the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship at texas a&ms mays business school will serve as a co-pi
322,"dr dezhen song received a three-year national science foundation (nsf) grant to develop a new robotic system algorithms and control schemes for sustainable civil infrastructures the project ""collaborative research: minimally invasive robotic non-destructive evaluation and rehabilitation for bridge decks (bridge-minder) "" is a collaborative effort between texas a&m university and rutgers university song is the principal investigator ""bridges are critical components of modern transportation infrastructure "" said song ""bridges deteriorate over time as a result of material aging excessive use and overloading environmental conditions inadequate maintenance and deficiencies in inspection and evaluation building on the recent advances in robotics and automation technologies the objective of this project is to develop a novel minimally invasive robotic non-destructive evaluation and rehabilitation (minder) for bridge decks"" song's research has a relationship of mutual benefit with the national robotics initiative which is supported by nsf nasa nih and the usda ""the project outcomes including source code datasets and publications are to be shared among research community and the general public "" said song ""the project also includes a number of integrated research and education programs to attract students from underrepresented groups into engineering and involve students into robotics research"" song is an associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m and director of the netbot laboratory he received his doctoral degree in industrial engineering and operations research from the university of california berkeley in 2004 and joined the cse faculty the same year his research interests include robot sensing networked robots vision systems and stochastic modeling"
323,dr nick duffield recently joined the faculty of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university as professor in the computer engineering and systems group (cesg) before joining the department duffield was a research professor at the center for discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science (dimacs) at rutgers university from 2013 until 2014 from 1995 until 2013 he worked at at&t labs-research florham park nj where he held the position of distinguished member of technical staff and was an at&t fellow he previously held post-doctoral and faculty positions in dublin ireland and heidelberg germany duffield received his ba in natural sciences in 1982 and a mmath (part iii maths) in 1983 from the university of cambridge uk he received his phd in mathematical physics from the university of london uk in 1987 his research focuses on data and network science particularly applications of probability statistics algorithms and machine learning to the acquisition management and analysis of large datasets in communications networks and beyond in fall 2014 he will be teaching an ecen 689 special topics course in data science for communications networks duffield the author of numerous papers and holder of many patents is a co-inventor of the smart sampling technologies that lie at the heart of at&ts scalable traffic analysis service he was charter chair of the ietf working group on packet sampling and was an associate editor for the ieee/acm transactions on networking from 2007-2011 he will serve as specialty chief editor in big data for the journal frontiers in ict duffield is an ieee fellow and was a co-recipient of the acm sigmetrics test of time award in both 2012 and 2013 for work in network tomography
324,"brennan bailey a former graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the acta student award for her contribution to the manuscript ""continuous gradient scaffolds for rapid screening of cell-material interactions and interfacial tissue regeneration"" as part of the award which is presented by the acta journal acta biomaterialia bailey will receive a $2 000 cash prize she is scheduled to receive the award this october at the annual materials science and technology meeting in pittsburgh bailey who recently completed her dissertation under associate professor melissa grunlan is a postdoctoral researcher and marie curie fellow at the laboratory of polymer and composite technology in lausanne switzerland while at texas a&m her research was focused on developing tissue engineering scaffolds to heal osteochondral tissue defects in knees and in other joints dr baileys efforts importantly form the foundation of an alternative treatment for total joint replacement grunlan said several factors are considered in the evaluation of each nominee: the quality of paper or papers for which he or she was nominated recommendation letters and leadership potential the awardees were selected from papers published in 2013 in acta journals"
325,dr raymundo arroyave associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering is part of a group from the minerals metals and materials society (tms) that is leading a new study on behalf of the material measurement laboratory of the us national institute of standards and technology (nist) the 14-member panel will develop recommendations for critical steps and pathways needed to link computational materials models and simulations across various length scales in a accurate automated fashion the need for quantitative accurate models and codes that link existing simulation codes across different length scales and stages of integrated computational materials engineering (icme)-accelerated product development cycles was identified as a significant barrier to broader icme implementation in a 2013 tms study nist awarded the grant to tms in april and the study is scheduled to be unveiled at the 3rd world congress on icme in may 2015 in colorado springs
326,dr césar o malavé professor and holder of the sugar and mike barnes department head chair in industrial and systems engineering has been chosen as the featured speaker for the 2014 undergraduate convocation aug 31 in reed arena undergraduate convocation is a special welcoming program for incoming freshmen and transfer students and is a prelude to the start of fall semester classes the next day malavé joined the industrial and systems engineering faculty at texas a&m in 1987 and has occupied several administrative positions in the texas a&m university system including associate dean of engineering in the dwight look college of engineering he was named head of the department of industrial and systems engineering in june 2012 after serving as the departments interim head for a year malavé holds a bachelors degree in chemical engineering and a masters degree in operations research both from the georgia institute of technology and a phd in industrial engineering from the university of south florida
327,"dr james caverlee associate professor of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was chosen by the google faculty research awards program as a recipient of financial support for his proposal in the social media category ""modeling and inferring local expertise"" this research is a collaborative effort with professor daniel z sui chair of the geography department at the ohio state university ""the goal of this research project is to investigate techniques and develop effective tools for modeling and automatically inferring local expertise in large-scale social media "" said caverlee ""local experts in contrast to general topic experts have specialized knowledge focused around a particular location and are critical for many applications including answering local information needs and interacting with community experts and yet identifying these experts is difficult ""to successfully identify and infer local expertise this project proposes a flexible local expertise framework that integrates both a person's topical expertise and their local authority by exploiting the fine-grained publicly-shared gps coordinates of millions of social media users caverlee added ""the hoped for result of this research is that it will lead to important research advances for assessing local expertise enabling new opportunities for local and map-based search results re-ranking by local expertise and expert-driven analytics"" the project is one of 110 chosen from a total of 722 considered by google during its summer 2014 call for research project proposals google research award support is for one year and includes the basic expenses for one graduate student caverlee joined the computer science and engineering faculty at texas a&m in 2007 after receiving a doctoral degree in computer science from the college of computing at the georgia institute of technology this is the third time since 2008 that caverlee has received the google faculty research award his many honors also include the college of engineering caterpillar teaching excellence award for 2013-2014 texas a&m computer science undergraduate faculty teaching award (2013) nsf faculty early career award in 2012 air force office of scientific research-young investigator program (afosr-yip) grant (2012) center for teaching excellence montague-cte scholar award (2011) 2010 defense advanced research projects agency young faculty award (darpa yfa) and graduate faculty teaching excellence award (2009 and 2010)"
328,the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university will hold the 22nd buchanan lecture on november 7 2014 at the college station hilton at 2 pm in the brazos amphitheater the 2014 buchanan lecturer is dr craig h benson who is a distinguished professor at the university of wisconsin and chair of the departments of civil & environmental engineering and geological engineering bensons lecture will be landfill covers: water balance unsaturated soils and a pathway from theory to practice two additional lecturers will be featured: professor marika santagata of purdue university and professor arvid landva of the university of new brunswick in canada more details on the lecturers can be found at: https://ceprofsciviltamuedu/briaud/buchananhtml
329,"the research of dr jodie l lutkenhaus assistant professor and the william and ruth neely faculty fellow in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has received a ""hot"" classification by the royal society of chemistry's journal soft matter the article thermal transitions in hydrated layer-by-layer assemblies observed using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy is available for free thru sept 5 2014 ""for the first time electrochemical impedance spectroscopy has been used to observe thermal transitions in thin polymer films called 'layer-by-layer assemblies "" lutkenhaus said ""this technique allows us to understand in great detail the temperature response of films as thin as 10's of nanometers (1/10000th of a human hair)"""
330,"dr jenn-tai liang will be joining the faculty of the department of petroleum engineering this fall professor liang previously taught at the university of kansas and served as the director of the tertiary oil recovery program a kansas state-funded research center he also was the program manger at the us department of energy idaho national laboratory and was in charge of oil recovery research i am very pleased to welcome professor jenn-tai liang to the harold vance department of petroleum engineering "" said dan hill head of the department ""his joining our faculty gives us an instant presence in the field of nano-materials being developed for a variety of oilfield applications he brings with him a very capable research staff and will be building a world-class laboratory for the synthesis and testing of nano-materials it is personally very satisfying to have jenn-tai liang join us as he was my second phd graduate and has been a good friend for many years an avid researcher liangs major focus is on developing promising uses for nanotechnology in enhanced oil recovery operations and other oilfield chemical applications based on drug-delivery technologies from the pharmaceutical industry liangs previous research group successfully developed a chemical delivery system that uses nanoparticles to entrap and protect the chemicals from the hostile underground environments the current oilfield applications of liangs nano-scale chemical delivery system include delayed gelation for water shutoff and in-depth conformance control delayed release of scale inhibitors to extend the treatment life time and fracture fluid cleanup he has been awarded six us patents with several more pending for the new technologies developed in this area liang signed joint development agreements with conocophillips and a major oilfield service company to develop field specific applications of nano-scale chemical delivery systems to date conocophillips has contributed $32 million to support the nano research program and is already in the process of commercializing the first two new technologies developed for in-depth conformance control he also received major funding from the department of energy (doe) to evaluate the use of dilute surfactants produced from agriculture waste streams to improve oil recovery by altering the reservoir rock to a more water wet state in collaboration with university of alaska at fairbanks and conocophillips alaska inc liang was awarded $320 000 by doe to model wax deposition in alaska north slope crude oils liang also published 21 papers in peer-reviewed journals and authored 18 professional conference papers he is internationally known for his nano research program and has been invited by universities and oil companies worldwide to give more than 40 invited lectures on the application of nano technologies for oil field applications he earned his phd from the university of texas at austin"
331,"the number of endowed scholarships in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has doubled in the past year thanks to the generosity of members of its advisory council and other former students faculty and friends of the department these endowed scholarships and scholarships made possible by the department's industrial affiliates program enable the department to award 75-80 scholarships annually to outstanding and deserving students with the new scholarships received this year we currently have 16 endowed scholarships since summer 2013 we received the dr richard volz memorial scholarship michael'78 & diane'79 pfister scholarship lynette & darnell knippa'70 scholarship judith dietz & al white'86 scholarship donna'92 & steven leist'93 scholarship pamela & troy toman'89 scholarship jana & terry leeper'86 scholarship and the col edmon r mccarthy'66 scholarship the ace scholars honors program established by the department in august 2013 has an ever increasing number of outstanding students each of them gets a 4 year scholarship so we have plenty of deserving students to give our expanding number of scholarships last year our engineering college instituted the ""25 by 25 initiative"" to increase student enrollment to 25 000 by 2025 one way cse proposes to meet this challenge is by attracting more top students with department scholarships this past year indicates that the department's growth goal is in reach as more and more future computer scientists and computer engineers receive the financial support necessary to continue their academic careers at texas a&m"
332,marlene bencomo an incoming phd student working with dr sunil chirayath was recently awarded the louis stokes alliance for minority participation (lsamp) bridge to the doctorate fellowship the program is a partnership between the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university college of science college of agriculture and life sciences and college of geosciences bencomo received her bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering from the university of new mexico she intends to complete her doctorate degree in nuclear engineering at texas a&m after the completion of her doctoral degree she hopes to work in the area of national security and nonproliferation the benefits of this award include an annual stipend of $30 000 for two years $9 000 allotment for educational expenses (tuition/fees health insurance supplies educational travel etc) for two years and opportunities to network and improve research and presentation skills
333,dr robin autenrieth department head and ap and florence wiley professor iii is pleased to announce the addition of two new faculty members dr zachary grasley and mr jeffrey otey dr zachary grasley associate professor and peter c forster faculty fellow i joined the department august 11 from virginia tech dr grasley received his bachelor of science degree from michigan technological university and master of science and phd from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign dr grasley is a member of the transportation and materials engineering division his research interests include behavior and modeling of porous materials durability and sustainability of cementitious materials and mechanics and thermodynamics of concrete dr grasley is a 2009 recipient of a nsf career award prior to his service at virginia tech dr grasley was an assistant professor at texas a&m university in civil engineering where he received the 2011 tees select young faculty award and 2010 zachry excellence in teaching award mr jeffrey otey instructional assistant professor joined the department in may and is the former program director for engineering design graphics and has been with texas a&m since 2001 he has previously taught engr 111/112 endg 105 endg 407 and autocad and civil 3d workshops for civil engineering seniors he is co-author of visualization and engineering design graphics with augmented reality a textbook which interfaces with a web camera ipad or smart phone to display three dimensional images which can be manipulated in real time by the user he is currently developing a sophomore cad and visualization class which will be offered this fall and on-line modules in support of cad for the department mr oteys research interests include methods to convey quality criteria in cad models and rubrics which standardize design intent communication
334,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has added some exciting improvements to the department there is a new back porch space behind the harvey r bum bright building student collaboration spaces throughout hrbb peer teacher central is being remodeled the department now has a golf cart that will be used to escort prospective students and parents donors speakers and visitors in general around campus and there are posters hung around the departments various buildings in honor of scientists who have received the am turing award on thursday july 10 the department of computer science and engineering at tamu hosted the cse ice cream social in order to showcase the new back porch of the harvey r bum bright building the cse ice cream social was the very first event to be held outside at our new cse back porch if you have not already stop by soon and enjoy the tables and added shade provided by the umbrellas! in addition to the back porch there are also new student collaboration spaces on the third fourth and fifth floors of the harvey r bum bright building giving as well students the ability to gather outside of their own research labs electronic displays are on each floor of hrbb allowing everyone to see all the upcoming events within the department peer teacher central is undergoing remodeling at this time and will be open with new and improved additions around the first week of september the department also recently took delivery in july on a 2011 presidential club car (aka golf cart/smv - slow moving vehicle) from rick's golf cars in college station advisory council members eric marin and mark huse presented the golf cart to the department in addition to all of this cse has honored scientists presented with the am turing award by hanging posters in the harvey r bum bright building teague and reed-mcdonald cse is excited about each of these new additions to the department all of these new improvements are to keep our space updated while we wait for a new building currently slated for 2020 we encourage you to stop by our buildings and take a look at all that we have added!
335,the engineering academic and student affairs (easa) office with the help of several sponsors recently hosted the inaugural aggies invent at the engineering innovation center (eic) on the texas a&m campus aggies invent is a program that promotes innovation and an entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m university the concept is to gather interested students provide them with potential needs (medical energy or others) allow them to self-select teams give them access to and support from the eic and have them create prototypes in 48 hours the focus of this particular aggies invent was medical needs and wearable electronics innovation and an entrepreneurial mindset is someone who is actually thinking about the business portion of the design they are working on not just fulfilling the technical requirements but also the market requirements and making it something that we can sell said rodney boehm industry mentor and mediator of aggies invent there were 42 engineering students and five medical students who participated in the event the students ranged from freshmen to phd candidates this diversity allowed teams to collaborate with one another in order to successfully create a prototype the students used innovation creativity and collaboration in order to gain experience with rapid prototyping tools while competing for the best design sponsors such as nasa texas childrens hospital st josephs hospital tenaris intel confluence ventures peco medical freescale and baylor scott & white supplied the students with need statements for projects that the companies do not have the time or the money to currently support its like project runway for engineers because you have a limited amount of time and youre trying to produce this product said mara wais a sophomore aerospace engineering student students had access to mentors from the participating companies some mentors were there in person while some teams were able to videoconference with their mentors through a vgo robot this type of communication allowed the students to act as if this was a real-world situation and ask questions about any problems they may have encountered while working on their projects the eic is a new facility fully dedicated to undergraduate engineering students and supported by differential tuition funds the eic provided students access to a collaborative environment fabrication facilities materials and support from professional staff the eic is where theory becomes application said dean tate a senior electronic systems engineering technology student the teams gave presentations about their projects to a panel of judges the top two teams chosen were given a cash award the first place team under control consisting of walter pospick computer science sophomore cara buskmiller fourth-year medical student nicholas taluzek aerospace engineering senior from illinois institute of technology who had previously participated in the summer texas a&m undergraduate research program amy li mechanical engineering sophomore and john gonzalez mechanical engineering junior received the top prize of $750 for creating a wearable device based on a need statement provided by baylor scott & white to help people successfully exercise their pelvic floor muscle in order to prevent incontinence team good baby consisting of sean whitney aerospace engineering junior duanduan han chemical engineering graduate student yusuf chauhan first-year medical student gabriel aguilar aerospace engineering junior and daniel whitten mechanical engineering senior was given a $500 check for second place for their project that uses geo-fencing in order to let people know that an infant has been left in a hot car this project also focused on a need statement furnished by baylor scott and white all of the presentations are available on the college of engineerings youtube channel the next aggies invent has been scheduled for october 24-26 with the focus on what would you build to help first responders registration for the october event will open next month and interested students should visit the aggie invent page for more information additional aggies invent coverage can be found through local media kbtx and the eagle
336,the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university hosted 143 prospective students on campus during two camps held in july seventy-five rising juniors and seniors participated in the women explore engineering (wee) camp and an additional 68 students from 12 texas high schools participated in the e 12 explore engineering (e 12 ee) summer camp the three-day camps gave participants who have an interest in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) an opportunity to explore careers in engineering through three team design projects the teams built a small-scale windmill capable of converting wind energy into electrical energy harnessed optical energy and efficiently converted it from light to electrical energy and built and raced small autonomous robots dr joseph morgan and dr jay porter of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution led the robotics workshop dr christi madsen of the department of electrical and computer engineering and dr timothy jacobs of the department of mechanical engineering led the wind energy and solar design projects
337,students worked directly with engineering faculty and current students visited facilities in the college of engineering and were exposed to information about engineering as a career and the undergraduate engineering programs at texas a&m i really want to be an engineer and this experience has helped me decide which field i want to go into maria lazaro of dallas said theres more technology every day and i just want to be a part of creating something new at the close of each camp students presented their work to their families and fellow campers engineering faculty and staff served as judges and recognized the top three teams in each design group what impresses me the most is that im impressed every single year jacobs said the students are always demonstrating creativity excellent work ethic and they are genuinely here to learn they go from knowing nothing about energy or the design process to being able to ask questions about it that we never discussed in class the e 12 ee and wee summer camps have been hosted by the college of engineering since 2009 since then 75% of students from e 12 ee and 65% of students participating from wee have applied to the look college generous sponsors awarded scholarships making it possible for students who would otherwise be unable to participate to attend donations to the camps were provided by bp shell phillips 66 chevron the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and the texas higher education coordinating board engineering pre-college summer camps are vital to give high school students specifically underrepresented and first generation students a new perspective on their academic abilities and potential said dr sonia garcia senior director for access and inclusion students get a taste of the college environment and enjoy new opportunities to investigate educational goals explore and broaden their knowledge in the field of engineering work together as a team on their engineering projects and build lasting relationships with peers who share similar academic and personal interests wee and e 12 ee are designed for rising junior and senior high school students who have as and bs in their high school courses and who have a strong interest in a technical career industry or individuals interested in sponsor opportunities or who have questions about these camps should contact garcia via email at garcias5@tamuedu
338,"the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has honored scientists presented with the am turing award by hanging posters in the harvey r bum bright building teague and reed-mcdonald the am turing award is sometimes referred to as the ""nobel prize"" of computing the award was named in honor of alan mathison turing who was a british mathematician and computer scientist he made fundamental advances in computer architecture algorithms formalization of computing and artificial intelligence and was also instrumental in british code-breaking work during world war ii the am turing award honors scientists with research subjects such as artificial intelligence computational complexity cryptography programming languages and many more there are 60 posters hung in honor of these individuals throughout each of the cse buildings with each persons name the year they were presented the award and a brief description of why they were honored with it one of the reasons these posters were hung around the department is to inspire appreciation of the history of computer science and the individuals who have made significant contributions to the fields growth photo: cse student worker sandra calderón with one am turing award recognition poster"
339,"the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university took delivery in june on a 2011 presidential club car (aka golf cart/smv - slow moving vehicle) from rick's golf cars in college station the golf cart/smv was presented to the department by its advisory council members eric marin and mark huse and will be used to escort prospective students and parents donors speakers and visitors in general around campus ""another frequent use of the golf cart/smv "" said cse facilities coordinator bruce veals ""will be the transportation of computing equipment"" cse has facilities in four on campus buildings: hr bright building olin e teague research center reed mcdonald building and the emerging technologies building veals is responsible for the golf cart/smv check out procedure and maintenance before heading to bruce's office to sign it out and tour campus you'll need to know the authorized campus travel paths and parking locations smv training is available through texas a&m's single sign on photo: interim department head nancy m amato and bruce veals reveal cse's golf cart/smv"
340,an endowed scholarship in memory of colonel edmond r mccarthy 66 usaf (ret) has been established for full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university it will give talented students an educational experience that will provide a foundation for their future and contributions in the world the col edmond r mccarthy usaf (ret) 66 (ms) 74 (phd) scholarship will assist the department in attracting rewarding and retaining outstanding students col mccarthy was a great example of such a student with his selfless service to this nation his community and to texas a&m university he earned his masters in mathematics and doctoral degree in computer science from texas a&m and was most proud of his degree in computer science during part of his 30 years of distinguished service in the united states air force col mccarthy taught english computing science and computer literacy to vietnamese immigrants seeking residentship and employment opportunities in america post-viet nam war col mccarthy died at his home in san antonio texas on july 19 2012
341,"dr nancy m amato unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering was invited to speak at the robotics: science and systems conference hosted by the university of california berkeley last month amato's talk was titled ""using motion planning to study protein motions"" in her talk she described how techniques developed for motion planning in robotics have been adapted and applied to model and analyze protein motions and to reason about the structure flexibility and interactions of proteins and other biomolecules the conference is a single-track conference that brings together researchers working on algorithmic and mathematical foundations of robotics robotics applications and analysis of robotic systems the program included invited talks oral and poster presentations of refereed papers workshops and tutorials each talk that took place during the conference was recorded and is on the website along with all technical papers the invited speakers for the conference include genevieve bell of intel brad nelson of eth zurich andrew ng of stanford university and chris urmson of google dr dylan shell assistant professor in texas a&m's department of computer science and engineering was an area chair for the conference the conference also included workshops organized by texas a&m associated individuals dr aaron ames joint faculty member of mechanical engineering and computer science and engineering at texas a&m organized a workshop titled dynamic locomotion"" lydia tapia a graduate of texas a&m's computer science and engineering program who is now an assistant professor at the university of new mexico was also an organizer of a workshop at the conference on robotics methods for structural and dynamic modeling of molecular systems amato co-directs the cse parasol lab and her research focuses are motion planning and robotics computational biology and geometry and parallel and distributed computing she received undergraduate degrees in mathematical sciences and economics from stanford university and a master's and phd degree in computer science from uc berkeley and the university of illinois at urbana-champaign"
342,zimo wang a phd candidate in the department of industrial and systems engineering and student of dr satish ts bukkapatnam recently won first place at the annual industrial and systems engineering research conference (iserc) held in montreal canada wang competed in the quality control and reliability engineering category with his paper titled change detection in complex systems using dirichlet process gaussian state machine every year the iserc holds competitions for the best papers in 26 different categories ranging from energy to homeland security all submissions must be original research and must be written entirely by the student the category wang entered focuses on the quality systems side of industrial engineering that looks at how durable a product is what the chances are for defective parts and how to detect those defects or potential failures and thus save significant material wastage and rework costs wangs paper focused on creating a model that could account for nonlinear and nonstationary conditions of real world processes rarely does a system exist in a stationary context however most systems models used for change detection assume the underlying dynamic transients are negligible this assumption can slow or completely hide the detection of subtle changes in behaviors that can lead to catastrophes wangs research developed a model that can realize very minute changes to real world systems that would be otherwise undetectable
343,"dr carlos monroy '10 data scientist at rice university's center for digital learning and scholarship has been selected to participate in the 2nd heidelberg laureate forum (hlf) to be held sept 21-26 2014 at the university of heidelberg in germany winners of the esteemed abel prize fields medal nevanlinna prize and acm turing award (considered the ""nobel"" prizes in mathematics and computer science) along with 200 of the bright new generation of computer scientists and mathematicians worldwide are invited to participate in hlf the hlf's goal is to promote mathematics and computer science by bringing together the most promising researchers from around the world with the most prestigious award winners in their fields through the interaction it is hoped the young researchers will be inspired by the prize winning laureates and that the laureates will pass along the torch to the next generation of scientists ""for me it is a great honor to attend such a unique event "" said monroy ""reading the names of the participating laureates one realizes that they are pioneers who have made some of the most fundamental contributions to the field as a computer scientist being able to personally get to know and talk to them is priceless in addition to their inspiring stories i am fascinated with the vision of the forum's founder mr klaus tschira who sees the forum as an encounter for fostering inspiration and friendship among participants"" monroy's current research includes learning analytics big data and information visualization his areas of interest are data mining information retrieval and visualization digital humanities and multidisciplinary collaboration for more than fifteen years his work and research have enabled numerous interdisciplinary collaborations with domain experts in education linguistics art history and nautical archaeology in addition to english he speaks spanish italian french and a little german and catalan in 2002 and 2010 respectively monroy received a master's and a doctoral degree in computer science from the department of computer science and engineering prior to his studies at texas a&m he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the universidad rafael landívar in guatemala monroy is still affiliated with the center for the study of digital libraries at texas a&m university"
344,dr pk imbrie director of undergraduate academic programs was invited to testify at the texas senate higher education committees hearing regarding technology and teacher preparation imbrie specifically addressed how the use of technology can improve education with specific examples from texas a&m universitys engineering 111 and 112 classes to view imbries testimony click here (imbries testimony begins at the 2:32:00 mark)
345,"a proposal submitted by dr mladen kezunovic was selected for seed grant funding from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) for two years kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering received the award for his proposal ""energy cyberphysical systems: experimental open source ecosystem for synchrophasor research"" his co-pis on this project are dr chanan singh (ece) dr pr kumar (ece) dr erick moreno-centeno (ise) dr alex sprintson (ece) dr radu stoleru (cse) and dr le xie (ece) the overall objective of the project is offering a realistic research infrastructure named the experimental open source ecosystem (expose) for synchrophasor research for implementation and evaluation of new synchrophasor-based applications the preliminary results are expected to include: creating an initial pool of test data; developing algorithms for precise synchrophasor estimation to be compared with the existing phasor measurement unit (pmu) calculations; and evaluating performance of pmus and quality of synchrophasor data further funding will be attracted by targeting the national science foundation industry (ibm ni alstom) government labs (lawrence berkeley national laboratory (lbnl) oak ridge national laboratory (ornl) national renewable energy laboratory (nrel) and the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m this project has been funded through the ""interdisciplinary seed grants for strategic initiatives"" announced by texas a&m engineering in partnership with the texas a&m university division of research kezunovic who also is the director of the tees smart grid center currently serves as the site director of the power engineering research center (pserc) and before joining texas a&m in 1986 he worked for westinghouse electric corp among his many honors kezunovic has been named an ieee fellow and a cigre fellow he has published more than 450 papers in journals and conference proceedings and was invited to give more than 100 lectures worldwide and is listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee pes while at texas a&m he has been the principal investigator on more than 100 research projects and supervised more than 40 graduate students"
346,dr shuguang (robert) cui an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named to thomson reuters list of the worlds most influential scientific minds: 2014 cui was honored in the engineering category the list includes 3 215 scientists from all the scientific subjects around the world who have published the highest number of articles that are cited the most frequently by other researchers the list was compiled from two separate thomson reuters studies analyzed for publication and citation data from 21 broad fields of study ranging from chemistry to social sciences cui received his phd in electrical engineering from stanford university in 2005 he is now working as an associate professor in the information science and systems group in the department he joined the department as an assistant professor in 2007 after working at university of arizona for two years as an assistant professor his current research interests focus on big data oriented information processing over networks including large-scale distributed estimation and detection information theoretical study of large distributed storage systems and large-scale cognitive system design cuis research papers have been highly cited; according to the data on february 16 2014 from web of science eight of them had been ranked within the top 10 most highly cited papers (one of them ranked no1 and three of them ranked no2) among all published over the same periods in the corresponding journals he was the recipient of the ieee signal processing society 2012 best paper award two conference best paper awards 12 united states federal grant awards (six nsf awards and six dod awards) he has been serving as the tpc co-chairs for many ieee conferences he also has been serving as the associate editors for ieee transactions on signal processing and ieee transactions on wireless communications he is the elected member for ieee signal processing society spcom technical committee (2009-2015) and the elected secretary for ieee comsoc wireless technical committee he also was elected as an ieee fellow in 2013 (within eight years after earning his phd one of the quickest in ieee history)
347,a team of graduate and undergraduate students in the department of biological and agricultural engineering won second place recently at the american society of agricultural & biological engineers' student robotic design competition the competition was held at the asabe 2014 annual international meeting in montral canada the challenge the team was presented with was developing a robotic system to simulate installation of a sap pipe between the maple trees irregularly distributed in a forest
348,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr john hurtado as the senior director for multidisciplinary engineering programs and dr nancy amato as the senior director for engineering honors programs both appointments are effective sept 1 amato is the holder of the unocal professorship in the department of computer science and engineering in her new role amato will oversee all aspects of the engineering honors program amato received her masters in computer science from the university of california at berkeley in 1988 and her phd in computer science from university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 1995 hurtado is an associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering and the associate department head for graduate studies in his new role hurtado will oversee all aspects of the multidisciplinary engineering programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels hurtado received both his masters degree and his phd in aerospace engineering from texas a&m in 1991 and 1995 respectively
349,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr dilma da silva the head of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university the appointment is effective aug 25 da silva currently serves as a principal engineer and manager at qualcomm research in santa clara california where she leads the area of mobile cloud computing her prior work experience includes the ibm thomas j watson research center in new york (2000-2012) and the university of sao paulo in brazil (1996-2000) she led large research initiatives around scalable and adaptive system software focusing the last four years on cloud computing da silva received her phd in computer science from georgia tech in 1997 and she has published more than 80 technical papers and has filed 11 patents she has chaired 24 conferences/workshop committees participated in several prestigious journal editorial boards and has been a program committee member in more than 80 scientific conferences or workshops and more than 30 thesis committees da silva is an association for computing machinery (acm) distinguished scientist an acm distinguished speaker a member of the board of computer research association's committee on the status of women in computing research and of the coalition for diversifying computing co-founder of the latinas in computing group and treasurer/secretary for acm special interest group on operating systems
350,"cameron crawford a sophomore in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university has been named the recipient of the texas armed services scholarship from house district 2 the scholarship which covers up to $10 000 per year of college tuition encourages academic development and dedication to the various branches of the state and federal armed services the award was announced by representative dan flynn (r-van) crawford must commit to at least four years of rotc service while in college and receive a commission or agree to enroll in a branch of the armed services upon graduation crawford would like to become a nuclear submarine engineer in the navy and he is currently a midshipman in the navy rotc and a member of the texas a&m corps of cadets in high school crawford logged more than 100 hours of community service while being a part of student council national honor society national technical honor society jazz band eco club uil and ffa crawford credits growing up on his family's dairy farm with teaching him to appreciate the benefits of hard work and community service ""when cameron applied for the scholarship it was clear by reading his statement and reviewing his resumé that this young man was going to go far in whatever career he chose "" said flynn ""it takes a very special kind of mind and character to have the discipline and focus necessary to understand the complexities of nuclear engineering the desire he has to hone in on his field of study and dedicate his skills to the united states navy is a very admirable and respectable career path there is no doubt that cameron truly enjoys serving others and i commend him for finding a way to do so in every facet of his life"" cameron is the only son of john and kodeann crawford the texas armed services scholarship is awarded to an eligible and deserving student appointed by his or her state representative or senator the lieutenant governor of governor the scholarship was created to assist promising students from across the state who are committed to education and service it encourages young leaders to participate in the texas guard army national guard or air national guard or to become commissioned officers in the united states armed services"
351,the zachry department of civil engineering held its first summer camp camp build july 20-25 the program was developed to provide high-achieving students who demonstrated an interest in civil engineering the opportunity to better understand the opportunities the profession offers for a rewarding career thirty high school juniors and seniors from across texas (and one each from arkansas and new mexico) participated in a range of activities that exposed them to the breadth of the civil engineering discipline and student life at texas a&m activities included tours of the civil engineering high bay structural and materials testing laboratory the reta and bill haynes ‘46 coastal engineering laboratory and various texas a&m transportation institute (tti) research facilities they also had hands-on experience designing water purification systems and beams witnessed a crash test at tti and built a bridge it was not all work as their evenings were spent watching movies going on a scavenger hunt and playing games part of each day the campers worked in teams on a wooden bridge design project that culminated in a competition on the last day of camp with the help of faculty members and current students the campers built 10 ft long truss bridges of their own designs to carry 200 lbs of vertical load and 20 lbs of lateral load at mid-span bridges and teams were evaluated for construction time cost accuracy of cost estimate vertical deflection lateral deflection and technical presentation the team performing best across all categories was awarded the golden truss trophy for best bridge crystal faust camp coordinator from the civil engineering student services office found from camper surveys that the campers loved the chance to become friends with other students from across texas who are interested in being aggies and entering the civil engineering profession its great to see how bringing these students into the professional community can begin this early campers also seemed to enjoy experiencing the breadth of civil engineering it was common to hear from campers that they enjoyed seeing the tti crash test and research facilities and working on building the bridge for the contest i think our big challenge for next year is to expand our range of experiences even further observed dr kelly brumbelow associate professor and assistant department head for undergraduate programs one of the faculty members involved in the camp the zachry department of civil engineering would like to thank the generous donors who made camp build possible fiona allen and jq additional photos and videos may be seen on our facebook page- facebookcom/tamuce
352,dr norris stubbs professor in the zachry department of civil engineering passed away august 9 2014 dr stubbs served the department for over 30 years dr stubbs was born in nassau new providence bahamas and was an olympic runner for his home country in the 1968 games in mexico city at the age of 19 he ran the 100 and 200 meter races and was a member of the 4x100m relay team that set a national record of 3945 seconds which went unbroken for 25 years dr stubbs was also an accomplished musician on french and baritone horn he published the book a survey of the folk music of dominica he received a bachelor of arts in physics at grinnell college in iowa and went on to columbia university and received bachelor of science and master of science degrees in structural mechanics and a doctor of engineering science degree in engineering mechanics in 1976 he began his professional career as an assistant professor at columbia university before moving to texas a&m university in 1983 he was heavily involved in structural engineering research and published countless articles and books on the subject he was also involved with the texas a&m transportation institute as a research engineer in the major highway structures division in 1994 he received a patent for his apparatus and method for damage detection he was also part of the texas a&m university team that was part of the hazard reduction and recovery center that examined the world trade center after the 2001 tragedy dr stubbs leaves behind a legacy with the zachry department of civil engineering as a long-time colleague and valued researcher the impact dr stubbs made with students and the structural engineering profession will always be remembered
353,zhaokai meng a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a 2014 optics and photonics education scholarship by spie the international society for optics and photonics meng who is working as a research assistant in the advanced spectroscopy lab directed by professor vladislav v yakovlev was honored for his potential contributions to the field of optics photonics or related field meng specializes in nonlinear optics microspectroscopy and the corresponding applications in biomedical engineering and sciences his research interests include microscopic imaging for molecular cellular and tissue structures and extending these techniques into biomedical studies in 2014 spie awarded $353 000 in education and travel scholarships to 144 outstanding individuals based on their potential contribution to optics and photonics or a related discipline award-winning applicants were evaluated selected and approved by the spie scholarship committee chaired by spie volunteer kevin leonard to date spie has distributed more than $35 million dollars in individual scholarships spie scholarships are open to full- and part-time students studying anywhere in the world all scholarship applications are judged on their own merit based on the experience and education level of the individual student spie is the international society for optics and photonics a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies the society serves nearly 256 000 constituents from approximately 155 countries offering conferences continuing education books journals and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange professional networking and patent precedent spie provided $32 million in support of education and outreach programs in 2013
354,students from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university won first place at the canberra university video challenge their video highlights examples of students using canberra products in their classes and research in radiation detection a variety of products are shown as students scan a box for a hidden source a variation of one of the laboratory exercises the research focus of the video demonstrates a radiation portal monitor used for screening livestock for radioactive contamination created using canberra products involved in the development and testing of a bovine screening portal research project led by dr craig marianno are jennifer erchinger jose trevino timothy jacomb-hood manit shah and micheal smith
355,jana and terry leeper endowed the jana and terry leeper '86 scholarship in computer science and computer engineering their scholarship established with the texas a&m foundation is focused on assisting incoming freshmen pursuing degrees in the department of computer science and engineering (cse) at texas a&m university terry leeper is currently the chief technology officer for business-to-business at amazon with teams in seattle austin and madrid prior to this role leeper was in charge of amazon's vendor facing software and hardware planning and he ran the company's retail workflow engine before amazon he worked at microsoft for 12 years he owned much of the visual c++ product including compilers libraries and debugger before moving to england to lead developer tools sales and marketing in europe the middle east and africa he later traveled to china where he created microsoft's developer division in shanghai he holds degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from texas a&m and is currently an active member of the cse advisory council jana leeper is a graduate in secondary education from the university of north texas she taught senior high school for over 10 years in texas and washington she remains very active in her community the leepers live in the austin texas area and have three children their oldest daughter kathryn is class of 2018
356,"this past week six texas a&m university computer science and engineering students coulton vento eleni mijalis bob timm jose manriquez christopher nolan and rafael moreno were accepted to participate in the prestigious hackathon at the university of pennsylvania called pennapps the students were among 28 students from texas that were accepted and among a mere 700 out of approximately 2 500 that applied pennapps is the premier student-run college hackathon where students who are the top high school and college developers in their area are given the opportunity to work in teams to create a web mobile or hardware application this year pennapps is celebrating its tenth iteration hence naming this years event pennapps x this year is also special for pennapps because for the first time participants will be hacking to solve health and medical problems pennapps has partnered with penn medicine the university of pennsylvania health system to get medical professionals and programmers on the same page giving them the ability to work side-by-side to fight the problems within the healthcare system pennapps is holding a pre-event workshop to give out more information about the health hack which i am hoping to attend "" said eleni mijalis as a biology major and computer science minor it is extremely beneficial when i can put the two subjects together this is an opportunity for me to figure out what my future career might hold! pennapps x will start on friday september 12 and will continue through sunday september 14 with the closing ceremony and prize distribution i think that networking is the most valuable part about this opportunity "" said jose manriquez many great people will be attending and it is also the perfect opportunity to talk to recruiters and sponsors i am really looking forward to meeting new people and making new connections"
357,berna hascakir assistant professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m was featured in a recent article on thermal recovery by jennifer pallanich in the upstream technology bi-monthly magazine oils that are trapped underground that have a high viscosity are called ‘heavy oil and are difficult to extract thermal recovery is the science of reducing the viscosity so the oil can flow and be recovered of the many thermal recovery methods steam injection invented in the 1960s is the most common its easy to apply and it has been tested says hascakir who has studied thermal recovery methods for over a decade so operating companies know that if they invest x amount of money they know how much they will get out of that project but the oil recovery is not that high so you cannot recover all the oil in place she added she is referring to the fact that creating steam is energy intensive and it can often take 10 barrels of water to produce 1 barrel of oil hascakir currently heads the research group hocam (heavy oil oil shales oil sands & carbonate analysis and recovery methods) which aims to find environmentally friendly and economic solutions for challenging reservoirs including those with heavy oil specifically her group is using thermal enhanced oil recovery in conjunction with smart well technologies and seismic monitoring one of the enhanced methods is radio-frequency heating or microwave heating the challenge is to heat the heavy oil in order to change its viscosity while allowing for the different materials the heating will pass through in order to reach the target high absorbance molecules are jostling back and forth and this motion is generating heat she says she equates it to plastic and food in a microwave oven where the microwaves pass through plastic and heat only the food you can target some part of the reservoir by using microwave heating the drawback you dont know where the high absorbance molecules are in the heterogeneous reservoir just like the water molecules in food which will turn to steam with the application of microwaves and heat the food molecules around it reservoirs rich in water content will respond to this method positively she adds so instead of heating water with conventional methods and pumping it down the well as steam the microwaves create steam in place which reduces the viscosity of the oil around it so the oil can flow and be recovered more information on her research can be found at her website
358,antiterrorism efforts could receive a major boost from technology developed at texas a&m university that enables the identification of explosives biological agents or hazardous chemicals from distances of a half mile and farther the technology which was developed by a team of researchers that includes professor vladislav yakovlev of the universitys department of biomedical engineering makes use of lasers to traverse long distances and identify dangerous materials present within powders that commonly act as carriers for explosive nitrates and lethal biological agents such as anthrax and ricin in addition the laser-guided system has agricultural applications particularly as a tool for precision farming and forensic capabilities the work of the team which includes distinguished professor of physics and astronomy marlan o scully is funded by the national science foundation as well as the us air force research laboratory the team's findings are detailed in the scientific journals nature communications and proceedings of the national academies of sciences the potentially life-saving technology is made possible by a high-powered laser that is beamed onto a powder for an extremely short amount of time (about a trillionth of a second) says yakovlev an authority on sensing instrumentation when laser light contacts the molecules present within the powder it experiences a scattering effect that researchers can analyze to construct a sort of molecular fingerprint that reveals the exact chemical makeup of the powder as part of our research we identified individual nitrates in powder at a distance of a half kilometer yakovlev says in a single shot we were able to distinguish those chemicals with 99-percent accuracy and now were working on identification from even greater distances the initial success of yakovlevs detection technology is due largely in part to the fact that he can generate an emission that can be detected by a spectrometer thats positioned more than a half-mile away traditionally collecting an excited signal from such long distances has been a significant obstacle for researchers who are developing remote-sensing technology but by taking advantage of the inherent properties of the powder he is targeting yakovlev has been able to dramatically amplify the resulting emission in very simple terms we can take a powder shine a laser on this powder and we get a type of scattering effect that enhances our signal yakovlev says this was the first demonstration that this is indeed possible with powders the powder yakovlev explains provides the conditions by which light is amplified when a laser passes through the powder its wavelength is not fully absorbed instead some of the light from the laser scatters and the path length increases because of this multiple scattering – something scientists refer to as the raman effect this scattered light yakovlev notes is then emitted from the powder in a strong diffuse form that is visually similar to a bright led light its this extremely bright emission that can be collected from long distances yakovlev says [when a laser passes through the targeted powder it triggers a strong emission of light that can be used to analyze the sample] we get a large amount of energy into the system in a very short amount of time this is what allows the process to happen yakovlev says noting that his team has been able to increase the scattering efficiency by nine orders of magnitude meaning more light can be detected from greater distances its an achievement that could pave the way for the technologys use in military and homeland security applications ideally youd like to target a suspicious substance from an airplane possibly which could beam a laser at the powder and collect the resulting signal with a powerful parabolic antenna so that the signal could then be analyzed while keeping personnel out of harms way yakovlev says joining yakovlev in this research effort are hope t beier robert j thomas and benjamin rockwell of the 711th human performance wing human effectiveness directorate bioeffects division optical radiation bioeffects branch joint base san antonio; gary d noonjin of tasc inc; distinguished professor of physics and astronomy marlan o scully; graduate students brett hokr joel bixler and john mason; postdoctoral researcher georgi i petrov; and leonard a golovan of moscow state university -30- contact: professor vladislav yakovlev at (979) 458-2326 or via email at yakovlev@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 9798475833 or via email at ryangarcia99@tamuedu
359,friends of dr ron hart this past spring dr hart was found to have cancer after brain surgery and radiation dr hart is resting at home in college station communications sent here will be forwarded
360,"two texas a&m nuclear engineering graduate students won awards at icone-22 in prague czech republic timothy crook and saya lee attended the 22nd international conference on nuclear energy july 7-11 where they were awarded the ""best student paper- north america "" representing two of the selected best student-authored papers from the united states canada or mexico crook's paper ""sensitivity analysis of a pwr response during a loss of coolant accident under a hypothetical core blockage scenario using relap5-3d "" focused on accident scenarios and plant-specific features that help maintain plant safety in the event of debris buildup at the reactor core and was performed in support of the us nrc generic safety issue 191 (gsi-191) research co-authors include dr rodolfo vaghetto alessandro vanni and dr yassin hassan department head crook completed his undergraduate degree in december 2013 from texas a&m and is studying for his master's under hassan his research currently involves computational analysis using system codes like relap5 in support of utilities' gsi-191 responses crook is currently serving as the graduate chair for the 2015 ans student conference to be hosted at texas a&m in april 2015 and is also an active american nuclear society member and past chapter president lee's paper ""head loss through fibrous beds generated on different types of containment sump strainers "" focused on the build-up of fibrous debris on the containment sump strainer and head loss through the deposited fibrous porous media as a function of porosity and thickness of the media and the approach velocity of fluid co-authors include suhaeb abdulsattar and dr hassan lee is a nuclear engineering phd candidate working in dr hassan's research group his research field is thermal-hydraulics in nuclear engineering including experimental studies related to the nuclear safety issues and two phase flow visualization and heat transfer using piv and lif techniques"
361,in july nsspi graduated its first class of students in the summer certificate in nuclear security program sponsored by the us state department's partnership for nuclear security (pns) the certificate program is an eight-week intensive course designed to produce nuclear professionals who will lead efforts to reduce the security risks associated with nuclear and radiological materials while ensuring the peaceful use of nuclear energy is available to all participants earned academic credit by completing three university courses taught by nsspi faculty the program also included tours of nuclear and radiological facilities executive seminars and security-focused simulations the course is intended to raise the awareness of nuclear security as a key requirement for all nuclear and radiological systems and instill a culture of nuclear security in nuclear professionals working in industry research facilities government or academia this year's class included participants from the nigerian nuclear regulatory authority the national atomic energy commission in yemen the jordan atomic energy commission the indonesia nuclear energy agency and pandit deendayal petroleum university in india
362,dr brock faulkner assistant professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering has been selected to receive the 2014 gale a holloway professional development award by the american society of agricultural and biological engineers (asabe) faulkner was chosen for his extensive service and leadership within the society and for his outstanding contribution to the younger members of the texas asabe section a 12-year member of asabe faulkner has served in various officer positions and also serves as associate editor for the structures and environment division of asabe he is chair-elect of the texas asabe section faulkner quickly become a recognized expert and leader in the air quality arena and in 2012 he was appointed to the epe science advisory board panel he also serves on a national cotton ginners association subcommittee and the usda agricultural air quality task force the holloway award was endowed by the generous contributions from friends relatives colleagues and industry the award first presented in 2008 was established in memory of gale a holloway past president of asabe and past president of the asabe foundation and fellow the award acknowledges and perpetuates holloway's dedication to assisting preprofessionals and early career asabe members to become active members and work diligently to enhance the quality of meetings technical information and professional development within asabe at both the national and sectional level
363,"manit shah's paper titled ""simulation analysis of scintillation in a nal detector"" was selected as the best student paper for the nonproliferation and arms control division of the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) at their annual meeting in atlanta georgia in july shah is a nuclear engineering phd student working with nsspi faculty member dr craig marianno and dr sunil khatri of the texas a&m department of electric and computer engineering his work investigates using a new type of integrated circuit as a replacement for photomultiplier tubes used for detection in interdiction scenarios in all nsspi students and staff members accounted for nine papers and one poster at the meeting"
364,an mri-guided laser system that allows surgeons to perform brain surgery on tumors and epileptic lesions in the brain is expected to become widely available to patients in need now that the technology has been acquired from visualase inc by the global medical device company medtronic inc says a biomedical engineering professor from texas a&m university who co-founded the company responsible for the technology the technology says gerard coté professor in the universitys department of biomedical engineering and director of the center for remote healthcare technology enables surgeons to pinpoint and destroy brain tumors and lesions with extreme precision and is a much less-invasive alternative to conventional surgery the advantage of this approach over other approaches for brain surgery coté explains is that it can be performed while the patient is awake requires no radiation and no skull flap (the large opening in traditional craniotomies) and is often performed in otherwise inoperable areas of the brain traditional brain surgery he explains is usually a daylong operation that involves removing part of the skull cutting through healthy brain matter and physically removing the problematic tissue that procedure he adds can be followed by a weeklong hospital stay and prolonged recovery period the technology developed by former texas a&m students ashok gowda and the late roger mcnichols conversely can be completed in about four hours and most patients can return home the following day coté says known as visualase the technology is already used in more than 45 hospitals nationwide including 15 pediatric hospitals before the surgical procedure computer software first helps identify the targeted tissue so that it may be treated and the surrounding healthy tissue can be avoided coté explains during the procedure a small entry is made in the skull that allows a laser applicator (about the size of a pencil lead) to be inserted into the tissue the patient is placed in the mri and a physician receives and reviews images to verify proper positioning of the laser applicator in the skull the clinician then uses a laser to heat and destroy the problematic tissue while imaging the tissue being damaged in real time to ensure destruction of the problematic tissue and to avoid damaging healthy tissue the laser applicator is then removed and the scalp is closed with one stitch coté notes
365,"medtronics acquisition of visualase inc (the privately held company co-founded by coté and his colleagues gowda mcnichols and sohi rastegar former texas a&m professor) means medtronic will add the mri-guided laser ablation system to its portfolio of therapies for treating neurological conditions and will integrate the technology into its broader neuroscience offerings my colleagues and i are very excited about this acquisition and i truly believe it will provide more global access to this innovative technology that will ultimately help many more patients undergoing brain surgery for neurological conditions coté said the all-cash transaction of up to $105 million includes an initial payment of $70 million plus additional payments of up to $35 million that are contingent upon the achievement of specific milestones reads a release issued by medtronic ""the transaction with medtronic is critical to ensure more patients have access to our beneficial technology "" said william hoffman ceo of visualase in a release issued by medtronic ""we are proud of the mri-guided laser ablation technology and other products we have developed and their impact on the well-being of patients medtronic is clearly committed to the area of minimally invasive neurosurgery and we look forward to working as a team to innovate in this area"" -30- contact: gerard coté at (979) 845-4196 or via email: gcote@tamuedu or ryan garcia at (979) 847-5833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu"
366,camp soar (summer opportunities in aerospace research) 2014 was hosted by the department of aerospace engineering with the help of the boeing company and rockwell collins july 20-25 2014 camp soar is a five-day summer camp designed to expose upcoming high school juniors and seniors with an interest in aerospace engineering to the research and facilities at texas a&m universitys (tamu) department of aerospace engineering (aero) sixty students twice as many as the previous years were selected from applications across the nation to explore the field of aerospace engineering with an emphasis on either airplanes rockets or airships the students began the week with a lecture on what is aero an introduction by the lead professors the students were given a brief history of aerospace engineering and the multiple aerospace programs in operation today with their individual questions they can explore the various career paths available to them students involved in the airplanes track started with airplane fundamentals and a short lecture defining aerodynamic lift by wayne lutz camp soar instructor and lecturer in the department of aerospace engineering students were introduced to basic definitions of aerodynamics and followed lutzs explanation on how an airplane wing produces forces to lift an airplane aloft the airplane students were then introduced to basic airplane flight control fundamentals through the paper airplane project using paper airplane models the students folded a unique paper design into a paper glider they then competed with fellow students to achieve best glide distance and accuracy lutz offered real-time suggestions on their design to improve the airplane performance the students enjoyed the fun first-day activity visualizing airplane aerodynamics the rocket and space track led by dave kanipe camp soar instructor and lecturer in the department of aerospace engineering is designed to provide the students with the fundamentals of physics of how rockets work and what it takes to get to space and orbit the earth actual classroom lectures were minimal and kept as short as possible in addition a number of short videos of space-related subjects were utilized to maintain student interest and provide inspiration the rocket track students engaged in the fun activity of making and flying their own rockets they used compressed air powered rockets as it is relatively easy for the students to understand the basic physics behind their flight this also gave the students the ability to launch the rockets several times which game them multiple opportunities to observe their rocket and understand its motion during the week the students competed amongst themselves for distance and accuracy at the start of the airships track the students were given a brief introduction on the fundamentals of buoyant flight and its history by zach harris and divya sri praturi camp soar instructors and graduate students in the department of aerospace engineering as a fun small scale warm-up activity each student constructed a hot air balloon using trash bags straw and candles this activity reinforced the concepts reviewed in the airship fundamentals presentation especially the necessity of a higher buoyant force than weight force and provided the students with the opportunity to practice the engineering concepts related to design testing and redesign for the remainder of the week the airship track students worked on developing autonomous air swimmers and optimizing them to meet the given requirements air swimmers are helium-filled balloons that are propelled by flapping tails; thus the students first task was to design and test two tail shapes following the selection of a tail the students were provided the necessary hardware software and instruction to fully automate their air swimmers during this phase they conducted tests to determine the optimal power and timing settings for the tail during the week all of the students toured the departments facilities including but not limited to the vehicle and systems control laboratory land air and space robotics lab the oran nicks low speed wind tunnel and many more in the flight research laboratory they were each given the opportunity to test their skills on the flight simulator as part of their exposure to aerospace propulsion systems all students had the opportunity to observe and operate a small firing jet engine during the lab tours and throughout the week the students were given the opportunity to interact with current students as well as world-renowned faculty the campers stayed on campus and had use of the universitys recreational facilities the university library and the universitys computer facilities and had the chance to see what it is like to live the life of a student at texas a&m at the conclusion of the week the students teamed up to compete with their final projects the airplane and rocket tracks combined to launch a small balsa wood glider attached to a rocket the students split into teams of two: one rocket team member and one airplane team member working together the goal was that the rocket must deliver the glider to as high an altitude as possible and the airplane must glide for as long as possible for the airships track the culmination of the air swimmers project was a fly-off in the lobby of the zachry building each team of students competed to fly the given path in the shortest amount of time the boeing company recognizes the value this program provides high schools students interested in learning more about aerospace engineering and was pleased to provide monetary and personnel support for the program including the sponsorship of scholarships this is the first year rockwell collins provided monetary support to camp soar as they also recognize the value of the program
367,dr marcelo sanchez associate professor and dr philip park assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering recently graduated from the 2014 american society of civil engineers (asce) exceed (excellence in civil engineering education) teaching workshop the six-day workshop is a crash-course that provides engineering educators with an opportunity to improve their teaching abilities the workshop includes presentations and seminars on topics from learning styles to development of interpersonal rapport with students the 48 participants of this years program also observed class demonstrations and then prepared and taught three classes to fellow participants the program is a learn by doing format which allows participants to make noticeable improvements in their teaching skills from the beginning of the course to the sixth and final day dr robin autenrieth department head and ap & florence wiley professor iii was pleased to have drs sanchez and park complete the workshop having two of our faculty members participate in the program this year shows the commitment and pride our department takes in continuing the development and growth of our faculty members as educators and leaders in the classroom
368,"ramiro ""ram"" martinez '50 has signed an endowment agreement for the betty martinez excellence fund for nuclear engineering this endowment funds scholarships benefiting students of the department of nuclear engineering ""i always seemed to be in the right place at the right time and so i am fortunate i wanted to do something to help the university "" said martinez ""i attribute my success in the industry to [my wife] betty she supported me in all of my work activities which often called for long hours "" he said regarding his choice of the endowment's name originally from laredo texas martinez graduated from texas a&m in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering he served nearly five years in the us air force with extensive time as a navigator and bombardier following that he spent 30 years with the rockwell corporation 18 of which were focused on the design and development of rocket engines the most notable of the engines he worked on were the thor missile and the saturn v-1 missile the latter launched the 3-man vehicle that went into orbit for the first time he developed and put into production the lunar ascent engine that successfully lifted the module off of the moon surface six times rocket engines for expeditions to mars oxygen and hydrogen combiners for nuclear power plants and steam generators using liquid sodium for the clinch river program finally after retiring from his career ram and betty moved back to college station upon returning martinez found himself living next to to dr yassin hassan who is now the head of the department of nuclear engineering they developed a solid friendship and hassan recruited martinez to the department where he helped develop the fluid dynamics laboratory and completed his master's degree in 1994 martinez is very involved with the department and makes as many functions as he can"
369,a newly developed material that molds itself to fill irregular gaps in bone while promoting bone growth could more effectively treat defects in the facial region says a texas a&m university researcher who is creating the shape-shifting material the research by melissa grunlan associate professor in the universitys department of biomedical engineering is detailed in the scientific journal acta biomaterialia working with colleagues at texas a&m and rensselaer polytechnic institute grunlan has created a polymer foam that is malleable after treating with warm saline allowing it to precisely fill an irregularly shaped bone defect before hardening into a porous sponge-like scaffold that promotes new bone formation the team envisions the material as a treatment for cranio-maxillofacial bone defects – gaps in bone occurring in the head face or jaw areas these defects which can dramatically alter a persons appearance can be caused by injuries birth defects such as cleft palates or surgical procedures such as the removal of tumors grunlan says in order to repair these defects the polymer foam developed by grunlan and her team acts as a scaffold a temporary structure that supports the damaged area while promoting healing by allowing bone cells to migrate into the area and repair the damage tissue ultimately the scaffold dissolves leaving behind new bone tissue she explains try as hard as we do to create artificial materials to replace damaged or diseased tissues it is nearly impossible to match the properties of native healthy tissue – and so the whole idea behind tissue engineering is that if we can restore native-like healthy tissue that will be better than any artificial replacement grunlan said a problem she adds is directing that process in these areas where there is a critical bone defect in these types of instances where large gaps exist the body doesnt have the ability to heal the defect with new bone tissue growth; we have to help it along and that is what our material is designed to do [the polymer foam scaffold has interconnected pores that allow bone cells to migrate into the area and begin healing damaged tissue] key to grunlans material is its malleability after brief exposure to warm saline (about 140 degrees fahrenheit) allowing surgeons to easily mold the material to fill irregularly shaped gaps in bone once a defect is filled the material cools to body temperature and resumes its stiff texture locking itself in place she says this self-fitting aspect of the material gives it a significant edge over autografting the most common treatment for these types of bone defects grunlan notes autografting involves harvesting bone from elsewhere in the body such as the hip and then arduously shaping it to fit the bone defect in addition to its obvious limited availability the bone harvested through autografting is very rigid making it difficult to shape and resulting in a lack of contact between the graft and the surrounding tissue grunlan says when this occurs complications can arise for example a graft can inadvertently dissolve through a process known as graft resorption leaving behind the defect she says another therapy involves filling the defect with bone putty but that material can be brittle once it hardens and it lacks the pores necessary for bone cells to move into the area and repair the tissue grunlan notes by tweaking the polymer scaffold through a chemical process that bonds individual molecular chains grunlan and her team overcame that issue and produced a sponge-like material with interconnected pores they also coated the material with a bioactive substance that helps lock it into place by inducing formation of a mineral that is found in bone she adds the coating grunlan explains help osteoblasts – the cells that produce bone – to adhere and spread throughout the polymer scaffold think of it as a sort of boost to the materials healing properties thus far the results have been promising; after only three days the coated material had grown about five times more osteoblasts than uncoated versions of the same material grunlan says in addition the osteoblasts present within the scaffold produced more of the proteins critical for new bone formation the team plans to continue studying the materials ability to heal cranio-maxillofacial bone defects by moving testing into preclinical and clinical studies contact: melissa grunlan associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at (979) 845-2406 or via email: mgrunlan@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 847-5833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
370,"dr tracy a hammond associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university received a grant from the nsf division of information & intelligent systems' cyberlearning and future learning technologies office to investigate how spatial reasoning and sketching are linked and to develop software sketching tools dr erin m mctigue assistant professor in the department of teaching learning and culture at texas a&m is co-principal investigator on the project as is dr jeffrey liew associate professor in the department of educational psychology at texas a&m georgia institute of technology has been named as a collaborating institution assistant professor julie linsey dr wendy newstetter director of learning sciences research and professor of practice wayne li of georgia tech make up the six members of the project's investigative team texas a&m and georgia tech will share the $550k grant entitled ""exp: collaborative research: persketchtivity - empowering and inspiring creative competent communicative and effective engineers through perspective sketching"" hammond said ""the project proposes two interconnected strands of work: developing the software tool and conducting research studies in the context of undergraduate engineering courses the software tool will use a heterogeneous set of classifiers to help provide feedback to learners as they perform a sequence of sketching exercises on tablets the design process will iterate on the tool to explore what types of feedback are most helpful and how different classifiers can be used to detect different levels of sketching skill ""the program of research will include studying whether sketching training leads to advances in spatial reasoning skills whether it affects design self-efficacy and attitudes towards sketching transfer of spatial skillsets to design activities in other courses and how sketching skills correlate to success on spatial reasoning tasks ""research studies will examine whether the tool helps students learn sketching skills and importantly how it influences their spatial reasoning ability thus if successful this research will not only create tools to allow people to learn to sketch better but also will advance our understanding of how spatial reasoning and sketching are linked and could eventually lead to more effective engineering education"" hammond who joined texas a&m university in 2006 is the director of the sketch recognition lab in the department of computer science and engineering she holds a phd in computer science and finance technology option from mit and four degrees from columbia university: a master's degree in anthropology a master's degree in computer science a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics hammond's research focuses on human perception sketch recognition computer human interaction and learning mctigue also joined texas a&m in 2006 and directs the a&m reading clinic her interests are in the challenges of reading informational texts (specifically science) and in students' motivation for reading liew is the founder and director of project abc and project casl at texas a&m his research addresses issues such as school readiness achievement gaps mental health disparities and childhood obesity linsey's research focus is on creating better tools to enhance innovation and conceptual design newstetter works with faculty at georgia tech and other institutions through project kaleidoscope to develop functional science math and engineering learning spaces based on cognitive science research li teaches visual communication and digital media techniques he received a master's degree in engineering from stanford and undergraduate degrees in fine arts in design and mechanical engineering from the university of texas at austin before joining the corporate world"
371,harshvardhan and adam fidel and dr lawrence rauchwerger and dr nancy amato were presented with the best paper award at pact 2014 (parallel architectures and compilation techniques) their paper kla: a new algorithmic paradigm for parallel graph computations was judged by an independent awards committee based on originality significance impact and interest pact is a highly selective top-ranked conference in the area of high-performance computing and parallel processing and aims to bring together researchers from architecture compilers applications and languages to present and discuss innovative research of common interest this year was the 23rd for the conference and it was held at the university of alberta in edmonton canada the group's paper presents a new paradigm for parallelizing graph algorithms that unifies and extends the existing level-synchronous and asynchronous approaches the authors approach provides an order of magnitude improvement in performance of parallel graph algorithms and scalability to beyond 98 000 cores on a cray xe6 supercomputer harshvardhan is a phd student in the parasol lab in the department of computer science and engineering with areas of research in parallel/distributed systems parallel graph algorithms and frameworks working with amato and rauchwerger he graduated magna cum laude from texas a&m university with a bachelor of science degree in computer engineering in 2008 harshvardhan also won the association for computing machinery student research competition first place medal at pact adam fidel is a phd student in the parasol lab with areas of research in parallel programming and high-performance computing with amato and rauchwerger he graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in computer science from texas tech university in 2010 amato and rauchwerger are co-directors of the parasol lab
372,the texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) has named dr jack j dongarra as a tias 2014-2015 faculty fellow dongarra will work with faculty and students in the dwight look college of engineering's department of computer science and engineering a universally recognized scholar in numerical algorithms dongarra conducts research in the development testing and documentation of high-quality mathematical software he has contributed to the design and implementation of eispack linpack the blas lapack scalapack netlib pvm mpi netsolve top500 atlas and papi all open source software packages and systems dongarra is the university distinguished professor of computer science at the university of tennessee and the director of the innovative computing laboratory which coordinates and facilitates it research efforts at the university he holds the title of distinguished research staff in the computer science and mathematics division at oak ridge national laboratory turing fellow at manchester university and adjunct professor in the computer science department at rice university he is a member of the national academy of engineering and is a fellow of the aaas acm ieee and siam in 2008 he was the recipient of the first ieee medal of excellence in scalable computing; in 2010 he was the first recipient of the siam special interest group on supercomputing's award for career achievement; in 2011 he was the recipient of the ieee ipdps charles babbage award; and in 2013 he was the recipient of the acm/ieee ken kennedy award he received a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from chicago state university in 1972 a master of science degree in computer science from the illinois institute of technology in 1973 and his phd in applied mathematics from the university of new mexico in 1980 tias was established by the texas a&m university system board of regents in december 2010 to advance the university's educational experiences each year tias invites internationally prominent faculty fellows to pursue advanced study at tias in collaboration with texas a&m faculty and students the purpose is to provide a superlative setting for research and scholarship where the faculty fellows have the latitude to follow their own research interests plus collaborate in disciplinary and multidisciplinary research
373,"the department of computer science and engineering hosted the first tailgate party of the year on sept 6 before the texas a&m vs lamar football game over 150 people attended including staff faculty and current and former students of the department this was my first tailgate event and i was very impressed by the enthusiasm and passion all-around campus said dr dilma da silva cse department head i was particularly pleased with the opportunity to talk to so many of our former students hear about their career paths and tell them about the activities we are pursuing in our department for the upcoming ole miss cse tailgate party i want to meet as many former students and current members of our cse community as i can"" the tailgate party was an exciting opportunity for all aggies to see phase i of the newly remodeled kyle field despite a weather delay the fightin texas aggies made it worth the wait by coming out on top with a final score of 73-3 i am excited with the efforts the cse department is making to reconnect with its graduates and former students said monty mueller external advisory council member it was wonderful getting to know dr da silva to meet some faculty members i had not met before and to meet some graduates and their families terrific barbecue i cannot wait to go to the next tailgate on oct 11th before the ole miss game cse is hosting the next tailgate party saturday oct 11 before the texas a&m vs ole miss game in spence park during this event we will also be hosting zachry farewell tours since the building will be closing in december for the big renovation and expansion into the engineering education complex this exciting project is to be completed in 2017 kickoff for the texas a&m vs ole miss game has not been set but more details will be given at that time we look forward to another great event!"
374,"the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university recently held its second annual industrial affiliates program recruiting event which was an enormous success the two-day event held on sept 8 and 9 consisted of résumé clinics where students were able to receive immediate feedback on their résumés panel discussions by iap members about job search and career skills and mock interviews where students were given the chance to get a feel for the ‘real world interviews coming up in the near future as summer internships and graduation swiftly approach there was an excellent turn out this year with 21 companies who participated and over 150 students and faculty who attended this year there were more iap members and students who participated in the résumé clinics and mock interviews and the feedback from both was very positive said taffie behringer iap coordinator the iap recruiting event reception/cse-only career fair also had greater participation the iap members were very excited about being able to interact with so many cse students at the reception/cse-only career fair we are already looking forward to next falls iap recruiting event the student cse research poster competition was also part of the cse-only career fair and was conducted in two sessions giving participating students the chance to listen to additional presentations both undergraduate and graduate students presented their research which was judged by the iap members cse doctoral student folami alamudun won the iap poster competition with his work titled ""fractal analysis of radiologists visual scanning pattern in screening mammography"" to read more about his research for this project click here folami is part of the sketch recognition lab and works with srl director dr tracy hammond cse doctoral student michael fu won second place with his poster about gps security work fu is a member of the real time distributed systems lab and is advised by dr jyh-charn (steve) liu director of the rtds lab these events were beneficial to students and recruiters alike and cse is looking forward to another great recruiting event next year!"
375,"dr james caverlee associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was invited to give the first fall 2014 distinguished speaker seminar hosted by the department of computer science and engineering at the university of north texas caverlee's presentation was on ""geo-social footprints in social media: opportunities and challenges"" the talk highlighted his research team's work on mining modeling and analyzing large-scale geospatial footprints "" footprints are defined as the widespread adoption of gps-enabled tagging of social media content via smartphones and social media services (eg facebook twitter foursquare) "" said caverlee ""these footprints open new possibilities for understanding how ideas flow across the globe how people can organize for societal impact and lay the foundation for new crowd-powered geosocial systems"" caverlee's research focuses on web-scale information management distributed data-intensive systems and social computing he has received three google faculty research awards since joining the computer science and engineering faculty at texas a&m university in 2012 he was awarded the nsf faculty early career award and an air force office of scientific research-young investigator program grant caverlee has a doctoral degree in computer science from the college of computing at the georgia institute of technology he holds master's degrees in computer science and in engineering-economic systems & operations research from stanford his bachelor's degree is in economics from duke"
376,dr jorge l alvarado an associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution was one of four keynote speakers at the 2nd international seminar on heat transfer and fluid flow the seminar which was organized by the heat transfer society of japan was held in kyoto japan alvarado spoke about advancements in the area of synchronized and coherent multiple droplet impingements for enhanced spray cooling a research thrust that he has been active in over the last five years during his visit to japan alvarado also participated in the interface science colloquium at kobe university as one of the keynote speakers at the event at the colloquium he spoke about recent developments in the study of convective heat transfer processes for various engine applications alvarados participation in both events followed his attendance at the heat transfer conference in kyoto where he also spoke about his most recent work in dropwise condensation using engineered surfaces
377,dr zenon medina-cetina associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering was announced as director of the yucatán initiative on sept 19 the initiative is a joint effort between yucatán and texas a&m university the texas a&m engineering experiment station and texas a&m agrilife the initiative has evolved into a multidisciplinary binational and cross-college collaboration supported by texas a&m and yucatáns secretary of education
378,"technology that creatively and intelligently understands and responds to human behavior and the environment can improve health that is the reason dr tracy anne hammond associate professor and charles h barclay jr '45 college of engineering faculty fellow in the department of computer science and engineering and director of the sketch recognition lab in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university is establishing with other university collaborators the texas a&m university coalition for healthy active living (tamu-chal) tamu-chal will ""engineer technologies and techniques for data collection and analyses facilitate new forms of health research and analyses and enable novel lines of health interventions monitoring and promotion for targeted populations of at-risk individuals "" said hammond the texas a&m engineering experiment station the texas a&m college of engineering the texas a&m university division of research the texas a&m college of geoscience and the texas a&m health science center school of public health have joined forces in this effort hammond envisions that tamu-chal and the new coalition will provide the perfect opportunity to integrate multiple perspectives and disciplines to improve public and individual health health care system and delivery and the value of health care solutions regents and distinguished professor marcia ory phd in the department of health promotion and community health sciences and director of the program on healthy aging at the texas a&m school of public health will serve as co-pi of the seed grant and sees tamu-chal as the perfect opportunity to integrate multiple perspectives and disciplines to improve public and individual health health care system and delivery and the value of health care solutions dr daniel w goldberg phd an assistant professor in the department of geography at texas a&m university envisions that technology will help health professionals have a greater understanding on the impact of place on a persons health the planned coalition has also garnered support from clinical partners at baylor scott & white health in temple texas with the escalating advances in health technologies from sensors to medical records a tamu-chal said hammond ""would serve as a research education outreach and clinical nucleus within which multidisciplinary research teams can be empowered to develop test and deploy new techniques and strategies which exploit this new ecosystem of data services and sensors to improve public and individual health""> several pilot studies are currently in development including testing the efficacy of health tools for assessing health behaviors improving patient-physician interactions and enhancing healthy lifestyle behaviors another project attempts to automatically recognize users exercise patterns and suggests specific changes to a persons daily activity while a third study is examining innovative ways of testing environmental impacts on the spatial and temporal patterning of physical activity the multidisciplinary project team includes hammond ory goldberg samuel forjuoh md director of research in the department of family and community medicine at baylor scott & white health in temple and two additional professors from the texas a&m school of public health: associate professor yan hong phd and assistant professor samuel towne phd photo: (l-r top row) hammond ory (l-r bottom row) hong goldberg towne forjuoh"
379,david e lancaster '79 trent latshaw '75 brent j smolik '83 and e joseph wright '82 were inducted into the harold vance department of petroleum engineering's academy of distinguished graduates during the fall industry board dinner sept 11the academy was developed by the industry board as a way to recognize and acknowledge the petroleum engineering department's most distinguished former students to qualify for membership a former student must have earned a bachelor's degree master's degree or a phd in petroleum engineering from texas a&m university; have graduated at least 15 years before induction; and have made notable contributions to the petroleum engineering profession or to the petroleum industry david e lancaster serves the dual role of both coo and cfo at matador resources which he joined in december 2003 prior to working for matador he held the position of marketing manager for schlumberger data & consulting services worldwide from 2000 to 2003 in this role he was responsible for global marketing strategies commercialization of new products and services and marketing communications from 1999 to 2000 he was business manager north and south america for schlumberger holditch-reservoir technologies in this position lancaster was responsible for the business operations of 12 consulting offices throughout north and south america prior to this and immediately following the acquisition of sa holditch & associates by schlumberger in 1997 he served as senior vice president-business development and was responsible for all business development marketing and sales functions as well as the companys commercial training business he joined sa holditch & associates in 1980 serving in a variety of positions from 1980 to 1997 ranging from senior petroleum engineer to senior vice president where he helped to build the company into a well-known and highly respected consulting organization lancaster began his career as a reservoir engineer for diamond shamrock corporation in 1979 he holds bachelor of science (1979) and master of science (1988) degrees in petroleum engineering from texas a&m university and has authored or co-authored more than 50 technical papers and articles as well as numerous other published reports and industry presentations he is a member of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) and has served on and chaired several society and local section committees he served as a charter member and former vice chairman of the texas a&m university petroleum engineering advisory board he is a registered professional engineer in the state of texas trent latshaw is the president and owner of latshaw drilling & exploration co he graduated from texas a&m university in 1975 with a bachelor of science in petroleum engineering latshaw then worked for parker drilling in alaska as roughneck motorman derrickman and relief driller both on land and offshore he also worked for arco alaska (atlantic richfield) as a drilling engineer in their offshore district covering the gulf of alaska and cook inlet latshaw founded latshaw drilling company (houston) in 1981 at the age of 27 he built 2 new 20-25 000 diesel-electric/scr land drilling rigs at a cost of more than $8 million each during the downturn of the mid 1980s to the early 2000s when it was tough to survive as a drilling contractor he shifted gears and began acquiring repossessed drilling rigs and equipment from financial institutions and at auctions between 1986 to 1992 latshaw drilling bought 10 complete drilling rigs and other major components having a new replacement cost in excess of $100 million for $5 million during this downturn he also acquired oilfield equipment manufacturers mathey-leland and cooper manufacturing both of which were later bought by national oilwell varco he served as chairman of the houston chapter-international association of drilling contractors (iadc) in 1991 in 2003 he began operating rigs again latshaw started with one 1 000 horsepower mechanical rig that had been purchased during the downturn a couple of years later he started building new diesel-electric rigs based on long term contracts with companies such as chesapeake energy xto energy encore energy and denbury resources inc over a nine-year period (2003-2012) the company grew from 1 rig to 41 rigs and latshaw drilling became the second largest privately owned drilling contractor in the united states with over 1000 employees latshaw drilling has made the aggie 100 list in 2008 2009 and 2012 brent j smolik is president ceo and chairman of the board of ep energy corporation he was previously executive vice president and a member of the executive committee of el paso corporation he also served as president of el paso exploration & production company from november 2006 until its acquisition by a private equity group led by apollo and riverstone in may 2012 prior to joining el paso he was president of conocophillips canada and prior to the burlington resources merger with conocophillips he was president of burlington resources canada beginning in 2004 smolik joined burlington resources in 1990 as a reservoir engineer and subsequently held engineering and asset management positions in the denver offshore gulf of mexico san juan and gulf coast regions his experiences across north america include operations asset management and mergers and acquisitions he began his career with arco in houston where he held several drilling and reservoir engineering positions smolik received a bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering from texas a&m university in 1983 he serves on the boards of the american exploration and production council the greater houston partnership communities in schools of houston the center for hearing and speech and the engineering advisory council of texas a&m university he is affiliated with the society of petroleum engineers and the texas board of professional engineers e joseph wright has been the chief operating officer of concho resources inc since november 8 2010 and the executive vice president since november 2013 wright previously served as senior vice president and chief operating officer and as vice president of engineering and operations since the company's formation in february 2004 before that time wright served as vice president of operations/engineering of concho oil & gas corp from its formation in january 2001 until its sale in january 2004 and as vice president of operations for concho resources inc (which was a different company from the current company) he has also worked in several operations engineering and capital markets positions at mewbourne oil company wright is a 1982 graduate of texas a&m university with a bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering
380,javier jo associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been honored with the 2014 association of former students college level teaching award each fall the association of former students honors outstanding faculty members for their dedication to teaching since the program's inception in 1982 recipients have been recognized for their talent expertise and devotion in conveying knowledge to students recipients of the award are teachers who ensure academic rigor in their courses and recognize their responsibility in motivating and contributing to the overall development of their students jo who joined texas a&m in 2006 teaches undergraduate courses in electronic circuits digital signal processing and statistics applied to biomedical engineering his teaching approach focuses on providing sound theoretical background with a variety of opportunities to demonstrate real-world applications he also has supervised the research work of more than 30 graduate and undergraduate students since 2006 jos research program focuses on developing optical technologies for molecular imaging that can be broadly applied in basic and clinical research research efforts funded by the national institutes of health include developing clinical compatible optical systems that will have the potential to be used for the early diagnosis of atherosclerosis (in collaboration with the texas heart institute in houston) and oral cancer (in collaboration with the texas a&m university baylor college of dentistry in dallas) in addition jo is actively involved in creating different academic and research opportunities between the department of biomedical engineering and a number of academic institutions in latin america specifically he is co-advising several graduate students from universidad autonoma de san luis potosi (san luis potosi mexico) and has established an undergraduate internship program with the universidad iberoamericana (mexico city mexico) he also is exploring other opportunities with academic institutions in brazil peru and costa rica jo received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from the catholic university of peru he received his masters degree in electrical engineering and phd in biomedical engineering from the university of southern california
381,"it is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our esteemed colleague and distinguished faculty member of the department of nuclear engineering emeritus professor ron hart please share your ""ron hart"" memory to help lighten the heart of his family in this difficult time either by visiting our facebook page or via email also please share this news so more of his students are reached"
382,"department of nuclear engineering and nuclear security science & policy institute faculty members dr william charlton dr sunil chirayath and dr craig marianno conducted a two-and-a-half day workshop on nuclear security at the indian institute of technology in kanpur (iit-k) which was jointly sponsored by the us state department's partnership for nuclear security (pns) and iit-k participants in this workshop were faculty and students from various universities throughout india that have nuclear science engineering or technology programs including amity university delhi university delhi technological university iit-bombay jadhavpur university and pandit deendayal petroleum university the workshop consisted of lectures and tabletop exercises on nuclear security culture nuclear nonproliferation nuclear forensics radiation detection consequence management and threat-informed security a tour of the linear accelerator facility at iit-k and a screening of the movie ""pandora's promise"" were also part of the program"
383,the texas a&m university system board of regents recently approved the establishment of the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) the center which was established in response to the ubiquitous future of unmanned autonomous systems will be part of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) canvass will enable interdisciplinary research to solve issues of significant importance to texas and the united states including: networked operations health adaptive mission management and on-board decision making in complex gps-denied outdoor environments navigation in global navigation satellite system denied environments operations in space field-based and large-scale human-machine interactions and agricultural cyber-physical systems the mission of canvass is to unify research and development of autonomous vehicles and systems for the purpose of better serving our state and country research by canvass will follow a progression from basic research at technology readiness level (trl) 1 (basic technology research) to trl 7 (technology demonstration) canvass will initially be composed of researchers from 18 laboratories throughout tees aligned within three technology areas integrated autonomous systems; sensors information and controls; and test and evaluation canvass will connect the relevant research talents from these labs to develop multidisciplinary teams that pursue large integrative research projects in addition canvass will develop a new test site and demonstration capability the riverside range the 900-acre riverside range will make tees one of only a handful of major university systems worldwide with a large-scale instrumented outdoors laboratory located on campus canvass complements the lone star unmanned aircraft systems center of excellence and innovation a joint texas a&m university-corpus christi and tees center by focusing basic research and testing for all types of unmanned systems (air land and water)
384,dr nimir elbashir (pictured center) is the director of the newly established tees gas and fuels research center with dr ioannis economou (left) as co-director and dr mahmoud el-halwagi (right) from the main campus in college station as managing director the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) has established a new center following approval of the texas a&m university system board of regents on sept 4 the tees gas and fuels research center (gfrc) is a multidisciplinary research center involving 19 professors from texas a&ms main campus in college station and the qatar campus and represents different engineering programs including chemical engineering petroleum engineering materials engineering and mechanical engineering nine faculty from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering are involved in this initiative in addition to dr el-halwagi the following are faculty affiliates of gfrc: - dr perla balbuena professor of chemical engineering and holder of the gas processors suppliers association (gpsa) professorship - dr dragomir bukur professor of chemical engineering and holder of the joe m nesbitt professorship - dr kenneth hall is the jack e and frances brown chair and professor of chemical engineering; regents professor; associate dean for research and graduate studies; director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) division for tamu at qatar - dr m m faruque hasan assistant professor of chemical engineering - dr mark holtzapple professor of chemical engineering - dr m nazmul karim department head and holder of the t michael o'connor chair ii professorship - dr m sam mannan regents professor director of the mary kay o'connor process safety center holder of the t michael o'connor chair i professorship - dr ben wilhite associate professor of chemical engineering dr mark h weichold dean and ceo at texas a&m at qatar said texas a&m at qatar is proud to launch this center in qatar because it will create new knowledge that has direct bearing on one of the pillars of qatars energy and industry sector the state-of-the-art gas and fuels research conducted at this center will integrate key qatar industries and internationally respected faculty from both the branch campus here in doha and texas a&ms main campus in college station through this collaborative effort with tees texas a&m at qatar will utilize its world-class doha-based laboratory facilities and expertise to export knowledge created here to the us and beyond the centers key objective is to lead the integrated research activities and the resources of texas a&m to support shale gas and natural gas exploration production and monetization activities both in the united states and in qatar the center of excellence involves leading scientists and researchers utilizing state-of-art research labs and facilities it will also support the us shale gas evolution and will be a part of texas a&m at qatars research strategic plant to support qatar national vision 2030 dr nimir elbashir gfrc director and associate professor of chemical engineering at texas a&m at qatar said the gas and fuels research center is a major initiative from texas a&m university to take the lead in the natural gas era texas a&m at qatar played a critical role in the establishment of this center because of the tremendous support received from the industry and from qatar foundations research funding agencies to build world-class research facilities and infrastructure that supports natural gas exploration treatment and processing the center provides a unique opportunity for leading researchers from the two campuses of texas a&m university to collaborate in supporting qatar and us industry and governmental institutions to build the future natural gas utilization technologies elbashir continued one of the centers main objectives is to train highly skilled engineers and technical staff to support the future of gas processing technologies and to educate the community about the role natural gas will play as a clean source of energy and fuels the launch of gfrc was envisioned during texas a&m at qatar gas and fuels research initiative (gfri) and a two-day workshop on natural gas monetization that took place at in montgomery texas in march 2014 dr eyad masad executive associate dean at texas a&m at qatar said texas a&m university at qatar continues to contribute to qatar national vision 2030 and this center supports qatars efforts in diversifying the economy by creating high value products from natural gas it will help foster the oil and gas industry diversification through the development of by-product industries such as polymers plastics recycling industrial polyolefins natural fibers and packaging it is set to become a training hub for researchers and graduate students in research areas of significant interest to qatars economy from the state of qatar we will be leading scientists and researches from industry and academia to share their insight and expertise on the future of natural gas in the energy market and its potential to become a major source of ultra-clean fuels and value-added chemicals dr mahmoud el-halwagi gfrc managing director and mcferrin professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m said this is a critical time for the gas and fuels industry the recent substantial discoveries of shale gas in the us are creating numerous opportunities and needs it is expected that the growth in shale-gas industry in the us will lead to investments exceeding $100 billion over the next decade the state of texas is regarded as the ‘energy capital of the world and the state of qatar is considered to be the ‘gas capital of the world therefore it is a great advantage to have texas a&m university both in qatar and college station to provide leadership through gfrc especially in areas such as research education and outreach for the gas and fuels industry el-halwagi added that the center will play a unique role in developing and adapting basic science and engineering to creative state-of-the-art pathways for gas and fuels processes that are economically attractive environmentally friendly and safer to operate we look forward to collaborating with talents and leaders in academia industry and government in a true partnership to achieve advancement and make a difference in technology and to help educate the next generation of leaders in the field of gas and fuels he said tees gas and fuels research center has just started and lessons learned from qatars experience in natural gas monetization will be a major focus as qatar is home to the worlds largest facilities in gasto-liquid (gtl) and liquefied natural gas (lng) production in addition to a well-integrated supply chain of chemicals and petrochemicals
385,"folami alamudun a phd student in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university received the award for best graduate research presentation during his internship at oak ridge national laboratory (ornl) in oak ridge tennessee alamudun who is also a member of the sketch recognition lab was a research intern at ornl and participated in the lab's research alliance in math and science (rams) program alamudun's research presentation was entitled ""fractal analysis of radiologists' visual scanning pattern in screening mammography"" alamudun's research team's goal was to better understand what radiologists' see during cancer screenings the outcome of the team's observations of patients and radiologists suggests that the probability of error in mammographic cancer screening is predictable when asked about his award alamudun said ""i felt very humbled but i was very thankful for the honor"" the rams program hosted by the ornl computing and computational sciences directorate connects student interns with research mentors alamudun's mentor was dr georgia tourassi director of the ornl health sciences institute and the biomedical science and engineering center ""from the moment i arrived there my interactions with her were both professional and deeply personal "" alamudun said of tourassi ""her passion was contagious and i was infected very very quickly"" alamudun holds a bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering from the university of texas at el paso and plans to receive his doctorate in computer science from the cse department at texas a&m in fall 2015 dr tracy a hammond associate professor and director of the sketch recognition lab serves as alamudun's phd advisor"
386,"steven r swanson a former student of the department of computer science and engineering recently returned to earth after six months aboard the international space station (iss) swanson was the commander of expedition 40 which conducted about 170 experiments ""we did lots of science "" swanson said ""we actually set the record for number of hours of science in a week"" swanson who received his phd in computer science boarded the iss in march making his third trip to the space station he became the iss commander in may swanson along with russian cosmonauts alexander skvortsov and oleg artemyev landed on the kazakhstan steppe after undocking from the iss swanson will now enter a lengthy rehabilitation program to regain his strength before joining nasa swanson worked as a software engineer for gte in phoenix arizona he has a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from the university of colorado and a master's degree of applied science in computer systems from florida atlantic university in 2010 he was honored with the department's distinguished former student award and is currently a member of the cse advisory council"
387,dr jihoon kim has joined the faculty of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering as an assistant professor kim previously a geological research scientist with the lawrence berkeley national laboratory began work at texas a&m in august department head dan hill said we are very pleased to have dr jihoon kim joining our faculty this fall his geomechanics expertise is a great fit for the department to push forward our growing research in the areas of hydraulic fracturing shale reservoir development and wellbore mechanics originally from south korea kim received his phd in petroleum engineering from stanford university prior to becoming a postdoctoral fellow at the lawrence berkeley laboratory in california his bachelor's and master's degrees are in civil urban and geosystem engineering from seoul national university his areas of research interest include: coupled flow and geomechanics in hydrate shale and tight gas and geothermal reservoirs (ie chemo-thermo-poro-mechanics); hydraulic fracturing hydro-shearing and coupled geomechanic-geophysical modeling; reservoir simulation and computational geomechanics; and nuclear waste disposal and geological co2 sequestration in 2012 kim was the recipient of the directors award for exceptional achievement at lawrence berkeley lab he is also an awarded reviewer and has reviewed papers for such journals as water resources research; transport in porous media; computers & geosciences; computers & geotechics; journal of petroleum science and engineering; international journal for numerical and analytical methods in geomechanics; spe journal; marine and petroleum geology; computational geosciences; international journal of oil gas and coal technology; asme journal of energy resources technology he has published or presented numerous papers in journals and conferences in addition to reviewing writing and research kim is also adept at software development especially in regards to geomechanics simulator coding and its coupling to reservoir simulators
388,in a move that could have huge implications for national security researchers have created a very sensitive and tiny detector that is capable of detecting radiation from various sources at room temperature the detector is eight to nine orders of magnitude –100 million to as high as 1 billion times faster than the existing technology and a texas a&m university at galveston professor is a key player in the discovery luke nyakiti assistant professor in marine engineering technology and materials science and engineering at texas a&m university at galveston is part of the research team that has had its work published in the current issue of nature nanotechnology nyakiti also has a joint appointment in the department of materials science & engineering at texas a&m university nyakiti and colleagues from the university of maryland the university of massachusetts the us naval research laboratory and monash university in australia fabricated the tiny photothermoelectric detector following successful growth of graphene at the naval research laboratory in washington dc the project was funded by the office of naval research and the national science foundation the teams goal was to utilize the exceptional electronic carrier properties of graphene to create a photo detector device that could detect radiation at room temperature with the fastest response which previously has been extremely difficult to do the researchers used a two-dimensional material called graphene that is made of carbon atoms that are arranged in a honeycomb-like geometrical structure (the diameter of a human hair is 300 000 times thicker than a two-dimensional sheet of graphene) graphene was chosen because it conducts electricity with ease it is nearly transparent and it is remarkably strong (100 times stronger than steel) also it is very sensitive to energy absorbance the problem before is that there has always been a ‘slow response when it came to detecting radiation in the terahertz frequency range especially at room temperature and the technology that currently exists operated at very cold temperatures subsequently requiring supportive electronic systems that adds to the cost nyakiti explains he says the benefit of using this detector is that its signals do not pose a health hazard to the people using it also besides the extremely high sensing speeds reported by the device the team anticipates further improvements in sensing ability we are very excited that our detector system provides a unique answer to fast subtle detection capabilities that are a million to a billion times faster in its detection capability without posing short-term or long term health hazards to those who are operating it nyakiti reports it was indeed an exciting time for all of us when this happened because it is much more effective in detecting radiation the device could be very promising for homeland security purposes it also might have applications in mobile devices medical imaging and other uses this has the potential to open up other device possibilities in medical applications this is a huge first step
389,"dr hong liang's research on how gold nanoparticles can destroy superbacteria in the human body such as escheria coli and drug-resistant staphococcus aureus was featured on popular mechanics liang is a professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university as bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics and other drugs gold nanoparticles may be the answer to the future of medicine nanoparticles disrupt physical processes rather than biological ones so microbes are less likely to be able to find workarounds to the damage they cause according to liang implanted medical devices often cause infections in the human body as they provide a foreign surface for bacteria to adhere to some bacteria like mrsa can form ""biofilms"" on these surfaces biofilms are congregations of organisms that are all but impenetrable even to the most powerful antibiotics gold nanoparticles with titanium dioxide kill bacteria on contact the combined metals siphon off electrons from the bacteria with gold spurring the titanium dioxide into action unable to sustain their basic respiratory functions without the electrons the bacteria die"
390,student leaders of the various mechanical engineering student organizations have organized themselves into a new student organization known as the mechanical engineering leadership council (melc) the organization provides a seamless interface between student organizations and departmental leadership and improves networking and interfacing among mechanical engineering-oriented student organizations melc is also interested in ensuring positive and collegial student experiences melc organized and hosted a fall kick-off event on sept 5 2014 to welcome mechanical engineering students faculty and staff back for the academic year students got to meet and network with various company representatives take a tour of the mechanical engineering research labs and learn about the undergraduate and graduate programs and the various student organizations in the department of mechanical engineering representatives from the texas a&m career center provided career advice to students one of the highlights of the event was a research poster competition photos from the event can be viewed on the department of mechanical engineering's facebook page
391,"a research group led by dr xinghang zhang associate professor and the gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor i in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has discovered plasticity and work-hardening behaviors in twinned aluminum with incoherent twin boundaries by using in situ nanoindentation technique the group's paper titled ""in situ nanoindentation study on plasticity and work hardening in aluminum with incoherent twin boundaries"" was published in nature communications 5 on sept 10 2014 nanotwinned metals have been the focus of intense research recently as twin boundaries may greatly enhance mechanical strength while maintaining good ductility electrical conductivity and thermal stability in metallic materials most prior studies have focused on low stacking-fault-energy nanotwinned metals with coherent twin boundaries in contrast the plasticity of twinned high stacking-fault-energy metals such as al with incoherent twin boundaries is poorly understood in their paper zhangs graduate students dr daniel bufford and yue liu reported high work hardening capacity and plasticity in highly twinned al containing abundant s3{112} incoherent twin boundaries based on in situ nanoindentation studies in a transmission electron microscope and corresponding molecular dynamics simulations the simulations also reveal drastic differences in deformation mechanisms between nanotwinned cu and twinned al ascribed to stacking-fault-energy controlled dislocation-incoherent twin boundary interactions this study provides new insight into incoherent twin boundary-dominated plasticity in high stacking-fault-energy twinned metals the co-authors of the paper are dr jian wang in materials science and technology division at los alamos national laboratory who performed md simulations and dr haiyan wang in the department of electrical engineering at texas a&m university who co-supervised in situ nanoindentation studies this research is supported by the office of naval research; the us department of energy – office of science office of basic energy science zhang's research group has expertise in nanomechanics in nanolayered and nanotwinned metals radiation damage and magnetic shape memory alloys liu is a postdoctoral fellow in zhangs group and will be joining the prestigious los alamos national laboratory in fall 2014 he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at fudan university in china; and a master's degree in mechanical engineering and a phd in materials science and engineering at texas a&m university bufford was a phd student in zhangs group he received a bachelor's degree in physics at olin college; and a phd in materials science and engineering at texas a&m university currently he is a postdoctoral research associate at sandia national laboratories in albuquerque nm contact: zhang at 979-845-2143 or zhangx@tamuedu or liu at liuy0203@gmailcom or bufford at dcbuffo@sandiagov"
392,(originally published in the american ceramic society) chances are you know what a transistor isa semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and electrical power according to wikipedias crowdsourced experts but why it is called a transistor instead of something else apparently six names were proposed for the revolutionary device discovered in 1947 by william shockley john bardeen and walter brattain the winning moniker was transconductance varistor mercifully shortened to transistor (click here for a fascinating full history of transistors) a varistor as you know is an electrical resistor whose resistance is a function of applied voltage thanks to its nonlinear current–voltage characteristics varistors are used as surge protectors (pdf) and made of zinc oxide tuned with bismuth manganese or cobalt additives so a new paper published out of texas state university on novel varistor embedded ceramic transistors seems at first glance to have a paradoxical circularity acers fellow and lead author r kumar pandey professor emeritus in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university explains in an email that his groups work demonstrates that varistors and transistors are inherently coupled devices these hybrid devices can simultaneously be used in the same electronic circuit as a varistor to protect the circuit elements against overshoot of prescribed voltage supply and as a transistor for signal amplification and electronic switch the investigation began humbly pandey took a position in 2007 at tsu after retiring from his 30-year academic career at texas a&m and university of alabama at tuscaloosa his task was to build an electrical engineering program and to mentor young faculty with that accomplished pandey looked for ways to involve undergraduate students in research and independent thinking he says in an email he was teaching a course on electroceramics and we had to begin somewhere and it had to be simple and low budget research electroceramics research provided the ideal situation he says they worked with a solid solution of 55 at% fetio3 (ilmenite) and 45 at% fe2o3 (hematite) which they abbreviate as ihc45 the material is magnetic has a wide bandgap and its p-type semiconductivity is stable through 700°cpandey knew from previous work that current could be amplified by applying a two terminal varistor with a bias voltage as pandey analyzed the data the undergraduates generated he wondered what contribution the biasing voltage made on the current­–voltage characteristics of the varistor pandey suspected the data indicated a transistor embedded in the biased varistor and he took it to stapelton for a second opinion stapelton recalls that day saying in an email i told him that [the i–v graph] looked like a transistor curve and then he showed me the device to say that it caught my interest is mild they set up a series of experiments to confirm the results and found that three types of embedded transistors form in response to external applied fields: bias-voltage-tuned transistor (vbt) electric-field-tuned transistor (e-fet) and magnetic-field-induced transistor (h-fet) the paper properties and applications of varistor–transistor hybrid devices goes into detail regarding the i–v characteristics for each configuration the graphs shows the i-v curve (transistor current vs voltage) response of manganese-doped pseudobrookite under different applied bias voltages in the paper pandey et al suggest possible uses for such devices: voltage-controlled current source low pass filter (vbt); current-controlled voltage source low pass filter (e–fet); precise current detector signal amplifier and magnetic field sensor (h–fet) they would find application in consumer electronics defense electronics radiation hard electronics (for space) high-temperature electronics handheld device electronics and bioelectronics if the authors are right about the potential usefulness of these devices they will need to be manufactured in very high volumes pandey and stapelton think that films of these of hybrid devices could be made by photolithography or pulsed laser depositionprocesses that already exist for industrial-scale manufacture larger devices would require working on improving microstructures for example by hot processing according to pandey interestingly this work seems to address one of the eight grand challenges of ceramic science identified by a 2012 nsf workshopcontrolling properties of oxide electronics the open access jacers article reporting the workshop conclusions states: major scientific advances are required including a sophisticated ability to control stoichiometry strain defect chemistry crystallinity and diffusion at interfaces which incorporate increasing chemical structural polar and bonding contrast by nature of their complex structure and chemistry active interfaces in oxide ceramics create a rich diversity of future technologies but scientific advances will require comprehensive efforts that integrate theory with experimentpandey reaches much the same conclusion saying another important materials problem to solve would be to find suitable dopants leading to high values of carrier motilities necessary for high speed transistors oxide semiconductors usually have low motilities which is a drawback from the device point of view stapelton neatly provides perspective in an email saying what we have built so far is roughly analogous to the first hand-made silicon transistors it is enough to prove that the technology works but is several generations from being a mature technologywhile the researchers get to work on the chemistries processing and characterization the etymologists can start working on a name for these new devices the paper is properties and applications of varistor–transistor hybrid devices published in the journal of electronic materials (doi: 101007/s11664-014-3067-8) the group just published a follow-up paper in ceramic transactions vol 249 configurations characterizations and applications of novel varistor–transistor hybrid devices using pseudobrookite oxide semiconductor ceramic substrates
393,the department of computer science and engineering has welcomed 89 incoming phd and masters students this fall semester to kick off the semester cse had several orientation activities for the incoming students such as a formal graduate student orientation and the inaugural graduate student boot camp the computer science and engineering graduate student association (csegsa) mentoring program hosted its inaugural graduate student boot camp which was the kick-off event for the student organization it was held aug 30 in the harvey r bum bright building the event focused on presenting a sense of welcome and community to incoming students during the boot camp csegsa covered three main areas of information from the student perspective to make the transition to america and graduate school easier these topics included life in aggieland and education in america research in graduate school and ta/mentor training csegsa also provided lunch and community building activities during the boot camp to add a bit of fun to the program the boot camp was a huge success for its debut if you are interested becoming a part of csegsa it meets weekly on mondays from 11 am to noon in hrbb 310a on sept 1 and sept 3 the department of computer science and engineering held the graduate student orientation which was mandatory for all new incoming fall 2014 graduate students on the first day each of the supervisors for the various groups in the cse department introduce its staff and the various duties performed some student organizations also made short presentations on the second day there was a student panel and faculty panel that answered questions from the students after the panels there was a poster presentation by various current graduate students detailing their research the success of the boot camp far exceeded our expectations said stephanie valentine vice president of mentoring activities one of our biggest goals for the event was to build a cohort among the new students the community of grad students in our department needs strengthening and i think the boot camp was a huge step in the right direction at one point there were 70 computer scientists in a room together talking and taking selfies it was a beautiful sight cse is excited about the graduate program and looks forward to another great year with new and returning students
394,dr tiffani l williams associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is a general co-chair for this year's grace hopper conference and has also been selected as a texas a&m advance scholar the grace hopper celebration of women in computing is the world's largest gathering of women technologists it is produced by the anita borg institute and presented in partnership with the association for computing machinery (acm) this years conference marks 25 years grace hopper has significantly grown in size since its inception this year the number of attendees is expected to reach 8 000 the conference is a testament of great strides women have made in technology this year will be the very first year that one of the keynote speakers will be a male a few featured speakers for this years conference are shafi goldwasser professor of computer science and engineering at mit and 2012 turing award recipient maria klawe president of harvey mudd college satya nadella ceo of microsoft and arati prabhakar director of the defense advanced research projects agency the department of computer science and engineering has taken a large group of students and faculty to ghc every year for many years and it is a major focus of each fall semester the cse student organization aggie women in computer science (awics) organizes the departments participation at ghc the texas a&m advance scholar program is a mentoring program that matches women of color who work in the fields of science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) with an internal advocate and an eminent scholar in their field their mission is to transform texas a&m by enhancing and sustaining gender equality and improving representation of women faculty in stem fields the program is one of the many activities of texas a&ms nsf funding advance center during the 2004-2005 academic year williams was the edward frances and shirley b daniels fellow at the radcliffe institute of advanced study at harvard university she earned her bachelor's degree in computer science from marquette university and phd in computer science from the university of central florida she was a postdoctoral fellow at the university of new mexico her honors include a radcliffe institute fellowship an alfred p sloan foundation postdoctoral fellowship and a mcknight doctoral fellowship her research interests are in the areas of bioinformatics and high-performance computing
395,kristen maitland associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected society director for spie the international society for optics and photonics as a society director maitland will serve a three-year term to oversee the activities of the society the board of directors acts on behalf of all spie members to establish policy and strategy assure that the society bylaws are followed and approve budgets for expenditure of resources maitlands research interests focus on the development of optical instrumentation for improved detection and diagnosis of disease primarily cancer and bacterial infection to improve detection of early cancer maitlands lab has developed a multi-scale multi-modal optical imaging system that is being evaluated in a clinical trial she also is developing optical sensing and imaging technologies to enable rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis maitland who also serves as director of graduate programs for the department received her bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering from california polytechnic state university and her phd in biomedical engineering from the university of texas at austin she is recipient of the national science foundations career award the texas a&m engineering experiment station select young faculty award the tenneco meritorious teaching award and the texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching spie is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies the society serves more than 235 000 constituents from approximately 155 countries offering conferences continuing education books journals and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange professional networking and patent precedent spie provided more than $32 million in support of education and outreach programs in 2012
396,dr sharath girimaji professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2014 association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching college level each fall the association of former students honors outstanding faculty members for their dedication to teaching these awards recognize encourage and reward superior classroom teachers – those individuals whose command of their respective discipline teaching methodologies pervasive caring communication skills and commitment to the learning process exemplify the meaning of teacher/mentor in its highest sense this award is designed to distinguish those teachers who maintain high expectations of their students and who ensure academic rigor in their courses distinguished teachers recognize their responsibility in motivating and contributing to the overall development of the student girimaji teaches general dynamics of aerospace engineering he was nominated for his outstanding performance in the classroom his commitment towards providing exciting extracurricular activities within the dwight look college of engineering his outreach to high schools through project aether and camp soar and his commitment to teaching and mentoring of high level graduate students girimaji maintains one of the top-producing research programs in the department where he couples these activities into his teaching mission in addition to his impact in the classroom he has developed several extracurricular activities including the high-altitude balloon club (habc) space propulsion and air-swimmers habc was founding as an undergraduate research club under girimajis mentorship with the objective to demonstrate low-cost accessible space exploration through high altitude balloon launches the club has launched over 40 balloon flights most of them reaching up to 100 000 feet through space propulsion the main goal is to introduce talented undergraduates to aerospace engineering related scientific research including modeling plasmas and turbulence effects in aerospace engineering and other fields the air-swimmers project participants develop theory and perform computations experiments and demonstrations of caudal fin efficiency by examining aquatic animals such as koi tuna and sharks girimaji is also one of the main mentors of the educational organization project aether which collaborates with high schools to teach students physical concepts and experimental research skills girimaji is also involved in camp soar a weeklong summer camp for high school juniors and seniors involving hands-on experience in various aerospace engineering design projects his commitment to graduate education starts in the classroom where he has developed and taught three different graduate courses: fundamentals of turbulence – turbulence processes topics in turbulence modeling and rarefied gas dynamics he has mentored over 35 undergraduate summer research students and has graduated 12 phd and 17 master's students at texas a&m girimaji received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from iit madras india and his master's degree and phd in mechanical and aerospace engineering from cornell university he has been a member of the aerospace faculty for 14 years
397,three faculty within the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university celebrated promotion in an afternoon reception on friday sept 5th 2014 dr victor ugaz formerly an associate professor of chemical engineering is now a professor ugaz said having been born and raised in texas i feel honored every day to be a faculty member at texas a&m it is amazing to be able to work with such incredibly talented students and colleagues ugaz joined the department in 2003 dr katy kao formerly an assistant professor of chemical engineering is now an associate professor kao joined the department in 2008 kao said i look forward to continued growth and research opportunities dr ray mentzer formerly a lecturer is promoted to senior lecturer mentzer said in my second career after 28+ years with exxonmobil i receive a lot of fulfillment teaching courses in the department and working with a half-dozen bright graduate students [each] pursuing their phd with the mary kay oconnor process safety center mentzer joined the department in 2008 photos of the event can be found here the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering established in 1940 has consistently been a leader in chemical engineering education in the united states this trend continues today according to the us news & world report the undergraduate program ranked 11th among public institutions in 2014 and the graduate program ranked 17th among public institutions in 2013 throughout its history and still today texas a&m chemical engineering is known for educating the highest quality of students producing engineers who are well prepared for industry upon graduation
398,(photo: from right to left dr micah green dr faruque hasan and dr chad mashuga join the department in the 2014-2015 academic year other new faculty pictures here) seven new faculty members and one lecturer join the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university in the 2014-2015 academic year bringing with them a wide and diverse range of academic and industrial experience dr yossef elabd from drexel university in pennsylvania is a professor in the chemical engineering department at texas a&m elabd said of his new position [this] is a premier department that is ideal for the elevation of our research program with outstanding facilities resources and faculty collaborators i look forward to building on our core […] in the area of materials for energy dr costas kravaris from the university of patras in greece is a professor in the chemical engineering department at texas a&m he previously was also a professor at the university of michigan serving at the institution in multiple positions for two decades dr micah green from texas tech university is an associate professor in the chemical engineering department at texas a&m green said he wants to reach far with his research group to lead in bringing the chemical engineering discipline to bear on the new field of nanomaterials processing dr chad mashuga from wayne state university in michigan is an assistant professor in the chemical engineering department at texas a&m mashuga also offers fifteen years of industrial experience from the dow chemical company and basf of his new position mashuga said he is honored to join such a diverse dynamic and capable department…and to contribute to its outstanding reputation dr m m faruque hasan having received his postdoctoral training from princeton university joins the chemical engineering department at texas a&m as an assistant professor hasan said i see great opportunities that the department and the energy institute provide to perform leading research especially in the emerging areas of multi-scale systems engineering for energy and the environment dr stratos pistokopoulos chair professor and dr christodoulos floudas chair professor join the chemical engineering department at texas a&m this winter read more about their background vision and plans dr christin wilson is a lecturer of technical writing in the chemical engineering department at texas a&m wilson received her phd in linguistics from the ohio state university in 2012 the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering established in 1940 has consistently been a leader in chemical engineering education in the united states this trend continues today according to the us news & world report the undergraduate program ranked 11th among public institutions in 2014 and the graduate program ranked 17th among public institutions in 2013 throughout its history and still today texas a&m chemical engineering is known for educating the highest quality of students producing engineers who are well prepared for industry upon graduation
399,"dr haiyan wang professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named fellow of the world's largest association of materials scientists and engineers asm international wang was named ""for innovative research at the frontier of nanostructured materials and applications including high temperature superconductors thin film solid oxide fuel cells in situ transmission electron microscopy and multifunctional ceramic composites and for exceptional potential in inspired education and future leadership"" awards will be presented at asm's annual awards dinner on oct 14 in pittsburgh pa during materials science & technology 2014 (ms&t'14) in 1969 asm established the fellow of the society honor to provide recognition to members for their distinguished contributions to materials science and engineering and to develop a broadly based forum of technical and professional leaders to serve as advisors to the society wang who also currently serves as a program manager (electronic and photonic materials division of materials research) for the us national science foundation joined the electrical and computer engineering department in january 2006 her research interests lie in the area of functional oxide and nitride thin films for microelectronics optoelectronics high-temperature superconductors solid oxide fuel cells and structural materials her other major awards include being named a tees senior fellow a tees fellow receiving an asm silver medal award for outstanding materials scientist in mid career and receiving an nsf career award wang also received a presidential early career award for scientists and engineers (pecase) an onr young investigator program award an air force young investigator research program award afosr-yip and an air force summer faculty fellowship asm international was founded in 1913 as the american society for metals today asm is the world's largest association of materials scientists and engineers with over 30 000 members worldwide asm is dedicated to informing educating and connecting the materials community to solve problems and stimulate innovation around the world"
400,"dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently published a book as part of an initiative funded by the department of energy (doe) kezunovic along with his co-authors sakis meliopoulos (georgia tech) vaithianathan venkatasubramanian (washington state university) and vijay vittal (arizona state university) wrote the book titled ""application of time-synchronized measurements in power system transmission networks"" the focus of the book is an overview of the new most critical power system applications during disturbances: state estimation voltage stability oscillation monitoring transient stability and fault location the book which was published by springer in the series of power electronics and power systems was created through the ""future grid initiative"" funded by the doe under a grant to the national science foundations (nsf) power systems engineering research center (pserc) kezunovic who also is the director of the tees smart grid center currently serves as the site director of pserc before joining texas a&m in 1986 he worked for westinghouse electric corp among his many honors kezunovic has been named an ieee fellow and a cigre fellow he has published more than 450 papers in journals and conference proceedings and was invited to give more than 100 lectures worldwide and is listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee pes while at texas a&m he has been the principal investigator on more than 100 research projects and supervised more than 40 graduate students"
401,dr nimir elbashir (pictured center) is the director of the newly established tees gas and fuels research center with dr ioannis economou (left) as co-director and dr mahmoud el-halwagi (right) from main campus in college station as managing director texas a&m university at qatar has established a new center in the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) after approval from the board of regents of the texas a&m university system 4 september the tees gas and fuels research center (gfrc) is a multidisciplinary research center led by texas a&m at qatar involving 19 professors from texas a&ms main campus in college station and the qatar campus and represents different engineering programs including chemical engineering petroleum engineering materials engineering and mechanical engineering dr mark h weichold dean and ceo at texas a&m at qatar said texas a&m at qatar is proud to launch this center in qatar because it will create new knowledge that has direct bearing on one of the pillars of qatars energy and industry sector the state-of-the-art gas and fuels research conducted at this center will integrate key qatar industries and internationally respected faculty from both the branch campus here in doha and texas a&ms main campus in college station through this collaborative effort with tees texas a&m at qatar will utilize its world-class doha-based laboratory facilities and expertise to export knowledge created here to the us and beyond the centers key objective is to lead the integrated research activities and the resources of texas a&m to support shale gas and natural gas exploration production and monetization activities both in the united states and in qatar the center of excellence involves leading scientists and researchers utilizing state-of-art research labs and facilities it will also support the us shale gas evolution and will be a part of texas a&m at qatars research strategic plant to support qatar national vision 2030 dr nimir elbashir gfrc director and associate professor of chemical engineering at texas a&m at qatar said the gas and fuels research center is a major initiative from texas a&m university to take the lead in the natural gas era texas a&m at qatar played a critical role in the establishment of this center because of the tremendous support received from the industry and from qatar foundations research funding agencies to build world-class research facilities and infrastructure that supports natural gas exploration treatment and processing the center provides a unique opportunity for leading researchers from the two campuses of texas a&m university to collaborate in supporting qatar and us industry and governmental institutions to build the future natural gas utilization technologies elbashir continued one of the centers main objectives is to train highly skilled engineers and technical staff to support the future of gas processing technologies and to educate the community about the role natural gas will play as a clean source of energy and fuels the launch of gfrc was envisioned during texas a&m at qatar gas and fuels research initiative (gfri) and a two-day workshop on natural gas monetization that took place at in montgomery texas in march 2014 dr eyad masad executive associate dean at texas a&m at qatar said texas a&m university at qatar continues to contribute to qatar national vision 2030 and this center supports qatars efforts in diversifying the economy by creating high value products from natural gas it will help foster the oil and gas industry diversification through the development of by-product industries such as polymers plastics recycling industrial polyolefins natural fibers and packaging it is set to become a training hub for researchers and graduate students in research areas of significant interest to qatars economy from the state of qatar we will be leading scientists and researches from industry and academia to share their insight and expertise on the future of natural gas in the energy market and its potential to become a major source of ultra-clean fuels and value-added chemicals dr mahmoud el-halwagi gfrc managing director and mcferrin professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m said this is a critical time for the gas and fuels industry the recent substantial discoveries of shale gas in the us are creating numerous opportunities and needs it is expected that the growth in shale-gas industry in the us will lead to investments exceeding $100 billion over the next decade the state of texas is regarded as the ‘energy capital of the world and the state of qatar is considered to be the ‘gas capital of the world therefore it is a great advantage to have texas a&m university both in qatar and college station to provide leadership through gfrc especially in areas such as research education and outreach for the gas and fuels industry el-halwagi added that the center will play a unique role in developing and adapting basic science and engineering to creative state-of-the-art pathways for gas and fuels processes that are economically attractive environmentally friendly and safer to operate we look forward to collaborating with talents and leaders in academia industry and government in a true partnership to achieve advancement and make a difference in technology and to help educate the next generation of leaders in the field of gas and fuels he said tees gas and fuels research center has just started and lessons learned from qatars experience in natural gas monetization will be a major focus as qatar is home to the worlds largest facilities in gas-to-liquid (gtl) and liquefied natural gas (lng) production in addition to a well-integrated supply chain of chemicals and petrochemicals tees is an engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system
402,texas a&m engineering ranked eighth among engineering schools at public institutions offering a doctorate according to the latest us news & world report rankings of the countrys undergraduate universities and programs the dwight look college of engineering maintained its ranking of 15th overall in engineering programs at public and private national universities tied with johns hopkins and virginia tech the department of biological and agricultural engineering had the highest ranking at third overall and among public institutions in the nation the department which was third in both rankings last year is part of both the dwight look college of engineering and the college of agricultural and life sciences at texas a&m two departments mechanical and electrical moved up in the rankings while two others chemical and computer engineering moved into the rankings after not being ranked last year mechanical climbed two spots to eighth among public institutions and three spots overall to a tie for 14th with northwestern electrical moved up one spot to 10th among public universities and two spots to 16th overall chemical engineering which was not ranked last year is 11th among public institutions and tied overall for 16th with cornell computer engineering also was not ranked last year and is 11th among public institutions and 19th overall this year other specialties ranked among public institutions were: aerospace tied for 7 with pennsylvania state; civil 8; and industrial 8 us news & world report does not rank nuclear engineering and petroleum programs every year the last time the magazine surveyed these areas texas a&ms nuclear engineering program was third (second public) and petroleum engineering was first
403,dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs and royce e wisenbaker professor in the department of computer science and engineering is the executive director of the center for minorities and people with disabilities in information technology (cmd-it) cmd-it is dedicated to helping under-represented groups such as african americans native americans hispanics pacific islanders and people with disabilities exposed to opportunities in the computing and information technology field cmd-it hosts numerous programs and workshops that make a difference for people of all ages and backgrounds these programs include their academic career workshop the national labs professional development workshop and the student professional development workshop the academic career workshop is focused on teaching participants the methods for writing effective proposals and building a strong résumé the workshop also includes panels of diverse senior faculty who discuss the tenure and promotion process the process of launching a research program and professionalism the national labs professional development workshop is designed to mentor senior graduate students post-docs assistant and associate level faculty and laboratory professional junior staff about the successful strategies for navigating the professional ladder and exposure to the various professional opportunities in computational science at places such as the national laboratories during the student professional development workshop underrepresented minority students and students with disabilities with a 30 gpa or above will be able to attend engaging sessions on résumé writing interview skills professionalism and networking a major part of this particular workshop is the inclusion of mock interviews that allow the participants to receive immediate feedback from professionals within the industry about their performance along with these workshops cmd-it also presents the tapia conference of which taylor is one of the original founders this years conference theme is diversity at scale as the conference celebrates efforts to move diversity in all aspects of computing beyond conversation and study into full practice and implementation the keynote speakers for the 2015 tapia conference are jack dongarra university of tennessee dilma da silva texas a&m university odest chadwicke jenkins brown university shaun kane university of colorado boulder and jacky wright microsoft it strategic enterprise services taylor was presented with the nico habermann award from the computing research association (cra) in 2002 which is given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community she has also received numerous other awards including the richard a tapia achievement award for scientific scholarship the mobe influencers and innovators of the internet and technology award the young outstanding leader award the hewlett packard harriet b rigas education award the pathbreaker award from the women in leadership at northwestern university and the national science foundation national young investigator award taylor received a bachelor's degree in computer and electrical engineering from purdue university a master's degree in electrical engineering at purdue university and a phd in electrical engineering and computer science from the university of california berkeley the cmd-it board of advisors includes faye briggs of intel shirley malcom of the american association for the advancement of science daniel reed of the university of iowa sharron rush of knowbility inc lucy sanders of the national center for women & information technology toni smith of schulmberger richard tapia of rice university miriam vializ-briggs of briggs & briggs marketing and telle whitney of the anita borg institute for women and technology the cmd-it board of directors are sandra begay-campbell and jeanine cook of sandia national laboratories ron eglash of rensselaer polytechnic institute stuart feldmen of google richard ladner of the university of washington eric marin of mfr consultants inc and bryant york of portland state university
404,research by a biomedical engineer at texas a&m university is shedding light on how collagen grows at the molecular level and helps form a diverse set of structures in the body ranging from bone tendon blood vessels skin heart and even corneas employing a computational model as well as a newly developed computer program wonmuk hwang associate professor in the universitys department of biomedical engineering has been able to distinguish molecular-level differences in complex collagen networks formed under different conditions his findings are featured as the cover story for the scientific journal physical review letters collagen while popularly known for its cosmetic uses is the most abundant protein in the human body as the main structural protein in connective tissues it is found in tendons ligaments and skin its also abundant in corneas cartilage bones blood vessels and teeth hwangs research is investigating how collagen forms such a diverse range of materials specifically hes examining how collagen fibrils assemble into ordered networks on surfaces the surface assembly of collagen he says is particularly relevant to biomedical engineers who are looking to use collagen-based coatings on implantable medical devices in order to prevent the devices from being rejected by the bodys immune system we are comparing the differences in collagen-formed structures hwang said what are the real differences between these molecules from different parts of the body what differences exists in collagen that has formed bone and collagen that has formed the cornea if you study this at the molecular level you can begin to see the differences our research aims at providing a quantitative detailed analysis of these differences as part of his research hwang found that collagen fibrils assemble into an intricate network of triangular shapes in which larger shapes are filled with smaller ones iteratively this type of structured network is characterized by scientists as fractal he explained fractal patterns he says arent unique to collagen; in fact they occur throughout nature such as in river networks clouds seashore lines and mountains similar networks even occur among the light-carrying nanofibers of optical-based electronics [image of a fractal-like network of collagen fibrils (left) and the corresponding computational model (right) with individually recognized fibrils colored randomly] to explain this widely observed phenomena hwang developed a theory and computational model for the network formation process that allowed him to accurately predict and simulate the growth process hwang tested his models against actual collagen networks with the aid of a computer program he developed known as cafe or computer-aided feature extraction cafe can recognize individual fibrils in images of complex collagen networks hwang explains by combining both the model and cafe it is possible hwang says to precisely distinguish different networks formed under slightly different experimental conditions similar to distinguishing between two paintings that may look alike but have subtle differences thats an important milestone in scientists efforts to understand collagen and its versatility with this program [cafe] we can measure filament lengths and orientations in a complex image hwang explained this is important because once we have this quantitative information we can have a direct comparison with simulations we can simulate a network with the parameters and qualities of a real collagen network when it comes to collagen formation we need to understand what happens at the molecular level and we need to be able to do this in a measurable way quantitatively to better understand how collagen grows and differentiates the guided framework that has resulted from both this theory of collagen growth as well as the validation of our simulations provided by the cafe program is helping achieve this goal contact: associate professor wonmuk hwang at 9794580178 or hwm@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at 9798475833 or ryangarcia99@tamuedu
405,the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m co-sponsored two students to attend the win national conference held in boston from july 27 to july 30 morgan munera (pictured right) a junior undergraduate student studying radiological health engineering is the president of the women in nuclear chapter at texas a&m university kristina yancey (pictured left) a phd fellow received her first student sponsorship in 2009 to attend the win global conference in washington dc she founded the texas a&m women in nuclear chapter with chelsea gorrman in 2010 and currently serves as its graduate advisor kristina received both her bachelor's and master's degrees in nuclear engineering at texas a&m after completing her undergraduate degree she spent a year working with the fast group at the paul scherrer institut in switzerland on a fulbright fellowship kristina is currently working on her phd in dr tsvetkovs advanced energy technologies group on a national science foundation fellowship
406,the department of nuclear engineering would like to congratulate the following students on their recent scholarship awards from the american nuclear society chloe scroggins the 2013/2014 ans incoming freshman scholarship award mallory carson the ans undergraduate scholarship award ryan kelly the ans allan f henry/paul a greebler memorial scholarship award william sames the ans walter meyer memorial scholarship award robert pinkston the ans angelo f biseti memorial scholarship award richard vega the ans graduate scholarship award
407,"dr perla balbuena a researcher with the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) holder of the gpsa professorship and a professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has been awarded $990 000 from the department of energy balbuena will lead a project to research design improvements and optimization of lithium-sulfur (li/s) batteries in their application as plug-in electric vehicles (pev) batteries her research will explore a phenomenon called the internal shuttle effect within the li/s battery and evaluate a multitude of other impacts to the batterys chemistry balbuenas research project is one of 19 sponsored by president obamas ev everywhere grand challenge that seeks to equalize affordability and convenience in pevs for consumers in comparison to current gasoline-powered vehicles our faculty members are consistently at the forefront of emerging technologies and cutting-edge research said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system dr balbuenas research is an important step in developing more efficient methods to power electric vehicles which can in turn lower the cost so that more people can afford to drive these environmentally friendly vehicles balbuena offered more background information on the complexities of li/s batteries and an analysis of why such a study is helpful economically and environmentally during a recent question and answer session q: how do li/s batteries differ from batteries in electric vehicles balbuena: currently electric vehicles are mostly powered by li-ion batteries which are very expensive and provide a limited driving range (approximately 100 miles based on a single charge) li/s batteries are attractive due to their low cost and high theoretical specific energy density which would significantly extend the driving range and make the cost of the vehicle affordable compared with that of gasoline q: are li/s batteries better for the environment balbuena: li/s batteries hold a significant promise due to their high theoretical specific energy density in addition [sulfur] is an attractive option because it is inexpensive and has low toxicity it also has low weight and is relatively abundant in the earths crust meaning that li/s batteries would be neither prohibitively expensive nor take a large toll on the environment q: describe the internal shuttle effect you indicate will be at the center of your research how does this effect support li/s batteries balbuena: a battery is composed of three parts with very different chemistries: two solid electrodes each in contact with a liquid (electrolyte) phase and the liquid electrolyte phase at the interface between each of the solid electrodes and the liquid electrolyte there is an electrochemical reaction taking place that ultimately releases electricity on the other hand the liquid electrolyte is the medium where lithium ions (charged particles) travel from one electrode to the other during charge and discharge of the battery in the lithium-sulfur battery in addition to lithium ions other products of the reactions shuttle from one electrode to the other when the battery is working this effect is characteristic of the li/s electrode/electrolyte interfacial chemistries and needs to be understood and controlled in order to ensure efficient and long-lasting battery performance q: the goal of the ev everywhere grand challenge is to ""make the us automotive industry the first to produce pevs that are as affordable and convenient as todays gasoline-powered vehicles by 2022 how will your research impact this end goal balbuena: development of the li/s couple into a commercially viable battery has been hampered by poor reversibility during discharge/recharge this means that the electrode materials and their storage capacity suffer a degradation effect this is in part due to low electronic conductivity in the sulfur electrode another problem is the shuttle effect of the reaction subproducts that modifies the chemistries in both electrodes our research will tackle these problems in two ways: first a detailed theoretical analysis at the atomistic and mesoscopic levels will provide a detailed understanding of the reactions and the effect of the microstructure of the materials on the battery performance; second this knowledge will allow us to guide our synthesis experiments to develop improved electrode and electrolyte materials and a much more efficient battery this is a team effort where the theoretical computational components investigated by my group and that of dr partha mukherjee (assistant professor in texas a&ms department of mechanical engineering) will be integrated with the experimental studies and tests from the group of dr vilas pol (associate professor in purdue universitys department of chemical engineering) q: what are other ways li/s batteries can be utilized balbuena: if successful these batteries may be utilized in other applications thus substituting the current li-ion technology q: what are you most looking forward to in this project balbuena: it is very exciting to contribute with theoretical/computational analysis to the development of practical technologies that may help society in many ways q: do you have any other thoughts to add balbuena: it is important also to emphasize the educational aspects of the project: a formation of new generations of scientists and engineers [that are] able to use theoretical/computational tools as the basis of design of materials that provide effective solutions to crucial areas such as energy water medicine and environment dr balbuenas work in atomistic simulation which will be extensively used in this research is innovative and transformative "" said dr m nazmul karim department head in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering ""she will train future generations of scientists and engineers in this area of complex computational methods to design energy-efficient storage devices such as batteries it is a great honor to be a part of this large federal initiative we congratulate her for her success"
408,"on august 29 2014 in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university a joint innovation center for computer science in houston came closer to being realized with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (mou) between the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and tech mahindra ltd the mou provides for a governance committee to oversee the activities of the center the committee includes an equal number of members from tees and tech mahindra they are puneet sahgal (associate vice president for energy and utilities at tech mahindra) prateek mohan (vice president and business unit head of oil and gas at tech mahindra) arvind malhotra (senior vice president of tech mahindra) dilma da silva (head of the department of computer science and engineering department at texas a&m) and riccardo bettati and andrew jiang (both cse professors) the development of the center will be supervised by tech mahindra which will also provide research funds for designing and testing projects initially involving big data analytics cloud and mobile computing ""we are excited to partner with texas a&m university in building the innovation center and leveraging the local talent pool as they take a leadership role in the global computer science industry "" said bk mishra senior vice president of tech mahindra ""between the talent at texas a&m and our strong commitment to state-of-the-art research and development i strongly believe that this collaboration can help develop the next level of solution offerings for our customers especially in the rapidly developing areas of big data analytics and cloud and mobile computing"" for the past two years dr rabi mahapatra has directed the cse department's maymester in india program which gives students an opportunity to visit it companies in india one of the companies they visited was tech mahindra which led to contacts that have facilitated this current partnership the partnership between tees and tech mahindra will give more cse students and other texas a&m students an opportunity to become involved in world-wide innovative computer science research projects without leaving texas ""as a research-focused university we are always looking for new research opportunities for our computer science students especially in big data analytics and cloud and mobile computing "" commented dr nk anand executive associate dean of the dwight look college of engineering and associate director of tees photo: (l-r signing) nk anand and bk mishra (l-r standing) riccardo bettati; charles ""chip"" hill (assistant director strategic research development tees space engineering research center); puneet sahgal prateek mohan dilma m da silva nancy m amato (cse unocal professor osis director); anxiao ""andrew"" jiang"
409,dr sunil chirayath associate director of the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) traveled to universitas gadjah mada (ugm) in yogyakarta indonesia to speak as part of the workshop on the enhancement of nuclear engineering curriculum with nuclear security subjects the workshop was sponsored by the us state department's partnership for nuclear security (pns) and was aimed at enhancing ugm educators' understanding of nuclear security ugm's department of engineering physics is the only university in indonesia offering a nuclear engineering curriculum therefore they are ready to play an important role in the development of nuclear security and nuclear security culture in indonesia especially in human resources development the workshop also had three participants from one of the hospitals in indonesia that handles a large number of radioactive sources for diagnosis and treatment workshop sessions focused on introducing nuclear security issues to these faculty members so that the design of their nuclear engineering courses can be informed by a basic knowledge of nuclear security topics covered included inter alia threats legal framework nuclear security culture information security integration of nuclear safety security and safeguards (3s) planning nuclear security at state and facility level and also best practices in nuclear security education
410,shared-use laboratories flexible classrooms and a state-of-the-art educational environment will soon be the new academic learning ground for engineering students at texas a&m university thanks to a $2 million contribution from the dow chemical company (nyse: dow) the nearly 550 000 sq ft engineering education complex (eec) part of texas a&ms dwight look college of engineering will become the hub of the universitys undergraduate engineering program it will be built adjacent to the existing zachry engineering center which will be renovated during the construction project this generous donation from dow is more than just a contribution to a building it is support for our vision to provide a unique learning environment for our students said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering this new facility will change the way we deliver our engineering education and thus help us to produce the next engineering leaders with more than 350 tenured/tenure-track faculty members and more than 12 000 students the look college is one of the largest engineering schools in the country ranking third in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment the college is ranked by us news & world report seventh in graduate studies eighth in undergraduate programs and second in research expenditures among public institutions with seven of the colleges 13 departments ranked in the top 10 dow has a history of supporting higher education and invests in universities all over the world in addition to this $2 million contribution dow hopes to see a paradigm shift in the value generated from relationships with academic partners through its multi-faceted support of faculty and students research academic programs and infrastructure texas a&m is one of dows top universities for recruitment of engineers and scientists and aggie engineers have played a huge part in dows success globally for many decades said jeff garry manufacturing and technology director for the microbial control and performance monomers businesses at dow we are thrilled to continue our long-time relationship with texas a&m and look forward to seeing the students thrive in their new surroundings
411,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr debjyoti banerjee the leland t jordan career development professor in mechanical engineering in recognition of his many accomplishments and future potential the endowed development fellowship appointment was effective sept 1 banerjee is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering banerjee received his phd in mechanical engineering from the university of california los angeles he received three master's degrees and was invited to four national honor societies he attended the indian institute of technology (iit) kharagpur for his bachelor's degree he received the morris foster fellowship (2007-2008) from the department of mechanical engineering the tees select young faculty fellowship (2008-2009) from the dwight look college of engineering and was designated as a faculty fellow at the mary kay oconnor process safety center at texas a&m university he received the 2001 best journal paper award from the asme heat transfer division the new investigator award (2005) from the texas space grants consortium 3m non-tenured faculty award (09-12) the asee/afosr summer faculty fellowship (06 07) at afrl and the asee/onr summer faculty fellowship (09) at spawar his research interests include thermo-fluidics (multi-phase flow boiling-condensation thermal management) micro/nano-fluidics micro/nano-technology (dpn sfil cnt synthesis) nanofluids (complex fluids) thermal energy storage/solar power and numerical simulations (network models finite elements/ fea computational fluids: cfd/cht molecular dynamics/ md)
412,"dr eun jung kim associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering was awarded a national science foundation (nsf) grant to develop a framework for high-performance and energy-efficient on-chip network mechanisms in synergy with multicore accelerator kim is the principal investigator and dr ki hwan yum is co-principal the grant awarded in july is funded for three years through the nsf ccf software and hardware foundations according to kim the key contributions expected from the project are: building a simulation testbed and analyzing the behavior of on-chip traffic workloads in multicore accelerators; proposing mechanisms for a high-performance and energy-efficient network-on-chip (noc) by utilizing emerging memory and noc technologies in addition to novel topologies and routing mechanisms; developing methodologies at the noc level that will support data prefetching mechanisms in the multicore accelerators; and providing multicast support and packet coalescing in the on-chip network to guarantee better system throughput ""the results from this project are likely to foster new research directions in several areas of computer architecture and parallel computing "" said kim ""also high-performance and energy-aware computing and communication research is applicable to other areas such as embedded systems and cloud computing we will develop web-based tutorials to present and disseminate the results of this project including tools and techniques to a broad audience"" among kim's fields of interest are computer architecture power/temperature control computer system security parallel/distributed systems performance evaluation and fault-tolerant computing she is a 2009 recipient of the nsf early faculty development (career) program award kim is the director of the high performance computing laboratory she is a 2003 graduate of penn state university and has a doctorate in computer science and engineering kim also has a bachelor's degree in computer science from the korea advanced institute of science and technology in taejeon and a master's degree in computer science and engineering from pohang university of science and technology in pohang korea"
413,"the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university welcomes back dr j michael moore '07 as a lecturer this fall he held this position in the cse department in 2008 after working as a postdoctoral research associate upon receiving his doctoral degree in computer science from texas a&m in 2007 during his five-year hiatus from texas a&m moore worked as a freelance sign language interpreter and taught an introduction to programming course for the university of texas at austin school of information ""it's amazing "" said moore ""the insights i gained observing teacher student interactions in my interpreting role i'm hoping those insights and reflections from my teaching experience will meld together to provide an environment where my students can be successful"" moore will be teaching undergraduate courses in intermediate programming and design discrete structures for computing and design and analysis of algorithms when asked about returning to cse moore said ""i missed my academic roots and jumped at the opportunity to come back to texas a&m the computer science and engineering department is an amazing place to learn and work and i'm excited to be back"" in 2007 moore advised by dr frank shipman received his doctorate in computer science his dissertation was ""design exploration: engaging a larger user population"" he also holds a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from texas a&m and a master's degree in computer science from texas state university"
414,dr john keyser professor and associate head for academics in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been honored with the 2014 association of former students college level teaching award he was also presented with this award in 2007 each fall the association of former students honors outstanding faculty members for their dedication to teaching since the program's inception in 1982 recipients have been recognized for their talent expertise and devotion in conveying knowledge to students keyser teaches courses in programming and computer graphics and has been at texas a&m for 14 years his research interests includes work on robust geometric and solid modeling physically based simulation and as part of brain networks laboratory while he is a professor in the department of computer science keyser has also collaborated with several faculty members in the visualization sciences program at texas a&m he holds bachelor's degrees in engineering physics applied mathematics and computer science from abilene christian university and received his phd in computer science from the university of north carolina at chapel hill his research has been published in numerous journal articles conference papers and technical reports
415,this summer the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) hosted the first part of the 2014 nuclear security training series (nsts) sponsored by the us department of state's partnership for nuclear security (pns) the program was coordinated by nsspi faculty member dr sunil chirayath and participants included 24 students and faculty members from three indian universities: anna university (chennai); the indian institute of technology (kanpur); and pandit deendayal petroleum university (gandhinagar) while in college station the participants attended lectures on nuclear security and nuclear security culture visited the research reactors and the nuclear fuel cycle lab took part in an outdoor radiation source recovery exercise at the texas engineering extension service's disaster city and toured nasa and the george h w bush library and museum the program was supported by 17 different subject matter experts including many master's and phd graduates from texas a&m university who served as lecturers and guides for the tours the participants also attended lectures that were being given as part of the pns summer nuclear security certificate program with the help of faculty mentoring sessions nsts students were asked to write group papers on topics in the area of nuclear security and non-proliferation to show their knowledge of the subject after its time at texas a&m the group continued its training series at sandia and oak ridge national laboratories at the end of the training series nsts participants also attended the 55th annual meeting of institute of nuclear materials management held in atlanta ga
416,"the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university gets many requests from companies who may or may not be members of our industrial affiliate program interested in hiring our students this interest led us to contact former student career services (fscs) for information on services available to our former students paul a pausky '78 associate director of fscs responded and gave some thought provoking answers to the title question too busy working to work on your computer science or engineering career ""take a moment to reflect upon the realities of our evolving employment marketplace "" said pausky ""in this environment you must maintain your competitive position by continuously strengthening professional connections and monitoring emerging technology within your organization and out in the marketplace for evolving needs and new opportunities"" pausky adds ""we want you to know that former student networking specialists have resources and strategies in place to help you build and maintain your network of connections!"" he's talking about fscs which provides tools and resources for networking in addition to job listings and resume reviews fscs is located in the texas a&m career center on the texas a&m campus it's mission is to help you align your interests with existing and evolving needs at companies markets industries and organizations that participate in the center ""in the past year "" said pausky ""more than 1 600 active recruiting employers sought aggie engineering and technology talent through the career center and there were more than 8 600 job listings specifically seeking experienced hires moreover our resources can help you identify and pursue work internationally as well as help our international former students identify visa-friendly employers across the united states"" fscs advisers including debbie jackson '76 who works with new graduates will introduce you to application strategies ""knowing that individuals perform better after practice we provide sample interview questions resources to practice mock interviews and guides to help polish your interviewing skills "" said pausky ""you invested time and money at texas a&m preparing to earn income we appreciate that commitment and we are committed to helping you succeed long after you have walked the stage at graduation the resources available through the texas a&m career center can help you to maintain and protect that investment whether you want to move up the company ladder or move on to a new career ""if you are interested in learning more about our resources please contact us at fscshelp@tamuedu or visit some of our resources at http://wwwaggienetworkcom/careers"""
417,"tamuhack a new student run organization in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university hosted its very first hackathon oct 24-25 the event which was named after the organization included almost 400 students from all over the country including many who had never before participated in a hackathon the co-founders of the organization robert timm eleni mijalis christopher nolan and rafa moreno have attended over 50 hackathons in their college career and have done very well mijalis and moreno placed first at louisiana state universitys first hackathon geauxhack and timm and mijalis received first place at the university of pennsylvanias prestigious hackathon pennapps x ""at the beginning of the hackathon i asked whose first hackathon this was "" moreno said ""about 80 percent of the people present (including one of the companies) raised their hand i'm glad to see we were able to take this first step in getting that many people involved in this type of community"" event sponsors google microsoft and at&t had representatives at the event to provide application program interfaces to contestants the winning team made a chrome extension called google ffiti the group was comprised of texas a&m computer science and engineering students christopher findeisen david zeng and wei lu and university of houston student aaron dancer googleffiti allows you to graffiti on websites and also overlays a public 'wall' for each website you visit containing past tags that were made there said findeisen you can also share a private graffiti for use in annotations tutorials etc its a great tool for both fun allowing visitors to contribute and work providing for meaningful annotations that dont remove functionality from the website the second place team created an app that allowed users to play musical instruments with the leap motion the third place team made a game similar to ""attack on titans"" called ""attack on oculus "" which actually put you in the virtual world tamuhack was the largest hackathon to take place on campus at texas a&m and the student organization could not be happier with the turnout ""i am incredibly proud of what they have accomplished for the inaugural tamuhack and am excited about the yearly events to come "" said associate professor tracy hammond faculty adviser for tamuhack tamuhack has already begun planning for next years event and looks forward to giving other students the opportunity to see what hacking is all about"
418,the texas a&m university department of computer science and engineering sent 21 students including four male students to the 2014 grace hopper celebration of women in computing conference (ghc) ghc is the largest conference for women in computing in the world this year the conference took place in phoenix arizona and the theme was everywhere everyone the department was a silver sponsor and hosted a booth at the career fair that was visited by nearly 1 000 people cse associate professor dr tiffani l williams was general co-chair for this year's conference dr dilma da silva ford motor company design professor ii and cse department head and unocal professor dr nancy amato were speakers in the cra-w career workshops these workshops were designed to provide guidance to graduate students early professionals and mid-career academics during these workshops da silva spoke on preparing for promotion and amato spoke on senior career mentoring topic tables da silva was also a speaker on the panel why women in technology should patent their ideas and amato was also co-chair of the scholarship committee and a member of the faculty-track committee texas a&m traditionally brings a large group to the conference and is expected to have an even bigger presence next year when it will be held in houston the department was able to send so many students this year due to support from the college and from cse industrial affiliate program members chevron and conocophillips corporations or individuals interested in sponsoring the participation of students for next year's conference are encouraged to make a donation to the department's excellence fund the grace hopper conference is an inspiring encouraging and exciting conference to attend regardless of age education or gender said kathy waskom cse organizational services manager the diverse group of attendees and presenters made for a very welcoming and inclusive event the conference is one that will raise awareness and influence for its attendees it is an amazing experience to see the sheer number of powerful influential and impressive women in one venue ghc was founded with the intention of acknowledging women who have made significant contributions in technology and this year was the very first to also recognize the men who have also influenced the computing world the very first male keynote speaker chief executive officer of microsoft satya nadella gave a presentation during this years event the grace hopper celebration of women in computing is named for rear admiral grace hopper a mathematician who played a vital role in the early expansion of computer science the conference is produced by the anita borg institute and presented in partnership with the association for computing machinery (acm)
419,the society of women engineers (swe) at texas a&m university received two prestigious awards during the swe annual conference we14 which was held recently in los angeles the texas a&m chapter received the outstanding collegiate section award and the outreach event/series award the collegiate section award is based on the sections activities throughout the academic year it is the highest level of recognition given to collegiate swe sections based on a holistic review of the sections outreach and professional development programs events membership and communication the outreach award was award to the texas a&m chapter for its various outreach programs including the 38th annual swe high school conference that brought 100 high school students to texas a&m the swe12 middle school mentoring program where swe members mentor seventh and eighth graders at a&m consolidated middle school and the swe summer camp that exposed 64 middle school girls to engineering during their week-long stay on the texas a&m campus during the summer sixteen member from texas a&ms swe chapter attended the conference taking advantage of a career fair and seminars on various topics
420,dr robin r murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering and director of the center for robot assisted search and rescue (crasar) has identified nine ways robots can protect ebola workers murphy also cautions that military and civilian robots often do not directly transfer to disaster situations and more work is needed to identify the use cases for robots murphy who is a pioneer in the field of rescue robotics has been trained for biological response and has participated in medical disaster exercises with the us marines corps chemical biological incident response forces making her a perfect fit for the project which she has been working on since september murphy has deployed ground aerial and marine robots to 16 disasters including the world trade center hurricane katrina the japanese tsunami and the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident crasar will be hosting one of four concurrent workshops with the white house office of science and technology policy/national robotics initiative on safety robotics for ebola workers on nov 7-8 the texas a&m workshop will focus on learning from medical and humanitarian relief experts and the invitation-only workshop will have a second day focused on developing use cases and requirements suitable for industry to better understand how their technologies might be used the workshop will also identify what technological barriers require further research investments the real issue to me is what are the real needs that robots can play in such a complex event said murphy according to murphy the ways ground aerial and marine robots can protect ebola workers include: mortuary robots to respectfully transport the deceased reducing the number of health professionals within the biosafety labs and field hospitals detection of contamination disinfection telepresence robots for experts to consult/advise on medical issues train and supervise worker decontamination to catch accidental self-contamination and serve as rolling interpreters for the different languages and dialects physical security for workers waste handling humanitarian relief reconnaissance about crasar: crasar is a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center whose mission is to improve disaster preparedness prevention response and recovery through the development and adoption of robots and related technologies its goal is to create a community of practice throughout the world for rescue robots that motivates fundamental research supports technology transfer and educates students response professionals and the public crasar is a dynamic mix of university researchers industry and responders for more information contact dr robin r murphy by email: murphy@csetamuedu or by phone: 979-845-8737
421,photo courtesy of phillips 66 company © texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering has accepted a $1 million contribution from phillips 66 a growing energy manufacturing and logistics company the donation to the texas a&m foundation will support the universitys new engineering education complex (eec) phillips 66 is committed to investing in education said greg c garland chairman and ceo of phillips 66 and a texas a&m chemical engineering graduate we need leaders from schools such as texas a&m who will challenge the status quo and create solutions to meet rising energy needs in the decades ahead the companys contribution will be used to create the phillips 66 experiential learning laboratory within the eec the new lab will help better prepare engineering students to meet the evolving needs of the engineering marketplace a guiding principle of look colleges 25 by 25 initiative experiential hands-on learning is critically important to the engineering education we provide to our students said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering phillips 66s contribution will help us provide a multidisciplinary environment where students from different academic disciplines work together side by side preparing them for success in the workplace construction on the eec will begin in early 2015 once completed this hub of undergraduate engineering will house nearly 533 000 square feet of state-of-the-art learning space with flexible classrooms design and fabrication shared-use laboratories collaborative workspace and tutoring services about phillips 66: phillips 66 is the only integrated downstream company to combine leading midstream chemicals refining and marketing and specialties businesses with its diverse portfolio the company is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the huge growth in domestically produced oil and natural gas from shale resources
422,"dr mahmoud el-halwagi holder of the mcferrin professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected as a fellow of the american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) el-halwagi will receive the official pin and plaque at the aiche annual meeting in november aiche is the premier organization for chemical engineers both in academia and in industry said el-halwagi el-halwagi has been an active member on aiche for nearly three decadesthroughout his time in aiche el-halwagi has presented papers on a consistent basis at both the spring and annual meetings and has chaired numerous sessions he has served as division chair of computing and systems technology (cast) and participated in committees for energy initiatives and international programs i have enjoyed every bit of the collaboration and participation with aiche "" he said ""it is an organization that is very close to my heart"" el-halwagi also serves as faculty advisor for the local aiche student chapter our students have an advantage that i didnt have: getting to be a member as an undergraduate student he said in addition to his local leadership role for students el-halwagi who has helped establish several chapter in the middle east will increase his level of mentorship to locales around the world ive been helping to establish aiche chapters overseas because i see tremendous opportunities for professional development learning and networking "" el-halwagi said ""i see this as being part of the responsibility of being a fellow ""it is easy for an undergraduate to not get involved in professional activities but i think its very important for students to get involved in aiche first the opportunities to learn to interact to network…are tremendous also students should attend the [national] aiche meetings where the latest developments in chemical engineering are presented and collaboration for networking takes place"" the nonprofit organization aiche was founded in 1908"
423,"when yukiya amano the director general of the international atomic energy agency made his first trip to the us this week texas a&m was the first public university he visited ""texas a&m is known globally as a university having very high technology including in the area of nuclear science and technology "" amano said on wednesday the final day of his three-day trip ""iaea and a&m have cooperated for many years and that is why i am visiting the university to further increase cooperation"" a&m and international atomic energy agency or iaea have worked together since 1998 to further nuclear technology in 2013 a&m was the first site in north america to host the iaea's school for nuclear energy management attended by 24 participants from around the world ""the future of the world lies in technology "" amano said ""in order to use technology training and investing in people is essential"" amano's visit comes a week before his annual address to the united nations on the agency's progress and accomplishments during his time at a&m he designated the national center for electron beam research at a&m as the iaea collaborating centre for electron beam technologies for food health and environmental applications the center located in the texas a&m research park is operated by texas a&m agrilife research its research includes increasing the shelf life of fruit and vegetables and eliminating disease in them the designation is the first given to a us university and will allow researchers to more easily build international relationships with other nuclear scientists said chad wootton associate vice president for external affairs ""we already are at the forefront "" wootton said ""but what this allows us to say is we're further verified with this skill set"" a&m interim president mark hussey expressed to amano the university's willingness to continue working with the iaea ""i hope you found new ideas for collaboration for your agency as well as those entities you engage with regularly in your international leadership role "" hussey said ""we stand ready to serve and look forward to building opportunities for extramural partnership where you and your member states can benefit from our efforts here"""
424,dr b don russell professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been named a distinguished member by the council of large electric power systems (cigre) the award was presented in washington dc at the annual meeting of the united states committee of cigre the designation of distinguished member is given to those few individuals who have demonstrated long-term commitment to cigres objectives of improving the reliability and availability of electric power worldwide russell the harry e bovay jr chair professor in the department has served as a member of the administrative committee of cigre chair of the technical committee for the united states and currently serves as vice president for administration of the united states cigre secretariat he previously received the atwood award from cigre russell is a university distinguished professor and regents professor of the texas a&m university system and serves as director of the power systems automation laboratory in the department he is a member and vice chair for membership of the national academy of engineering and is past president of the ieee power and energy society he is in his 39th year on the faculty of texas a&m russell is internationally recognized for his development of automated techniques for detecting arcing faults and failures on electric power systems his recent work has emphasized predictive diagnostic tools for detecting failing power system equipment before catastrophic failure this will allow utilities to repair systems before an outage occurs his work is currently being extended to detect power system failures that cause wildfires an area of great importance given the increasing drought conditions in the united states cigre is an international organization of 90 countries with each country represented by a national committee it is the largest international technical organization in the electric power industry
425,dr hamid toliyat raytheon endowed professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the 2014 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) nikola tesla award the nikola tesla award is given for outstanding contributions to the generation and utilization of electric power toliyat was among the few researchers worldwide who received the 2014 ieee field awards toliyats award was for contributions to the design analysis and control of fault-tolerant multiphase electric machines toliyat received a bachelor's degree from sharif university of technology in 1982 a master's degree from west virginia university in 1986 and his phd from the university of wisconsin-madison in 1991 following receipt of his phd he joined the faculty of ferdowsi university of mashhad as an assistant professor of electrical engineering in march 1994 he joined the department at texas a&m toliyat is a fellow of the ieee and is a member of sigma xi he has received several best paper awards from ieee industrial electronics ieee industry application and ieee power engineering societies toliyat received the prestigious cyrill veinott award in electromechanical energy conversion from the ieee power engineering society in 2004 and also has received numerous awards from texas a&m nasa and the schlumberger foundation toliyat has supervised more than 80 graduate students post doctoral students and research engineers resulting in more than 400 technical papers more than 80 invited lectures all over the world and 13 issued and pending us patents he is the author/co-author of dsp-based electromechanical motion control handbook of electric motors - 2nd edition and electric machines – modeling condition monitoring and fault diagnosis toliyat has been a consultant to more than 30 us and international companies for nearly a century the ieee awards program has paid tribute to technical professionals whose exceptional achievements and outstanding contributions have made a lasting impact on technology society and the engineering profession each year the ieee awards board recommends a select group of recipients to receive ieee's most prestigious honors
426,"dr valerie e taylor spoke about the recent partnership between the texas a&m university system and ibm at the government-university-industry research roundtable meeting on october 15 2014 at the national academy of sciences in washington dc ""the big data revolution: what does it mean for research"" was the topic of the meeting guirr was established in 1984 by the national academies to facilitate discussion among top leaders of government and non-government research organizations taylor senior associate dean of academic affairs in the dwight look college of engineering and the regents professor and royce e wisenbaker professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university presented details of the partnership which is a broad joint research collaboration based on shared and complementary research expertise and capabilities taylor discussed the long-term research collaboration that is focused on grand challenges which require fundamental research applied development educational reach and sustainable commercial activities many of the grand challenges involve big data research proposed research staff engagement with the partnership includes participating in roundtable sessions to explore shared interest and capabilities; providing ongoing technical and research support for an hpc institute; developing fellowship internship and experiential learning opportunities; encouraging research collaborations that include mutual exchange of personnel; and holding joint workshops organized by ibm and faculty of the a&m system dr dilma m da silva ford motor company design professor ii and head of the department of computer science and engineering attended the meeting with taylor ""i felt like many kids do on their first visit to a theme park: in awe of how cool science and engineering are "" said da silva ""several speakers from universities funding agencies and industry labs highlighted the multi-disciplinary aspect of big data research computer scientists need to get deeply involved in other domains in order to advance the state of the art ""the event had three excellent speakers discussing privacy aspects in big data they presented different views on how to attack the issues demonstrating how complex the problem is: society can benefit from knowledge derived from large data sets about people but allowing access to such data comes with equally relevant challenges"""
427,sravani nuti has been named recipient of the 2014-2015 outstanding engineering master's graduate student award this award is presented to a graduate student who demonstrates exceptional achievement and overall performance the award will be presented to nuti during the upcoming dwight look college of engineering student awards banquet on november 13 at the bethancourt ballroom of the memorial student center at texas a&m university she will also receive a scholarship of $5 000 sravani enrolled as a masters student in the department of mechanical engineering in fall 2012 and will graduate in december she received her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the national institute of technology karnataka india her research involves modeling the movement of thin elastic rods which will be used in the development of an interactive software that can simulate the movement of a suture thread which will help train medical students in the act of suturing her committee members include dr j n reddy (chair) dr annie ruimi (co-chair) and dr arun srinivasa (member)
428,dr lewis ntaimo associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been recognized by the journal of global optimization (jogo) for having one of the top five papers published in the journal during the proceeding year ntaimos article fenchel decomposition for stochastic mixed-integer programming (volume 55 pages 141-163 2013) was recognized as one of the top 5 papers published in jogo in 2013 this work introduces a new cutting plane method in optimization called fenchel decomposition for solving large scale two-stage stochastic mixed-integer programs in this work ntaimo derives the new algorithm and reports computational results that demonstrate the performance of the algorithm relative to current algorithms the results show that the new method can outperform standard stochastic integer programming solvers ntaimo came to texas a&m in 2004 his research interests are in stochastic programming systems modeling and engineering processes and discrete event modeling and simulation applications of his research include wildfire planning healthcare wind energy and homeland security
429,"current statistics indicate over 900 mobile apps are created daily aashish priye a phd student studying chemical engineering at texas a&m university and nan shi who earned his phd in chemical engineering from texas a&m have created apps that are more than just statistics priye's app pcr to go uses fluorescence analysis to photocopy dna using the existing technology of a smartphones camera and optics shi's app brownian dynamics offers a behind-the-scenes approach to learning in an interactive physics engine that can be used by teachers researchers and science-minded youth pcr to go is a free portable solution that optimizes the tracking of data during convective flow polymerase chain reaction (pcr) the cycles of heating and cooling required in duplicating dnaan important and common process in molecular biology traditionally large equipment and patience is often needed for photocopying dna but priye asked why not do this with something we have with us in our daily life since these cameras often have a cmos sensor light can be detected as it enters the cameras lens normally we dont care about this we just take pictures "" said priye ""its a point-and-shoot kind of camera but we can transform this handheld device into lab equipment"" using inexpensive clip-on microscopic lenses the camera is outfitted to take images on a timer; the algorithms embedded in the app translate the data over a period of six to seven months priye devoted his focus to preparing and publishing pcr to go which is currently available in the iphone market with plans for an android app in the future shi's app brownian dynamics uses technology similar to the highly popular app angry birds a video demonstration can be seen here this is for education "" shi said ""the major point i want to convey through this app especially for the undergrads [is to discover] that math is cool and programming is cool because they can use this app to do cool things research should not be isolated to collegiate academia but can also have educational functions to high school kids and even younger kids the app is newly released having previously been in production for close to one year the second edition of the app is also underway utilizing newer ipad hardware priye and shi have performed research for dr victor ugaz holder of the charles d holland 53 professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and director of the undergraduate program"
430,the department of mechanical engineering hosted its 2014 donor recognition & scholarship/fellowship banquet on thursday oct 16 2014 at pebble creek country club in college station the event was attended by the department's distinguished donors student award recipients and their guests students had a chance to interact with the donors who sponsored their scholarships and to thank them the department recognized its donors and felicitated the students for their outstanding academic achievements the program booklet lists the scholarships and fellowships awarded by the department their history and the names of the student recipients this year
431,the 100 fastest-growing aggie-owned or aggie-led businesses in the world were recognized recently at the 10th annual aggie 100 program sponsored by the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship in the mays business school at texas a&m university the aggie 100 focuses on growth as an indicator of job creation product acceptance and entrepreneurial vision of the companies on the list three of the top 10 companies southern green builders nri inc and team trident llc are owned or led by texas a&m engineering graduates and 29 of the 100 companies are owned or led by aggie engineers cima energy ltd owned by petroleum engineering graduate thomas k edwards 87 won the summit award for the highest three-year average revenue this is the third year the summit award has been presented we are extremely proud of our former students and applaud the success of their entrepreneurial spirit said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering this recognition will motivate and inspire our current students who may someday find themselves among the aggie 100 in the future all aggie engineers making the list (company ranking in parenthesis) southern green builders (2) drew ondrey 02 owner partner bachelors degree industrial distribution nri inc (3) harold e mcgowen iii 82 president and ceo and founder bachelors degree mechanical engineering team trident llc (6) rick restivo 91 vice president owner and founder bachelors degree engineering technology pinnacle asset integrity services (15) ryan sitton 97 president & ceo owner and founder bachelors degree mechanical engineering a-1 rocket industries inc (19) j ryan zimmer 06 president bachelors degree civil engineering ward getz & associates llp (23) ryan getz 01 partner and owner bachelors degree civil engineering steven ward 01 partner and owner bachelors degree civil engineering stephanie anderson 05 partner and owner bachelors degree civil engineering houston offshore engineering (25) philip poll 88 manager of projects owner and founder bachelors degree aerospace engineering ngok lai 72 manager of operations owner and founder bachelors and masters degrees civil engineering jun zou 97 manager of naval architecture owner and founder masters degree and phd ocean engineering wildhorse resources llc (27) jay graham 92 president and founder bachelors degree petroleum engineering anthony bahr 91 ceo and founder bachelors degree petroleum engineering lcm industries inc (28) tommy crume 96 president owner and founder bachelors degree industrial distribution veritas building consultants llc (29) donald j cunningham 62 founder and owner bachelors degree civil engineering kfw surveying (30) blaine lopez 96 president owner and founder bachelors degree civil engineering george weron 97 ceo owner and founder bachelors degree civil engineering criag fletcher 97 coo owner and founder bachelors degree civil engineering forney construction llc (32) tom forney 79 ceo owner and founder bachelors degree engineering technology comflow mechanical services (34) jon wiesmann 00 president and owner bachelors degree industrial distribution kidd roofing (40) corey wilson 93 president and owner bachelors degree mechanical engineering kfw engineers (41) george weron 97 principal and founder bachelors degree civil engineering craig fletcher 97 principal and founder bachelors degree civil engineering sabre commercial inc (42) john p cyrier 95 president owner and founder bachelors degree mechanical engineering technology trilliant surgical ltd (47) jon olson 00 president owner and founder bachelors degree biomedical engineering chad steitle 98 managing partner owner and founder bachelors degree biomedical engineering mp2 energy (48) mark siismets 87 coo and owner bachelors degree mechanical engineering ota compression llc (49) grant swartzwelder 85 president owner and foudner bachelors degree petroleum engineering mccord engineering inc (53) jimmy d mccord 69 president owner and founder bachelors degree electrical engineering ess group (55) jeff ross 90 president and owner bachelors degree industrial distribution lja engineering inc (63) calvin t ladner 80 president bachelors degree civil engineering escondido resources ii llc (64) william e deupree 83 president ceo owner and founder bachelors degree petroleum engineering spiars engineering inc (67) john spiars 89 president owner and founder bachelors degree civil engineering tim spiars 90 ceo and owner bachelors degree civil engineering kevin wier 98 partner and owner bachelors degree civil engineering matt dorsett 93 partner and owner bachelors degree civil engineering service nation inc (78) matt michel 83 chairman president ceo owner and founder bachelors degree industrial technology cjg engineers (82) ross h eubanks 98 principal and owner bachelors degree civil engineering hunter t kornegay 92 principal and owner bachelors degree civil engineering hts texas (83) christopher mike donovan 96 president and owner bachelors degree chemical engineering lonquist & co llc (89) richard r lonquist 87 president owner and founder bachelors degree petroleum engineering robert s crews 90 vice president owner and founder bachelors degree petroleum engineering genesys works (91) rafael alvarez 90 ceo and founder bachelors degree mechanical engineering latshaw drilling & exploration company (96) trent b latshaw 75 president and owner bachelors degree petroleum engineering
432,the first all-aggie engineering tailgate is slated for nov 15 three hours prior to the kickoff of the texas a&m vs missouri football game the tailgate which will feature food giveaways and a carnival will be held on the lawn north of the zachry engineering center (indoors if it rains) on the texas a&m university campus and will be open until 6:30 pm current and former students faculty staff and friends of the engineering program are invited to attend the event which will be held rain or shine plans have been made to move the tailgate inside in the event of inclement weather attendees at the tailgate will have a chance to say farewell to the zachry engineering center which will close in december for a massive multi-million dollar renovation and new construction project that begins in january 2015 attendees are encouraged to leave notes describing their favorite memories and experiences in the facility and will be able to take home a piece of the old zachry building the zachry engineering center opened in 1972 when the renovation and new construction project is completed in 2017 the building will be named the engineering education complex and at 533 000 square feet will become the largest academic building on campus the state-of-the-art building will be used exclusively for undergraduate engineering education to support the 25 by 25 initiative
433,sophomore students are familiar with the demands of an engineering academic schedule; now their focus turns to gaining professional skills and learning about various resources beyond the classroom to aid them in their efforts the dwight look college of engineerings engineering academic and student affairs (easa) office recently hosted the inaugural sophomore week the purpose of sophomore week is to help second-year students become more engaged with engineering and learn about various career opportunities for engineers said dr kristi shryock senior director of retention in the look college different events were held during sophomore week to facilitate interaction among students and between students faculty and staff members the week started with an ice cream social to help students socialize and get to know each other better students also had an informal luncheon with engineering academic advisers to become familiar with the faculty and staff advisors and to practice the art of networking the informal luncheon helped students feel comfortable approaching their advisors as resources throughout their time at texas a&m while networking is crucial for engineers most sophomores have not had the chance to practice networking which is useful when students seek jobs or internships sophomore week also included three short but informative presentations representative from the texas a&m career center talked about career and professional development with regards to building careers obtaining internships and becoming well-rounded applicants the engineering global programs office informed students of the different study abroad opportunities that the look college offers studying abroad is a great way for students to stand out among their peers in the workforce the students also heard about several undergraduate research opportunities including the undergraduate summer research grant (usrg) program sophomore week ended with a bowling social which allowed students to relax after a difficult week of midterm exams and mingle with other students they met during the week shryock looks forward to continuing to focus on activities related to the sophomore year and is already making plans for next years sophomore week
434,dr chanan singh professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently received a prestigious award from the brazilian research council singh interim department head regents professor and irma runyon chair professor received a professor visitante especial (pve) award from the brazilian research council the award based on a competitive research proposal is for a two-year period and supports collaborative research with faculty members in brazil singhs collaborators are professor carmen lucia tancredo borges from ufrj-universidade federal do rio de janeiro and professor mauro augusto da rosa from ufsc - universidade federal de santa catarina the goal of this collaboration is to investigate the reliability of the power grid in the presence of high penetration of variable generation sources this will include examination of safe penetration levels of renewables and examination of cost-effectiveness of reliability enhancement using energy storage technologies more realistic forecasting of renewable power will be developed and then integrated and stochastic reliability models of power systems including variable power generation and energy storage will be developed at different levels based on these models optimization and control schemes for planning and operations of modern grid systems will be investigated for enhancing the overall system reliability this collaborative research will provide tools for making informed decisions under uncertainties introduced by the variable energy sources singh is an ieee fellow and is internationally recognized as an expert on the reliability and security of power systems other honors he has received include the merit award by the probabilistic methods applied to power systems (pmaps) international society the ieee outstanding power engineering educator award being holder of the jw runyon jr professorship ii the halliburton professorship the dresser professorship the university level association of former students' distinguished achievement award for research and the university of saskatchewan awarded him a dsc in 1998 for his research contributions in 2010 he was the inaugural recipient of the ieee-pes roy billinton power system reliability award
435,a student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the unicef member of the year 2014-2015 award yashwant prakash vyas a senior in the department was the first student from texas a&m to receive the award which was presented at the unicef campus initiative summit 2014-2015 in collaboration with the millennium campus conference this is a national award given every year at the annual summit to a member for his/her contribution to us funds for unicef only one award is given in this category previously vyas received the unicef service honor stole which is given to a member for their outstanding service to unicef vyas is an international student at texas a&m from india studying electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics he transferred to texas a&m in the fall of 2012 from jawaharlal nehru technological university hyderabad india other honors he has received include the buck weirus spirit award 2014 from the association of former students & department of student activities the margaret rudder community service award 2014 from the department of student activities a class star award for leadership 2014 a diversity certificate 2014 from the department of multicultural services a leadership certificate 2014 from the student government association a first place award at artfest 2014 an outstanding service award 2014 from the international student association and a brazos valley world fest 2013 first prize during his time at texas a&m vyas has belonged to several student organizations and has held major leadership positions including the international student association the student government association diversity commission the india association the aggie orientation leaders program camp kesem muster 2014 host aggie replant texas a&m university-unicef chapter texas aggies making changes (12th can) student government association indian graduate student association texas a&m emergency care team keep brazos beautiful counselor at fish camp and transfer student ambassador for the office of the dean of student life nsfp
436,the science coalition presented congressman john culberson with its champion of science award during a ceremony in houston on tuesday (oct 21) the award was presented in recognition of his commitment to funding the basic research that keeps the united states and the state of texas at the forefront of scientific and medical discovery and technological innovation the science coalition is a nonprofit nonpartisan organization of more than 50 of the nation's leading public and private research universities including texas a&m university the coalition is dedicated to sustaining the federal governments investment in basic scientific research as a means to create jobs grow the economy and spur innovation we are pleased to honor congressman culberson for his commitment to the federally funded research enterprise at universities across the nation said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp since serving together in the state legislature ive known john to be both fiscally responsible and visionary he has continued that balance in washington where he recognizes the impact of agencies like nasa and the national science foundation on our nations competitive advantage and economic development at home dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university and kate miller dean of the college of geosciences at texas a&m presented the award to culberson as a space-grant university texas a&m has been especially impacted by congressman culbersons support of the sciences and engineering said banks one of many examples is his long-standing support of nasa we have graduated thousands of aggies who work in the space program from payload specialists to flight engineers and even astronauts we are grateful that congressman culberson serves as out champion a person who has a clear vision for the future in science engineering and technology the event was held at stress engineering where dr joe fowler 68 is president and co-founder of stress engineering fowler graduated from texas a&m with a mechanical engineering degree and is chairman of the dwight look college of engineerings advisory council stress engineering provides engineering services for a broad range of industries and counts almost 70 a&m graduates among its employees culberson toured the facility with fowler prior to the ceremony
437,dr teri reed and dr pk imbrie are co-authors of an article that was published in the september issue of prism a publication of the american society for engineering education (asee) the article is also featured on the asee website the article titled the ultimate diversity app focuses on how to change the face of engineering by changing admissions policies institutional data at a midwestern public university indicated that from 2006 through 2010 the number of women engineering applicants increased by 46 percent correlating with increased recruiting efforts however over that same time period the number of women admitted into engineering increased by only 24 percent a mismatch that was unexpected and raised questions about equity in the admissions process according to the article if admissions policies have a significant role in the opportunity to become an engineer changing such policies may play a role in increasing the representation of groups such as women and minorities in engineering reed is the assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs the assistant agency director of workforce development for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and an associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering imbrie is the director of undergraduate academic programs in the engineering academic & student affairs office and an associate professor in the dwight look college of engineering the other authors of the article include beth m holloway assistant dean for undergraduate education and director of the women in engineering program at purdue university and ken reid associate professor of engineering education at virginia tech
438,"in the microelectronics world the military and private sectors alike need solutions to technologic challenges dr mustafa akbulut assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and two students are leading a project funded by darpa to create thermal interface materials (tims) that have a superior ability to transfer heat and a strong capacity to keep cool in evaluating a central processing unit as an example there are many pieces that individually need temperature management as you get smaller and smaller there is higher heat dissipation per unit area "" akbulut said ""locally you have higher temperatures…you have a harder time operationallyyou need better thermal interface materials this is especially important for radars laser systems and also for military electronics essentially and most critically the device needs the ability to avoid overheating ""unless you cool it it fails he said in evaluating an electronic device and a cooling system that need to be placed together as they function if there is an absence of thermal material in between the heat created by the electronic device can potentially erode the device according to akbulut non-soft materials are considered less effective as a tim because they do not adequately cover all interior openings or gaps even though the naked eye may not detect this space if you look at the very fine scale [these two pieces] are not smooth "" akbulut said ""if you look at these with an electron microscope you see they are like mountains if you bring these surfaces together they do not have perfect contact thus the objective of a traditional tim is not fully met"" soft materials including paste often minimize the gap said akbulut the invention of his new metal-based soft material leads to high thermal conductive activity and because of its malleable nature consistent contact is achieved his research group has recently developed tims with thermal conductivities greater than 100 w/m-k and elastic modulus values in the order of 20 gpa significantly advancing the current state of art for tims as a comparison this material is ten times softer than steel and three times more thermally conductive using copper and nanomaterials together akbulut believes his new tim can lead to greater optimization and large-scale implementation in the future for more information about akbuluts research visit his webpage"
439,lainy dromgoole has been awarded the 2014-2015 robert gardner memorial fellowship from the health physics society the fellowship includes a $5 000 stipend and a travel grant to attend the hps annual meeting in indianapolis in the summer of 2015 dromgoole works with nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) faculty member dr craig marianno on research in the area of health physics
440,"dr jennifer l welch presented a tutorial on ""link reversal algorithms"" as part of the 28th international symposium on distributed computing (disc) held oct 12-15 in austin texas welch is the chevron professor ii and regents professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university her tutorial presented a representative sampling of work on link-reversal-based distributed algorithms for the problems of routing leader election mutual exclusion scheduling and resource allocation ""first correctness and complexity results for abstract graph-theoretic versions of the problems was presented then extensions to handle more realistic model details were discussed "" said welch of her presentation disc is an international forum on all aspects of distributed systems and networks: theory design analysis implementation and application topics of interest at the symposium included cloud computing; mobile agents and autonomous robots; multiprocessor and multicore architectures and algorithms; game-theoretic approaches to distributed computing; and wireless mobile sensor and ad-hoc networks the aim of disc is to articulate the exciting and vigorous growth in this field welch is a member of the parasol laboratory at texas a&m her research interests are in algorithms and lower bounds for distributed computing; specifically she has recently focused on mobile ad hoc networks and distributed storage systems she has published over 110 research papers and co-authored two books distributed computing: fundamentals simulations and advanced topics second edition and link reversal algorithms among her many honors and awards are the acm distinguished scientist award the ieee education society hewlett-packard harriet b rigas award for outstanding woman engineering educator and the nsf presidential young investigator award after receiving her doctoral degree in computer science from the massachusetts institute of technology welch worked at gte laboratories inc and the university of north carolina before joining texas a&m"
441,texas a&m university's society of petroleum engineers (spe) student chapter held its spe career enhancement event (cee) recently at texas a&ms memorial student center over 600 students interested in a career in the petroleum industry attended the cee nearly 100 recruiters from 28 oil and gas companies were present to seek out potential full-time employees and interns since all attendees were required to be spe members the event had a direct impact on spe membership the membership increased by approximately 400 members this was one of the largest events the texas a&m university spe student chapter has ever hosted the career enhancement event is a recruiting event exclusive to texas a&m university students interested in the petroleum industry which provides opportunities for students to learn more about the petroleum business and develop career goals all 28 companies presented for five minutes to explain their own company strategy and the opportunities they have for students companies ranged from large-scale integrated corporations like bp to service companies and independent companies such as vanguard natural resources during the career networking students were able to speak to companies of their interest with new accommodations more opportunities and more involvement of spe members the 2014 career enhancement event was an outstanding improvement to last years event spe would like to thank the corporate sponsors and attendees for making the cee a success spe hopes that all students involved were open to several opportunities and were able to develop their own personal career goals
442,holly gibbs graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2014-2015 outstanding engineering doctoral graduate student award the award recognizes exceptional achievement and overall performance by a doctoral student awardees must be in good academic standing with a minimum cumulative and degree gpa of at least 375 as a recipient of the award gibbs will receive a commemorative memento and a one-time scholarship of $5 000 she is scheduled to be formally honored this november at the dwight look college of engineering student awards banquet gibbs who is advised by associate professor alvin yeh has maintained a 40 gpa while working in yehs tissue microscopy lab on a collaborative project with professor arne lekven of the department of biology her interdisciplinary research has focused on the application of ultrashort pulse laser technology to image embryonic brain development with the goal of understanding how genetic programs drive the morphological changes resulting in proper brain structure and function gibbs has six refereed journal articles with one under review one under revision and two more in preparation as well as two proceedings in addition she was selected as a teaching-as-research fellow by the texas a&m center for the integration of research teaching and learning applying for and gaining irb approval to study the effects of learning styles and nonlinguistic learning exercises in an introductory biology course gibbs also has served in leadership roles for several student organizations including president of alpha eta mu beta design chair for engineering world health outreach coordinator for spie and travel awards chair for the graduate student council for which she has received the anat almadani emerging leader lawrence guseman service and buck weirus spirit awards
443,the department of mechanical engineering hosted its fall 2014 industrial advisory council (iac) meeting on october 17th at the mechanical engineering office building at texas a&m university the meeting was attended by distinguished board members of the iac who are leaders in industry and government agencies and guide the department by providing a broad perspective on the changing requirements for engineering education and identifying new opportunities in research the iac helps the department to gain insight toward aligning its curriculum to be in pace with the latest industrial trends
444,"computer science and engineering student joanne bruno is the student engineers council executive secretary at texas a&m university the student engineers council (sec) is the representative body for all students in the dwight look college of engineering sec consists of more than 100 members its mission is to serve as the representative voice spread engineering awareness and foster the professional advancement of the college it hosts prospective student conferences the college student survey the first year engineering 111/112 departmental/industry presentations and the largest student-run career fair in the nation bruno was elected executive secretary for the 2014-2015 academic year her involvement with the organization began her freshman year at texas a&m she served as a team leader for secs prospective student conferences each semester (future a&m engineers and engineering expo) during that time she was able to establish departmental contacts and organize the departmental tours and booth at the fair for the students in attendance interested in learning more about the various engineering disciplines she was also actively involved in various areas throughout sec including marketing serving as a volunteer for the career fair assisting engr 111/112 presentations and participating in philanthropic events brunos primary responsibility as the sec executive secretary is to serve on the executive board as a basis for effective communication between all of the members of the council she uses her computer skills to constantly invigorate communication by integrating technology to their advantage her tasks include but are not limited to the meeting minutes and agendas the sec calendar and the by-laws this is an exciting time for the council as it is an active part of the 25 by 25 initiative i am grateful for the unique opportunity to work with the leaders of the college including dr katherine m banks (vice chancellor and dean of engineering) and the department heads "" bruno said ""sec has opened many doors for me in regards to professionalism and leadership"" students can become involved with the council in several ways students can become members join a professional society that is represented in the council or simply attend any of the student engineers council's various events throughout the school year the sec general council meetings which are held every monday evening at 8:15 pm are open to all engineering students individuals can attend these meetings to learn more about what the council does and voice their opinion about issues facing the college"
445,"professor john valasek in the department of aerospace engineering and assistant professor thomas ferris in the department of industrial and systems engineering have been awarded a two-year research project by the federal aviation administration's (faa) weather technology in the cockpit (wtic) program titled general aviation weather alerting the project is one of four under the wtic program that are being researched by member universities of the faa's center of excellence for general aviation called the partnership to enhance general aviation safety and sustainability (pegasas) the six university wtic team is led by valasek with four separate projects being conducted by team members texas a&m university purdue university the ohio state university western michigan university southern illinois university and kent state university valasek says that this is a classic problem of the role and proper use of technology general aviation (ga) is currently the least safe segment of aviation "" he said ""and while there are usually a number of causal factors which combine to cause most accidents weather is a significant causal factor many accidents and incidents that occur in weather are preventable ""despite the recent availability of low cost but high-performance hand-held devices with a near real-time weather data capability such as the myradar app for android and apple devices and the foreflight program for ipad the ga accident rate per 100 000 flight hours are either flat or trending upward within certain segments of the community in recent years ga pilots are taking these devices with them but are still getting into trouble so clearly the weather information is there but there is a problem with how pilots are interpreting it using it or not using it this issue is what the faa wants to get to the bottom of and fix what this means is refining and demonstrating resolutions to develop specification parameters for part 91 wtic minimum weather service (minwxsvc) that will hopefully reduce the accident rate due to weather the goal of the wtic general aviation weather alerting research project is to assess the feasibility of developing agile low latency and intuitive cockpit weather alerts to identify hazardous weather prior to encountering it the focus is on meteorological (met) information gaps and shortfalls that contribute to the safety risk that may be mitigated through the use of a more effective weather alerting functions the project will be executed in two 12-month phases in conjunction with researchers lori j brown geoff whitehurst and william g rantz at western michigan university a simulator study is being conducted during phase i this fall using the real-time engineering flight simulator in valaseks vehicle systems & control laboratory (vscl) in the aerospace engineering department the study will use a group of 50 ga pilot participants of varying skill levels and experience ranging from those who have just earned their private pilot license to those with thousands of flight hours the results of the phase i study will lead to a more extensive flight training device assessment in phase ii using low medium and high time pilots throughout 2015 at western michigan university human factors are the heart of this study according to ferris this project offers an exciting opportunity to apply human factors engineering design to make a real impact in the quality and timeliness of pilot decisions regarding navigation prior to encountering adverse weather conditions "" he said ""in addition to improving access to reliable and useful weather information the effective design of weather alerts and associated displays – which must capture attention appropriately and be accurately interpreted by pilots while they conduct several other concurrent tasks – is critical to aviation safety both in current flight operations and as we look ahead to nextgen air transportation systems"" ga pilots are being solicited as participants in the flight simulator study funded by the faa the study involves studying the decision-making processes of pilots and how mental workload affects those processes individuals are eligible to participate in this study if they are at least 18 years old and have a valid private pilots certificate and have flown in the last six months participants will fly two scenarios in the vscl flight simulator during which they will verbally enunciate their thought processes as they make flight-related decisions mental workload will be assessed through physiological measurement techniques (such as heart rate measures and galvanic skin response) as well as standard subjective workload surveys individuals who have questions or are interested in learning more about this research should contact dr thomas ferris at pilotstudytamu@gmailcom or 979-458-2340 *although the faa has sponsored this project it neither endorses nor rejects the findings of this research the presentation of this information is in the interest of invoking technical community comment on the results and conclusions of the research"
446,the dwight look college of engineering hosted 35 high school counselors at the inaugural high school counselors retreat and focus group on oct 9-10 dr sonia garcia senior director of access and inclusion in engineering academic and student affairs (easa) organized the retreat to better understand high school counselors perspectives of what can be done to increase the enrollment numbers of underrepresented minority students in the engineering program at texas a&m university the event was held in the engineering innovation center during the retreat counselors learned about the look colleges 25 by 25 initiative from dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and how the college of engineering is transforming engineering education the initiative aims to increase enrollment to 25 000 students by the year 2025 as enrollment increases the expectation is that the percentage of underrepresented minorities will continue to rise the counselors also learned about programs culture and the look colleges future plans to enable them to better advise their students they also met with faculty undergraduate advisors and administrators to development initiatives between high schools and the look college counselors were given information about the access and inclusion programs and initiatives retention initiatives and outreach programs the counselors were also given tours of the engineering departments and listened to current engineering students experiences counselors participated in a focus group in coordination with the college of education and human development to begin a conversation about how the high schools can collaborate with the look college and how the college can recruit underrepresented students counselors received a better understanding of how the look college plans to prepare the next generation of engineers and how a partnership between high schools and the college of engineering is critical due to the success of the retreat garcia plans to continue having the retreat on an annual basis with the goal of significantly expanding in size the retreat was also intended to build partnerships between the college of engineering and high schools throughout texas counselors who attended the retreat represented 24 of the engineering aggies gaining experience (engage) partner schools that already have a relationship with the college of engineering the engage program replaced the previous e 12 program in order to expand beyond 12 schools these schools were selected to participate in the engage program based on demographics tea performance ratings average sat scores and the number of students attending texas a&m the look college provides these high schools with information about opportunities in the engineering disciplines and encourages students to pursue engineering as a career after the retreat five additional schools joined the engage program these schools are porter high school john jay high school sam houston high school bowie high school and highlands high school
447,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr miroslav m begovic head of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university the appointment is effective jan 5 2015 begovic currently serves as professor and chair of the electrical energy technical interest group at georgia institute of technology and is an affiliated faculty member of the brooks byers institute for sustainable systems and the university of excellence on photovoltaic research begovic received his phd in electrical engineering from virginia polytechnic institute and state university and joined the faculty at georgia tech in 1989 begovics research interests lie in wide area monitoring protection and emergency control using smart grid apparatus; sustainable and resilient energy infrastructures; and managing large assets in energy infrastructure he has participated in several collaborative research projects for the national science foundation and the department of energy resulting in more than $10 million of funding in collaborative research over the last five years begovic is a member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) power and energy (pes) computer and circuits and systems societies in 2011 he was elected president of pes he is also a fellow of ieee an ieee pes distinguished lecturer and a member of sigma xi eta kappa nu phi kappa phi and tau beta pi begovic has published approximately 200 journal and conference papers and has presented nearly 100 keynote speeches invited talks and presentations
448,"the recent awarding of the noble prize in physics to a team of researchers for its invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes (led) brings to light the work of texas a&m university faculty member dr james r bob biard the royal swedish academy of sciences awarded the nobel prize to isamu akasaki from meijo university nagoya japan and nagoya university japan hiroshi amano of nagoya university japan and shuji nakamura of the university of california santa barbara california however long before their invention biard a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering created the infrared led while working at texas instruments (ti) we are proud that we have amongst us a colleague whose work is of the stature of a nobel prize said dr chanan singh interim department head in the electrical and computer engineering department in the fall of 1961 biard along with gary e pittman were working together in the semiconductor research and development laboratory (srdl) at ti creating gaas tunnel diodes and gaas varactor diodes used in x-band radar receivers while investigating the valley current region of a tunnel diode constructed on a zinc diffused area of gallium arsenide semi-insulating substrate they discovered a significant drop in resistance between the two ohmic side contacts when the diode was operated in forward bias the light emitted from the junction of the tunnel diodes which could be seen at the edges of the chip the varactor diodes had an etched mesa geometry and the light came out around the edge of the mesa the photons were infrared which cannot be seen by the human eye using an infrared image converter microscope recently brought in from japan they discovered all of the gaas varactor diodes and tunnel diodes they had manufactured at the time emitted light on aug 8th 1962 biard and pittman filed a patent based on their findings after establishing the priority of their work based on engineering notebooks predating submissions from ge labs rca research labs ibm research labs bell labs and lincoln labs at mit the us patent office issued the two inventors the first patent for the infrared led also known as the first modern day led after filing the patent ti immediately began a project to manufacture infrared diodes it announced the first commercial led product the snx-100 which sold for a price of $130 per unit in october 1962 not long after their invention nick holonyak jr developed the first visible-spectrum (red) led in december 1962 ""we received $1 and other considerations for our patent "" biard joked explaining that the amount they received was ti's policy whenever someone had received a patent while working there biard also received tis patrick e haggerty innovation award for his many other contributions ""of course it's not like i could have done that in my basement "" he added biard is most proud of the fact that his invention is still being used after more than 50 years in many devices such as remote controls automated card readers and video cameras for digital photography ""not many inventions have a long life he said ""the infrared led is virtually unchanged and is used all the time"" biard's invention led him to a long career in the field of opto-electronics in which he has excelled receiving 77 us and foreign patents which include the infrared led the schottky bipolar transistor logic and the mos rom in 1969 biard left ti to join spectronics inc when the company was founded as vice president of research while at spectronics biard worked on the development of optical couplers used in a data bus developed for airborne avionics systems he also worked on integrated circuits consisting of an led driver and pin diode receiver used for digital fiber optic communications spectronics inc was acquired by honeywell in 1978 from 1978 to 1987 biard worked as chief scientist of the honeywell optoelectronics division in richardson texas he started its microswitch ic & sensor design center and served as a member of the components group sensor planning team he also was the components group representative on the honeywell technology board (htb) which was concerned with the development and transfer of technology throughout the honeywell corporate structure biard's product development responsibilities included optoelectronic components (light emitting diodes and photodetectors) fiber optic components transmitter and receiver modules silicon hall effect sensors and pressure sensors after his time at honeywell biard retired in december 1998 only to be hired back as a consultant as a consultant he became part of a team developing vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (vcsels) he also was involved in the interface between the micro switch division the honeywell corporate r&d laboratory and universities biard is a life fellow of the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) he received the honeywell lund award in 1989 and has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus of texas a&m and has served at texas a&m as an adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering since 1985 in 1991 biard was inducted into the national academy of engineering despite his many accomplishments and the knowledge that his invention led to a nobel prize for these scientists biard remains humble ""i was in the right place at the right time "" he said ""i'm happy for them"""
449,nearly 200 students faculty and staff of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering assembled for a scholarship banquet the evening of friday oct 10 at the hilton college station & conference center c d holland scholarships were awarded to 26 students; j d lindsay scholarships were awarded to 69 students and 35 students received other endowed scholarships new endowments came from robert bacon 91 amy bacon 91 graham bacon 85 and margaret bacon 85 in the name of their father j d slaughter 96 jeff mcferrin 92 and rudy dismuke 78 also created new endowed scholarships the evening included a speech by dr m nazmul karim department head and t michael o'connor chair ii professor the keynote address was delivered by dr victor ugaz professor of chemical engineering and holder of the charles d holland '53 professorship
450,"a little rainy weather could not dampen the aggie spirits at the cse tailgate which preceded the texas a&m vs ole miss game this past saturday current and former students advisory council members faculty and staff all enjoyed barbecue and fellowship in spence park before the 2014 maroon out game at kyle field aggies who attended the game set the texas and sec record for game attendance as 110 633 fans came to watch the battle between no 3 ole miss and no 14 texas a&m this was my first tailgate event and college game "" said dr aakash tyagi professor of practice in the department ""both served as examples of the fervor that i always used to hear about for such events i had family visiting from louisiana and after sumptuous food at the tailgate and seeing the aggie pride and identity reflected in everything from the tailgate and the march-in they were converts before the game even began"""
451,"the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is on the start of a growth period as part of the dwight look college of engineering's 25 by 25 initiative as part of this plan we have added five tenure track faculty and two teaching-focused faculty including our first professor of practice we also introduce our first texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) fellow and two adjunct faculty members join us in welcoming: dr dilma m da silva as our new department head da silva is dedicated to making the computer science research community stronger and more diverse she says that she ""is excited about joining the cse community and contributing to its path towards greatness"" dr timothy alden davis a professor and world leader in algorithmic research for sparse matrix computations davis comes to us from the department of computer and information science and engineering at the university of florida dr aakash tyagi our first professor of practice tyagi retired from intel corporation to return to teaching which is a passion of his ""i want to bring this passion to texas a&m in the capacity of a professor of engineering practice and play a role in the formative years of our bright engineering professionals of tomorrow"" dr bruce gooch an associate professor in digital humanities gooch has a master's and doctoral degree in computer science from the university of utah he is well-known for motivating his graduate and undergraduate students many of whom are now employed with top companies and national labs dr jeff huang an assistant professor huang comes to texas a&m from the department of computer science at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign where he was a postdoctoral research associate working with dr grigore rosu huang is teaching courses in software engineering and is well-known as a guest lecturer in the subject dr ruihong huang who joins us as an assistant professor in fall 2015 huang completed her doctoral degree in computer science at the university of utah under the guidance of her adviser dr ellen riloff and is spending this year as a postdoc with dr dan jurafsky at stanford she is looking forward to teaching courses close to her research such as natural language processing and computational linguistics dr j michael moore '07 lecturer moore received his doctoral degree in computer science from our department he is teaching undergraduate courses in intermediate programming and design discrete structures for computing and design and analysis of algorithms dr jack dongarra our first tias faculty fellow dongarra is the university distinguished professor of computer science in the computer science department at the university of tennessee and the director of the innovative computing laboratory which coordinates and facilitates it research efforts at the university dr gabriel (gabby) silberman an adjunct professor and executive director of technology strategy and university alliances in dell research silberman said that he intends ""to collaborate with my dell colleagues in recruiting texas a&m students and sponsoring capstone and other projects as appropriate and subject to budget availability"" dr amy gooch now an adjunct assistant professor in cse gooch is a research scientist with the scientific computing and imaging institute at the university of utah she is looking forward to becoming more involved with our department through collaborations with faculty and participation in the aggie women in computer science organization dr catherine c marshall adjunct professor and recently a principal researcher at microsoft research in silicon valley said that this appointment will allow her to collaborate with cse faculty on research and writing funding proposals with the aim of being a co-principal investigator on grants her research interests are in the curation organization and analysis of digital information"
452,dr sheng-jen (tony) hsieh professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) at texas a&m university served as manufacturing division program chair for the 2014 american society of engineering education (asee) conference in indianapolis in this role he received 56 abstracts recruited dozens of reviewers coordinated the paper review process scheduled presentations for the 28 accepted papers and planned the division banquet he also wrote a successful proposal to fund the divisions first junior faculty travel support award hsieh also led two national science foundation (nsf) sponsored summer programs one for undergraduate students and one for teachers the research experiences for undergraduates (reu) program focused on mechatronics robotics and automated system design the objectives were to help participants understand the research process acquire laboratory skills and be well positioned for graduate school and career success program activities included joining a research group led by a faculty mentor completion of a 10-week research project and participation in weekly faculty seminars field trips and career development workshops undergraduate students from 10 different institutions participated faculty mentors included hsieh dr rainier fink and dr jyhwen wang both from etid; dr dezhen song from computer science and engineering; dr jun zou from electrical and computer engineering; and dr aaron ames from mechanical engineering at the end of the program the students participated in the annual reu poster session sponsored by the universitys honors and undergraduate research office
453,"the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university recently recognized the 2014 recipients of the departments distinguished graduate award the award was established to recognize and honor former students who have excelled in the civil engineering profession highlighting their significant contributions and achievements this years recipients were john barton 86 gene birdwell 59 jimmie bratton 63 and paul redmon 76 barton currently serves as the deputy executive director for the texas department of transportation (txdot) barton who has worked for txdot since graduation has been in various txdot offices across the state managing numerous projects birdwell is founder and ceo of gr birdwell construction in houston birdwell has over 52 years of experience in the construction field including service in the military prior to opening his company bratton is chairman emeritus of applied research associates (ara) of new mexico bratton co-founded ara after serving in the air force weapons laboratory redmon co-founded mustang engineering where he served as president ceo and chairman for 20 years redmon began working in the oil and gas industry for an offshore engineering firm upon graduation the department also presented the distinguished graduate legacy award to the family of hb pat zachry class of 1922 the award was created to honor remarkable individuals whose life-long contributions and service have had immeasurable influence on the civil engineering profession society and the department zachry founded his own company in 1924 and grew it into a multi-million dollar worldwide construction operation he left a legacy of professional excellence dedication to texas a&m and higher education an ethic of giving back and a lineage of leaders there have been so many graduates from the civil engineering program that have achieved impressive professional success and demonstrated outstanding service "" said dr robin autenrieth head of the department ""selecting a few individuals each year to honor as distinguished graduates is challenging but the five recognized this year are stellar role models for our current students"" david zachry '85 robin autenrieth and bartell zachry '54 pictured above"
454,the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) recently hosted a delegation of students and faculty from the tokyo institute of technology (tokyo tech) the visit was the second academic exchange held at texas a&m university between students from texas a&m and the dojo nuclear security education program at tokyo tech who are studying nuclear nonproliferation and security issues texas a&m students have previously attended two international symposia on nuclear safety security and safeguards conducted by tokyo tech in japan the visit consisted of a series of student presentations on relevant research projects being conducted at both institutions students also toured laboratory facilities at texas a&m including the fuel cycle and materials laboratory the nsspi nuclear security and emergency response laboratory the department of nuclear engineering's undergraduate teaching laboratories and the nuclear science center in a repeated activity from the last exchange tokyo tech faculty and students participated in a radiological event exercise at the teex disaster city facility under the guidance of nsspi faculty member dr craig marianno in this exercise a 30 mille-curie size cs-137 source was placed on rubble pile 1 (rp1) a pile of concrete and rebar containing a series of interior tunnels that is part of the disaster city training compound using health physics instrumentation the students had to map out the radiation field and determine the best entry point into the pile the source was then placed inside the tunnel network of rp1 the students had to determine the safest tunnels to use in the pile to locate an area of low but elevated activity once in this area students used radio-isotopic identifiers (riids) to locate and identify a set of hidden sources the exercise exhibited the actions a similarly-equipped emergency response team must achieve in order to safely address such a radiological event tokyo tech faculty discussed future research and academic activities with faculty and staff from nsspi and faculty in the department of nuclear engineering they discussed the possibility for joint research projects and hosting future tokyo tech doctoral students at texas a&m during their required 12 month-long internships
455,todd landsman graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has earned top honors at the 2014 biointerface conference for his research poster detailing a new type of wound dressings for trauma situations landsman who worked with associate professor elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez and professor duncan maitland on the project won first place for his poster antibacterial shape memory polymer-hydrogel composite wound dressing the composite wound dressing detailed in landsmans poster combines the biocompatibility volume filling and hemostatic properties of shape memory polymer foams with the swellability biocompatibility and tunable properties of hydrogels the use of this composite landsman says results in rapid hemostasis prevention of bacterial infection and rapid application the dressing he says is designed for use in military and civilian trauma situations the biointerface symposium has been presented annually by the surfaces in biomaterials foundation since 1991 and brings together engineers scientists clinicians and regulatory experts from all aspects of the biomedical community to openly discuss and debate recent innovations and research topics the surfaces in biomaterials foundation is dedicated to exploring creative solutions to technical challenges at the biointerface by fostering education and multidisciplinary cooperation among industrial academic clinical and regulatory communities
456,texas a&m universitys harold vance department of petroleum engineering held a ribbon cutting ceremony tuesday october 7 for the newly established chaparral-fischer co2 enhanced oil recovery center the lab was established with a $175 million donation from chaparral energy and susu and mark fischer (72) to the texas a&m foundation fischer is chief executive officer and chairman of the board of chaparral energy in oklahoma city oklahoma chaparral energy is the third-largest operator in the united states for co2 enhanced oil recovery based on the number of active projects the chaparral-fischer co2 enhanced oil recovery center overseen by principal investigator dr david schechter associate professor and aghorn energy career development professor will be used to study and improve the use of carbon dioxide as an enhanced oil recovery agent in both conventional and unconventional reservoirs injecting carbon dioxide into an oil reservoir frees up trapped oil by lowering its viscosity to improve flow rate enhancing and extending the production life of an oilfield most of the carbon dioxide used for injection occurs naturally but some energy companies such as chaparral energy are using manmade carbon dioxide captured from emissions produced by industrial plants in various industries rather than being released into the atmosphere the carbon dioxide is captured and then routed via pipeline to oilfields and then injected into oil producing reservoirs the donation from chaparral and the fischers will also support several graduate students in petroleum engineering who will be helping researchers investigate the potential to increase oil recovery and the identification of the recovery mechanisms and their impact in unconventional reservoirs in conventional reservoirs researchers will focus on understanding the sweep efficiency issues related to co2 flooding in heterogeneous and fractured rocks they also will look into continuous co2 injection water-alternating-gas (wag) chemically aided wag direct co2 thickening and the use of nanoparticles we are honored to help cultivate the next generation of industry leaders with support of the chaparral-fischer co2 lab at texas a&m university said fischer it is this continuous pursuit for improvement that not only propels chaparral but our industry as a whole by providing tools and resources such as this we hope to fuel innovation for decades to come we deeply appreciate the generosity of this gift from chaparral and the fischers said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering by forming partnerships with industry leaders such as chaparral we are able to enhance our students educational experiences by giving them opportunities to work on real-world engineering challenges here at texas a&m the fischers have been longtime supporters of both academics and athletics at texas a&m and recently contributed $12 million to the construction of the universitys engineering education complex in support of texas a&m engineerings 25 by 25 initiative
457,"dr xiaoning qian assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded a grant from the usda entitled ""molecular and biochemical mechanisms of oxidized lipids signaling in regulating drought tolerance in maize"" in the project qian who also is a member of the newly formed center for bioinformatics and genomic systems engineering (cbgse) will collaborate with dr michael v kolomiets (pi) from texas a&m agrilife research to help develop analysis pipelines for next generation sequencing data to understand the changes in plants under biological (biotic) and non-biological (abiotic) stresses for example drought and insects focusing on a set of lipoxygenase genes responsible for oxylipin biosynthesis he is developing computational algorithms to arrive at early signal transduction network models facilitating the understanding of the molecular mechanisms employed by the plant to activate drought stress responses and the induced systemic resistance (isr) to forge collaborations between the colleges of engineering and agriculture & life sciences earlier this year agrilife research awarded a number of seed grants centered around the theme of plant water use kolomiets' and qian's grant from usda is the first external grant that has resulted from this seed funding the related work has also been featured in sciencedaily qian received his bachelor's and master's degrees from shanghai jiao-tong university china and his phd in electrical engineering from yale university in 2005 before joining texas a&m he spent four years as an assistant professor at the university of south florida his current research interests include computational network biology genomic signal processing and biomedical image analysis some of his research efforts at texas a&m have been recently funded by an nsf eager grant and a grant from the los alamos national laboratory he recently co-organized the international workshop on computational network biology: modeling analysis and control (cnb-mac) he has been serving on the editorial boards for several journals and in the organizing and technical program committees for several international conferences"
458,professor p r kumar of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is featured in an interview on the national science foundations (nsf) website kumar holder of the college of engineering chair in computer engineering and a university distinguished professor lectured at the national science foundation about the challenges of cyber-physical systems (cps) or systems in which physical processes are tightly intertwined with networked computing kumar has worked on problems in game theory adaptive control stochastic systems simulated annealing neural networks machine learning queueing networks manufacturing systems scheduling wafer fabrication plants and information theory his research is currently focused on energy systems wireless networks secure networking automated transportation and cyberphysical systems kumar received the donald p eckman award of the american automatic control council the fred w ellersick prize of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) communications society the ieee field award for control systems and the association for computing machinery (acm) sigmobile outstanding contribution award kumar is a fellow of ieee and acm a member of the national academy of engineering usa and a fellow of the world academy of sciences he was awarded an honorary doctorate by eth zurich he received the distinguished alumnus award from iit madras the alumni achievement award from washington university in st louis and the daniel c drucker eminent faculty award from the college of engineering university of illinois he was a guest chair professor and leader of the guest chair professor group on wireless communication and networking at tsinghua university beijing is an honorary professor at iit hyderabad and a dj gandhi distinguished visiting professor of iit bombay
459,"the board of directors of the electronic components industry association (ecia) has selected dr f barry lawrence of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution to receive the ecia distinguished service award this award is presented annually by the association to those individuals who have made significant contributions to the leadership and activities of the electronic components industry and the association dr lawrences tireless contributions as an educator and researcher in the field of industrial distribution as well as being a strong advocate for neda ecia and the electronics industry have made a significant difference in the progress and success of ecas programs and has left a valuable legacy to the industry and ecia "" said robin b gray jr chief operating officer and general counsel of ecia ""without his participation and support the association would not have achieved its acceptance and success lawrences contributions will be recognized during the annual ecia awards ceremony held in conjunction with the executive conference in chicago on oct 28 lawrence is the leonard & valerie bruce chair professor in industrial distribution program coordinator of industrial distribution director of thomas & joan read center for distribution research & education and director of the global supply chain laboratory his research and education in the field of distribution has resulted in the publication of six books he is a frequent speaker at industry association conferences"
460,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr ying li as the pioneer natural resources faculty fellow iii in mechanical engineering the faculty fellowship appointment was effective oct 1 li is an associate professor in mechanical engineering at texas a&m university he received his phd in environmental engineering sciences from the university of florida in 2007 lis research interests include nanomaterials solar energy conversion catalysis and photocatalysis carbon dioxide capture and utilization energy storage rechargeable battery water treatment and purification air pollution control and aerosol science and technology
461,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr matthew a kuttolamadom as the corrie and jim furber 64 faculty fellow in engineering technology and industrial distribution the faculty fellowship appointment was effective oct 1 kuttolamadom is an assistant professor in the engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university he received his phd in materials science and engineering from clemson university-international center for automotive research he received his masters degree in mechanical engineering from the university of detroit mercy and his bachelors degree in mechanical (automobile) engineering from the university of kerala kuttolamadoms research interests include materials manufacturing surface metrology tribology/modeling and machining/titanium alloys
462,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr jorge alvarado as the charlotte and walter buchanan faculty fellow in engineering technology and industrial distribution the faculty fellowship appointment was effective oct 1 alvarado is an associate professor in engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university he received his phd and masters degree both in mechanical engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign and his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the university of puerto rico at mayaguez alvarados research interests include experimental and computational convective heat transfer electronic cooling energy management and conservation in buildings renewable energy alternative fuels and mechanical and thermal analysis of amorphous metallic alloys
463,"dr tim davis professor of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university developed suitesparse a software package that supports gpu-based cuda acceleration suitesparse was recently added to a very short list of software libraries maintained by nvidia suitesparse is a suite of sparse matric algorithms ""the large matrices that arise in real-world problems in science engineering and mathematics tend to be mostly zero or sparse "" said davis ""sparse matrix algorithms lie in the intersection of graph theory and numerical linear algebra a graph represents the connections between variables in the mathematical model such as the voltage across a circuit component a link from one web page to another the physical forces between two points in a mechanical structure and so on depending on the problem at hand"" ""my research spans the spectrum of theory algorithms and software development in the area of sparse matrix and graph algorithms i'm not just interested in creating new methods and software prototypes to demonstrate those methods i pursue the code further to produce better-than-commercial-quality software that embodies these new methods nine of my codes appear as collected algorithms of the acm where they undergo rigorous peer-review testing for their research contributions and software quality"" before joining the faculty in the department of computer science and engineering this fall davis was a professor at the university of florida he received his doctoral degree from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 1989 and worked as a postdoc at cerfacs in toulouse france davis is a member of parasol lab at texas a&m and was recently elected as a fellow of the society of industrial and applied mathematics (siam) ""for contributions to sparse matrix algorithms and software including the university of florida sparse matrix collection"" he is an associate editor of the acm transactions on mathematical software and the siam journal on scientific computing"
464,three faculty members from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university are part of a team working on a national science foundation (nsf) funded project researching asynchronous pde algorithms for turbulent flows at exascale dr diego donzis assistant professor in aerospace engineering is the principal investigator while dr raktim bhattacharya associate professor and dr sharath girimaji professor both from the department of aerospace engineering and dr nancy amato unocal professor and dr lawrence rauchwerger professor both from the department of computer science and engineering are co-principal investigators future exascale computing systems will be available to study important compute-intensive applications such as multi-physics multi-scale natural phenomena and engineering systems typically modeled accurately by partial differential equations (pdes) a prime example is turbulence at high reynolds numbers typically found in natural and engineering systems which comprise an extremely wide range of spatial and temporal scales and has thus became a grand challenge in scientific computing however many challenges exist that must be overcome before exascale systems can be utilized effectively these include communication between processing elements as well as global synchronizations both of which will likely be a main bottleneck when millions of billions of processing elements are utilized in a simulation in this project the team will develop novel exascale numerical schemes for pdes especially those describing turbulent flows that exploit asynchrony from the mathematical to the software level these will be based on widely used finite differences compact differentiation and spectral schemes asynchrony offers better performance but also introduces errors in the solution the teams schemes will be able to trade off accuracy and performance in a quantitative and predictable manner a feature thought to be critical at exascale their approach includes rigorous mathematical studies of stability and accuracy which will also provide a framework for the development of new schemes and quantify its uncertainty as well as the development of specific elements in a scalable library for parallel computing to enable portable implementations on current and future machines the tools techniques and simulation data in this project will be integrated in the principal investigators educational efforts through graduate mentoring undergraduate research and as material for courses they teach in high-performance computing fluid dynamics and dynamical systems
465,on sept 27 almost 250 computer science and engineering students faculty staff and families gathered at bachmann (southwood) pavilion to enjoy a highly successful evening of fun food and friends the annual cse fall picnic provides a fun laid-back environment for fellowship between cse faculty and students the cse department provided catered j codys dinner and dessert in addition to activities for all ages children played on a bouncy house and playground while the cse students enjoyed a little friendly competition with volleyball frisbee and board games each year the cse fall picnic hosts door prize drawings for a variety of prizes and every attending student and faculty member receives a ticket additional door prize tickets were available for purchase to raise money for phoebes home in bryan a twin city missions dvs program that provides emergency shelter and aid to victims of domestic violence the csegsa leads this successful fundraiser raising $162 to aid phoebes home in helping the victims of domestic violence csegsa president jory deny shared his thoughts about the picnic: the picnic was a huge success the turn out from professors and graduate students was beyond my expectation i think everyone had fun playing sports conversing and having a nice meal from j cody's we are pleased with the success of the 2014 cse fall picnic and we are looking forward to another enjoyable picnic next year
466,vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2015 willis e lamb award for laser science and quantum optics for his work on random lasers the lamb award is presented annually for outstanding contributions to the field and is sponsored by the physics of quantum electronics (pqe) yakovlev who joined texas a&m in 2012 has made many significant contributions to the field of optical instrumentation for biomedical sensing and imaging including advancing the technology of ultrasfast solid-state lasers making it an indispensable tool for multiphoton microscopy imaging and sensing yakovlev holds the rank of fellow in the optical society of america the american institute of medical and biological engineering and the international society for optics and photonics he has published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals given 50 invited public presentations and more than 100 presentations at different conferences he also has edited one book on the biochemical applications of nonlinear optical spectroscopy and contributed to several books as co-author yakovlev received his masters degree in physics and phd in quantum electronics from moscow state university named for willis e lamb jr famous laser scientist and 1955 winner of the nobel prize in physics the lamb award is presented at the pqe winter colloquium in snowbird utah the conference now in its 45th year attracts researchers in laser physics and quantum electronics from around the globe -30-
467,[from left: stacy cereceres romina del bosque david chimene and adam orendain have each been named recipient of the texas a&m university system lsamp fellowship] four graduate students in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded fellowships by the texas a&m university system louis stokes alliance for minority participation (tamus lsamp) stacy cereceres david chimene romina del bosque and adam orendain each have been named recipients of the bridge to the doctorate fellowship which entitles them to receive financial assistance for the first two years of their studies the annual amount of each fellowship includes a $30 000 stipend and a $9 000 allowance for tuition and fees research supplies educational travel health insurance and other fees as recipients of the fellowship which is funded by the national science foundation these students have been identified as having the potential to significantly impact their respective academic and research fields in addition they have been recognized as potential leaders and role models who will inspire and help mold the academic and career paths of their undergraduate and graduate student peers cereceres who is advised by associate professor elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez is conducting research that focuses on fabricating bioactive hydrogel microspheres for use in chronic wound dressings to promote active wound healing chimene is advised by assistant professor akhilesh gaharwar and is researching the use of hydrogel nanocomposites for musculoskeletal tissue engineering applications del bosque is advised by associate professor mary mcdougall and her research interests focus on radiofrequency coils for imaging and spectroscopy orendain is advised by professor duncan maitland and is conducting medical device design for treating abdominal aortic aneurysms in addition to pursuing their respective degrees these student standouts as part of the program are required to attend the nsf joint annual meeting each summer during the course of their fellowships where they will have the opportunity to network with peer fellowship holders from other lsamp programs around the country as well as with the academic and research leaders among the nsf lsamp principal investigators and project directors they also must attend and present research at the annual tamus lsamp symposium where they will have the opportunity to meet and form relationships with graduate and undergraduate lsamp students and faculty across the texas a&m university system tamus lsamp is a partnership composed of texas a&m university; texas a&m university corpus christi; and prairie view a&m university committed to increasing the number of underrepresented students participating in the science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) fields the program offers a research program for promising undergraduate students in stem fields and the bridge to the doctorate program for incoming masters degree students interested in pursuing doctoral degrees in stem fields and ultimately entering the ranks of the faculty originally named the alliance for minority participation the program was renamed the louis stokes alliance for minority participation in 1999 in honor of us rep louis stokes cofounder of the congressional black caucus
468,yakima the world needs nuclear power thats what alan waltar a nuclear engineer with decades of experience at hanford and pacific northwest national laboratory told the yakima rotary club on thursday despite safety fears raised by 2011s post-tsunami meltdown in fukushima japan and the ongoing debate about how and where to safely store waste waltar believes that nuclear power is the clean way to meet the planets growing energy needs fukushima was nuclear powers finest hour waltar said echoing winston churchills famous speech about britain not giving up during world war two there was a 90-magnitude earthquake and the reactor survived everything worked as engineered a 45-foot-high wall of water knocked out the diesel generator responsible for backup power to cool the reactors causing three of the plants six reactors to melt down but most importantly no one died waltar said people were evacuated and the world health organization found that as a result no one was exposed to radiation levels high enough to increase future cancer risks he said the incident shows how safe nuclear power can be if a disaster of that scale can be managed without loss of life waltar said the earthquake and tsunami on the other hand killed almost 16 000 people waltar 72 is the past president of the american nuclear society he taught nuclear engineering and was the head of the nuclear engineering department at texas a&m university and served as director of nuclear energy at pnnl he specializes in fast-breeder reactors a nuclear process that creates more energy by reusing fuel not typically used in american power plants hes written four books and currently serves as a consultant to a variety of government and industry nuclear organizations around the world in the fukushima aftermath fears about radiation and nuclear safety caused japan to shutter its 55 plants that decision was damaging to the countrys economy waltar said because replacing that cheap electricity has been expensive the government plans to restart the plants with new safety regulations this year or next but public concern over safety remains high germany is also trying to move away from nuclear power but waltar said the move is costing them too germany pays 10 times more for their electricity than i do waltar said they are heading for a cliff pricing themselves out of business not that building a new nuclear power plant is cheap upfront a 1 000- megawatt plant enough to power about 800 000 homes costs about $5 billion thats a big investment for a utility company to make especially in todays cheap natural gas market but five plants are being constructed in the southeast the first in decades most nuclear plant construction around the world is in china and india i never thought id live to see the day that we are building new plants but we are waltar said once built nuclear power plants are cheap to run and the fuel supply is expansive he said waltar believes that new technologies for reprocessing and using the waste will reduce concerns about long-term storage liability but nuclear reactors of the future might not look like the plants built 40 years ago theres growing interest in small nuclear reactors that could be built in factories and assembled on site and bring costs down engineers from around the world are developing different versions of these small reactors which could be used individually or in a fleet similar to a wind farm the smaller reactors are easier to cool because of their size and safe because each unit is self-contained waltar said but questions remain about costs and licensing hes optimistic about the renewed research and believes that policies aimed at reducing emissions from fossil fuel use could give utilities more incentive to invest in nuclear again the problem with relying on renewable sources such as wind and solar is that they are intermittent only producing when the sun shines and the wind blows utilities meanwhile need a consistent level of power production to keep everyones lights on for many utilities that power base comes from coal natural gas or nuclear many of our coal plants need to be replaced the small modular reactors are ideally suited to do that waltar said around the world the demand for cheap clean energy is only going to grow he said and he hopes the us can regain the lead it once had in developing cutting-edge energy technology the global nuclear renaissance is real waltar said the question is do we have the courage to push ahead and be leaders again
469,i yucel akkultu associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university will be receiving the aime rossiter w raymond memorial award at the society of petroleum engineers annual banquet on oct 28 in amsterdam this award from the american institute of mining metallurgical and petroleum engineers (aime) recognizes the authors of the best paper in an aime constituent society journal having the lead author under the age of 35 akkultu and his co-author are being recognized for the paper multiscale gas transport in shales with local kerogen heterogeneities department head dan hill said we are very proud of professor akkutlu for receiving the rossiter raymond award unlike most professional society awards this award is given to recognize a specific technical achievement - - the publication of the best technical paper in the aime literature having a lead author under the age of 35 notably because aime has four constituent societies an spe member receives this award only once every four years yucels selection for this award makes him the facultys third recipient joining previous winners professors akhil datta-gupta and john killough congratulations dr akkutlu for this outstanding achievement! akkutlu joined the faculty at texas a&m in january 2013 and currently serves as the graduate advisor for the department he holds a phd in petroleum engineering from the university of southern california he has been participating in industry-led research projects on the development of new laboratory measurement techniques and protocols in quantifying fluid storage and transport processes in organic-rich resource shales coupled with geomechanics his current research is on fluid thermodynamics and capillarity in nano-porous materials and on the scaling-up and simulation of transport processes in multi-scale pore structures he is executive editor of the spe journal and serves the natural sciences and engineering research council of canada (nserc) reviewing proposals related to upstream petroleum research he received the 2012 spe a-peer-apart honorary award and spe outstanding service award 2008-2010 akkutlu will be joining four other faculty members from the petroleum engineering department who are receiving spe international awards at the spe banquet
470,ten texas a&m university computer science and engineering students who are also part of tamuhack made their mark last month while participating in the geauxhack and pennapps x: health events tamuhack is a new student run organization in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university that attends and hosts hackathons the co-founders of the organization are robert timm eleni mijalis christopher nolan and rafa moreno and dr tracy hammond is their faculty advisor tamuhack is a way for students to learn more about hackathons across the country and to get practical programming experience while formal computer science classes provide a basis for programming tamuhack provides students with opportunities to turn their innovative ideas into realities geauxhack was louisiana state universitys first hackathon and was made possible by a group of undergraduate students who banded together to plan the successful event after realizing there was no similar experiences available in the area the 24-hour creative coding marathon was held on august 30 and 31 on the lsu campus the aggie team that attended geauxhack was karrie cheng christopher findeisen devan huapaya eleni mijalis rafa moreno and santos solorzano since this was a major league hacking hackathon we had the option to work with a lot of interesting technologies like the leap motion and the pebble watch said cheng overall i had a great experience with great people i also learned a lot about the leap motion and got to see mike the tiger as a team we won $500 leap motions and a venue 8 tablet which was also pretty exciting pennapps is a prestigious student-run hackathon held at the university of pennsylvania the first medical school established in the united states it is the most established and longest running college hackathon in the country this year is the 10th anniversary of the successful event and four cse students won first place the winning team consisted of aggies robert timm vice president of tamuhack eleni mijalis and chris nolan along with laura vaughan a junior at the university of waterloo the team won $2 000 collectively hackathons are major events in the computer science and engineering world and for our aggie students to do so well speaks volumes of our program and of the hard work each of these individuals put forth tamuhack is hosting a 24-hour engineering challenge oct 24-25 where designers software developers and hardware engineers create something new and different
471,"dr dylan shell assistant professor of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was a co-organizer of ""the future of multiple robot research and its multiple identities"" the workshop was held at the 2014 ieee/rsj international conference on intelligent robots and systems (iros) in chicago shell and his co-organizers lorenzo sabattini from the university of modena and reggio emilia in italy antonio franchi from the centre national de la recherche scientifique in france and nora ayanian from the university of southern california invited world-renown robotics researchers to give presentations multi-robot research topics under discussion covered agricultural applications underwater floating manipulation systems teams of humans and robots and common characteristics of multi-robot systems taking part in the presentations and discussions were rachid alami from france georgia tech's magnus egerstedt northwestern university's randy freeman vijay kumar from the university of pennsylvania mit's jonathan p how ani hsieh from drexel university volkan isler from the university of minnesota anibal ollero from the university of seville in spain university of tennessee's lynne parker mac schwager from boston university and kosuke sekiyama from nagoya university in japan shell received his doctoral degree in computer science from the university of southern california in 2008 he worked as a postdoctoral research associate at usc before joining the faculty of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m shell is a 2013 recipient of the prestigious montague-cte scholar grant his research interests include distributed ai biologically-inspired multi-robot systems coordinated system analysis of multi-agent systems and crowd modeling the computer science and engineering department was well represented at iros 2014 other conference participants were dr dezhen song associate professor and director of the netbot lab at texas a&m and dr nancy m amato unocal professor osis director and co-director of the parasol lab at texas a&m both professors' phd students joseph lee (netbot lab) and troy mcmahon (parasol lab) presented papers during the event additionally amato and dr robin m murphy raytheon professor and director of the tees center for robot-assisted search and rescue at texas a&m gave session keynote talks"
472,john e richardson and his wife susan created the susan d and john e richardson 71 scholarship for junior or senior level students in the department of aerospace engineering the scholarship established through the texas a&m foundation will benefit students who are either a member of the corps of cadets a us military veteran or a child of a veteran per the request of the richardsons the couple resides in bellville texas where john richardson serves as the chief executive officer for j&s water wells they have three children all of which have received degrees from texas a&m
473,dr tracy anne hammond associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering was one of four speakers at evolution of the warfighter technology version an event designed to showcase the relationship between government funded research and general innovations about 150 congressional staff members were at the event that was held in washington dc hammond who is the director of the sketch recognition lab presented on her work on haptimoto a solution that allows warfighters to receive navigational direction information solely through vibration feedback funding from ida and darpa supports hammonds work rigorous testing has shown that both warfighters and civilians using the haptigo or haptimoto navigational vest have higher situational awareness and get to their location more quickly and more directly than those using audio (headphone) visual (smartphone watch or paper map) or even memorized solutions with congress facing continuing issues related to funding of the nations armed services a coalition of business science and university organizations presented a unique demonstration to staffers about past successes in military research and the potential for the future while many policymakers are aware that federally funded research has been essential to the creation of thousands of companies industries products and jobs many are not aware of the military innovations over many decades that similarly would not have been possible without federally funded basic research much of it supported by the department of defense among the innovations that help protect warfighters and improve their capabilities are: gas masks radar body armor and improved medical techniques an example is the epipen which sprung from similar devices designed to protect soldiers from nerve agents and chemical weapons through various conflicts the task force on american innovation with the help of warfighters dressed in combat uniforms from the world war one era to the modern era showed the amazing technologies that would not have been possible without research
474,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr luis san andres holder of the mast-childs chair in mechanical engineering the endowed appointment is effective oct 1 san andres is a professor in mechanical engineering he received his phd in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university in 1985 he also earned masters and bachelors degrees both in mechanical engineering from the university of pittsburgh and escuela politécnica nacional ecuador respectively san andres research interests include analysis design and testing of fluid film bearings and gas bearings and seals for oil-free turbomachinery rotordynamics of turbomachinery structural vibrations and computational mechanics
475,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr rodney bowersox holder of the ford motor company design professorship i in engineering the endowed professorship is effective oct 1 bowersox is the head of the department of aerospace engineering and is director of the texas a&m university national aerothermochemistry laboratory he earned his phd masters and bachelors degrees all from virginia polytechnic institute and state university bowersoxs research interests include gasdynamics aerothermochemistry high-speed aerodynamics hypersonics unsteady aerodynamics aero-propulsion turbulence modeling numerical situations instrumentation development and wind tunnel design
476,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr victor ugaz holder of the charles d holland 53 professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering the endowed professorship is effective oct 1 ugaz is a professor in chemical engineering and is also the director of the undergraduate program in the department he received his phd from northwestern university and masters and bachelors degrees from the university of texas at austin ugazs research focuses on harnessing the unique characteristics of transport and flow at the microscale to enable new chemical and biochemical analysis technologies his specific areas of interest include learning how to control transport of charged biomolecules (dna proteins) in micro- and nano-scale surroundings to achieve faster and more efficient separations; harnessing microscale convective flow fields to execute thermally driven biochemical reactions such as polymerase chain reaction in a faster and more efficient manner; designing novel geometries to mix chemical species in microchannels by exploiting secondary flow phenomena; developing new techniques that help understand how to manipulate and tailor the bulk properties of hydrogels by controlling their nanoporous morphology; and constructing 3d vascular networks for biomedical applications using novel manufacturing methods
477,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr dilma da silva holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii in engineering the endowed professorship is effective oct 1 da silva is the head of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university she received her phd in computer science from georgia tech in 1997 da silva has published more than 80 technical papers and has filed 11 patents she has chaired 24 conferences/workshop committees participated in several prestigious journal editorial boards and has been a program committee member in more than 80 scientific conferences or workshops and more than 30 thesis committees she is an association for computing machinery (acm) distinguished scientist an acm distinguished speaker and member of the board of computer research associations committee on the status of women in computing research and of the coalition for diversifying computing da silva is the co-founder of the latinas in computing group and treasure/secretary from acm special interest group on operating systems
478,dr nancy m amato unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering and senior director of honors programs in the dwight look college of engineering has taken on two important leadership roles with the computing research association (cra) in july amato began a three-year term as an elected member of the cra board of directors the board manages all cra business and includes 33 distinguished leaders in computing research from academia and industry 24 of whom are elected by the cra membership and nine who are appointed to represent the major computing professional societies including aaai acm ieee-cs siam and usenix in september amato began a three-year term as co-chair of cra-w cra's committee on the status of women in computing research cra-w is an action oriented organization dedicated to increasing the number of women participating in computer science and engineering research and education at all levels each of the 25 cra-w board members directs or co-directs a project amato has been a member of the cra-w board since 2000 serving as the director (2000-2003) or co-director (2003-present) of cra-w/cdc's dreu (distributed research experiences for undergraduates) program the highly selective dreu program matches promising undergraduate women and undergraduate men from under-represented groups in computing with faculty mentors for a summer research experience at the faculty member's institution since 1994 roughly 800 undergraduates from 300 institutions and mentors from 100 host research universities have participated in dreu amato's tenure with dreu oversaw a large scale-up in the program with applications increasing ten-fold (from about 50 in the year 2000 to more than 450 in 2014) and participation increasing more than three-fold (from about 20 per year to 60-70 per year) a study conducted in 2011 showed that 39 percent of the dreu participants attended graduate school in computing as compared to 22 percent of undergraduates who instead had a comparable but some other undergraduate research experience amato's work with dreu in particular led to her being awarded the 2014 cra a nico habermann award that is presented to someone who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or success of under-represented groups in the computing research community amato co-directs the department of computer science's parasol lab and her main areas of research focus are motion planning and robotics computational biology and geometry and parallel and distributed computing she received undergraduate degrees in mathematical sciences and economics from stanford university and master's and phd degrees in computer science from the university of california berkeley and the university of illinois at urbana-champaign respectively the honors amato has received in recognition of her excellence in research and service include the 2014 cra a nico habermann award the inaugural 2014 ncwit harrold and notkin research and graduate mentoring award the 2013 ieee hewlett-packard/harriett b rigas award and an nsf career award she is a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and of the world technology network (wtn) cra is an association of more than 200 north american academic departments of computer science computer engineering and related fields industrial and government research laboratories and affiliated professional societies cra's mission is to enhance innovation by joining with industry government and academia to strengthen research and advanced education in computing cra executes this mission by leading the computing research community informing policymakers and the public and facilitating the development of strong diverse talent in the field
479,"the center for exascale radiation transport (cert) at texas a&m university is one of six centers of excellence funded by the national nuclear security administration (nnsa) under the predictive science academic alliance program (psaap-ii) cert led by texas a&m with participation from the university of colorado will be funded at $10 million over a period of five years ""our college of engineering continues to innovate and improve on its status as one of the top programs in the country "" john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system said ""this designation of a center of excellence by the nnsa is evidence of the momentum"" professor jim morel of the department of nuclear engineering is the cert director and the principal investigator of the project co-principal investigators include: professor lawrence rauchwerger of the department of computer science and engineering and professors marvin adams les braby ryan mcclarren and jean ragusa all nuclear engineering faculty members co-investigators include professor nancy amato from the department of computer science and engineering; derek bingham of simon fraser university; tom manteuffel and steve mccormick of the university of colorado; delia perez-nunez from nuclear engineering; and tom conroy of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) cert will focus on the development of computational techniques for efficiently simulating thermal radiation propagation using extreme-scale or exascale computers planned for the future as well as the development of predictive science techniques to quantify uncertainty in simulated results radiation propagation plays a major role in high-energy density laboratory physics experiments of the type carried out at the nnsa's national ignition facility at lawrence livermore national laboratory as well as several other nnsa facilities exascale computers will consist of many millions of processors and be capable of executing on the order of 1 018 floating point operations per second the fastest computers currently in existence execute roughly 1 016 floating point operations per second and use enormous amounts of power in order to achieve affordable operating costs exascale computers must consume far less energy per processor than current computers computing on exascale-scale machines will be very different from computing on existing machines because of this low-power requirement for instance data movement will be far more expensive in terms of energy consumption than floating-point operations and erroneous computations will routinely occur during the course of a simulation thus the entire concept of the ""cost"" of computational algorithms will change and algorithms must have the capability to detect erroneous computation and either correct it or tolerate it in some quantifiable manner the research plan of cert includes uncertainty quantification radiation propagation experiments and simulation algorithmic development and modeling and software development ""i feel this recognition is indicative of the caliber quality and value of our programs here "" said dr yassin hassan head of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m ""we are fortunate to have strategic administrators dedicated faculty hard-working staff and extraordinary students who are committed to setting our programs apart"" cert at texas a&m was one of six new centers of excellence the nnsa funded each of the centers will focus on the emerging fields of predictive science and extreme-scale computing the six universities were selected for either a multidisciplinary simulation center (msc) or as a single-discipline center (sdc) the six universities include: texas a&m university college station texas ""center for exascale radiation transport "" (sdc) university of utah salt lake city utah ""the uncertainty quantification-predictive multidisciplinary simulation center for high efficiency electric power generation with carbon capture "" (msc) university of illinois-urbana-champaign champaign illinois ""center for exascale simulation of plasma-coupled combustion "" (msc) stanford university stanford california ""predictive simulations of particle-laden turbulence in a radiation environment "" (msc) university of florida gainesville florida ""center for compressible multiphase turbulence "" (sdc) university of notre dame notre dame indiana ""center for shock wave-processing of advanced reactive materials "" (sdc) ""we expect the psaap alliances will continue to help develop the predictive science field and the workforce of the future wherein simulations will be pervasive and instrumental in important high-impact decision-making processes "" said robert meisner director of the nnsa advanced simulation and computing program (asc) asc's academic alliances provide a training ground where graduate students and postdoctoral researchers gain and hone skills necessary to carry out large-scale simulations predictive science is the application of verified and validated computational simulations to predict the behavior of complex systems where routine experiments are not feasible the selected psaap ii centers will focus on unclassified applications of interest to nnsa and its national laboratories the lawrence livermore national laboratory los alamos national laboratory and sandia national laboratories the psaap ii centers will develop the science and engineering models and software for their large-scale simulations utilizing methods of verification and validation and uncertainty quantification with an additional focus on extreme-scale computing the goal of these disciplines is to enable scientists to make precise statements about the degree of confidence they have in their simulation-based predictions established by congress in 2000 nnsa is a semi-autonomous agency within the us department of energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science nnsa maintains and enhances the safety security reliability and performance of the us nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the us navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the us and abroad"
480,two phd students in the zachry department of civil engineering received awards through the southwest region university transportation center (swutc) brad brimley was the recipient of the dr robert herman award for the most outstanding student brimley is working on his phd in civil engineering with an emphasis in transportation engineering he received his bachelors and masters in civil engineering from brigham young university he will be representing swutc at the council of university transportation centers annual banquet on jan 10 2015 in washington dc josh white was the recipient of the tamu outstanding phd student award he is working on his phd in civil engineering with an emphasis in structural engineering white received his bachelors in physics from abilene christian university and masters in civil engineering from texas a&m the southwest region university transportation center is comprised of a consortium of five universities: texas a&m the university of texas at austin texas southern university louisiana state university and university of new orleans more information can be found at http://swutctamuedu/
481,texas a&m university professor emeritus of industrial engineering dr ralph lynde disney jr died on nov 11 2014 read the full article on the institute of industrial engineers website
482,the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university announces the opening of two full-time faculty positions at the assistant professor level in the areas of geotechnical engineering and transportation engineering respectively both positions have an anticipated start date of fall 2015 for more information and to apply please visit civil and environmental engineering faculty positions
483,the society of petroleum engineers (spe) recently honored four members of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university with spe international awards during the spe annual technical conference and exhibition held 27-31 oct in amsterdam the netherlands the international award presentations were made at the annual reception and banquet held on tuesday evening 28 oct where spe recognizes outstanding spe members who have made significant contributions to the industry spe international award winners were nominated by their colleagues and selected by their peers for their achievement and contributions said jeff spath 2014 spe president hill and spath dr alfred daniel hill was presented with the spe john franklin carll award this award recognizes distinguished contribution in the application of engineering principles to petroleum development and recovery hill is the head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m he is also a professor and holder of the noble endowed chair his technical applications and professionalism in petroleum development and recovery are widely recognized hill has worked to advance the petroleum engineering profession worldwide most significantly by actively sharing his research through his extensive spe service and committee work and through his teaching and training of petroleum engineers and students blasingame and spath dr thomas a blasingame received the spe distinguished achievement award for petroleum engineering faculty this award recognizes superiority in classroom teaching excellence in research significant contributions to the petroleum engineering profession and/or special effectiveness in advising and guiding students blasingame a professor and holder of the robert l whiting endowed professorship is extremely passionate about education his focus on petrophysics reservoir engineering analysis/interpretation of well performance and technical mathematics have been extremely effective in shaping the education of petroleum engineers and students throughout the world blasingame believes that service is one of the most important components of a professionals credentials and he has demonstrated this through his countless contributions to spe as well as his dedicated service to his students both inside and outside of the classroom dr david s schechter and mr david b burnett were awarded a spe distinguished membership established in 1983 the distinguished member award recognizes spe members who achieve distinction deemed worthy of special recognition this award acknowledges members who have attained eminence in the petroleum industry or the academic community or who have made significant contributions to spe distinguished membership is restricted to not more than 1% of spe membership and is equivalent to fellow status in other professional societies schechter and spath schechter an associate professor and the aghorn energy career development professor has become a leading expert in naturally fractured reservoirs which includes extensive work on unconventional liquid reservoirs and enhanced oil recovery using co2 and unconventional liquid reservoirs schechters research in the area of enhanced oil recovery in unconventional liquid reservoirs is cutting edge research which cannot be found at any other university burnett and spath burnett is the director of technology of the global petroleum research institute at texas a&m university he has been an active and exemplary member of spe since 1971 and has had a career that exemplifies excellence in research and service as a part of the department of petroleum engineering burnett was instrumental in the development of the concept of environmental stewardship in drilling and production operations through the environmentally friendly drilling program spe serves more than 124 000 members worldwide sharing technical knowledge for the benefit of our industry each year spe presents awards that recognize members whose efforts have advanced petroleum technology as well as their professional achievements and contributions to the industry and the society
484,dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs and royce e wisenbaker professor in the department of computer science and engineering is featured in the recently funded kickstarter project notable women in computing playing card deck the project was started to spread the history of women in computing each deck contains information about 54 women who represent the past present and future of computer science taylor is included for her research in high-performance computing and her dedication to increasing diversity in computing other notable women include dr fran allen a pioneer in the field of optimizing compilers and programming languages allen was the first female ibm fellow and the first women to win the turing award which is the highest distinction given in computing the back of every card includes a picture of dr grace murray hopper who invented the first compiler and achieved the rank of rear admiral in the us navy the first edition of the cards was available during the 2014 grace hopper celebration of women in computing conference (ghc) ghc is the largest conference for women in computing kickstarter was created to support the second edition of the playing card deck with an initial goal of $3 000 392 supporters of the project raised a total of $15 010 backer incentives included a give one/get one initiative where supporters had the option of receiving a deck of playing cards for themselves and having a deck donated to an educator susan h rodger professor of the practice at duke university katy dickinson vice president -mentoring everwise and jessica dickinson goodman collaborated on this project duke university and everwise contributed as the project's sponsors the deck of cards provides a unique method of making known the great contributions of women in computing taylor said we are honored to have one of our faculty included with the deck of cards added dr dilma da silva department head of computer science and engineering at texas a&m for more information visit the official kickstarter page
485,the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university honored five students with its craig c brown outstanding senior engineering award during a banquet nov 13 at the memorial student center on the texas a&m campus seniors laura bolling matthew giglio eric gil lauren lauher and david quiroz received the annual award because of their academic achievements character and leadership abilities laura bolling a senior chemical engineering major is from sugar land texas her diverse college experiences have shaped her into a well-rounded young woman who is not afraid of challenges she has participated in the study abroad program volunteered with charitable organizations and interned in diverse industries all of which have taken her across the country and the world bolling has received numerous scholarship and leadership awards and was selected to participate in spring 2012 leadership exchange with texas a&m university at qatar matthew giglio is a senior civil engineering major from shreveport louisiana and his determination work ethic and character have set him apart from his peers during his time at texas a&m while maintaining a 40 gpa he has held leadership positions in several student organizations including the student engineers council steel bridge team concrete canoe team and the american society of civil engineers he has worked on numerous community service projects and events and has been recognized with multiple academic honors including scholarships and membership in the honor societies tau beta pi engineering honor society chi epsilon civil engineering honor society and the phi kappa phi honor society eric gill a senior industrial and systems engineering major from poway california has been highly involved in the corps of cadets where he has been consistently recognized for his leadership contributions he served as corps commander for the largest corps since 1971 and was awarded numerous accolades including the prestigious general douglas macarthur award which is given to the most outstanding senior cadet at a senior military college gill has participated in the study abroad program travelled on a corps of cadet international excursion to south korea and participated in several community service programs lauren lauher is a senior chemical engineering major from el paso texas lauher has participated in three summer internships one international mission trip five texas a&m affiliated international programs including three leadership programs one reciprocal exchange and one study abroad trip the trips have taken her to italy greece costa rica and qatar lauren has received numerous scholarships and academic achievement awards david quiroz is a chemical engineering major from houston who has approached his career at texas a&m with passion quiroz has served as fish camp counselor volunteered at big event participated in numerous degree-related activities and organizations and has received multiple academic scholarships quiroz has earned valuable professional experience with companies such as marathon oil and exxon mobil
486,"the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for robotic-assisted search and rescue (crasar) with funding from the center for emergency informatics and the texas a&m engineering extension services (teex) product development center recently held two days of robotics workshops specifically geared toward medical disasters the first days activities were hosted by crasar and held at the national center for therapeutic manufacturing the day was separated into two portions the first was a simulcast of shared presentations with the other three sites and brainstorming as part of the planning workshops on safety robotics for ebola workers for the white houses office of science and technology policy national robotic initiative the texas a&m workshop on robotic automation and cyber physical systems for medical response to disasters was held during the second portion of the day and provided additional discussions and brainstorming on general domestic medical response these covered the state of the practice in department of defense robots and casualty evacuation systems that can be repurposed lessons learned so far in using robots at the fukushima daiichi decommissioning (university of tokyo) and opportunities for community recovery (texas a&m hazards reduction and recovery center) the day concluded with a reception and a keynote talk by andrew natsios from texas a&ms bush school of government and public service who served as administrator of usaid for several years the infectious disease response workshop hosted by caleb holt and the teex product development center was held at the teex emergency operations training center/disaster city® complex the second day various aspects of medical response were the emphasis of the day and are included in many of the teex courses taught a major portion of the day was spent demonstrating the current practices in medical response by walking participants through various scenarios including a field hospital and showing how contaminated waste is stored and over-packed and how first responders equipment and vehicles are decontaminated the major takeaway was that robots do exist that could be immediately repurposed now to protect ebola health workers but how robots fit into the medical response enterprise is as important as what the robots can actually do said dr robin murphy raytheon professor and director of crasar ""it was an honor to be one of the four sites hosting a workshop with the white house office of science technology and policy and it is another example of how texas a&m is a leader in emergency informatics and field robotics murphy said murphy and the center for robot-assisted search and rescue at texas a&m university has been training first responders to work with robots since 1999 and has developed two courses taken by 760 emergency professionals from seven countries teex offers courses in medical response with props for triage field hospitals ambulances and emergency room points of care at disaster city and the emergency operations training center teex along with murphy believe that robots will play a key role in managing an epidemic and in preventing the spread of infectious diseases npr wrote an article about murphy and her work with robotics and ebola prevention at disaster city to read nprs article click here"
487,the texas a&m university system louis stokes alliance for minority participation (tamus lsamp) program has received funding from the national science foundation (nsf) for another five years tamus lsamp is a partnership between texas a&m university texas a&m university-corpus christi and prairie view a&m university (pvamu) focused on increasing the number of underrepresented students in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) fields with the grant renewal tamus lsamp will continue its work to increase stem enrollment and bachelor of science graduation rates and also to prepare qualified candidates for graduate school we are happy to have the opportunity to continue partnering with our alliance campuses and college partners at texas a&m said dr karen butler-purry associate provost for graduate studies and project co-principal investigator we look forward to continued efforts to support underrepresented minority students in obtaining degrees in the stem fields the program is open to stem students from underrepresented minority (urm) groups currently enrolled at any of the three partner institutions lsamp students are involved in academic professional and leadership development activities including participation in cohort-based learning communities and faculty and peer mentoring at texas a&m lsamp partners with four stem colleges the college of agriculture and life sciences the dwight look college of engineering the college of geosciences and the college of science to (1) institutionalize successful recruitment and retention efforts for urm stem majors; (2) sustain stem student transfer through continued and new relationships with community colleges and the three alliance campuses; (3) increase participation in stem undergraduate research including international experiences to stimulate interest and enrollment in graduate programs and create a model program that increases the number of globally competitive urm stem graduates; and (4) link and leverage other nsf projects at alliance partner institutions especially those involving veterans as stem students for synergy and to disseminate findings tamus lsamp was one of the first six lsamp programs to receive funding in 1992 the project has been continuously funded since the bridge to the doctorate (btd) component of the program has provided more than $9 million in fellowship funding for the first two years of graduate studies for 120 texas a&m and pvamu engineering science agriculture and life sciences and geosciences students to date 25 btd fellows have completed doctorates at texas a&m or other institutions the principal investigator for tamus lsamp is dr karan watson provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at texas a&m co-principal investigators purry and dr shannon walton director of graduate and professional studies and director of tamus lsamp and dr samuel merriweather associate director of tamus lsamp complete the leadership team at texas a&m other co-principal investigators are dr kendall harris professor and dean of the college of engineering at pvamu; and dr frank pezold dean of the college of science and engineering at a&m-corpus christi
488,internal bleeding is a leading cause of death on the battlefield but a new injectable material developed by a team of researchers from texas a&m university harvard university and the massachusetts institute of technology could buy wounded soldiers the time they need to survive by preventing blood loss from serious internal injuries the potentially life-saving treatment comes in the form of a biodegradable gelatin substance that has been embedded with nano-sized silicate discs that aid in coagulation once injected the material locks into place at the site of the injury and rapidly decreases the time it takes for blood to clot – in some instances by a whopping 77 percent says akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor of biomedical engineering at texas a&m and member of the research team the teams findings are detailed in the scientific journal acs nano and supported by the us army research office though its still in early testing gaharwar envisions the biomaterial being preloaded into syringes that soldiers can carry with them into combat situations if a soldier experiences a penetrating incompressible injury – one where it is difficult if not impossible to apply the pressure needed to stop the bleeding – he or she can inject the material into the wound site where it will trigger a rapid coagulation and provide enough time to get to a medical facility for treatment he says the time to get to a medical facility can take a half hour to an hour and this hour is crucial; it can decide life and death gaharwar says our materials combination of injectability rapid mechanical recovery physiological stability and the ability to promote coagulation result in a hemostat for treating incompressible wounds in out-of-hospital emergency situations gaharwar says
489,unlike some injectable solutions which pose the risk of flowing to other parts of the body and forming unintended and potentially harmful clot formations the material designed by gaharwar and his colleagues solidifies at the site of the wound and begins promoting coagulation in the targeted area whats more it accomplishes this gaharwar explains without the need for applied pressure separating it from other types of wound treatments such as tourniquets patches and sealants most of these penetrating injuries which today are the result of explosive devices rupture blood vessels and create internal hemorrhages through which a person is constantly losing blood gaharwar notes you cant apply pressure inside your body so you have to have something that can quickly clot the blood without needing pressure in order to engineer the material gaharwar and his fellow researchers went about modifying a substance known as a hydrogel hydrogels are biodegradable materials used in a number of biomedical applications because of their compatibility with the body and its processes by inserting two-dimensional nanoplatelets into the hydrogel the team was able to tweak the mechanical properties of material essentially they manipulated the material so that it could be injected into the body and then regain its shape once inside the body – something necessary for locking itself in place at the wound site gaharwar explains the use of two-dimensional materials gaharwar says represents a new direction in biomedical engineering two-dimensional materials are ultrathin substances with high surface area but a thickness of a few nanometers or less think of a sheet of paper but on a much smaller scale for example a sheet of paper is 100 000 nanometers thick; gaharwars nanoplatelets are one nanometer thick gaharwar and his colleagues employ two-dimensional disc-shaped particles known as synthetic silicate nanoplatelets because of their shape these platelets have a high surface area he explains the structure composition and arrangement of the platelets result in both positive and negative charges on each particle these charges gaharwar explains cause the platelets to interact with the hydrogel in a unique way specifically the interaction causes the gel to temporarily undergo a change in its viscosity when mechanical force is applied much like ketchup being squeezed from a bottle this change allows the hydrogel to be injected and regain its shape once inside the body gaharwar explains in addition to changing the mechanical properties of the hydrogel these disc-shaped nanoplatelets interact with blood to promote clotting gaharwar says noting that animal models have shown clot formation occurring in about one minute as opposed to five minutes without the presence of these nanoparticles animal model he adds also have demonstrated the formation of life-saving clot formations when the enhanced biomaterial was used these 2d silicate nanoparticles are unprecedented in the biomedical field and their use promises to lead to both conceptual and therapeutic advances in the important and emerging field of tissue engineering drug delivery cancer therapies and immune engineering gaharwar says encouraged by its results the team plans on further enhancing the biomaterial so that it can initiate regeneration of damaged tissues through the formation of new blood vessels gaharwar says the result he adds could be a two-pronged wound treatment – one that not only aids in damage control but also assists the bodys natural healing process members of the research team include ali khademhosseini professor of medicine at brigham and women's hospital harvard medical school; and bradley d olsen assistant professor of chemical engineering at mit contact: akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university at (979) 458-5540 or via email: gaharwar@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 847-5833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
490,texas a&m university at qatar launched the smart grid center extension in qatar (sgc-q) at an event for local industry and stakeholders today (12 november) the smart grid center extension in qatar enables making smart grid a reality in qatar and worldwide electric energy is key to every economy and for societal prosperity across the globe the smart grid effort aims to transform this critical infrastructure using computer-based remote control and automation the smart grid integrates electricity and information and communication infrastructures to produce electricity more efficiently and reliably as well as cleanly and safely for the environment the center strives to become a reference point and a key player in the field of smart grid in the community and in the region working toward ensuring energy security the center trains engineering students and professionals in electric energy-related concepts and technologies in qatar and helps with technology transfer in qatar to benefit the economy it will help integrate electricity and information and communication infrastructures to produce electricity more efficiently and reliably as well as cleanly and safely for the environment the smart grid center is working to solve pressing energy issues while meeting the needs of future generations his excellency engineer essa bin hilal al- kuwari president of qatar general electricity & water corporation (kahramaa) attended the event at texas a&m at qatar engineering building the event was also attended by a number of experts faculty students and governmental dignitaries speaking at the occasion he al- kuwari said that the establishment of such specialized focused centre is aligned with qatar national vision 2030 and a step ahead in implementing kahramaas vision and strategy the center will work to incorporate all efforts related to the field to build a platform for the smart infrastructure not only in the electricity grids but also for water telecommunication and transportation as well he said the center is very much aligned with the part related to performance technological innovation and environmental sustainability in kahramaas mission statement he added dr mark h weichold dean and ceo at texas a&m at qatar said texas a&m at qatar is happy to celebrate another milestone with the launch of the smart grid center as a part of the texas a&m engineering experiment station the smart grid center works toward the goal of transforming the electrical grid infrastructure to meet the demands of the 21st century and the centers interdisciplinary team will work to make smart grid a reality in qatar as well as worldwide this center is a part of texas a&m at qatars efforts to meet the pressing challenges of qatars growth and development by providing research facilities and expertise available nowhere else in the region we are grateful to our industry partners in qatar and to our texas a&m colleagues in college station texas for their invaluable support dr mohammad khaleel executive director of qatar environment and energy research institute (qeeri) said the qatar environment and energy research institute performs research and technology development in solar energy energy storage and smart grid qeeri will work with texas a&m university at qatar in close partnership with kahramaa to develop solutions for a smart grid in qatar by enabling reliable resilient cost effective efficient and flexible integration of solar energy with the grid and providing solutions for off-grid farms kahramaa has already joined hands with one of the worlds leading utilities in the smart grid field (iberdrola the spanish utility) as a pilot project to analyze kahramaas network and study the opportunity in applying smart grid during his speech he eng al- kuwari thanked the institution for their efforts and being given the opportunity to chair the steering committee of the center he vowed full support to the center in achieving its goals and objectives the event also featured a detailed presentation on the center by dr haitham abu-rub managing director of the center and chair of the electrical and computer engineering program at texas a&m at qatar abu-rub said the smart grid is a way of handling energy independence global warming and security of supply the smart grid center will help facilitating qatar with the latest technology developments in smart electric power distribution grids efficient use of electric energy and modernization of the electricity grid; generate new knowledge and develop exemplary engineers and leaders by conducting advanced researches disseminating results and organizing conferences and workshops; promote collaboration and creation of multidisciplinary research teams to investigate smart grid problems and deliver more innovative and effective smart grid solutions; serve the needs of the state of qatar and the region through broad expertise training and education the establishment of this center is in line with kahramaas strategy and with qnv 2030 vision the center will be the nucleus to lead direct and coordinate the research development and innovation needed for smart grid promotion and implementation within the state of qatar and the gcc region about kahramaa the qatar general electricity & water corporation (kahramaa) is a state-owned corporation funded fully by the state of qatar kahramaa has the privilege of being the sole transmission and distribution system owner and operator for the electricity and water sector in qatar kahramaa was established in july 2000 in terms of law #10 to regulate and maintain the supply of electricity and water to customers since its inception kahramaa has operated as an independent corporation on a commercial basis
491,optical trapping and manipulation of light-absorbing particles the particle is visible as bright spot localized in the focal area of the singular beam a research team that includes physicists from texas a&m university at qatar has taken the fiction out of science fiction laser physicist dr wieslaw krolikowski a professor in the science program at texas a&m at qatar and his research team in qatar and at australian national university (anu) have moved small glass spheres with a laser beam much like a tractor beam sci-fi fans have become accustomed to seeing on movie and television screens the work is published in nature photonics the team covered small glass spheres about 50 micrometers in diameter with a thin gold coating to absorb light a coated sphere was then placed in a special hollow-beam laser in which a circle of light surrounds a dark center the sphere sat in the dark center of the beam interaction with the light edges of the beam causes the sphere to absorb energy from the laser beam through the special thin gold layer coating the sphere raising the temperature and changing the air pressure surrounding the sphere this change in temperature pushes the sphere either toward or away from the laser when we produced light to heat the backside of the sphere krolikowski said the higher air pressure at the back of the sphere pushed it towards the light the opposite occurred when we heated the front of the sphere this tractor-beam effect had previously only been observed on the microscopic level using plastic beads that only moved a few nanometers krolikowski said but the texas a&m at qataranu research team has managed to move particles up to 20 centimeters krolikowski said that this success has potential in the real world not just hollywood in medicine doctors can use x-ray analysis of viruses and biological specimens this requires delivering a particle to a very specific spatial location where the laser light will be focused another possible application is to use this tractor beam to capture and move particles produced in an experimental chamber into a special area for analysis nanotechnology is a big deal these days krolikowski said but very often many of these nanoparticles are produced from carcinogenic materials such as arsenic so we dont want to touch it so light could provide the ability to manipulate particles into a specific location for analysis krolikowski joined the texas a&m at qatar faculty in january 2014 and is an expert in nonlinear optics having worked in the field for more than 30 years his area of research is in shaping a light beam so that it deposits energy in small precise locations he is in the process of setting up his new laser laboratory in the texas a&m engineering building on the education city campus
492,"stephen a holditch professor emeritus in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university was one of 12 texas a&m former students who were recognized as distinguished alumni for their lifetimes of service all 12 received the honor at the association of former students distinguished alumni gala on oct 10 in addition 11 of the 2014 recipients were recognized in front of a record crowd at kyle field during texas a&m football game against ole miss since the inception of the award in 1962 only 237 of texas a&ms 410 000 former students have been recognized with the distinguished alumnus award the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of texas a&m university awarded jointly by texas a&m and the association of former students this award recognizes those aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions and made meaningful contributions to texas a&m and their local communities texas a&m is one of the nations great public land-grant institutions in large part because of the contributions these outstanding aggies have made to their professions their communities and their alma mater said texas a&m interim president dr mark hussey '79 holditch with a career spanning more than 39 years is a perfect example of an outstanding aggie a member of the corps of cadets and ross volunteers he received his bachelor's master's and phd from texas a&m all in petroleum engineering he began working on his phd while on leave from shell oil co in january 1974 while his intent was to rejoin shell after earning his degree holditch was offered a position as an assistant professor at texas a&m which he accepted the next year holditch started a consulting firm sa holditch and associates inc which grew to 70 employees in five offices and had a worldwide reputation for being able to solve the most difficult petroleum engineering problems the company thrived in the up and down oil and gas business environment of the 1980s and 1990s schlumberger acquired the company in 1997 and adopted the sa holditch and associates culture in the elements of schlumberger that were focused on reservoir analysis he was a schlumberger fellow from 1999 to 2004 the highest rung on schlumberger's technical career ladder at the time there were only nine fellows out of more than 10 000 professional employees holditch was elected to the national academy of engineering (nae) in 1995 the highest professional honor for an engineer out of the millions of practicing engineers in the united states there are fewer than 2 000 members of the nae in 2002 he was president of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) a global organization with over 70 000 members in total he spent six years on the spe board of directors as vice president of finance for three years and in the presidential rotation for three more holditch traveled the globe for six years for spe giving speeches and representing oil and gas technology holditch ""retired"" from schlumberger in 2004 to return to texas a&m as the head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering a position he held until january 2012 during holditch's tenure the number of students in the department more than doubled in january 2011 holditch became the director of the texas a&m energy institute (ei) the institute's staff consisted of five employees none of whom knew him very well that changed quickly as holditch's many years of experience in the academic world and in the fast-paced highly competitive oil and gas industry made him the ideal leader for an entity that had to learn how to successfully bring together both sides in order to develop and globally deploy the brilliant energy research being conducted at texas a&m he retired from texas a&m in january 2013 holditch has received the top three technical awards given by spe the anthony f lucas technical leadership gold medal the john franklin carll distinguished professional award and the lester c uren technical excellence award he was elected an spe honorary member in 2006 the highest honor that spe presents to an individual and is limited to 01 percent of the spe membership this status is awarded to individuals who have given outstanding service to spe or who have demonstrated distinguished scientific or engineering achievements in the fields within the technical scope of spe he was recognized for his lifetime contributions to hydraulic fracturing technologies with the 2014 legends of hydraulic fracturing award during the spe hydraulic fracturing technology conference mark w albers '79 senior vice president of the exxonmobil corp said ""steve holditch has made an enormous contribution to the industry he has been a tireless champion of the petroleum engineering department its students and the university he has also consistently provided a credible voice to governments on issues important to the industry"" he and his wife ann have funded multiple scholarships in petroleum engineering as well as a sul ross scholarship they are endowed century club donors to the association of former students and their many gifts to the 12th man foundation and texas a&m foundation have earned them recognition as eppright distinguished donors and members of the legacy society holditch has been honored as a member of the petroleum engineering academy of distinguished graduates and as an outstanding alumnus of the dwight look college of engineering"
493,the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university held a groundbreaking ceremony nov 14 for the engineering education complex (eec) a $168 million facility to support the college's 25 by 25 initiative speakers at the event included: former student astronaut michael e fossum 80 texas a&m student body president kyle kelly 14 and future student chase mceachern 19 while remarks were made by chairman of the texas a&m university system board of regents phil adams chancellor john sharp and vice chancellor and dean of engineering dr m katherine banks also in attendance were the pioneer donors current and former students who have contributed $50 million to start construction this included the student engineers council susu and mark fischer 72 and amy and tim leach 82
494,the zachry engineering center which was dedicated in 1972 is being completely renovated and expanded to become the eec construction will begin february 2015 and is expected to be complete december 2016 when completed the eec will be the largest academic building on the texas a&m campus and serve as the heart of undergraduate engineering education at texas a&m when classes resume in the building in the spring of 2018 the eec will provide a modern comfortable and flexible learning environment as well as a place for students to congregate and work together on projects the facility is a key component of the colleges efforts to transform engineering education to better prepare todays students to solve world problems through more experiential learning the dwight look college of engineering is the largest college on the texas a&m campus with more than 14 000 students and 500 faculty members in 13 departments the college is consistently ranked among the nations top undergraduate and graduate engineering programs according to us news & world report
495,"tengteng zhang yukun (dexter) gao and dr duncan m (hank) walker received the inaugural best poster paper award from the 45th ieee international test conference (itc) held in seattle washington on oct 21-23 the poster was entitled ""pattern generation for understanding timing sensitivity to power supply noise"" itc is the flagship conference of electronic systems testing which includes the cycle of design verification testing diagnosis failure analysis and improvement through participation in the conference academia design tool and equipment suppliers designers and test engineers are able to better understand and perhaps solve some of the challenges faced by industry in ""pattern generation for understanding timing sensitivity to power supply noise "" the authors considered the problem of automatic test pattern generation for understanding circuit timing sensitivity to power supply noise (psn) during post-silicon validation the software generates tests with increasing amounts of switching activity near the longest paths in the circuit the increasing activity causes increasing power supply voltage droop which increases circuit delay product engineers can apply these tests to prototype chips to help identify the speed-limiting parts of the circuit that need to be redesigned walker is a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university he is an acm distinguished scientist walker is active in the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and was associate editor of ieee transactions on computer-aided design of circuits and systems in 2011 he served as ford motor company design professor ii and computer science and engineering department head from 2011-2013 the dwight look college of engineering has honored walker with the charles w crawford service award the ed brockett professorship and the lockheed martin aeronautics company excellence in engineering teaching award he was named a dwight look college of engineering fellow an amd fellow and a tees fellow zhang is a doctoral candidate in computer engineering a research assistant and an ieee student member before continuing his academic career at texas a&m he worked as a research assistant in the graduate university of the chinese academy of sciences zhang received his bachelor's degree in information technology in 2010 from southeast university in nanjing jiangsu province china gao is studying for his master's degree in computer engineering at texas a&m and plans to graduate next year he is a student research assistant focusing on automatic test pattern generation and design-for-testability with walker and zhang before joining texas a&m he worked as an intern dft engineer at amd shanghai china gao received his bachelor's degree in electrical and electronics engineering from shandong university in jinan china photos: (l-r) gao walker zhang"
496,qatar will rely on strong leaders in engineering and science to address the nations future energy and environmental challenges leading international experts said sunday during the opening session of the engineering leaders conference on engineering education here in qatar one of the biggest challenges is providing clean water for example other regions will have different priorities but none of those challenges will be met unless high school students are drawn into the stem science technology engineering and math fields and ultimately equipped to deal with real human needs said dr john lienhard md anderson professor of technology and culture and emeritus professor of mechanical engineering at the university of houston these challenges however provide means to stimulate learning that will shape a better world these findings came out of the conferences opening panel discussion which included three members of the elite us national academy of engineering to prepare the next generation of engineers who will solve the grand challenges of today and those that develop in the future we must begin educating our engineering students to be out-of-the-box thinkers who create rather than incrementally design said dr m katherine banks a member of the national academy of engineering and vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university it is critical that we transform our educational practices today with experiential learning and leadership opportunities to foster keen appreciation for the interconnected nature of the worlds most daunting problems the three-day engineering leaders conference organized by texas a&m university at qatar brought more than 100 speakers and presenters from 25 countries on six continents to doha to discuss education of engineers for the grand challenges for engineering a list of 14 global imperatives to be addressed by engineering disciplines in the 21st century lienhard also a member of the national academy of engineering said education should draw students into these real-world problems we must make clear connections between the deep theoretical underpinnings of the stem subjects and the invention of new technologies to meet the worlds grand challenges he said dr mark h weichold dean and ceo of texas a&m at qatar said the conference represents direct efforts to support qatars human and social development which through engineers and scientists will drive the countrys economic and environmental development weichold also thanked maersk oil qatar the conferences exclusive sponsor and industry partner for its visionary leadership in supporting the meeting of academics from around the world texas a&m at qatar is grateful for the partnership and support of maersk oil qatar for sponsoring the 2014 engineering leaders conference on engineering education and for its assistance in helping engineer leaders who can address grand challenges through this collaboration and others like it maersk oil qatar and texas a&m at qatar are making a real difference in stem education locally and in engineering the leaders of tomorrow i would like to thank supporting industry and education attendees and speakers as well as our visiting national academy of engineering members for their valuable input into discussions that will help shape the future of engineering education he said maersk oil qatar managing director lewis affleck said maersk oils sponsorship of the conference reflects the companys strong commitment to supporting qatars development of a knowledge-based economy speaking on the opening day of the event affleck said maersk oil recognizes the importance of nurturing and developing local talent and we are pleased to work with texas a&m university at qatar on the engineering leaders conference 2014 which will help to share good-practices in engineering education and therefore benefit educational institutions and future engineering students here in qatar our partnership with texas a&m at qatar one of the worlds leading engineering institutions shows how industry and academia can successfully work together to promote engineering education and build capacity in stem disciplines for the benefit of society we are proud of this collaboration and believe that it will bring real long-term value to qatar and beyond affleck said conference speakers are addressing globalization of engineering instructional technology curriculum design and engineering ethics among other topics the conference also includes several talks about development in stem disciplines among young people i am confident that the engineering leaders conference will present a real opportunity for meaningful dialogue and transformative collaborations affleck added the new student educator and professional development streams in the conference this year also reflect an all-inclusive approach to building capacity and knowledge and furthering engineering education and thats great to see
497,france cordova director of the national science foundation (nsf) visited texas a&m university toured laboratories and visited with science engineering technology and math (stem) thought leaders and students during her recent visit to texas we are honored to host dr cordova on campus and are proud to showcase the impact that national science foundation funding for research is making within the a&m system universities and agencies said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp texas a&m university receives more nsf funding than any other university in the state and we are very proud of our researchers who leverage these funds to improve the quality of life worldwide the national science foundation an independent federal agency created in 1950 is the only federal agency whose mission includes support for all fields of fundamental science and engineering and is a major funding source for research at texas a&m nsf is the engine that drives scientific discovery in the us and texas a&m has enjoyed a long and productive partnership with the agency said interim president mark a hussey with more than $820 million in research expenditures generated by our researchers each year roughly one-third of that is funded by the nsf and places us among the top 10 nsf collaborators in the nation we appreciate director cordova making time to visit texas a&m and meet with our faculty and students the university's largest nsf-funded research award the international ocean discovery program (iodp) receives more than $55 million per year over a 10-year contract and was featured on the directors tour the iodp is an international research collaboration that coordinates seagoing expeditions to study the history of the earth recorded in sediments and rocks beneath the ocean floor the joides resolution science operator (jrso) operates the scientific drillship joides resolution on behalf of the us national science foundation the texas a&m system is uniquely configured with universities and state agencies that work cohesively across the full spectrum of technical capabilities and competencies to maximize the teaching research and service mission said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering knowing dr cordovas commitment to student success i invited her to texas a&m to experience firsthand our culture of innovation and transformation and our excellent stewardship of nsf dollars during the visit cordova also met with undergraduate students who showcased unique texas a&m research and entrepreneurship programs startup aggieland among the nations first student-designed student-operated business accelerators for student startup companies; aggie challenge a contest for multidisciplinary teams to design and build solutions to societys grand challenges and aggies invent a series of 48-hour hardware maker challenges nsf has long supported programs that excite and engage underrepresented groups in stem said córdova as the only federal agency funding all fields of fundamental science and engineering nsf recognizes that increasing diversity in stem drives innovation and benefits society as a whole cordova also toured disaster city a 52-acre emergency response training and testing facility featuring full-scale collapsible structures designed to simulate various levels of disaster and wreckage along with her students dr robin r murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering and director of the center for robot assisted search and rescue (crasar) demonstrated multiple uses for robots ranging from rescue to protection of ebola workers
498,"the mary kay o'connor process safety center drew record attendance at its 17th annual international symposium held oct 28-30 in college station more than 640 participants from industry and academia including representatives from 31 countries attended the symposium which serves as the conduit for process safety research and networking the symposium ""beyond regulatory compliance making safety second nature "" was held in association with the institution of chemical engineers the three keynote lecturers included brian salerno director of the bureau of safety and environmental enforcement; eamonn naughton group head of risk learning and hse at bp; and dwight johnston vice president of safety environment and social performance in shells deepwater business unit in addition to the highlighted keynote addresses nearly 100 presentations were given on various safety-related topics including safety culture/ operational discipline risk analysis process management for safety and inherent safety the symposium also featured exhibits from more than 38 companies that demonstrated products technology and software related to process safety the next symposium is scheduled for oct 27-29 2015 in college station the call for papers is open with abstracts due march 13 2015 for more information call 979-845-5981 or 979-845-6884"
499,"there are many teaching innovations that are being implemented in universities to improve instruction many faculty within the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university are actively bringing these practices to their classrooms one new method of teaching is called flipping the classroom in which students are asked to review the material before coming to class then the class time is used for interactive activities to clarify or deepen understanding by doing so professors are able to engage students in the material and take better advantage of the time allotted in class professor and graduate advisor dr andreas klappenecker flipped the course csce 411 design and analysis of algorithms in hopes to achieving this end here the idea is to provide small videos of lecture materials that the students can watch before class klappenecker said this allowed me to give just a brief summary of the material the time gained is used to let the student actively work on problem solving during class where they can ask me for help when they are stuck the result was that students were much more engaged klappenecker was one of 10 faculty selected to receive the 2014 association of former students (afs) distinguished teaching achievement award at the university level along with this honor he was recognized for his use of new teaching methods such as flipping the classroom according to his nomination letter the comments [from student feedback] indicate that flipping this class seems to work exceptionally well klappenecker noted that the performance of students in the midterm exam improved in comparison to previous versions of the course by giving the students material to work on ahead of time outside of the classroom they are given the chance to work through what they understand and what they do not that in turn can be discussed in class which leads to a learning environment that is more in tune to the students needs for me the fundamental goal for teaching innovation is encouraging active learning said cse tees research associate professor and part-time senior lecturer dr hyunyoung lee lee achieves this goal by distributing in-class exercises in almost every class which the students solve together along side her during the lecture she said she also gives take-home quizzes so the students can look up the class notes and the textbook in order to answer the questions in the classroom i explain and discuss the class topics in relation to the homework problems which catch the students' attention because by listening to the discussions the seemingly difficult homework problems become more manageable "" lee said cse assistant professor dr dylan shell was awarded with the montague-center for teaching excellence (cte) which provides resources and services to faculty in order to amplify teaching and student learning at texas a&m university with the awarded funds he plans to supplement budgets for the csce 482 senior capstone design course shells research interests include distributed ai biologically-inspired multi-robot systems coordinated system analysis of multi-agent systems and crowd modeling cse raytheon professor dr robin murphy also received a grant from the texas a&m cte to help her to develop the materials to flip her class she is an ieee fellow for innovation in high-impact learning experiences these individuals each receive a grant of $3 000 to support a proposed project to develop implement and evaluate innovative high-impact learning experiences in ones teaching program while there are many other methods that allow student involvement this approach is growing in popularity and with good reason as students are excelling in their coursework"
500,"dr robin r murphy and six texas a&m university undergraduate engineering students participated in the 2014 us naval academy science and engineering conference held november 2-4 in annapolis maryland the conference brought together policy makers and science advisers with university faculty and students to discuss science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) issues and challenges this year's student-run conference was titled ""robotics: new solutions for a changing world"" the first invited speaker in the subject matter expert presentations category was murphy who presented ""robotic cooperation remote sensing and telepresence"" murphy is the raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m she directs the center for robot-assisted search and rescue at the university her research interests include artificial intelligence human-robot interaction and heterogeneous teams of robots murphy's talk gave an overview of intelligent robots illustrating lessons learned from inserting robots into 17 disasters she divided them into two categories robots we see and act through in real-time or ones we delegate tasks to she emphasized that the goal for both categories is to create autonomous capabilities that make the robot useful for humans brennen r taylor one of the six undergraduate students selected to attend the nasec conference is a sophomore in computer science and a member of the parasol lab's motion planning research group his research interests include motion planning computer graphics and interface design ""attending the conference was a great opportunity for me to learn about modern robotics research especially where the navy hopes it will head "" said taylor ""i heard talks that ranged from professors speaking about their research to the head of naval research to even the vice president of lockheed martin these talks all reinforced that the field of robotics is headed to a field with more autonomous systems as i do research in motion planning i feel like this direction will open many doors for the research area all in all it was a great experience and i am thankful i was able to go"" of the five remaining engineering students one is from aerospace engineering two are from mechanical engineering and two are from engineering technology and industrial distribution ""this was a wonderful opportunity for our students to be engaged in the dialogue about stem "" said dr valerie e taylor senior associate dean of academic affairs in the dwight look college of engineering and the regents professor and royce e wisenbaker professor in the computer science and engineering department at texas a&m"
501,two faculty members from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have been recognized by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) as tees fellows the tees fellow designation recognizes established faculty members with a history of continuous performance tees is an engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system texas a&m engineering faculty hold joint appointments as tees researchers dr diego donzis has been selected as a tees select young faculty fellow and dr sharath girimaji has been selected as a tees senior faculty fellow dr diego donzis is an assistant professor in the department his research interests include large-scale high-performance computing fluid dynamics turbulence and turbulent mixing he joined the aerospace department in fall 2009 he received his bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from universidad tecnologica nacional argentina in 2001 his master's degree in aerospace engineering from georgia institute of technology in 2004 and phd in aerospace engineering from georgia institute of technology in 2007 in addition to this award he has received the francois frenkiel the nsf career award a previous tees select young faculty award two incite awards by doe and best graduates from argentina by the national academy of engineering of argentina dr sharath girimaji is a professor in the department he teaches general dynamics of aerospace engineering and maintains one of the top producing research programs in the department in addition to teaching and mentoring high level graduate students he provides extracurricular activities within the college of engineering including the high-altitude balloon club space propulsion and air-swimmers he is also involved in outreach to the high school programs such as project aether and camp soar girimaji received his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from iit madras india and his master's and phd in mechanical and aerospace engineering from cornell university he has been a member of the aerospace faculty for 14 years
502,the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has accepted an invitation to join the european wind energy master (ewem) program as an associate partner this collaborative effort will bring the department into the midst of a very active wind energy research and education hub in europe the ewem is a two-year master's degree program which aims to educate 120-150 graduates per year providing valuable workforce to meet increasing global demand for wind energy professionals with graduate education the ewem consortium is composed of four universities that are world leaders in wind energy and offshore wind energy research and education: delft university of technology technical university of denmark norwegian university of science and technology and carl von ossietzky universitat oldenburg ewem attracts top students in four specializations that follow the energy conversion chain: wind physics rotor design electric power systems and offshore engineering the master's program prepares graduates for a career in research both in industry and in academia and is closely linked to the research expertise of the participating universities associate partners like the department of aerospace engineering support ewem by providing access to world-class infrastructure for wind energy research and development they also offer opportunities for graduating students to continue their studies towards their doctorate aerospace has substantial expertise in various wind energy related fields including aerodynamics structures and materials aeroacoustics and composite materials ewem organizes summer schools the first of which was held in delft on june 12-14 2014 in addition to lectures the students and guests participated in a networking fair a debate over wind energy costs and a workshop which resulted in building a working wind turbine on the last day of the summer school the participants went offshore for a close-up look of the windpark egmond aan zee the next summer school is planned for 2015 and the department of aerospace engineering expects to be a participant for more information contact dr ramesh talreja at talreja@tamuedu
503,"many people are familiar with the natural compound known as propane used often as fuel but less is discussed about propylene (or propene) with which propane is closely tied the central focus of the research team led by dr hae-kwon jeong associate professor of chemical engineering is an optimal isolation of propylene from propane with the intention to produce only propylene there is a huge demand for propylene but to separate these gas molecules takes a lot of energy said jeong propylene has many commercial purposes including being a key compound in over two thirds of the worlds plastics intentional production of propylene in 2013 accounted for 12 percent of worldwide propylene production compared to three percent in 2003 according to the ihs chemical north american propylene supply study furthermore by 2023 the study finds that the amount of intentional global propylene production will grow from 90 million tons to 130 million tons in the production process the gasses are converted into liquid and then distilled utilizing the slightly different boiling points of propylene and propane then the use of a membrane allows for the smaller propylene to be sieved (restricting the larger propane) in a metal-organic framework (mof) said jeong this is the first report where we demonstrate that a very high selectivity and a very high flux of these gas molecules is possible "" said jeong ""this is a simple technique that allows us to prepare high-quality very-thin sieve mof membranes in a potentially economic and scalable manner"" jeongs method of counter diffusion involves individual applications of metal ions and organic ligands (linkers that bond to the metal) to the support or film as opposed to using a mixture to coat the film the high metal ion concentration is inside the film while the ligands remain highly concentrated outside of the film and counter diffuse in different directions the objective is to be able to make small thin films in a rapid manner but also to be able to make the grain boundary very intimate said jeong this technique is not only more efficient but also more environmentally friendly because less carbon-based fuels are required for distillation up to 80 percent of energy costs go just to separating chemicals often using conventional distillation said jeong jeong said that if the industry can replace some of the highly intensive energy processes with simple sieving techniques great progress could be made opportunities of this research are tremendous we are getting interest from industry and plan to continue the research said jeong"
504,norman roy garza jr has been named assistant vice chancellor for government relations with texas a&m engineering dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering announced today (nov 10) garza comes to texas a&m engineering from texas farm bureau where he has served as associate legislative director since december 2008 while with texas farm bureau he was responsible for influencing public policy affecting agriculture production in texas and landowners who are members of the largest agricultural organization in the state as assistant vice chancellor garza will be responsible for growing a state legislative program and a federal congressional program for the texas a&m engineering agencies that coordinate with the overall texas a&m university system legislative agenda garza will represent texas a&m engineering agencies on the a&m system state and federal relations team with responsibility for the subject areas of workforce development transportation environment energy technology homeland security and emergency response garza earned a bachelors degree in political science from saint edwards university in austin and is currently pursuing a graduate degree in business administration
505,dr alan palazzolo and dr junho suhs research paper three-dimensional thermodynamic morton effect simulation part i & part ii won the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) journal of tribologys 2014 best paper award suh and palazzolo were presented with award plaques at the frontier of tribology conference held in chicago in october palazzolo is a professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and an asme fellow while suh completed his phd at texas a&m and is a senior researcher at the korea railroad research institute the paper develops modeling and simulation methodology for preventing the morton effect (me) the me is increasingly observed on high performance turbomachinery operating in petrochemical and power plants the me originates in fluid film bearings which support the high rpm shaft of a turbomachine under appropriate conditions the me gives rise to increasing mass unbalance causing large centrifugal forces and ensuing vibration of the shaft industry standards highly discourage operation when vibration levels exceed allowable values thus the machine and its accompanying manufacturing process are shut down this may result in the loss of millions of dollars of product and in related lawsuits the methodology is multi-physics based combining intricate thermal and flow simulation of the bearing's lubricant oil film coupled with elastic deformation conduction- convection thermal simulations of the bearings and vibration simulations of the shaft the presence of very long and very short time constant phenomena in the me presents a formidable computational challenge that is treated in an efficient and effective manner this research is funded by the turbomachinery research consortium of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations turbomachinery laboratory
506,on wednesday november 5 2014 the department of mechanical engineering held its first faculty investiture in the gates ballroom this event enabled the department to publicly celebrate three of its most esteemed faculty bestowing upon them one of the highest honors in academia the awarding of an endowed professorship faculty invested were dr eric l petersen as nelson-jackson professor dr william c schneider as zachry professor of engineering and dr arun r srinivasa as holdredge/paul professor eric l petersen nelson-jackson professor petersen joined texas a&m university as a professor of mechanical engineering in 2008 he worked for several years as an analytical engineer in the combustion group at pratt & whitney government engines & space propulsion as well as staff scientist at the aerospace corporation his research involves the fields of gas dynamics propulsion combustion shock wave physics and chemistry chemical kinetics optical diagnostics and spectroscopy combustion instability fluid mechanics aerosol science and rocket combustion petersen is a recipient of the national science foundation career award and a student-led award for teaching excellence he was awarded a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) fellow for 2010-2011 william c schneider zachry professor of engineering schneider graduated with a phd in mechanical engineering and proceeded into a distinguished 38-year career at the johnson space center in houston while at nasa he was a pivotal engineer performing extensive thermo-elasticity and dynamic analysis and was responsible for the structural integrity of the thermal protection tiles for the space shuttles he designed many spacecraft and spacecraft components schneider has received 13 us patents upon retiring 14 years ago his position was that of senior engineer and assistant director of all engineering at the johnson space center schneider currently teaches mechanical engineering at texas a&m his wealth of experience has greatly enhanced the capstone senior design course arun r srinivasa holdredge/paul professor srinivasa joined texas a&m as a professor of mechanical engineering in 1997 and currently serves as associate department head his research focuses on the simulation of entropy producing processes including metal and polymer processing diffusion and swelling in soft materials thermomechanical phenomena in smart materials modeling of biomaterials and simulation of surgical processes and other related areas of engineering srinivasa has a passion for education and an abiding interest in the use of technology for education he has won numerous teaching awards such as the outstanding teaching award and the bp award for teaching excellence and also received the university distinguished achievement award in 2013
507,four faculty members in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university were honored with faculty awards at the recent industry board dinner in september the awards which were presented for the first time were generously funded by individuals and companies who are represented on the departments industry board william d mccain received the conocophillips non-tenured track excellence in teaching faculty award; michael king received the karen and larry a cress 76 excellence in teaching faculty award; ding zhu was awarded the karen e olson 87 and louis h turner excellence in research faculty award; and bryan maggard received the superior energy services excellence in service faculty award each award winner also received an additional and generous gift of $5 000 (mccain and ad hill) william d bill mccain is a visiting professor at texas a&m his 45-year history in petroleum engineering includes both academic and industry positions including 11 years as head of the petroleum engineering department at mississippi state university mccain gained his early experience with esso research laboratories from 1956 to 1963 and began teaching at mississippi state in 1963 he served in the us army from 1976 until 1984 retiring as a brigadier general he first joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1984 since 1987 he has worked with projects in reservoir engineering and simulation corrosion abatement surface processing ngl plants compositional modeling and miscible flooding as a consultant first with cawley gillespie & associates and then with sa holditch & associates until its purchase by schlumberger mccain has consulted for several hundred clients and taught short courses for spe and several major oil companies world-wide his textbooks on the properties of petroleum fluids and petroleum reservoir fluid property correlations have been the standards for many years (king and hill) michael j king is a professor and holder of the lesuer chair in reservoir management in petroleum engineering at texas a&m where he has taught since 2009 he is also the assistant department head for staff administration king has received two spe awards the distinguished member award in 2013 and the reservoir description and dynamics award in 2011 he was recently named a cmg foundation chair for the computer modelling group ltd in 2012 he received the energistics volunteer recognition program award king holds a phd degree in physics from syracuse university his current research focuses on upscaling and streamline methodologies with extensions to unconventional resources he conducted successful research on reservoir engineering and reservoir modeling with special expertise in fluid flow reservoir simulation upscaling of geologic models for flow simulation streamline modeling and 3d reservoir modeling workflows king is well known for his contributions to the theory and practice of streamline simulation technology in 2007 he co-authored the spe textbook streamline simulation: theory and practice which lays down the foundations of modern streamline simulation technology in 2012 he was selected by petroleum engineering undergraduate students for the petroleum engineering department award for excellence in teaching (zhu and nk anand) ding zhu joined the faculty in 2004 and is a professor and the holder of the lf peterson ‘36 professorship in petroleum engineering she has conducted and supervised research projects in production and well stimulation and led a project in complex well-performance research she has been the key researcher for a texas state-funded project in sandstone acidizing doe-funded projects in intelligent well technology and tight gas hydraulic fracturing a rpsea-funded project in using temperature data to diagnose fracture treatment and other industrial funded research projects zhu has developed several comprehensive computer software applications for production engineering many of which have been adopted by industry sponsors she has also taught numerous short courses on well stimulation horizontal well technology and performance improvement she is an author of over 100 technical papers and two textbooks she has received numerous awards from her students including the slate awards (student led award for teaching excellence) in both 2008 and 2009 and the 2011-2012 association of former students college-level distinguished teaching award in 2010 she received the spe distinguished achievement for petroleum engineering faculty award in recognition of her teaching research and service zhu has also received the 2010-2011 bp teaching excellence award from texas a&ms dwight look college of engineering in 2013 she was recognized by undergraduate students in the department with the petroleum engineering department award for excellence in teaching (maggard and hill) bryan maggard joined the faculty in 1998 he is currently the undergraduate advisor and a senior lecturer his undergraduate and graduate teaching areas include engineering fundamentals numerical methods gas reservoir engineering and application and development of numerical reservoir simulation technology maggard received his phd in 2000 his ms in 1990 and his bs in 1987 in petroleum engineering from texas a&m he previously practiced in industry as a production engineer with pierce oil & gas inc in ft worth texas and as a reservoir engineer with chevron exploration & production services co houston maggard served as a research associate with the department beginning in 1995 his projects included coordination of reservoir simulation efforts for the bakhilov field study as part of the varyeganneftegaz (vng) technical training course (1995) and instructor of applied reservoir simulation as part of the petrovietnam training program (1997) in september 2006 he assumed the role of undergraduate advisor during the ensuing eight years of dramatic growth of the undergraduate population maggard has single-handily advised all the resident undergraduate students and has been the point of contact for the thousands of transfer applicants during this period he continues to advise all 800+ resident undergraduates
508,professor arum han of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is featured in an interview on the one health grand challenge website discussing his research the one health grand challenge is an opportunity for texas a&m schools and colleges to plan and implement an inter/transdisciplinary collaborative approach to helping improve the lives of all species human and animal health by addressing health and their connections between natural and man-made environments one health the collaborative effort across multiple disciplines to attain sustainable optimal health for the ecosystem is a cultural and behavioral concept with socioeconomic elements and impact the one health grand challenge focuses on identifying approximately four major one health research themes and implementing a plan for bringing together faculty from across texas a&m to form collaborative inter/transdisciplinary teams to propose research initiatives under the major themes in the accessible & affordable quality healthcare section han discusses his research titled development of next-generation biologics through microphysiological systems han director of the nanobio systems lab and an expert in microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technologies joined the electrical and computer engineering department in 2005 he received his bachelors degree from the seoul national university in korea his masters degree from the university of cincinnati and his phd from the georgia institute of technology all in electrical engineering hans research is at the interface of micro/nano technology and life sciences with interest in solving grand challenge problems in the broad area of health and energy through the use of micro/nano systems technology and multidisciplinary team effort his honors include being a eugene webb faculty fellow of the college of engineering (2014) being an inaugural recipient of the engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research (2014) tees fellow (2012) and receiving an outstanding professor award from the electrical and computer engineering department (2012)
509,dr gerald morrison professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was named the recipient of the 2014 henry r worthington medal by the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the award which was established in 1980 is bestowed for eminent achievement in the field of pumping machinery including but not limited to research development design innovation management education of literature morrison was honored for more than three decades of pump research and development ranging from the space shuttle main engines to multiphase electric submersible pumps and for computational techniques that have expanded the understanding of pump operation and characterization morrison earned his bachelors masters and doctoral degrees from oklahoma state university all in mechanical engineering his research interests include fluid mechanics and heat transfer turbulence acoustics flow instabilities flow induced noise turbomachinery pumps compressors computerized data acquisition and analysis and laser anemometry asme is a not-for-profit membership organization that enables collaboration knowledge sharing career enrichment and skills development across all engineering disciplines toward a goal of helping the global engineering community develop solutions to benefit lives and livelihoods
510,"dr le xie an assistant professor in the department of electrical & computer engineering at texas a&m university was one of the keynote speakers at the international workshop on today's research for tomorrow's grid on oct 15-16 the workshop was organized by tsinghua university in beijing china entitled ""closing the loop around smart grid data "" xie spoke about intelligent and efficient utilization of big data in the smart grid for better power system operations a research thrust he has been active with in the past several years along with many of his collaborators the two-day workshop gathered academic leaders in the area of the future grid including professor pravin varaiya a us nae member professor felix f wu of uc berkeley and hong kong university professor david hill of the royal swedish academy of engineering sciences professors qiang lu and xiaoxin zhou members of the chinese national academy of sciences and other researchers from premier institutions such as stanford university uc berkeley and argonne national laboratory the host institution tsinghua university has been consistently regarded by both domestic and international university rankings as the top research university in both china and asia xie joined the texas a&m faculty in january 2010 he received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 2004 from tsinghua university in beijing china his master's degree in engineering sciences from harvard university in 2005 and his phd from the department of electrical and computer engineering at carnegie mellon university in 2009 his research interests include modeling and control of large-scale power systems with renewable energy resources and electricity markets xie received the nsf career award and the oak ridge associated universities ralph e powe junior faculty award in 2012 other honors include winning best paper awards and he also served as the founding faculty advisor for the texas a&m energy club"
511,dr brett p giroir ceo of texas a&m health science center announced the appointment of dr theresa maldonado to the role of special assistant to the ceo she joins the health science center from the national science foundation as well as the texas a&m dwight look college of engineering and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) where she held leadership roles for a number of years in her new position maldonado a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department will serve on the institutions executive committee providing leadership in developing implementing and communicating key initiatives on behalf of texas a&m health science centers executive office an experienced engineer and academician she also will assist in expanding developing and implementing interdisciplinary programs between the health science center and other colleges and academic institutions aimed at heightening collaborative research and development programs to achieve important translational breakthroughs dr maldonado brings a wealth of knowledge national-level experience and enthusiasm to the health science center giroir said although widely known a national engineering leader she will play a key leadership and implementation role not only in engineering collaborations but throughout many of our diverse programs and initiatives as division director of the national science foundation engineering education and centers division maldonado has extensive experience at the federal level in advancing research development and commercialization initiatives by aligning traditionally disparate disciplines via their complementary competencies she is also founding director of the energy engineering institute (now texas a&m energy institute) a multi-entity academic collaborative advancing an integrated approach to the production and utilization of our countrys vast energy resources under her leadership the institute buoyed multiple interdisciplinary initiatives between texas a&ms engineering physical sciences life sciences and health sciences programs maldonado is and will remain a tenured professor of electrical and computer engineering in the look college and previously served as associate dean for strategic initiatives and associate dean for research at the college while serving as deputy director of tees she also served as associate vice chancellor for research at the texas a&m university system maldonado earned her bachelors degree in electrical engineering with highest honors master's degree in electrical engineering and doctorate in electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics from the georgia institute of technology she is also a licensed professional engineer in the state of texas
512,dr choongho yu the gulf/oil thomas a dietz career development professor ii in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and his group in mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering have recently published two papers in the journals advanced materials and nano energy yus paper liquid-type cathode enabled by 3d sponge-like carbon nanotubes for high energy density and long cycling life of li-s batteries touts the use of a newly designed li-s battery in electric vehicles which can provide a five-fold energy density of the most widely used lithium-ion battery this impressive result provides great promise for the future development of the electric vehicle currently lithium ion cells are used by most car manufacturers because of their relatively high energy density and because they have no memory effect lithium cobalt oxide is the most common cathode material used for these cells but the high price of raw material and the relatively low range per charge are limiting the market of electric vehicles the energy density of a battery is a critical factor for electric vehicles because the higher it is the longer you can drive on a single charge currently typical electric vehicles can achieve a range of 100 miles while traveling 65 mph which is 1/3 the driving distance of typical vehicles powered by internal combustion engines yu and his group have determined that by using their li-s battery which has a five-times higher energy density with inexpensive sulfur (price is 1/300 of cobalt in typical current commercial li-ion batteries) the range per charge of electric vehicles could be greatly improved and the price could be much lower the group also investigates the methodology of achieving high safety and reliability of the li-s battery an important concern for many electric vehicle customers and their results are summarized in their paper safe and reliable operation of sulfur batteries with lithiated silicon advanced materials is a leading international journal in materials science publishing cutting-edge research in a multidisciplinary ever-expanding field on a weekly schedule nano energy is a multidisciplinary rapid-publication forum of original peer-reviewed contributors on the science and engineering of nanomaterials and nanodevices used in all forms of energy harvesting conversion storage utilization and policy
513,two embedded intelligence systems designed and developed by undergraduate students in texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering were aboard a spacex falcon 9 rocket headed to the international space station (iss) the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) students developed a new control monitoring recording and reporting system called nesi+ (nanoracks embedded systems interface) the students have actively collaborated with nasa the center for advancement of science in space (casis) nanoracks airbus defense space systems division and a number of public and private secondary schools across the country in their development effort the students originally designed and delivered the embedded microcontroller-based capability for a nasa-hunch extreme science teacher at clear springs high school in league city texas to aid her plant growth experiment that is currently scheduled to be flown on the iss based on analysis of competing technologies the nesi design was chosen to support more than 16 high schools spanning three time zones during the 2013 academic year as part of the nasa extreme science program at this point in the development former eset students mickie byrd and willis twigge turned over the continued development and support of the nesi+ embedded system to current students dakotah karrer colton schimank vince rodriquez william nault and hector paz karrer and schimank are primarily involved in the support and enhancement of the embedded hardware and software rodriquez nault and paz are mentoring three schools in the denver area that are participating in phase ii of the casis national design challenge program all of these student projects using the nesi+ hardware and software are scheduled to fly on the iss while these experiments are being developed or awaiting transfer to the iss the eset students have been supporting the integration of the nesi+ technology into two experiments that are now running on the iss dr josh caldwell of the university of central florida developed the first of the two experiments called nanorocks which uses the microgravity environment of the iss to study very slow collisions within the particle chamber dr gary stutte from limerick institute of technology in limerick ireland is conducting the second experiment symbiotic nodulation in a reduced gravity environment or synerge3 that studies plant/microbe interactions in space both researchers are using the nesi+ embedded environment for their experiments these researchers were able to send their experiments to the iss via nanoracks commercial space act agreement in addition to the direct support of researchers and others developing experiments for the iss the team of undergraduate students from texas a&m is teaming with nanoracks and its partner airbus defense and space systems to provide an active demonstration of the nesi+ capabilities both companies are using the demonstration system as part of their exhibit booth at space research and development conferences across the united states promoting the value of the nesi+ embedded monitoring control recording and reporting system among the research community
514,dr benjamin wilhite associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering is scheduled to speak at the national academies' chemical sciences roundtable: mesoscale chemistry wilhite will participate in a session on membrane behavior/microchemical systems the two-day event begins thursday nov 6 in washington dc
515,"dr scott schaefer associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was an invited keynote speaker at the symposium on solid and physical modeling (spm 2014) held october 26 - 28 at the chinese university of hong kong the symposium focused on mathematical and computational issues that relate to mechanical design process planning manufacturing medicine games animation geology and virtual reality schaefer's talk ""aliasing in solid and geometric modeling "" explored how aliasing can arise in solid and geometric modeling as well as how to specialize various filtering techniques for such applications to remove aliasing and noise additionally he discussed how geometry can and should influence more traditional signal processing algorithms after receiving his doctoral degree in computer science from rice university in 2006 schaefer joined the texas a&m faculty schafer teaches courses in computer graphics game development geometric modeling data structures and algorithms and introduction to computing he is a two-time recipient of the department's undergraduate faculty teaching excellence award in 2011 schaefer received the günter enderle award for his paper ""wavelet rasterization"" he received a nsf career award for his research in graphics and visualization in 2012 his research interests include graphics geometry processing curve and surface representations and barycentric coordinates schaefer has published more than 50 research papers co-located with spm 2014 was smi 2014 (shape modeling international) held october 28 - 30 smi publicizes new mathematical theories and computational techniques for modeling simulating and processing digital representations of shapes addressing researchers developers students and practitioners from a wide range of fields both symposia drew other texas a&m participants: dr john keyser computer science and engineering professor and associate head for academics and dr ergun akleman a professor in the department of visualization at texas a&m and joint faculty in computer science and engineering at spm 2014 keyser executive committee chair of the solid modeling association and songgang xu a phd graduate student presented a poster paper entitled ""surface quadrangulation without global cuts"" at smi akleman steering committee member of the shape modeling international presented ""block meshes: topologically robust shape modeling with graphs embedded on 3-manifolds"" co-authored with dr jianer chen computer science and engineering professor"
516,"twenty-seven external advisory council members gathered for the bi-annual meeting to discuss the future initiatives of the department of computer science and engineering council members represented numerous industry leading companies and agencies including astronaut steve swanson '98 during the meeting members engaged in dialog about a wide array of topics including continued development of the aggie computer science and engineering (ace) scholars program and tamuhack an innovative new student organization that hosts hackathons to showcase the nations top technical talent to recruiters additionally advisory council members discussed plans for hiring additional faculty to meet the growth potential of the department due to increased activity by the advisory council additional endowments were formed to fund departmental student scholarships the advisory council members also donated funds for the acquisition of a golf cart to aid with departmental recruiting and events during the meeting dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering met with the council to discuss key points related to the college ""our interaction with the cse external advisory council gives us a unique opportunity to get direct feedback on our department's continuing path towards excellence and on our strategy for growth said dr dilma da silva head of the department ""the council members not only have expertise on industry trends and needs but also have been engaged on assessing our strengths and weakness they are helping us to find ways to increase the visibility of the great research and education results we already achieved the discussion with the council also helps us prioritize our efforts for improvement this was my first council meeting and i was very impressed with the level of engagement and energy in the meeting im looking forward the next meeting in the spring this fall meeting also provided student leaders and ace scholars the opportunity to interact with advisory council members during the meeting and luncheon students received insightful industry related advice and were given the opportunity to share their thoughts about the future of computer science with the council members the fall advisory council meeting was a great opportunity to communicate some of our concerns about the department but it was also an excellent opportunity to show our appreciation for it said upsilon pi epsilon president ricardo zavala it was remarkable to see that the advisory council is very attentive to our feedback and is willing to go the extra mile in offering a helping hand to increase awareness of the field to the university in general and the college of engineering in particular furthermore their personal stories were really entertaining and inspirational i hope we get a chance to meet up with them more often with the success of the fall advisory council meeting cse looks forward to another successful meeting and student-council interaction opportunity this coming spring"
517,the acm international collegiate programming contest (icpc) sponsored by ibm is the premiere global programming competition conducted by and for the worlds universities icpc was first held at texas a&m university in 1970 where the alpha chapter of the upsilon phi epsilon computer science honor society hosted it the contest has grown to include thousands of teams from more than 2 000 universities in 94 countries this year texas a&m was again host to a site for the regional icpc competition the department of computer science and engineering was one of three sites hosting teams as part of the south central usa regional icpc meeting twenty-six teams from eight universities came to texas a&m louisiana state university and letourneau university were the other host sites together hosting another 36 teams south central usas region is texas louisiana and oklahoma and the winner will go on to the world finals in morocco next may for this competition teams of three students represent their universities the students have to share one computer during the contest which involves writing programs to solve computer problems teams are ranked based on how many problems they solve and then on the time it takes to solve them with penalties for wrong submissions the contest lasted five hours and the winning team solved its fifth and winning problem with just three minutes left texas a&m had three teams enter who were selected from the top finishers of about 30 students who participated in a local contest that was held on campus in september texas a&m teams finished in seventh ninth and 27th in the region a team from rice won first place with a team from the university of texas at austin in second the three teams from texas a&m consisted of cse students spencer rawls kevin vece ross dixon cameron hill brian maule eliezar cabrera and nathan villanueva petroleum engineering major joseph cox and first year math graduate student austin conner coaching these teams for many years has been a lot of fun said cse professor and associate head for academics dr john keyser i enjoy seeing how students and teams progress over time watching the scoreboard during the contest and challenging myself on some of the problems! it has given me a chance to get to know lots of our undergraduates well i have enjoyed participating in icpc ever since i was competing as an undergraduate myself and i am glad to get the chance to continue now as a coach
518,team vapor space won first place at the second aggies invent for its multi-purpose tool to be used by first responders in hazmat suits the prototype which included a hammer scraper and various wrenches earned the five-member team $750 approximately 70 students and 18 mentors participated in the event aggies invent is a program that promotes innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m university the concept is to gather interested students provide them with the potential needs (medical energy or others) allow them to self-select teams give them access to and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) and have them create prototypes in 48 hours the focus for this particular aggies invent was on creating prototypes for first responders based on need statements supplied by the city of college station fire and police departments texas a&m veterinary emergency team bryan police department sandia national laboratories the mary k oconnor process safety center the texas a&m engineering extension service (teex) hazmat response center for robot assisted search and rescue (crasar) philips healthcare and the american red cross the unique thing about aggies invent is that students get to work on real problems guided by mentors who are experts in the field and build prototypes in a state of the art facility all in 48 hours said rodney boehm industry mentor and mediator of aggies invent this is where theory meets practice and the engineering design process gets embedded in their very core team vapor space which used a 3d printer in the eic to create its prototype include dayana hansley biomedical engineering freshman gabrielle krzysiak mechanical engineering sophomore andrew michaud petroleum engineering freshman timothy paulsen mechanical engineering sophomore and kiran prasad mechanical engineering masters student formed the team second place went to team raising the bar which developed a wearable device for search and rescue dogs and crews that monitors radiation temperature and gas levels in the air this modular system allowed rescuers to change out sensors depending on the hazard present and wirelessly transmit the measurements and location back to a central receiver for monitoring raising the bar received $500 for its effort the members of team raising the bar included kaitlin frierson electrical engineering freshman jesse johns nuclear engineering phd student dakotah karrer electronic systems engineering technology junior vince rodriguez electronic engineering technology junior and elikem wood biomedical engineering masters student the aggies invent rescue squad (airs) received $250 as the third-place prize for its prototype of a gps location module that could be dropped into disaster areas and be used by survivors to notify search and rescue teams of their location tadeo huerta mechanical engineering senior melinda mcclure chemistry engineering senior melissa mcneill computer science and engineering senior sierra silla industrial distribution freshman wesley vance computer science senior and scott weaver computer science and engineering junior composed the airs team the first second and third place teams received an offer to work with startup aggieland in the spring to further develop their prototypes the judges were so impressed by all the teams hard work that they awarded the rest of the nine teams fourth place and a $100 prize the weekend-long event started at teexs disaster city on friday afternoon disaster city is a mock community featuring full-scale collapsible structures designed to simulate various levels of disaster and wreckage which can be customized for the specific training needs of any first responders this location was a perfect setting since the purpose of this aggies invent was to use an engineering design process to build prototypes in 48 hours to solve typical problems that first responders encounter at disaster city students participated in a speed-dating activity that allowed them to get familiar with the need statements sponsors and mentors after the students selected their own teams based on the information they received the sponsors submitted 27 need statements and 11 were chosen students formed interdisciplinary teams of four to six people ranging from freshmen to phd candidates students spent the rest of the weekend at the eic working to create a working prototype to solve the need they had selected the eic is a 20 000 square-foot rapid prototyping facility consisting of a fabrication center which includes 3d printers a laser cutter and other production technologies some of the sponsors provided the teams with special supplies that they might need to create their prototype on sunday afternoon all teams presented their prototypes to a panel of judges the judges were dr jon mogford vice chancellor of research dr dale cope tees director of industry assistance dr richard lester executive director for the center of new ventures and entrepreneurship dr dilma da silva department head of computer science and engineering and mr jose quintana president of adventgx corporation aggies invent benefits participants by allowing them to take what they learn in class and apply it to real world problems
519,in a critical moment of evolution and opportunity in the gas and fuels industry texas a&m university has taken a major step by establishing an important new home for cutting-edge innovation research learning and collaboration to be centered at its qatar campus arching over two continents and several disciplines the qatar campus new gas and fuels research center (gfrc) has the potential to become the definitive depository of knowledge as well as the leading cradle of new technologies related to the production transport and processing of natural gas worldwide gfrc is part of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) an engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system the gas and fuels research center has a unique opportunity to lead multidisciplinary innovative research activities in natural gas exploration production treatment and processing to support qatar the world capital of natural gas and the state of texas the world energy leader said dr nimir elbashir the centers director and associate professor in the chemical engineering program the centers main objectives are to train highly skilled engineers and technical staff and to provide both research and service to industry and governmental agencies seeking to learn about the potential and use of natural gas as a fast-rising source of cleaner energy qatar is the natural destination for the center as it is home to some of the most significant gas resources on the planet including the largest liquefied natural gas and gas-to-liquids plants in the world and to an integrated supply chain of cleaner energy sources in addition to value-added chemicals and ultra-clean fuels the gfrc will establish strong links with the research institutions and industry and governmental agencies both in qatar and the united states the center will focus on several research areas immediately including new gas exploration and production techniques novel catalysts and materials for natural gas conversions new processes related to hydrocarbon treatment and new materials and mathematical models for property prediction and process design explained dr ioannis economou the centers co-director i am very confident that my colleagues involved in each of these areas who are world class scientists and engineers and their research will have tremendous impact in the local regional and global oil and gas industrial community economou said the launch of gfrc was envisioned during texas a&m at qatars gas and fuels research initiative (gfri) and a two-day workshop on natural gas monetization that took place in montgomery texas in march 2014 the workshop was sponsored by the united states national science foundation (nsf) texas a&m at qatar and global energy corporations qatar shell and sasol the center will not have its own building but will use existing facilities in the texas a&m engineering building in doha and existing facilities in college station texas the aim in this initial phase of the center is to bring together stakeholders from across the energy universe to work on projects of mutual interest and make use of existing infrastructure at this first stage funding will be used to support researchers such as grad students and post docs and to upgrade research equipment faculties at both campuses have been very supportive economou said faculty members have been involved in all stages of the establishment of the center including identifying priority research areas as well as actively seeking funding from industry this engagement will continue and further strengthen in the months to come because the power of the center lies in the contribution of its collaborating faculty economou added the direct participation of 22 faculty members based at both college station and qatar campuses will provide students an excellent opportunity to not only work alongside new colleagues but also benefit from the infrastructure found at both campuses elbashir said i believe this will significantly improve the employment chances of any students who have the opportunity to do research at such an important center alongside professionals from world-leading corporate and governmental institutions the center will provide opportunities for our students to get involved in exciting research projects of direct relevance to their future careers by working to solve real life problems they will acquire a strong knowledge of the fundamentals in chemical petroleum and process engineering and a strong understanding of how these are applied to address some of the most challenging engineering problems at the same time they will have the chance to meet technical leaders from industry who can be their potential future employers this important moment in the rush to develop new energy technologies globally makes the timing of the establishment of the center so important growth in the shale-gas industry in the us will lead to investments exceeding $100 billion over the next decade said dr mahmoud el-halwagi the centers managing director and mcferrin professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m in college station so there is great advantage to have texas a&m university both in qatar and college station provide leadership research education and outreach for the oil and gas industry at such a critical time professor peter valkó from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering in college station and a faculty member of the gfrc agrees and sees the wide potential for the center arching over two continents and several disciplines gfrc has the potential to become the definitive depository of knowledge and cradle of new technologies related to the production transport and processing of natural gas as the shale gas era has bloomed the moment is here for such an important initiative for texas a&m at qatar the state of texas and specifically texas a&m university played critical roles in leading the world during the oil era economou said and now the opportunity has arrived to take the same leading role in the shale gas era
520,(above) model of sieve separating the target molecule hepcidin from compounds found in complex bodily fluids dr hung-jen wu assistant professor of chemical engineering at texas a&m university connects industrial processes of membrane separation and molecular sieve technology to identify a new biomarker for iron regulator-related diseases and cancer the biomarker is named hepcidin in his research alongside other colleagues wu captures small proteins and peptides from complex bodily fluids with well-engineered nanopores before evaluating them in a mass spectrometer for study and identification using a sieve the target molecule (hepcidin) is separated from complex human bodily fluids such as blood and urine to better detect the target in the mass spectrometer essential to the process is the development of the nanopore which is a very simple and stable fabrication by self-assembly of surfactants wu said and based heavily in chemical engineering principles we look at one hormone hepcidin which is an iron regulator that is associated with anemia inflammation and even early-cancer detection among many other different diseases if you combine with other biomarkers even greater [number of] diseases can be discovered said wu the feature article nanopore film based enrichment and quantification of low abundance hepcidin from human bodily fluids was published in the july 2014 edition of nanomedicine: nanotechnology biology and medicine volume 10 (number 5) pages 879-888 a new research grant for the discovery of tuberculosis biomarkers was awarded in july 2014 wu will advance his research in collaboration with dr victor ugaz professor of chemical engineering holder of the charles d holland 53 professorship and director of the undergraduate program as well as dr jeffrey cirillo professor in the texas a&m health science center and director of the center for airborne pathogen research and tuberculosis imaging
521,"dr xi zhang professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been recently selected as the winner of the prestigious best paper award at the ieee globecom 2014 conference held earlier this month in austin texas zhang and his phd student co-author jingqing wang won the ieee globecom 2014 best paper award for their paper ""3d percolation theory-based exposure-path prevention for optimal power-coverage tradeoff in clustered wireless camera sensor networks"" this research is the part of projects sponsored by zhangs us national science foundation grants zhang the founding director of the networking and information systems laboratory and an expert in wireless networks and information systems joined the texas a&m faculty upon receiving his phd in electrical engineering and computer science (electrical engineering systems) from the university of michigan he was with the networks and distributed systems research department at at&t bell laboratories in murray hills new jersey and with at&t laboratories research in florham park new jersey zhang has published more than 300 research papers one book several book chapters and presented more than 20 keynote/plenary and tutorial talks at ieee leading conferences he received the us national science foundation career award in 2004 he is both ieee communications society distinguished lecturer and ieee vehicular society distinguished lecturer he received best paper awards at ieee globecom 2014 ieee wcnc 2010 globecom 2009 ieee globecom 2007 respectively he also received a tees select young faculty award for ""excellence in research performance from the college of engineering at texas a&m in 2006 zhang receives multimillion-dollar research funds from us nsf and us dod for his research in wireless networks he is serving or has served as editor for ieee transactions on communications ieee transactions on wireless communications ieee transactions on vehicular technology and ieee communications letters he also was guest editor for ieee journal on selected areas in communications ieee communications magazine and ieee wireless communications he is serving or has served as tpc chair for ieee globecom 2011 tpc area chair for ieee infocom 2012 general vice-chair for ieee wcnc 2013 tpc vice-chair for ieee ccnc 2013 tpc vice-chair for ieee infocom 2010 among others his research interests include wireless networks and communications systems multimedia transmissions over wireless networks network protocol design and modeling statistical communications random signal processing information theory and control theory and systems ieee globecom is the most important flagship conference of the ieee communications society where zhang was the general technical program committee (tpc) chair for ieee glbeocom 2011 in houston the conference meets once a year in north america and attracts more than 2 000 leading scientists and researchers and industry leaders from all around the world ieee globecom is therefore one of the most significant scientific events of the networking and communications community a must-attend event for scientists and researchers from industry and academia"
522,"dr ruud weijermars joined the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university as a professor in november weijermars specializes in analytical modelling and finding the key parameters that control a process or system and his current research interests include geomechanics of reservoirs and wellbores and petroleum economics and energy system modeling i am very pleased to welcome professor ruud weijermars to the harold vance department of petroleum engineering "" said dan hill head of the department his analytical modelling is a great fit for the department weijermars was born in the netherlands and received his bachelors degree in geology and his masters degree in structural geology from the university of amsterdam in the netherlands in 1987 he earned his phd based on laboratory modelling of mantle convection at the hans ramberg tectonic laboratory at the university of uppsala in sweden which provided him with a solid understanding of fluid dynamics and continuum mechanics he has published over 150 referred journal articles and his work has been widely cited he began his career in academia as an associate professor with the university of uppsala he has also held positions with eth zurich the university of texas at austin king fahd university of petroleum and minerals and mostly recently at delft university of technology prior to joining texas a&m weijermars combined his academic position at delft university of technology with the energy strategy consultant firm of alboran energy consultants weijermars has written three books including two classic geoscience textbooks jointly sponsored by the natural science research councils of sweden and saudi arabia: principles of rock mechanics (alboran science publishing 1997) and structural geology and map interpretation (alboran science publishing 1997) his most recent book building corporate iq - moving the energy business from smart to genius (springer london 2011) provides a framework for practitioners of good leadership and measures for quantifying and improving the corporate iq he was awarded the king oscar prize for research by the university of uppsala in 1991 and a distinguished researcher award by the king fahd university of petroleum and minerals in 1996 he served as a judge for the petroleum economist energy executive of the year award from 2006-2009 and is a registered nominator for the russian global energy prize he is the founding editor and serves as the editor-in-chief of energy strategy reviews an elsevier journal dedicated to energy systems modeling"
523,the 2015 texas a&m robotics symposium will be held in college station on jan 21-22 in room 2005 of the emerging technologies building it will host talks by 18 world-renowned thought leaders in robotics and automation the symposium will start with a keynote address by dr ruzena bajcsy from university of california berkeley each speaker at the symposium will be giving a high-level accessible talk focusing on her current research the list of invited speakers for the symposium is composed entirely of women famous in the field of robotics research a first for any major robotics conference the expertise of this collection of internationally recognized robotics researchers covers the spectrum of robotics and automation the symposium is co-located with the icra 2015 senior program committee (spc) meeting which will be held jan 23-24 the 2015 ieee international conference on robotics and automation (icra) is a premier international forum for robotics researchers and the ieee robotics and automation societys flagship conference ieee (institute of electrical and electronics engineers) is the largest association of technical professionals boasting more than 400 000 members worldwide dr nancy m amato unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and senior director of honors programs in the dwight look college of engineering is hosting the icra 2015 spc meeting and is the program chair for icra 2015 which will be held may 26-30 2015 at the washington state convention center in seattle washington while the main objective of the spc meeting is to select the papers and plan the conference program we just had to take advantage of this unique opportunity to hear from such a remarkable cadre of robotics and automation researchers from around the world amato said the texas a&m robotics symposium is open to all interested attendees the event is sponsored by the parasol lab and the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m while registration is complimentary attendees are asked to register in advance of the symposium so that catering for breaks and lunch which will be provided can be arranged
524,"during the weekend of nov 7-9 the learning interactive visualization experience lab (live) in the collge of architecture's department of vizualization hosted a game jam on campus in collaboration with tamu acm siggraph tagd texas a&m university kansas state university iac and others a game jam is a gathering of game developers for the purpose of planning designing and creating one or more games this usually takes place within a short span of time ranging from 24 to 48 hours teams of various sizes including students from several majors competed in the game design event texas a&m cse freshman and sophomore jonathan burk and randall dolifka vizualization department graduate student kumar sridharamurthy and kansas state computer science freshman joy hauser were part of the winning team for best overall game ""team no name"" the team created the game keep swimming which requires players to control a fish underwater while dodging obstacles and accumulating points ""i had a great time and an amazing learning experience at the game jam "" burk said ""what stuck out to me the most was the fun i had staying up with everybody and just working on games! it was a blast to focus all efforts on to designing and creating for a weekend"" each member of the team received a license from the gaming software company unity the licenses valued at $1 500 each allow them access to software to develop and program games ""i was fortunate to work with three enthusiastic computer science and engineering students who picked up the game development software unity really quickly "" sridharamurthy said live lab's mission is to create an environment that fosters research and development of educational experiences for classroom use from k-12 higher education corporate government and ngo they accomplish this goal by collaborating with other departments colleges and universities photo: randall dolifka"
525,"cheery faces and warm and fuzzy feelings animate the department of computer science and engineering (cse) administration office on the third floor of the hr bright building (hrbb) on the texas a&m university campus as the room fills with presents for brazos valley children a salvation army angel tree a favorite symbol of holiday giving across the cities of the brazos valley sits in front of the reception desk sheltering gifts of toys games bikes and clothes ""the response from the department faculty and staff was great but the response from the students was phenomenal "" said engineering organizational services manager kathy waskom ""we had three students one undergraduate and two graduate solely sponsor children along with all the donated items we were able to raise $700 to purchase more items it's great to see cse passionately involved in community activities cse's holiday happenings and community outreach actually began in november with its angel tree collection and its time to give thanks cse potluck community meal hosted by the computer science and engineering graduate students association (csegsa) for all cse students and staff everyone attending was asked to bring a dish to share with the department providing the set-up and drinks thanks were given for the continuing success of cse the december kick-off of holiday celebrations started on the 4th with an off-campus holiday luncheon for cse faculty staff and invited guests from the look college of engineering guests enjoyed a family-style meal of salad nonna's lasagna eggplant rollantini chicken parmesan and dessert at paolo's italian kitchen in college station while delicious and delightful christmas presents were enthusiastically raffled off by staff elves during the luncheon pc analyst dave cote was presented the staff excellence award by department head dr dilma da silva for his dedicated service exemplary attitude and significant contribution to the department cited at the top of the many examples of his service was dave's immediate handling this fall of the computer needs for all the newly hired faculty and staff which he did with competence and cordiality in october dave was an integral part of the computer setup at texas a&m for 26 of the 36 teams participating in the 2014 acm icpc south central usa regional programming contest the following week the aggie computer science and engineering (ace) scholars program held its holiday luncheon for its members and the cse faculty approximately 30 students and 20 faculty enjoyed a festive lunch of grilled chicken vegetables and spinach enchiladas catered by abuelo's mexican restaurant in college station the luncheon gave the ace scholars the opportunity to interact with faculty and to discover mutual research interests all ace scholars participate in an intensive undergraduate research experience culminating in an honors thesis then there's the department's impromptu ""end of the semester we survived finals let's get ready for the holidays celebration"" held the day before graduation and hosted by cse and its student organizations it was a come-when-you-can held from 9 am to 3 pm in the administration offices on the third floor of hrbb all were dressed in their craziest holiday apparel from tacky sweaters to christmas pajamas hot cocoa and cookies accompanied classic christmas movies and board games (clue candyland monopoly operation et al) cse said goodbye to these spirited holiday happenings and to all its fall semester students with its graduation reception for its students receiving bachelors masters and doctoral degrees on december 19 happy holidays everyone!"
526,faculty and staff of the zachry department of civil engineering were recognized for their contributions to the department at the departments annual holiday party on dec 12 recipients include: zachry excellence in teaching award: dr peter england birdwell excellence in teaching award: dr nasir gharaibeh truman jones excellence in graduate teaching award: dr ralph wurbs research impact award: dr scott socolofsky and dr marcelo sanchez service impact award: dr ray james and dr dominique lord leadership impact award: dr amy epps martin dr richard mercier and dr kelly brumbelow outstanding staff award: ms crystal faust ms mary louise sims and ms theresa taeger outstanding new staff award: ms sarah curylo
527,the national academy of inventors (nai) announced that two researchers from texas a&m university b don russell jr and darwin j prockop will become nai fellows this spring russell and prockop are among 170 new fellows to be inducted during the nais 4th annual conference on march 20 at the california institute of technology in pasadena california nai fellows are academic inventors and innovators who are named on us patents and were nominated by their peers for outstanding contributions to innovation texas a&m vice president for research glen a laine said i am pleased and excited that these outstanding faculty members have been recognized for their applied research which contributes to our mission as a land grant institution russell is the harry e bovay jr chair professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m as well as a regents professor and a distinguished professor he holds 13 us patents and is a member of the national academy of engineering russell is a fellow of five other societies including the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) the national society of professional engineers the national academy of forensic engineers and the british institution of engineering and technology prockop is the stearman chair in genomic medicine and a professor in the department of internal medicine at the texas a&m health science center college of medicine he directs the texas a&m college of medicines institute for regenerative medicine at scott & white hospital in temple texas prockop holds 20 us patents and is a member of the national academy of sciences and the national institute of medicine following the induction ceremony in march the total number of nai fellows will come to 414 representing more than 150 prestigious research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutions nai fellows include 61 presidents and senior leadership of research universities and non-profit research institutes 208 members of the other national academies 21 inductees of the national inventors hall of fame 16 recipients of the us national medal of technology and innovation 10 recipients of the us national medal of science 21 nobel laureates 11 lemelson-mit prize recipients 112 american association for the advancement of science fellows and 62 ieee fellows among other awards and distinctions the 2014 nai fellows selection committee comprises 17 members including nai fellows recipients of us national medals national inventors hall of fame inductees members of the national academies and senior officials from the us patent and trademark office the association of american universities the american association for the advancement of science the association of university technology managers and the national inventors hall of fame about the national academy of inventors: nai is a 501(c)(3) non-profit member organization comprised of us and international universities and governmental and non-profit research institutions with over 3 000 individual inventor members and fellows spanning more than 200 institutions and growing rapidly it was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the us patent and trademark office enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation encourage the disclosure of intellectual property educate and mentor innovative students and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society the nai edits the multidisciplinary journal technology and innovation published by cognizant communication corporation (ny) wwwacademyofinventorsorg about research at texas a&m university: as one of the world's leading research institutions texas a&m is in the vanguard in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge including that of science and technology research conducted at texas a&m represents annual expenditures of more than $820 million that research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit researchtamuedu media contacts: rusty cawley (979) 458-9478 rcawley@tamuedu; keara leach (813) 974-5862 kleach@academyofinventorsorg more news about texas a&m university follow us on twitter
528,"dr jianer chen dr dmitri loguinov dr lawrence rauchwerger and dr duncan moore ""hank"" walker were named as 2014 distinguished scientists by the association for computing machinery forty-nine scientists engineers and educators from universities international corporations and research institutions world-wide were selected as 2014 acm distinguished members of the scientists selected approximately 10 percent were chosen from among the faculty members in the department of computer science and engineering (cse) at texas a&m university the acm distinguished scientist designation is in recognition of an acm member with at least 15 years of acm membership and five years of continuous professional membership who has made a significant impact on the computing field professor chen has 18 years with the cse department supervising approximately 40 phd and master's students during his tenure his research interests are in the areas of algorithms and complexity computer networks computer graphics and bioinformatics chen has authored more than 200 journal publications and refereed conference publications and 11 book chapters he is an associate editor for the journal of computer and system sciences and the ieee transactions on computers he is recognized by the cse department and the college of engineering as a gifted educator and holds the university afs distinguished faculty achievement award for 2007 after receiving his doctoral degree in computer science from city university of new york in 2002 professor loguinov joined the texas a&m faculty as an assistant professor becoming a full professor in 2011 his research fields include peer-to-peer networks larger-scale information retrieval web crawling internet measurement stochastic modeling of networks congestion control random graphs topology analysis bandwidth estimation and video streaming he has written approximately 115 papers and holds four patents loguinov is active in the cse department's research experiences for undergraduates program and the undergraduate student research grant program he has mentored undergraduates who have won first place in reu/usrg poster competitions eppright professor rauchwerger holds a doctoral degree in computer science from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign among his many awards are the ibm faculty award intel faculty award nsf faculty early career development (career) award and the tees select young faculty award and tees senior fellow rauchwerger is an ieee fellow his research interests are in compilers for parallel and distributed computing parallel and distributed c++ libraries adaptive runtime optimizations and architectures for parallel computing his research paper ""adaptive reduction parallelization techniques"" was recently selected for publication in the acm international conference on supercomputing 25th anniversary volume walker professor and former head of the cse department became a cse faculty member in 1993 he directs the electronic design automation lab which researches defect and fault testing design automation defect diagnosis design for testability (dft) and novel test methodologies walker instructs graduate and undergraduate students in software engineering computer organization and testing and diagnosis of digital systems his numerous honors include the ed brockett professorship award (2007) the charles w crawford service award (2010) and the lockheed martin aeronautics company excellence in engineering teaching award (2006) walker additionally is a dwight look college of engineering fellow (2006-2007) amd fellow (2002) and tees fellow (1998) there were 42 distinguished scientists named by acm in 2014 among the cse faculty dr dilma m da silva dr daniel a jiménez dr frank m shipman dr jennifer l welch and dr nancy m amato received the acm distinguished scientist designation in previous years bringing the total number of faculty acm distinguished scientists to 10"
529,"on dec 8 computer science and engineering professor dr tim davis got the surprise of his life on a take-home quiz given to his sophomore class discrete structures for computing the previous friday davis noted that the students may not receive outside help just for fun he added one exception on the quiz: you may request assistance from revellie viii if she attends class on monday dec 8 then everyone attending class on that day gets 100 percent on this quiz really when he walked into his classroom that day there she was it was a complete surprise but he stayed true to his word to be honest it wasn't the fact that we would get a 100 percent on our last quiz of the semester that made me delighted but the fact that my professor who just moved to college station would be able to experience one of a&m's great traditions in his very own lecture said student alyssa valdez davis joined the cse faculty in june of this year although he is new to texas a&m he feels a special connection to the university mascot and first lady of aggieland miss reveille davis family dog as a child was a rough collie named frederick and his recently passed pup macaulay was a sheltie who remarkably resembled the beloved breed these two dogs had a significant impact on davis life and his love for dogs notably collies has stuck with him throughout his life davis went even further with his reveille-themed quiz on one question the students were asked to create a finite state automaton even though these are usually expressed with ones and zeroes davis decided to keep with his theme and use woof bark and whine instead while injecting some humor to his quiz he still kept the integrity of the material intact in a fun twist of events her actions while in the classroom coincided with the automaton davis had created for the quiz reveille has walked and lived among the students of texas a&m for more than 70 combined years and continues to be one of the students and facultys most loved traditions this story is not about me "" davis said ""this story is about reveille she is warm and welcoming and represents texas a&m university in the most accurate way"" more on this story at http://wwwchroncom/news/houston-texas/texas/article/a-m-mascot-reveille-viii-helps-computer-science-5968822php"
530,"in an evening reception thursday dec 11 the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering celebrated the end of 2014 with a gathering of faculty staff and their guests at a venue in college station dr m nazmul karim department head professor of chemical engineering and the t michael o'connor chair ii was host for the event that included reflection on the year's successes and hopes for 2015 ""we have never been more prepared for greatness than we are now "" said karim in opening remarks individual awards were presented to faculty and staff in the second half of the reception 2014 rayford g and jo-ann t anthony staff excellence award ($1 000):louis muniz jr - facilities managerjamie patterson - business coordinator ii 2014 outstanding service award for staff ($1 000):valerie green - associate director mary kay o'connor process safety centerkatherine toback - senior academic advisor iikidron vestal - communications manager green said ""i am humbled and honored by this recognition i do what i do because it is so easy to do it in an environment full of caring people i really appreciate working here and will forever treasure this award from my colleagues who i respect and admire"" 2014 outstanding service award for faculty:dr arul jayaraman - professor holder of the ray nesbitt professorship director of the graduate program associate department headdr victor ugaz - professor holder of the charles d holland '53 professorship director of the undergraduate program associate department head ""the department inspires me continually with colleagues who know what it takes to lead with profound care toward a greater future i am honored to be named among them "" jayaraman said special thanks was extended to randy marek technical laboratory manager who will retire following 33 years of dedicated service toni alvarado assistant to the department head was honored for her continued support among and in addition to all staff and faculty in the audience who were corporately commended for professional successes"
531,"dr sreeram vaddiraju (above left) assistant professor of chemical engineering is the 2014 recipient of the fluor distinguished teaching award the award and $2 000 check sponsored by fluor corporation recognizes vaddiraju for his dedication and outstanding contributions to the education and professional development of chemical engineering students at texas a&m university vaddiraju joined the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m in august of 2009 he works predominantly in research related to organic and inorganic semiconductors nanostructures thermoelectrics and solar cells among other research areas fluor corporation is the fall 2014 sponsor of the department's plant design competition a capstone chemical engineering course in which seniors are tasked with conceiving a fully functional chemical processing plant that operates per fluor's specifications in conjunction with fluor's annual plant design sponsorship the company also presents a teaching award to an outstanding faculty member within the chemical engineering department the presentation was made by dr m nazmul karim department head professor and t michael o'connor chair ii in a ceremony attended by students and fluor corporation representatives who participated in and served as industry mentors for the senior project employing a global workforce of more than 40 000 people fluor is one of the world's largest publicly-owned engineering procurement construction and maintenance services companies a fortune 500 company that is ranked first in fortune magazine's ""engineering construction"" category of america's largest corporations fluor maintains a network of offices in more than 79 countries"
532,"the aggie women in computer science (awics) recently hosted its 5th annual trick-or-research an event designed to introduce undergraduates and first-year graduate students to some of the research in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university more than 100 students participated in the two-day event faculty gave the students a brief overview of their research and the students were encouraged to visit research groups in the department to learn more about the research students were given a lab visit passport and when they visited a lab their passport was stamped the students who visited at least five labs during the event became eligible to enter a raffle for a chance to win prizes three students from computer science and engineering roger villanueva jonathan ng and brendan garcia won the raffle with each receiving a $25 visa gift card for having the most stamps on their passport computer science and engineering students sean-collin lee ray and robert cox won the grand prize of a $100 visa gift card for having a stamp at each building ""trick-or-research was a huge success again this year and we hope everyone enjoyed it said cindy yeh awics president"
533,"several faculty and students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university participated in the 2014 international conference for high performance computing networking storage and analysis (sc) held in new orleans nov 16-21 sc the largest and most diverse conference in the computing community is sponsored by the association for computing machinery and the ieee computer society it brought together more than 10 000 attendees one of the 12 invited talks which is a preeminent sc feature was a presentation by dr valerie e taylor ""mummi: a modeling infrastructure for exploring power and execution time tradeoffs"" taylor described the mummi (multiple metrics modeling infrastructure) framework and gave examples of how mummi is used to improve the energy efficiency of parallel applications taylor is the senior associate dean for academic affairs in the college of engineering and regents professor and wisenbaker professor in computer science and engineering she is executive director of the center for minorities and people with disabilities in it (cmd-it) an organization with a vision of contributing to the national need for an effective workforce in computing and it through synergistic activities related to minorities and people with disabilities ""designing dense linear algebra libraries for high performance computing"" was the subject of dr jack dongarra's talk for the hpc interconnections program portion of the conference he previewed software and algorithm challenges that are faced when designing numerical libraries at scale dongarra is a newly-named texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) 2014-2015 faculty fellow and tees research professor in computer science and engineering he is the university distinguished professor of computer science at the university of tennessee and the director of the innovative computing laboratory which coordinates and facilitates it research efforts at the university dongarra holds the title of distinguished research staff in the computer science and mathematics division at oak ridge national laboratory another hallmark of sc is the birds-of-a-feather (bof) sessions that provide attendees with a venue to openly discuss current topics in high performance computing dr lawrence rauchwerger was a panelist for the bof session on ""asynchronous many-task programming models for next generation platforms"" the discourse revolved around the many variants being proposed for the next generation of platform architectures participants were encouraged to rethink amt programming to influence the direction this body of work takes rauchwerger is noted for his research in parallel computing compilers and computer architecture he is the eppright professor in the department of computer science and engineering and co-director of the parasol lab managing the lab's software and systems group dr roger pearce presented ""faster parallel traversal of scale free graphs at extreme scale with vertex delegates"" during the technical papers program the sc14 technical paper committee accepted 84 papers from a total of 394 submissions pearce who received his doctoral degree in computer science from texas a&m last year is a computer scientist in the center for applied scientific computing (casc) at lawrence livermore national laboratory the paper was co-authored by pearce's adviser dr nancy m amato unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering and dr maya gokhale distinguished member of technical staff at the lawrence livermore national laboratory it covers techniques to distribute storage computation and communication hubs for extreme scale graphs in distributed memory supercomputers olga pearce who is a phd candidate graduating this december and is also advised by amato was one of 16 students selected from a field of 44 to present her research in the doctoral showcase pearce presented ""load balancing scientific applications"" in which she addressed how to evaluate load imbalance quickly and make its correction affordable by devising a framework for decoupling the load balancer from the application enabling asynchronous load balancing next year's conference sc15 will be held in austin texas the conference dates are nov 15-20 of note is the new student program which includes a student cluster competition student volunteers mentor-protégé program and student job fair"
534,dr haiyan wang professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been named one of four recipients of the 2015 edith and peter odonnell award the award which is presented by the academy of medicine engineering & science of texas (tamest) recognizes rising texas researchers who are addressing the essential role that science and technology play in society and whose work meets the highest standards of exemplary professional performance creativity and resourcefulness the recipients will be honored during a banquet on jan 22 2015 in conjunction with tamests 12th annual conference at the omni houston hotel in houston the other recipients include: thomas westbrook from baylor college of medicine (medicine); yuh min chook from the university of texas southwestern medical center (science); and charles collins from luminex corporation (technology innovation) the recipients of the 2015 odonnell awards exemplify the innovative life-changing research occurring in texas said dr bettie sue masters tamests 2014 president with a focus on cancer genetics nanostructured materials and devices protein transport in and out of the cell nucleus and 2 instrumentation engineering and optical systems these noteworthy texans have made discoveries or developed technologies that will significantly impact our society today and for years to come wang was honored in the engineering category and is recognized for her innovative research at the frontier of nanostructured materials in the areas of high temperature superconductors microelectronic and optoelectronic devices solid oxide fuel cells nuclear materials in situ tem characterizations and for her exceptional potential in inspired education and future leadership wang who also holds a joint position in the materials science and engineering program at texas a&m works part-time at the us national science foundation as a program manager in the division of materials research from december 2002 to january 2006 wang was on the staff of the los alamos national laboratory first as a director-funded post-doctoral fellow and then as a permanent technical staff member in 2006 she joined the faculty at texas a&m as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor and full professor in 2010 and 2014 respectively she received her phd in materials science and engineering from north carolina state university in 2002 wang has made significant contributions to a wide range of nanostructured ceramic thin films for various applications including nitride-based heterogeneous structures for high efficiency diffusion barriers and light emitting diodes high temperature superconductor coated conductors with significantly enhanced superconducting properties ferromagnetic and ferroelectric oxide thin films perovskite oxides for thin film solid oxide fuel cells in situ tem work and others her unique skill combination of both thin film processing and atomic scale characterization using transmission electron microscopy has enabled her to nanoengineer the thin film structure and exam the defects in nanoscale she has published more than 300 journal articles in nature materials nature communications natures scientific report advanced materials advanced functional materials and nanoletters and presented 150 invited and contributed talks at various international conferences wang holds eight patents in the areas of thin film processing and architectures her work has received a total citation over 6400 times with an h-index of 39 she has organized eight symposiums at international conferences and is an active committee member in the american society of metals (asm) american ceramic society (acers) and metals minerals and materials society (tms) wang is a fellow of the asm international (class of 2014) her major awards include the tees senior fellow 2014 tees fellow 2013 asm silver medal award for outstanding mid-career materials scientist in 2011 a college faculty fellow award in 2011 a tees young fellow award in 2010 an nsf career award in 2009 the presidential early career award (pecase) in 2008 an office of naval research-young investigator award in 2008 and an air force of scientific research-young investigator award in 2007 the total project funding she managed over the past five years exceeds $6 million from five different federal funding agencies the odonnell awards were first presented in 2006 and a total of $925 000 has been awarded to 40 recipients since the inception of the program the awards are named in honor of edith and peter odonnell who are among texas staunchest advocates for excellence in scientific advancement and stem education about tamest: tamest is what comes before the change you see in our state a nonprofit and a brain trust for texas tamest convenes influential experts to promote cross-industry and cross-disciplinary knowledge sharing through tamest research collides with industry our members make new discoveries lay the groundwork for tackling critical issues and change the course of funding legislation and society with 270+ members tamest is composed of the texas-based members of the three national academies (institute of medicine national academy of engineering and national academy of sciences) and the states 10 nobel laureates tamest brings the states top scientific academic and corporate minds together to further position texas as a national research leader tamest also fosters the next generation of scientists and facilitates awareness and communication among the states best and brightest about research priorities for the future more information is available at tamestorg
535,dr arul jayaraman professor of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the ray b nesbitt professorship has collaborated with researchers from tufts university school of engineering in the computational evaluation of gastrointestinal (gi) tract microorganism function the journal nature communications published the findings in a november 20 edition (doi: 101038/ncomms6492) the prediction and identification of metabolic properties found in the gi tract could offer new diagnosis and treatment opportunities for diseases and disorders in the gi tract as well as the understanding of other diseases related to metabolic and neurological functions work previously published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences (doi: 101073/pnas0906112107) from jayaramans laboratory had already demonstrated that indole a bacterial metabolite derived from the aromatic amino acid tryptophan caused an anti-inflammatory response in the gut and increased resistance to pathogen colonization that could lead to infection jayaraman said the previous work [essentially] focused on the biological effects of one molecule however since there can be several such bioactive molecules in the gut and it is not possible to test each one of them experimentally we wanted to come up with a more rational way of identifying such molecules we started working on this [research]… in fall 2011 we are still far away from clinical implementation i see this as a pipeline for generating potential candidates for testing in the lab and taking it forward to the clinic the research team focused on aromatic amino acids (aaas) because their metabolites are involved in many of the more than 2 400 distinct reactions expressed in the microbiota as a whole next steps for the team include identifying microbiota metabolites whose levels are either significantly elevated or depleted during diseases such as ibd or cancer to find disease-specific markers and explore possible roles for these metabolites in disease progression funding from the national science foundation (award # 1264502 and # 084653) and the national institutes of health (award # gm106251 and 1r21ai095788) supported this research jayaraman also serves as director of the graduate program in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering tufts university contributed to this news release
536,"dr lawrence rauchwerger's ""adaptive reduction parallelization techniques"" is one of 35 papers selected to be included in the acm international conference on supercomputing 25th anniversary volume the volume celebrates the silver jubilee of the premier conference on high performance computers and computation ics which had its beginnings in athens greece in 1987 between 1987 and 2011 approximately 1 800 papers were published in the ics proceedings from these the selection committee considered 100 of the most cited papers selecting the most important 35 the publication is sponsored by acm sigarch and will become part of the acm digital library ""adaptive reduction parallelization techniques"" was written with one of rauchwerger's first phd students dr hao yu who is currently a research staff member at the ibm tj watson research center in yorktown heights new york the paper was published in the ics 2000 proceeding of the 14th international conference on supercomputing in the paper the authors propose to show how they can dynamically characterize a loop's reference pattern and choose the most appropriate method for parallelizing it by developing a library of parallel reduction algorithms the benefit is new optimizations for reduction parallelization and introduction of a new approach to the optimization of irregular applications rauchwerger is an eppright professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university he co-directs the parasol laboratory and manages the lab's software and systems group rauchwerger holds a doctoral degree in computer science from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign and an master's degree in electrical engineering from stanford university his research interests are in compilers for parallel and distributed computing parallel and distributed c++ libraries adaptive runtime optimizations and architectures for parallel computing among his many awards are the ibm faculty award intel faculty award nsf faculty early career development (career) award and the tees select young faculty award and tees senior fellow rauchwerger is an ieee fellow and an acm distinguished scientist he teaches graduate and undergraduate students in compiler design and supercomputing rauchwerger supervised the research of more than 20 graduated students and currently guides the graduate research of eight masters and doctoral students"
537,"the dwight look college of engineerings student engineer's council (sec) welcomed more than 400 k-12 students to campus for the inaugural spark conference the conference centered around a day-long design competition for students with a focus on innovation teamwork and time management skills students were introduced to important skills needed to become a successful engineer the purpose of the conference is to expose students to texas a&m university and the field of engineering ""the spark conference is a premier recruiting event for the student engineers' council and the college of engineering explained melinda mcclure chemical engineering major and sec president ""it is 100 percent planned and hosted by students and shows that current texas a&m engineers have a passion for the future of our university our nation and our world we are eagerly stepping up to the plate and taking time out of our school schedules to address the growing need for students in the engineering profession"" activities catered to different age groups and disciplines of interest and included a computer coding competition egg drop challenge and an opportunity to design and construct a glider students were introduced to the skill set needed to become an engineer as well as the impact engineers can have on the world for me it is most inspiring to see students leaving our conference exclaiming that they want to be aggie engineers said spark chair torey dierckman we get to see our impact on the participants just after being on our campus for a short day the effectiveness of the conference is so rewarding and instills a drive in our council to want to continue to build and develop spark in the coming years the student engineers council (sec) is the representative body for all students in the look college at texas a&m formed by the dean of engineering in 1939 the sec represents the concerns of engineering students and professional societies to the college administration and to the university as a whole"
538,a nationally acclaimed researcher in solar energy distinguished professor rakesh agrawal of purdue university will describe the technological challenges for creating a sustainable solar-powered economy during his texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) eminent scholars lecture on friday dec 12 the institute presents one eminent scholar lecture each semester agrawals lecture begins at 7 pm in rudder tower room 301 on texas a&m universitys main campus in college station admission is free and open to the public and parking is available in the university center garage a reception will follow in the j wayne stark gallery in the memorial student center the lecture is co-sponsored by the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m as a tias faculty fellow for 2014-15 agrawal will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the look colleges department of chemical engineering the challenge for transitioning from a fossil-fuel economy to a solar economy agrawal says is learning to harness transform and store solar energy in ways that meet the needs of consumers in a presentation titled toward a solar economy agrawal will explore these challenges as well as an interdisciplinary approach for finding potential solutions these include sustainable options for transportation the production of fuels and chemicals large-scale storage of solar energy and around-the-clock power generation a member of the national academy of engineering agrawal is the winthrop e stone distinguished professor in purdues school of chemical engineering he has received the national medal of technology and innovation which is the highest honor for technological achievement bestowed by the president of the united states agrawal conducts research in energy-related areas that involve the conversion of biomass to liquid fuels processes related to low-cost solar cells energy systems analysis and high-efficiency separations processes needed for industry and research for more information about the tias eminent scholar lecture contact lisa jordan at l-jordan@tamuedu or (979) 458-4989 about the texas a&m university institute for advanced study: tias provides a catalyst to enrich the intellectual climate and educational experiences at texas a&m the institute was established in december 2010 by the texas a&m university system board of regents to build on the growing academic reputation of texas a&m and to provide a framework to attract top scholars from throughout the nation and abroad for appointments of up to a year to learn more visit the website: tiastamuedu about the dwight look college of engineering: with more than 500 faculty members and more than 14 000 students the look college is one of the largest engineering schools in the country the college is ranked seventh in engineering graduate programs and eighth in undergraduate engineering programs among public institutions by us news & world report about research at texas a&m university: as one of the world's leading research institutions texas a&m is in the vanguard in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge including that of science and technology research conducted at texas a&m represents annual expenditures of more than $820 million that research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit researchtamuedu
539,kyoungwoon kim a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won first prize at the prestigious 2014 asia pacific microwave conference (apmc) in japan kim whose advisor and co-author is dr cam nguyen the ti professor ii in analog engineering won for his paper design of a k-band power amplifier for high gain output power and efficiency on 018-µm sige bicmos process in his paper kim presents the design of a k-band 018 µm sige bicmos power amplifier with unprecedented performance the power amplifier achieves 375-395 db of small-signal gain 186-206 dbm of saturated output power and 18-29 percent of pae over the entire k-band (18-265 ghz) specifically at 24 ghz it achieves 194 dbm output power 223 percent pae and 376-db gain kim received a master's degree in electrical engineering from seoul national university seoul korea in 2006 and is currently working toward his phd degree in electrical engineering his current research interests include silicon-based rf microwave and millimeter-wave integrated circuits and systems the apmc is the largest microwave conference in the asia-pacific region bringing together international researchers engineers and students to showcase the most advanced research and development in microwave technologies it is organized and sponsored by the institute of electronics information and communication engineers (ieice)
540,junjing zhang was awarded first place in the doctoral division and ryan rice was awarded third place in the bachelor's division in the society of petroleum engineers (spe) international student paper contest held during the annual technical conference and exhibition in the netherlands in october these are distinctive achievements that involved many hours of preparation and coaching and three levels of competition over a 10-month period the process began with the texas a&m university petroleum engineering department's annual student paper contest (spc) the objective of the spc is to develop technical presentation skills in all students participation is required by all juniors seniors and graduate students who present orally the results of their graduate research or independent study of a petroleum engineering problem to a panel of industry judges presentations are 10-15 minutes followed by a five-minute question and answer period with the judges since the 1970s the petroleum engineering annual student paper contest has been one of the most important professional development opportunities that we provide for our students said duane mcvay spc director the value placed on the paper contest by our former students and industry supporters is evidenced by their substantial participation in and sponsorship of the contest over 100 industry judges and over $50 000 each year for the last several years in february after two saturdays worth of competition (479 students for the preliminaries and 51 for the runoffs) division winners were named in the texas a&m petroleum engineering spc: undergraduate: first place ryan rice; second place robert carruthers; third place riyan ariwibowo masters: first place assiya suleimenova; second place kathryn briggs; third place krishna nunna doctoral: first place junjing zhang; second place shusei tanaka; third place ahmed bader alkouh the first and second place undergraduate masters and doctoral division winners went on to the spe gulf coast region spc one of the regional contests held by spe the regional contests are hosted on a rotating basis by a student chapter within each region currently these regions are canada russia and caspian europe gulf coast north america rocky mountain/mid-continent/eastern north america latin america and the caribbean western north america africa asia pacific middle east and south asia in these regional competitions the students compete against other students from their region for the opportunity to participate in the international student paper contest the gulf coast region spc was hosted in april at the university of houston texas a&m petroleum engineering students received prizes in each of the three divisions: undergraduate: first place ryan rice masters: third place katherine briggs doctoral: first place junjing zhang the first-place finishers went on to compete at the spe international meeting in october in addition to competing in the international spc the participants were also required to submit a written paper on their work to be included in the conference proceedings at the atce ryan rice (above left) who graduated from texas a&m in may was awarded third place in the undergraduate division rice who currently works for rice energy in pennsylvania presented on the topic identifying the ideal stimulation design via multivariate analysis junjing zhang (above right) who graduated in august and now works for conocophillips presented on the topic fracture conductivity damage by water in the shale formation his paper focused on research he performed for a project sponsored by the crisman institute for petroleum research at texas a&m and the rpsea program of the us department of energy dr (dan) hill and dr (ding) zhu helped me select this interesting subject and guided me to the right research directions zhang said our topic is concerned with the ‘million dollar question in shale fracturing we focused on the problems that the industry as a team are trying to tackle
541,"the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is excited to announce the newest addition to its adjunct faculty dr catherine c marshall until the lab's closing in september her most recent endeavor was principal researcher at microsoft research silicon valley she received a bachelors degree of english from the california institute of technology where she graduated with honors and her masters also from caltech in computer science before joining microsoft she was heavily involved in hypertext research at xerox parc at the dawn of the internet era and contributed to several of the center's ethnographically-oriented work practice groups her research focuses on areas related to the curation organization and analysis of digital information; personal information management; and information-based collaboration i bring to my research a valuable breadth of experience with crowdsourcing data analysis socio-technical design ethnographically-motivated fieldwork and observations of technology in use marshall said becoming an adjunct professor will enable her to continue the long-running collaboration with professor frank shipman and would allow her to pursue new collaborations with other members of the department and in related disciplines at texas a&m we are in the midst of a multi-year effort to explore policy and design issues that stem from peoples' attitudes about the ownership and reuse of social media and other user-contributed content on the web she said besides characterizing these attitudes we are interested in working with users to co-design large-scale social media archives and the policies for access to them another area marshall and shipman are pursuing is connected with crowdsourcing; they are interested in developing techniques to improve the quality of data collected via crowdsourcing and in characterizing important aspects of crowd workers we want to understand who participates in crowd sourced efforts and what motivates them to do so "" she said ""we will be seeking funding in both areas computer science has experienced recent growth and the addition of marshall as adjunct professor will help in the continued momentum of the department"
542,this story originally appeared as news from texas a&m university's honors and undergraduate research (hur) story by sumana datta executive director of honors and undergraduate research at texas a&m university biomedical engineering major mikayla barry 17 has been chosen as texas a&m universitys first beckman scholar barry was chosen as a second semester freshman in spring 2014 through an intensive written application and interview process that probed her goals values and commitment to a career in scientific research and community service barry impressed the faculty staff and student reviewers and interviewers with her broad range of interests her academic success the depth of her self-knowledge and her dedication to learning and personal development early in her academic career she had already taken on leadership roles in the texas a&m wind symphony and advocates for christ today a church-based social justice organization while maintaining a perfect 40 gpr and her status as an honors student in the college of engineering honors program barry was able to speak knowledgeably and coherently to the interview panel about her desire to create artificial organs and the issues the field will have to solve to make this goal a reality as part of the selection process barry interviewed with potential faculty research mentors and chose to join dr melissa grunlans laboratory in biomedical engineering starting in summer of 2014 in dr grunlans group barry has been developing new coatings for medical devices to prevent blood clotting and infection following implantation barry has made considerable progress on the project over the summer learning how to synthesize new coating materials and test them in a variety of ways to establish their properties she is continuing her research this semester and anticipates being able to contribute to the understanding of the properties exhibited by different types of coatings click here for full story
543,"faculty and students of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering attended the 2014 aiche annual meeting in atlanta dr m nazmul karim holder of the t michael o'connor chair ii department head and professor of chemical engineering hosted guests at a department banquet during the november meeting our faculty and students were well-represented in the aiche annual meeting at atlanta they presented papers in cutting edge technologies; many faculty members served as session chairs and as division officers some students received awards it is a great occasion to interact with colleagues from other universities government agencies and industry this premier event in chemical engineering is a watershed event in the profession i am happy that our department has appropriate visibility and has provided intellectual leadership in this conference said karim thomas fuller (left) sophomore received the aiche 2014 donald f & mildred topp othmer scholarship award with a cash prize of $1000 holly butcher graduate student in the research group of dr benjamin wilhite associate professor received a $400 travel grant from the catalysis & reaction engineering division (cre) at the meeting butcher presented on the topic: ""enhancing catalyst effectiveness and loading in microreactors"" phd candidate bin zhang received the ""fuels and petrochemicals division of aiche best paper award: honorable mention"" along with dr m sam mannan regents professor director of the mary kay o'connor process safety center and holder of the t michael o'connor chair i undergraduate students (above) from both texas a&m university and texas a&m university-qatar participated in the ""chem-e car event"" which required teams of students from around the world to create a mini ""car"" that would travel a required distance among other rules by which teams abided two rounds for each team determined the winner to see the official results visit the 2014 official aiche chem-e-car youtube video for students at texas a&m who would like to join the local aiche chapter please visit the texas a&m university student chapter of aiche page aiche is the world's leading organization for chemical engineering professionals with over 45 000 members from over 100 countries aiche has a breadth of resources and expertise for those in core process industries or emerging areas such as nanobiotechnology"
544,dr mark h weichold dean and ceo of texas a&m university at qatar and regents professor of electrical engineering has been elected a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) weichold was recognized by ieee for contributions to international development of engineering education an electrical engineer weichold has worked for general dynamics fort worth division motorola in austin and the us army electronic technology and devices laboratory in ft monmouth nj his research interests include electron device fabrication process development device design and characterization he has been author of more than 80 journal articles conference papers and scientific reports and holds three us patents weichold joined the electrical engineering faculty at texas a&m university in college station texas in 1982 where he has served as associate provost for undergraduate programs and academic services dean of undergraduate programs and associate provost for academic services in 2009 he was named a regents professor for his outstanding work and exemplary contribution to texas a&m and the texas a&m university system in january 2007 he became dean and ceo of texas a&m at qatar during his tenure as dean and ceo enrollment has grown to more than 550 students including 40 graduate students enrolled in two masters degree programs the faculty has increased to 81 and the research enterprise has grown to include 140 active projects in 2009 its four undergraduate engineering programs were accredited by the engineering accreditation commission of abet the branch campus has produced more than 500 graduates many of which have enrolled in top graduate schools around the world including stanford mit cal tech uc berkeley imperial college cambridge illinois carnegie melon michigan and waterloo in addition to the main campus in college station significantly the undergraduate student population is 53 percent qatari nationals and includes 38 percent female enrollees texas a&m at qatar has attracted an outstanding faculty with annual research funding of approximately $20 million and producing more than 250 archival publications each year in addition the research projects have produced more than two dozen patents and disclosures significantly in partnership with local industries weichold has seen the establishment of the qatar petrochemical company (qapco) chair in polymer science and engineering currently held by dr robert grubbs 2005 nobel laureate in chemistry and the qatar fertilizer company (qafco) chair in green chemistry and green engineering currently held by the father of green chemistry dr paul anastas under weicholds leadership the branch campus has also established itself as a presence in the community through its many engagement activities texas a&m at qatar has put in place a distinguished lecture series in which leading scholars many of whom have been members of the national academies and even nobel laureates come to qatar and contribute to the scholarly discourse within education city the branch campus has been instrumental in contributing to numerous conferences and symposia including the natural gas conversion symposium held for the first time in the middle east in 2013 that same year texas a&m at qatar also organized and hosted the first world congress on engineering education which brought together international experts who focused on innovations needed to energize engineering educators and create a robust future for engineering education recognizing the important role teachers play in preparing the next generation of engineers and scientists texas a&m at qatar in partnership with maersk oil qatar awarded the countrys first stem educator of the year award in 2014 ieee is the worlds largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity ieee and its members inspire a global community through ieees highly cited publications conferences technology standards and professional and educational activities ieee fellow is a distinction reserved for select ieee members whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the ieee fields of interest are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation the ieee grade of fellow is conferred by the board of directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the ieee fields of interest the total number selected in any one year does not exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting institute membership
545,a paper written by dr bilal mansoor assistant professor in the mechanical engineering program and his research associate jahanzaib malik won third prize in the annual aluminum symposium competition 2014 mansoor and maliks paper was recognized for the novelty of application technical content and analysis in the paper aluminum shipping containers: a prospective aluminum application to reduce co2 footprint the researchers proposed to substitute steel shipping containers with aluminum to reduce the global carbon footprint the idea was substantiated by an analytical case study showing a decrease of 8 percent in fuel consumption and 172 percent in co2 emissions the annual aluminum symposium competition 2014 was held at qatar university 11 dec and was organized by qatalum and hydro for more information contact dr bilal mansoor: bilalmansoor@qatartamuedu +97444230240
546,a 2010 paper written by dr patrick linke professor and chair of the chemical engineering program at texas a&m university at qatar is now the fourth most-cited paper in the elsevier journal applied thermal engineering the paper on the systematic design and selection of optimal working fluids for organic rankine cycles includes authors athanasios i papadopoulos and mirko z stijepovic linke is managing director and co-founder of the qatar sustainable water and energy utilization initiative (qwe) a centre of excellence for research and capacity building at texas a&m at qatar in education city he is also a member of the executive board and the chief engineer of the qatar national food security programme in qatar a process systems engineer linkes research activities focus on the design of efficient processes integrated systems and associated infrastructures his areas of interest include process integration and design process systems engineering and optimization decision-making and complex problem-solving efficient utilization of natural resources (energy water and raw materials) sustainable process design and operation and computer-aided technologies for chemical process design and optimization he currently leads research into innovating desalination process designs with a focus on membrane-based systems the optimal use of renewable forms of energy in desalination desalination infrastructure planning the efficient use of energy in industrial zones the synthesis of novel materials for power generation from alternative energy sources and the development of tools to minimize environmental impacts from industrial activities linke earned the diplom-ingenieur from the university of applied sciences in cologne germany; and masters and phd degrees from the university of manchester
547,"eppright professor lawrence rauchwerger was selected as a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) senior faculty fellow faculty selected as tees fellows for a third year receive the senior faculty designation the principal purpose of the senior award is to recognize long-term outstanding research performance rauchwerger will be formally recognized at an awards ceremony this spring the tees fellows program encompasses the tees select young faculty and the tees fellow/senior fellow awards and recognizes faculty members who have made continuous contributions in research for their department tees is an engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system rauchwerger joined the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university in 1996 he holds a degree in electronic engineering from the polytechnic institute bucharest romania a master's in electrical engineering from stanford university and a doctoral degree in computer science from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign his research interests are in compilers for parallel and distributed computing parallel and distributed c++ libraries adaptive runtime optimizations and architectures for parallel computing he is co-director of parasol lab a research facility for the development of algorithms and applications in which he manages the software and systems group he is the deputy director and researcher of the institute of applied mathematics and computational sciences at texas a&m and assistant director of the center for large scale simulations he has been honored with several awards for his work in computer science including the halliburton fellowship award the tees select young faculty and tees fellow awards (2002 2005) an ibm faculty award an intel faculty award and the nsf faculty early career development (career) award he is an ieee fellow and acm distinguished scientist his research paper ""adaptive reduction parallelization techniques "" was selected in 2014 for publication in the acm international conference on supercomputing 25th anniversary volume"
548,the zachry department of civil engineerings american society of civil engineers (asce) steel bridge team competed in the texas-mexico regional steel bridge competition on jan 16-17 in austin texas the team placed third overall out of 16 teams the team was first in the stiffness category and second in lightness with a weight of 1722 pounds the team qualified to compete in the national competition in kansas city missouri on may 22-23 this year marks the 20th consecutive year that the texas a&m team will compete at the national competition pictured above: top row (left to right): rebecca cummins kaleb sterling emmanuel hernandez matthew giglio robert koenig hayden rice cesar barron tyler denney carlos flores adam alderson seated (left to right): matt rodriguez frank estrada sarah michaels emily moran chris davila tabish siddiqui sean smith
549,dr frank shipman professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as a 2015 texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center fellow this award recognizes outstanding individual initiative and performance in support of the tees mission of research workforce development technology development and transfer and international outreach and collaboration this is the first time the tees center fellow has been presented and shipman was one of only two professors honored with this award shipman is the associate director of the center for the study of digital libraries (csdl) the csdl partners with other tees and texas a&m laboratories and centers on big data projects shipmans research group has developed a range of software environments supporting access to and analysis of a wide range of content types including texts image audio video and scientific and sensor data shipmans current research projects include the design and evaluation of an environment for heterogeneous data analysis games motivating data science skills and digital libraries for sign language content additionally shipman is engaged in long-term external collaborations investigating the ownership and reuse of social media content and the design of tools for creating and consuming interactive video he received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from rice university and masters and phd in computer science from the university of colorado shipmans research has resulted in more than 170 publications including more than 80 in prestigious journals and top-tier conferences he has won the acm doug engelbart award for best paper at hypertext 1999 the acm uist best student paper award in 2002 (with his student) and the acm websci 2013 best paper award and has had six other papers nominated for best paper awards at top-level acm and ieee conferences he is currently teaching a graduate course in computer-human interaction and a undergraduate/graduate course on computers and new media he is also developing techniques to improve access to sign language video developing tools and services for the ensemble computing portal exploring use of visual expression in the visual knowledge builder 30 and its offshoots and also designing new interfaces for multimedia with fx palo alto laboratory
550,"the 2015 richard tapia conference will be held on feb 18-21 in boston this years conference theme is diversity at scale dr dilma da silva head of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and dr jack dongarra research professor and tias fellow are among the many speakers at this years conference da silva will be speaking on ""the challenges in mobile cloud computing"" and dongarras talk is titled algorithmic and software challenges when moving towards exascale other noteable speakers include freeman a hrabowski iii odest chadwicke jenkins shaun kane and jacky wright cse is a sponsor of the event and will have a booth additionally 16 students funded by the dwight look college of engineering three students on google doctoral consortium and poster scholarships two staff members and a members of the faculty will attend the event the richard tapia conference is presented by the center for minorities and people with disabilities in information technology (cmd-it) and is organized by the coalition to diversify computing (cdc) cmd-it is directed by dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs and royce e wisenbaker professor unocal professor dr nancy m amato taylor and da silva are members of cdc the goal of the conference is to bring together those in computing from all backgrounds ethnicities and ages for several key reasons the conference aims to celebrate the diversity that exists in computing to connect with others with common backgrounds ethnicities disabilities and genders in order to create communities that extend beyond the conference to obtain advice from and make contacts with computing leaders in academia and industry and to inspire attendees with presentations and conversations with leaders who share common backgrounds"
551,dr bjarne stroustrup a tees distinguished research professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university won the 2015 aito dahl-nygaard senior prize for the design implementation and evolution of the c++ programming language this prize is considered the most prestigious in object-oriented computer science stroustrup is currently the managing director in the technology division of morgan stanley in new york city a distinguished research professor in computer science at texas a&m and a visiting professor in computer science at columbia university his research interests include distributed systems design programming techniques software development tools and programming languages he is actively involved in the ansi/iso standardization of c++ for about 20 years c++ has been among the most widely used programming languages using c++ as his tool stroustrup has pioneered the use of object-oriented and generic programming techniques in application areas where efficiency is a premium; examples include general systems programming switching simulation graphics user-interfaces embedded systems and scientific computation during his teaching years at texas a&m stroustrup wrote his famous programming textbook programming principles and practice using c++ the second edition was released in may 2014 stroustrup has published seven books and more than 100 academic and more popular papers among his numerous awards and honors are the ieee computer society's computer entrepreneur award acm grace murray hopper award and the dr dobb's excellence in programming award stroustrup is an acm fellow at&t bell laboratories fellow at&t fellow ieee fellow and a member of the national academy of engineering and the texas academy of medicine engineering and science he also holds an honorary doctor of computer science from the national research university itmo st petersburg russia the aito (association internationale pour les technologies objects) dahl-nygaard prizes are named for ole-johan dahl and kristen nygaard whose work on object-oriented programming led to the creation of the simlula languageone of the most important inventions in software engineering in 2004 aito established two prizes to be awarded annually to a senior and a younger researcher who have demonstrated their potential to follow in the footsteps of dahl and nygaard the 2015 junior prize was awarded to alexander j summers for his work on the verification of object-oriented programs and type systems
552,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university was presented the 2014 ese distinguished alumna award by the department of environmental sciences and engineering at the university of north carolina dr michael aitken chair of the department presented the award to banks while on the university of north carolina campus banks delivered a seminar on her research area titled bacterial biofilm characteristics in environmental engineering applications banks who is also the holder of the harold j haynes deans chair in engineering received her masters degree from north carolina
553,reinette and jack miller of houston have created the reinette and jack e miller 74 excellence fund with their gift to the texas a&m foundation distributions from the $50 000 endowment will be used to support the department of mechanical engineering within the dwight look college of engineering excellence funds allow the department head to use the funds for specific departmental priorities such as equipment acquisition faculty teaching awards or career development student competitions or conference travel or special events jack miller earned both his bachelors and masters degrees in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university he is currently an executive vice president at stress engineering services in houston in addition to their support of the department of mechanical engineering the millers are also supporters of the 12th man foundation and association of former students
554,seven nationally and internationally prominent scholars including four who will be part of the dwight look college of engineering will be inducted friday (jan 30) as faculty fellows of the texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) the scholars come from other top us universities as well as one from russia who has twice won that countrys highest science award dr jack dongarra (computer science and engineering) dr william s marras (industrial and systems engineering) dr rakesh agrawal (chemical engineering) and dr robert skelton (aerospace engineering) will serve as in-residence tias faculty fellows for two to 12 months collaborating with numerous texas a&m faculty and students tias founding director john l junkins had high praise for this third group of fellows when their selections were announced last fall and said he is even more enthusiastic now that some of them have arrived on campus and begun interacting with the universitys faculty and staff the positive impact on the university as a consequence of attracting these extraordinarily accomplished individuals cannot be over-emphasized junkins said these exceptional scholars together with our current top-flight faculty will help foster an even more vibrant environment for research and teaching and will pay tremendous future dividends through enhanced collaborations and faculty recruitment tias which has as its primary mission bringing renowned scholars to texas a&m for extended visits to interact with current faculty and students is now in its third year of operation and is building on the success of the first two groups of tias faculty fellows all of whom are continuing their affiliations with the university the growing body of faculty fellows has come to be informally tagged the genius corps in recognition of the selectees records of accomplishment in their various fields and equating their potential academic impact on the university to that of its legendary corps of cadets in another dimension the new inductees will be formally introduced at a special recognition program on campus friday night junkins said the expectation is that by 2018 the university will be attracting 20 new world-class scholars each year for even greater opportunities for interaction tias was established with the help of texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp who made possible a $5 million endowment for tias through the texas a&m university systems academic enhancement program the new class of faculty fellows includes an awardee of the highest honor bestowed by the college of fellows of the american institute of architects a recipient of the national medal of technology and innovation and members of the national academy of sciences national academy of engineering the american academy of arts and sciences and winners of analogous prestigious international honors members of the 2014-2015 set of faculty fellows: • dr rakesh agrawal is the winthrop e stone professor of chemical engineering at purdue university and is a recipient of the national medal of technology and innovation the us governments highest honor in those fields he is a member of the national academy of engineering and has conducted extensive research regarding solar energy production issues including how to fabricate low-cost solar cells based on nanotechnology considered a master inventor more than 100 manufacturing plants with investments of billions of dollars incorporate his inventions repositioning parts of the us manufacturing sector for world-wide competitiveness • dr jack dongarra is distinguished professor of computer science at the university of tennessee and holds the honor of being a member of the distinguished research staff at the oak ridge national laboratory he is a member of the national academy of engineering and has produced numerous software packages that have made a monumental impact on high-performance computing as all scientific codes of any importance use products of his team • dr william s marras holds the honda endowed chair and professor of integrated systems engineering at ohio state university additionally he is professor physical medicine and rehab professor orthopedics and professor of neurological surgery at ohio state university dr marras is the director and scientific director of the spine research institute he is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science he specializes in studies concerning spine disorder causation and prevention evaluations and treatment • dr robert skelton is the daniel l alspach professor of dynamic systems and controls and is professor emeritus of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the university of california san diego a member of the national academy of engineering he is world renowned for his work in control systems systems engineering design optimization structural dynamics and design and tensegrity structures and multi-scale tensegrity in materials and deployable structures he has for many years been involved with the control of skylab and the hubble telescope • mr harold adams is chairman emeritus of rtkl international having built a small company into a large innovative company with 14 locations around the world and he is a designer of many prestigious projects he is a member of the national academy of construction and the royal institute of british architects and is the 2014 recipient of the leslie n boney award the highest honor awarded by the college of fellows of the american institute of architects mr adams was one of the first americans to be awarded a first class kenchikushi license in japan he has served as the kae professor in the university of maryland school of architecture (2005) and early in his career was project director for president john f kennedys grave site • dr ed moses has received the award of excellence by the national nuclear security administration the award of excellence for the first experiments by the lawrence livermore laboratory in conjunction with los alamos national laboratory and he is the recipient of the ds rozhdestvensky medal for outstanding contributions to lasers and optical sciences awarded by the russian optical society dr moses is best known for developing and managing complex laser systems and high-technology projects for years he has directed the nations fusion energy research and his expertise in high-power laser physics applications is without peer he is now the new director of the magellan telescope project • dr yuri oganessian is professor scientific director joint institute for nuclear research – dubna flerov laboratory of nuclear reactions in russia he has twice been named winner of the state prize the highest national award by the president of russia he has won other prestigious international competitions and is regarded as the world leader in the search for and discovery of new elements he has discovered the heaviest elements with atomic numbers and he has discovered nuclear reactions leading to synthesis of elements the institutes faculty fellows are annually selected through a process led by an electorate of acclaimed current faculty at texas a&m consisting of nobel laureates wolf prize recipients national academies members and distinguished professors among others
555,"computer science graduate aaron lindsey was selected as a finalist for the 2015 computing research association's (cra) outstanding undergraduate male researcher award lindsey is one of four finalists from phd-granting institutions in north america the cra outstanding undergraduate researcher awards recognizes students who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research lindsey is recognized for his research in motion planning and its applications in studying molecular motions in particular his research dealt with studying how we might be able to adapt techniques first developed for robot motion planning to improve ""decoy sets"" used in developing energy functions that are used in protein structure prediction algorithms lindsey's work developed a new method to evaluate and improve the quality of decoy databases by adding novel structures and/or removing redundant structures he tested the approach on different decoy databases of varying size and type and showed significant improvement across a variety of metrics this work potentially has great impact since predicting protein structures and simulating protein folding motions are two of the most important problems in computational biology today dr nancy m amato unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is his faculty mentor he also worked closely with dr shawna thomas a tees assistant research scientist in cse ""i am very impressed with him in all aspects he is overall one of the best students i have worked with in my career "" said amato who nominated lindsey for the award ""in addition to being really smart and an efficient worker aaron is also a leader and good resident"" commenting on his success lindsey said ""i am blessed to have such great mentors and colleagues"" in 2014 lindsey co-authored two research papers: ""improving decoy databases for protein folding algorithms"" with hsin-yi yeh chih-peng wu shawna l thomas and amato that was published in a workshop associated with the acm conference on bioinformatics computational biology and health informatics and ""umaprm: uniformly sampling the medial axis"" with hsin-yi yeh jory denny shawna l thomas and nancy m amato that was published in the ieee international conference on robotics and automation which is the flagship conference of the ieee robotics and automation society his senior thesis was ""improving decoy databases for protein folding algorithms"" his many honors and awards include the 2014 cra outstanding undergraduate researcher honorable mention award and scholarships from aggieland bound and the cse industrial affiliates program lindsey was a member of the ace scholars program the cse honors program and a dedicated peer teacher in the cse department he was awarded membership in the phi eta sigma honor society for earning a gpa of at least 35 during his first year of college and he was the technology chair for texas a&m's honors student council in december 2014 lindsey graduated with a 392 gpa and a bachelor's degree in computer science he is planning on working for a bit before he returns to graduate school this year's cra outstanding undergraduate researcher award program was sponsored by microsoft research more information about this award may be found at http://wwwcraorg/awards/undergrad"
556,dr arul jayaraman a professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the american institute for medical and biological engineering (aimbe) aimbe membership is limited to the top two percent of the countrys most accomplished medical and biological engineers jayaraman who is the holder of the ray nesbitt professorship said he is looking forward to developing a fundamental understanding of how bacteria and human cells communicate in the body and how alterated interactions lead to disease his emerging research involves the use of systems theory and modeling to identify such molecular language he will be inducted in aimbe's college of fellows at a march reception in washington dc jayaraman also serves as the director of the graduate program and associate department head
557,"close your eyes and imagine you are living 200 years from now get up in the morning and you are not allowed to touch fossil fuels is the contemplative daydream of dr rakesh agrawal distinguished professor of chemical engineering at purdue university master inventor and revolutionary thinker who simply cannot help himself he said in elevating the discussion of energy solutions and the everyday challenges a solar economy would resolve agrawal gave the prestigious fall public lecture for texas a&ms institute for advanced study for which he is a current faculty fellow he addressed the plight of finite energy sources in light of practical societal needs and the impact of which that has influenced progress and modernization spanning the history of the human race we meet all our needs with fossil fuelswhether it is heat electricity fertilizers to grow food transportation chemicalseverything is associated with fossil fuels fossil fuel sources will dwindle eventually because the rate at which we consume them is much faster than the rate at which they are made it took millions of years to make them and we use them just like that agrawal said with the snap of his fingers no one can know with certainty when the resources will be fully depleted he acknowledged when it does happen however agrawal wants to know how the aforementioned needs will be met how will we have electricity around the clock go from place a to b between long and short distances how will we power our mobile devices power the room air condition the room create fertilizers to grow food and convert carbon molecules into furniture clothing he asked these are some of the big challenges of the future and i along with my researchers spend a lot of time dreaming about it we then model [our theories] for the creation of new systems in a solar economy to begin methodologies would need to exist to efficiently harness solar energy convert it and then store it given that solar energy is rather dilute one would need 20 to 40 football fields of space in order to match the rate at which a car tank is filled with gas agrawal said efficiency in cost and the system itself (operationally) is of predominate importance; otherwise covering that amount of space would be an expensive affair lastly the availability of the sunbeing limited to certain portions of the dayimpacts the decisions and solutions of the solar economy model anything big especially something [like a solar economy] has to start small "" he said fossil fuels have changed us forever in many positive ways agrawal continued adding his theory that future generations will adapt to new energy solutions as they simultaneously hold onto familiar conveniences of modern technology the time to create an action plan for the day when fossil fuels are depleted is now he said otherwise whats going to happen is youll be there and you wont have a solution"""
558,"dr yossef elabd professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has developed two fuel cell vehicle platforms for both present day enhancements and future innovation electrochemical energy and polymer research unite in new ways to deliver best-case power scenarios behind the wheel specifically under the hood environmentalists and road aficionados alike have applauded the production of fuel cell vehicles but to sustain the appeal and increase the market production costs need to fall a fuel cell is a device that produces electric energy as the direct result of a chemical reaction the fuel cell car is powered by the constant chemical interaction of hydrogen fuel from the tank and oxygen that is pulled from the air using positive (anode) and negative (cathode) electrodes protons are moved by an electrolyte and ultimately converted into energy the source and form of the electrodes and electrolytes can vary and this is the basis of elabds findingsthe fuel cell car manufactured today uses a proton exchange membrane (pem) electrolyte for its platinum-based electrodes the same design that was used in previous gemini space missions caption: ultra-low platinum nanofiber-nanoparticle electrode elabd has discovered that the amount of platinum needed for electrode manufacturing can be significantly reduced and thus the production costs dramatically minimized his patent-pending research establishes that a fuel cell can perform optimally with only 16 percent of its previous platinum requirements new polymer nanofiber-platinum nanoparticle electrodes are reliable and enduring he said caption: robust stable hydroxide conducting aem another course of action elabd envisions is the creation of a fuel cell that does not require platinum this would be ""the holy grail of portable power"" the alkaline exchange membrane (aem) fuel cell model uses a polymer material as its electrolyte past developers encountered roadblocks (chemical degradation) in the introduction of a polymer to an aem fuel cell yet elabds research group has achieved patented breakthrough in developing a polymer electrolyte that is chemically stable to the hydroxide ions highly conductive in moving the ions across the fuel cell and very robust the same material if modified a little bit can be used in batteries as a replacement to current lithium-ion charged batteries making it a solid state with the benefit of longer stability and much increased safety elabd said whether the approach is to reduce platinum requirements or to implement a polymer electrolyte both solutions appear to have passed the proof of concept phase i just want to drive my car with water vapor coming out the back of it elabd said environmentalists everywhere agree"
559,"dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university along with dr ibrahim karaman and dr raymundo arroyave from the department of materials science and engineering was awarded a $500 000 early stage innovations (esi) research grant from nasa for their proposal in response to the nasa spacetech-reddi research announcement elwany is the pi on the proposal while karaman and arroyave are the co-pis a panel of subject matter experts assessed submissions against the criteria: relevance to nasas objectives technical approach management approach and cost early state innovations is a part of the space technology research development demonstration and infusion 2014 program the program is an umbrella of research grants by nasas space technology mission directorate seeking aggressive technology development efforts that may require undertaking significant technical challenges and risk to achieve a higher potential payoff the grant money will support three phd students to be supervised by the project team members to investigate the fabrication of nickel-titanium shape memory alloys commercially known as nitinol using selective laser melting (a laser-based additive manufacturing process) the award grant will be used by the team to study the additive manufacturing (3d printing) of shape memory alloys "" elwany said ""these alloys are very sensitive to manufacturing process parameters and the focus of this project will be on reducing the variability in the performance of printed (manufactured) parts through microstructure control and design shape memory alloys have very promising application potential across many industry sectors including the automotive aerospace and biomedical sectors"
560,the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university welcomes three new faculty members for the spring semester of 2015 sara abedi assistant professor joined the department in january she obtained her phd in civil engineering from the university of southern california in 2012 abedis most recent position was as a postdoctoral research associate for the department of civil and environmental engineering at the massachusetts institute of technology her research interests include experimental and theoretical microporomechanics nano-chemomechanical characterization of porous materials and granular material failure and flow abedi has developed a novel methodology in nano-chemomechanical characterization of gas shales studied microstructure of gas shales and the role of kerogen maturity and chemical composition on the mechanical performance of organic rich shales and characterized and quantified experimentally the micro- and meso-scale kinematics associated with shear banding in sand and the impact of material heterogeneity on shear band development in sand ibere alves is joining the department this january as a professor of engineering practice he was formerly a senior technical advisor for artificial lift and flow assurance at petrobras for 33 years he holds a phd in petroleum engineering from the university of tulsa in oklahoma alves has several years of both theoretical and experimental research and development experience in the field of production engineering particularly deep-water production artificial lift and field development; including his involvement in a multidisciplinary project with shell and a computer modelling group to develop a next generation simulator for production facilities performed in canada he is also the author or co-author of several technical journal papers conference papers and many technical reports in the area of petroleum production kan wu began her position as assistant professor for the department in january as well she received her phd in petroleum engineering in 2014 from the university of texas at austin her research interests include modeling of complex hydraulic fracture development in unconventional reservoirs interaction analysis of hydraulic fractures with natural fractures coupled geomechanics/fluid flow modeling analysis of wellbore strengthening and evaluation of well performance from unconventional gas and oil reservoirs she has conducted internship research for both schlumberger and chevron and has assisted in teaching courses on reservoir geomechanics and petrophysics
561,dr srinivas rao vadali professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the prestigious 2014 dirk brouwer award by the american astronautical society the dirk brouwer award was established to honor significant technical contributions to space flight mechanics and astrodynamics and to recognize brouwer's outstanding role in celestial mechanics and his widespread influence on workers in space flight and astrodynamics brouwer was an inspiring leader in the field of celestial mechanics during a period that saw a revival and flowering of that discipline from its purely academic and esoteric role to one of widespread development and application in man's exploration of space he was successful as a researcher teacher and administrator he always strove to make the growth of his subject truly international the space flight mechanics committee selects the recipient of this award vadali was honored for his contributions in spacecraft dynamics and control with significant advances in the state of the art in attitude control momentum management optimal control and formation flying the award was presented at the 2015 aas space flight mechanics meeting held in williamsburg virginia previous award winners from the department include dr john junkins and dr kyle t alfriend
562,dr christine cunningham will present engineering eie®: the research behind an exemplary elementary engineering curriculum at the institute for engineering education and innovations (ieei) distinguished lecture series on jan 29 from 1:30 to 3 pm in room 3002 of the engineering technology building on the texas a&m university campus cunningham is vice president of the museum of science boston and a fellow of the american society for engineering education traditionally engineering education has been reserved for college students increasingly however engineering concepts and skills are being included in elementary-level instruction as national and state standards place unprecedented emphasis on integrating science with engineering starting with the youngest students this change presents some exciting possibilities and also some challenges as educators explore how to introduce engineering in an age-appropriate manner and in a way that is inclusive for all students cunninghams talk explores the role of research in the development of elementary engineering curricula specifically how research and evaluation have grounded the development of engineering is elementary® a national curriculum project based at the museum of science in boston cunningham holds bachelors and masters degrees in biology from yale university and a phd in science education from cornell university since 2003 she has been vice president of the museum of science in boston where she founded and directs engineering is elementary®
563,texas a&m university at qatar co-hosted the minerals metals & materials society (tms) middle east-mediterranean materials congress on energy and infrastructure systems earlier this month at the ritz carlton hotel doha the conference is co-organized and sponsored by qatar university qatar environment and energy research institute (qeeri) and the qatar petrochemical company (qapco) dr eyad masad executive associate dean and professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m at qatar said this international conference is organized in conjunction with tms which is the premier materials society in the world i am glad that the partnership with qatar university qeeri and qapco along with other organizations allowed us to host such an international meeting this materials congress focuses on new materials research and development in applications of interest for qatar and the entire middle east and mediterranean region the goal of this congress is to build synergy among researchers working on different materials applications but with similar objectives of enhancing design sustainability and functionality of materials the event is also a forum for establishing collaboration among academia research institutions and industry in the middle east and mediterranean region and the rest of the world dr mohammed yousef al mulla vice president and ceo of qapco welcomed all the delegates to the conference saying qapco is honored to be one of the corporate sponsors of this important conference as we believe now is the perfect time to highlight the current research and development being undertaken in this field it is indeed a privilege to be able to work in partnership with texas a&m university at qatar as it provides a wonderful opportunity for industry and academia to collaborate in order that the theoretical aspects discussed at conferences like this can be successfully applied within production the three-day event includes three concurrent sessions on each day that align with the three topical tracks: sustainable infrastructure materials; materials for energy extraction conversion and storage; and computational materials design track 1 encompasses materials issues and solutions pertaining to critical infrastructure and will have an overarching theme of sustainability in track 2 there is an emphasis on not just renewable energy resources such as solar and wind power but also oil and gas which are topics of key interest to the mideast-mediterranean/north africa geographic area track 3 focuses on computational materials design especially as applied to energy and infrastructure systems the goal of the technical program is to leverage regional interests and expertise particularly along these three tracks materials engineering and research underpins the qatar energy and water security grand challenges dr mohammed khaleel qeeri executive director said the scientific exchange and discussions at the tms meeting will be very fruitful to researchers here in qatar working on these two grand challenges bringing the tms congress to qatar is truly a good example of how well academia research institutes and industry are working together in this regard at qeeri we value our partnership with texas a&m at qatar qatar university and qapco mariam ali almaadeed director of the center for advanced materials and coordinator of materials science and technology master program at qatar university said i hope this materials conference will bring together researchers and professionals from a broad set of disciplines to discuss the latest developments and solutions in the sustainability design and functionality of materials it will provide an excellent opportunity to foster novel materials and technological solutions for a cleaner cheaper and more efficient energy extraction and storage mema 2015 will catalyze dialogue among the leaders from academia industry and government to enhance research and to build knowledge based economy as per qatar national vision 2030 this conference would be one of the strongest and best ever in terms of the quality of the work being presented as well as the depth and breadth of the technical sessions the minerals metals & materials society (tms) is a premier professional organization that encompasses the entire range of materials and engineering from minerals processing and primary metals production to basic research and the advanced applications of materials the conference seeks to be the premier forum for presentations of current interest and significance related to sustainable infrastructure materials; materials for energy extraction conversion and storage; and computational materials design
564,the student engineers council (sec) at texas a&m university is hosting its 2015 spring career fair on tuesday and wednesday (jan 27 and 28) at reed arena the fair which runs from 9 am to 4 pm each day is the premier recruiting event for the dwight look college of engineering the career fair is planned organized and staffed by the sec and is one of the largest student-run engineering career fairs in the nation historically as many as 8 500 engineering and industrial distribution students have attended the career fair seeking internships co-ops and full-time positions the sec broke records with its 2014 fall career fair with 430 companies 1 500 recruiters and 8 500 students attended the event for more information visit the secs website
565,the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) has named dr terry alfriend professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university a 2015 aiaa honorary fellow presentation of the new fellows and honorary fellows will take place at the aiaa aerospace spotlight awards gala wednesday may 6 2015 at the ronald reagan building and international trade center in washington dc the title of honorary fellow the highest distinction conferred by aiaa is granted to preeminent individuals who have long and highly contributory careers in aerospace and who embody the highest possible standards in aeronautics and astronautics the title of aiaa fellow is among the highest honors that one can earn in the aerospace community it represents the acknowledgement of peers that ones work is truly outstanding and that you have made lasting contributions to significantly advancing the state-of-the art of aerospace science and technology said mike griffin aiaa past-president beyond that the title of honorary fellow honors those whose work and contributions have placed each at the pinnacle of our profession for more than 40 years alfriend has been making key contributions to the understanding of the flight mechanics and control of space vehicles his career includes an mix of experience in academia industry and government his innovations appear prominently in subjects as diverse as analytical celestial mechanics; satellite formation flying; attitude dynamics and control; surveillance of space; probabilistic problems in astrodynamics including probability-of-collision formulations used by nasa to ensure safety of manned space flight; and application of space systems to intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance papers from every phase of his career continue to be cited regularly at conferences and in journals in addition to his academic and industrial posts alfriend has served as editor-in-chief of the journal of guidance control and dynamics as editor-in-chief of the journal of the astronautical sciences and as associate editor of the international journal of celestial mechanics and dynamical astronomy alfriends many honors include election to the national academy of engineering election to the international academy of astronautics and citation with the navy meritorious civilian service award he is a fellow of both the aiaa and the aas and has received both the mechanics and control of flight award and the dirk brouwer award from these societies in 2005 he received the aaas international scientific cooperation award for his decade-long efforts to organize the us/russian space surveillance workshop series he continues today as one of the two principal american organizers of this unique contribution to international understanding in 1933 orville wright became aiaas first honorary fellow today aiaa honorary fellows and aiaa fellows are the most respected names in the aerospace industry candidates of no more than four deemed most worthy of the honorary fellow honor shall be recommended to the aiaa board of director for election each year to be elected signifies that alfriend stands out amongst his peers and some of the greats in aerospace history aiaa is the largest aerospace professional society in the world serving a diverse range of more than 35 000 individual members from 80 countries and 100 corporate members aiaa members help make the world safer more connected more accessible and more prosperous
566,outreach plays a vital role in the recruitment of a future generation of engineers as well as provides exposures to different types of career paths that middle and high school students may not have considered on their own every winter the rio grande council of the boy scouts of america hosts a camp for its youth the young men of the rio grande valley learn from professionals and volunteers for four days at camp perry in rio hondo texas while some of the badges are more traditional rifle shooting and first aid other badges like law dentistry or nuclear science require a dedicated group of professionals who volunteer graduate student william gordon from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university dedicated part of his winter break to teaching the nuclear science electricity electronics and radio merit badges gordon started teaching merit badges in 2008 in order to contribute back to his local community scouts learned about nuclear energy and used detectors provided by dr craig marianno of the nuclear security science & policy institute (nsspi) to demonstrate how distance impacts count rate students were given prizes provided by the nuclear power institute (npi) students in the department are encouraged to participate in impactful service through outreach with local communities
567,twenty-one faculty of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering reflect on their participation in the 2014 aiche annual meeting in atlanta professors chaired/co-chaired 17 sessions presented 58 papers and 14 posters several faculty members also received awards and held other leadership roles in the meeting to see a full list of participatory activities please click here
568,dr teri reed assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs has been chosen to be a keynote speaker at sefi 2015 the annual conference of the european society for engineering education the conference which is slated for june 29 through july 2 is being hosted by polytech orléans the engineering school of the university of orléans the theme for this years conference which is the 43rd annual is diversity in engineering education: an opportunity to face the new trends in engineering reed is also the assistant agency director of workforce development for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and an associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering
569,yashwant prakash vyas a senior student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named recipient of the isv spotlight award from the international student voice (isv) magazine the isv spotlight award recognizes students for their hard work and dedication to making their campus inclusive and internationalized the award was created to put the spotlight on a student who not only cares about his/her campus community but also takes an active leadership role vyas was selected because of his passion and dedication for making the community at texas a&m a better place from making others feel welcome to taking care of the environment his involvement includes participating in several student groups such as the international student association the student government association diversity commission the india association aggie replant texas a&m unicef chapter and the aggie orientation leaders program just to name a few yashwant is also involved in the future former students as a student ambassador and works as an ask us aggie worker in the library he has received several awards for his dedication to the texas a&m community including the buck weirus spirit award for demonstrating high involvement and creating positive experiences throughout the aggie community yashwants story is unique as to the level of engagement he has had in leadership and outreach programs dr suzanne droleskey executive director of global program support said in the article he has been recognized many ways for his active participation and embodiment of the aggie core value of ‘selfless service
570,dr shuguang (robert) cui associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named an institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) communication society (comsoc) distinguished lecturer for the 2015-2016 term the ieee comsoc program recognizes the most active researchers and best speakers in the society and sponsors selected ones to travel and educate ieee local branches on specific research topics each distinguished lecturer serves a two-year term cui has research interests focusing on data oriented large-scale information analysis and system design including large-scale distributed estimation and detection information theoretical approaches for large data set analysis complex cyber-physical system design and cognitive network optimization his research has been well-funded with 12 united states federal grants six nsf awards and six dod awards at a total personal share of nearly $4 million an extremely high level of funding for theory-oriented research groups without any instrumentation grants he has published two books 66 journal papers and book chapters and more than 90 conference papers his research papers have been highly cited according to the data on feb 16 2014 from web of science eight of them had been ranked within the top 10 most highly cited papers (one of them ranked first and three of them ranked second) among all published over the same period in the corresponding journals cui was the recipient of the prestigious ieee signal processing society 2012 best paper award along with two conference best paper awards he was elected as an ieee fellow in 2013 within eight years after receiving his phd one of the quickest in ieee history in 2014 he was selected to the list of worlds most influential scientific minds by sciencewatch and elected to the prestigious thomas reuters list of highly cited researchers among 3215 scientists worldwide from 21 wide-spread research areas; this honor is one of five in texas a&m engineering history founded in 1952 with the formation of ires (the institute of radio engineers) professional group on communications systems (pgcs) ieee comsoc has evolved into a diverse group of global industry professionals with a common interest in advancing all communications technologies members interact across international and technological borders to: produce publications organize conferences foster educational programs promote local activities and work on technical committees for more about the distinguished lecturers visit: http://wwwcomsocorg/about/memberprograms/distinguished-lecturers
571,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has been selected to receive the gator engineering leadership award from the university of floridas college of engineering the award which is designed to honor engineering graduates who have demonstrated leadership in innovation law medicine industry or public policy will be presented to banks at the powered to lead: gator engineering leadership & diversity summit on jan 15 banks who received a bachelors degree from the university of florida is also a panelist at the summit that is being held at the universitys reitz union grand ballroom
572,dr robert s balog an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been elected member-at-large of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) power electronics society (pels) administrative committee as member-at-large balogs duties include voting responsibilities as part of the administrative committee governing the society his term is from jan 1 2015 to dec 31 2017 balogs previous roles in pels include chair of the graduates of the last decade (gold) program as well as membership co-chair balog is affiliated with the electric power and power electronics group in the electrical and computer engineering department he received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from rutgers university in 1996 and his phd from the university of illinois urbana-champaign in 2006 he has more than seven years of industry experience including launching a technology startup company commercializing his work in residential scale solar inverters he holds 15 issued and pending us patents and is a licensed professional engineer balog is the director of the renewable energy and advanced power electronics research laboratory and is currently investigating novel balance of system technologies to holistically address the cells-to-grid interface challenges in solar energy honors include receiving the 2011 rutgers university distinguished engineer award being named an ernest a reid fellow the first ieee international telecommunications energy conference (intelec) fellow and receiving two grainger outstanding power engineering awards he was recently selected for membership in the external body of the hungarian academy of science the pels is one of the ieee technical societies with the broadest technical and social impact as electrical energy impacts nearly every single person in the world for more than 25 years pels has facilitated and guided the development and innovation in power electronics technology this technology encompasses the effective use of electronic components the application of circuit theory and design techniques and the development of analytical tools toward efficient conversion control and conditioning of electric power their over 7 000 members include preeminent researchers and practitioners many of whom are distinguished award winners including ieee field award winners and members of the national academy of engineering ieee pels publishes the ieee transactions on power electronics a top referenced journal among all ieee publications
573,the childrens social networking website kidgab was created by texas a&m university computer science and engineering phd student stephanie valentine who works in the sketch recognition lab led by dr tracy hammond associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering kidgab is built for children who are not old enough to join websites such as facebook instagram and twitter the goal of the site is to help children understand social media and put an end to cyber bullying kidgab is intended as a closed social network for small communities of children and adults like a scouting troop a sports team or a classroom valentine said kids can learn how to social network in a safe environment mentored by their parents teachers community leaders and professionals valentine said that she knew she wanted to do something philanthropic for her dissertation and began exploring topics to research i looked into a lot of societal problems but the issue of cyberbullying really stood out to me given that i understood so well how it felt to be bullied valentine said i read so many research papers about cyberbullying that said somebody needs to do something about this and i remember getting so frustrated that nobody was actually doing anything about it so i decided i would do something and that's how kidgab was born valentine has started spreading kidgabs mission by partnering with the girl scouts of central texas (gsctx) she just completed her first eight-week digital friendship program with gsctx in caldwell texas there are six more eight-week programs scheduled for the spring semester in the bryan/college station area austin waco and killeen valentine thinks that her partnership with gsctx is wonderful and that she is also open to working with other organizations and schools there are several people who make kidgab possible my advisor dr tracy hammond has supported me every step of the way beginning with a technological philanthropy class on through the software design process through the formation of wired youth and she helped me lead the first workshop valentine said fellow phd student cassandra odula and gsctx program specialist emily magnotta also assisted in leading the first workshop valentine is the founding president of wired youth inc a nonprofit organization that's mission is to foster an understanding among children and families of the permanent public and context-free nature of internet communications it also aims to empower children and families with good habits of digital friendship and cyber-residentship through active practice of those skills wired youth offers workshops on digital friendship to girl scouts and other groups of children kidgab is an example of a cse student standing up for something she believes in and making a difference in the surrounding community
574,"dr yue kuo a professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and an ieee fellow presented an invited talk on his solid-state incandescent-light emitting device (ssi-led) at the annual international electron devices meeting (iedm) in san francisco a magnifying glass is needed to see the detail of this new type of light-emitting device engineered by a kuo who calls his invention very environmentally friendly and a solid-state version of edisons first commercially viable electric light bulb kuos device mimics natural sunlight more realistically than fluorescent light he said adding that the ssi-led exceeds the 2 000-hour lifespan of a traditional incandescent light bulb nearing 10 000 hours and counting his device also does not contain toxic chemicals like those often used in fluorescent light bulbs or in the fabrication process of conventional led silicon chips thin film and other materials create the core of the device each filament registers at approximately 20 volts is 20-150 nanometers in diameter and 10 nm in length the device itself measures 25-300 micrometers in diameter composed of numerous heat-conductive filaments efficiency is an area of continued evaluation kuo said ""this is first a proof of concept and totally different technology than ever before "" he said ""one hundred years ago no one knew about nanotechnology"""
575,dillingham '35 mike callahan dillingham of college station died on thursday jan 1 2015 at the age of 102 dillingham had the distinction of being one of the oldest living aggie graduates he was born on feb 18 1912 in commerce texas and graduated from fort worth central high school in 1928 at the age of 16 dillingham was a member of the corps of cadets and graduated from texas a&m university in 1935 he was part of the pioneer class of petroleum production engineering graduates he was also a member of the 1934 texas a&m southwest conference championship baseball team after graduation from texas a&m he served in the pacific campaign as a battery commander in world war ii and served on general macarthur's staff at the end of the war where he attained the rank of lieutenant colonel upon leaving the military dillingham had a successful career in the oil drilling business he started his own drilling company dillingham drilling co which he owned and operated in alice texas until his retirement in 1977 he spent much of his retired years traveling with his wife georgia to colorado and kerrville texas spending time with family telling old tales of his life experiences and attending aggie sporting events where they had the same first deck seats since 1967 he and georgia have been very philanthropic towards texas a&m by supporting the university through several gift annuities and a significant bequest for the corps of cadets in addition to funding multiple general rudder scholarships dillingham was honored in 2012 with a 100th birthday party by both the corps of cadets and the texas a&m foundation he was honored two years later with a 102nd birthday bash dillingham will be lovingly remembered by a multitude of special friends and family many of whom describe him as a hero and role model and recall stories of big and small events that prove their point funeral services were held jan 5 at the a&m church of christ and dillingham was laid to rest in the aggie field of honor in the memorial cemetery of college station memorial donations in honor of mike dillingham may be made to the texas a&m development foundation at 401 george bush drive college station texas 77840
576,"dr timothy alden davis a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been named an association for computing machinery (acm) fellow founded in 1947 acm is the world's largest association of computing professionals it serves its membership and the global computing community through cutting edge publications conferences and career resources such as its digital library the fellow designation is the most prestigious membership grade of the acm davis earned the fellow designation for his contributions to sparse matrix algorithms and software ""i've always loved creating algorithms and the code that makes those algorithms work "" davis said ""my brother jon got me started in high school in 1978 our high school didn't have a computer so jon got me an account on purdue's mainframe and a book on fortran a year later after punching cards to solve the problems in the book and fresh out of high school i was working in the computer room in purdue's mechanical engineering department helping college students with their code i've been helping students create code and writing my own ever since"" davis is recognized as a world leader in algorithmic research for sparse matrix computations his work combines graph-theoretic methods and numerical techniques to create algorithms for solving problems in computational science that arise across a wide range of applications he incorporates his novel theory and algorithms into robust library-quality open-source software that is widely used in industry academia and government labs davis' graph and sparse matrix algorithms are important to scientific and engineering simulations social network analysis computer vision computer graphics robotics and many other domains the mathworks relies on his sparse solvers in matlab™ a widely-used language and application for technical computing every photo in google streetview phototours and 3d earth is placed in proper position using his software via google's ceres non-linear least squares solver the us geological survey (usgs) uses his sparse solvers to process images of the earth moon mercury and other planetary bodies cutting their time-to-solution from hours/days down to minutes jeff anderson of the usgs writes that davis' work ""is helping to make accurate cartographic maps of many solar system bodies that will be used for future rover and hopefully soon human explorations"" davis' open-source software has been adopted by all major linux distributions and is also widely used in open-source packages such as sandia's xyce circuit simulator gimp r octave fenics ros openslamorg boost julia and scilab to name just a few davis' love for algorithms extends into his hobbies in his free time he creates mathematical algorithms that translate music into algorithmic art his methods convert an entire piece of music from its natural domain of time and frequency into a domain of space and color relying on fourier transforms graph theory sparse matrix methods and force-directed graph visualization ""each image is a translation of an entire song rather than just a single moment in the song "" explained davis ""the rules are parameterized and there are more visualizations of any one song than there are particles in the known universe part of the artistic process resides in creating thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of images and selecting the one that best represents the song"" his art portfolio can be found at notesartstudiocom davis joined the faculty at texas a&m in 2014 after 23 years at the university of florida he holds doctoral and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the university of illinois urbana-champaign and graduated with distinction with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from purdue university he is a member of the parasol laboratory in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m and is principal investigator of the texas a&m cuda research center named by nvidia in june 2014 he became a fellow of the society of industrial and applied mathematics (siam) in 2013 the induction of the 2014 acm fellows will be held at the acm annual awards banquet in san francisco on june 20 2015 below on the left is davis' artistic rendering of ""also sprach zarathustra"" by richard strauss (the theme song for the movie 2001: a space odyssey) on the right is davis' depiction of ""sincere "" an electronic piece by m j cole the mix of complex and regular bass rhythms in ""sincere"" translates into an amorphous blue crystalline mesh"
577,dr erchin serpedin a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and his collaborators received a best paper award at the recent ieee globecom 2014 conference in austin texas serpedin along with professor khalid qaraqe and associate research scientist dr muhammad ismail both from texas a&m university at qatar received the award for their paper: a semi-distributed v2v fast charging strategy based on price control their paper developed a semi-distributed vehicle-to-vehicle (v2v) charging strategy for gridable evs (gevs) at the swapping station this research problem was suggested by the growing interest in electric vehicles (evs) as means for sustainable and eco-friendly transportation systems the proposed v2v (dis)charging strategy assumes real-time information provided via a heterogeneous wireless network by integrating both vehicular ad-hoc networks (vanets) and cellular networks and it aims to maximize the discharging revenues and minimize the charging costs their paper was ranked third out of more than 2 700 submissions and it was sponsored by qatar national research foundation via a national priorities research program (nprp) grant the ieee global communications (globecom) conference is a flagship conference of the ieee communications society that each year attracts about 3 000 submissions serpedin has been faculty member in the electrical and computer engineering since 1999 and is an ieee fellow he is the author of three books 10 book chapters and more than 100 journal papers and 200 conference papers he has served multiple terms as associate editor for numerous journals including ieee transactions on information theory ieee transactions on signal processing ieee transactions on communications ieee transactions on wireless communications ieee signal processing letters ieee communications letters signal processing (elsevier) eurasip journal on applied signal processing physical communications (elsevier) eurasip journal on advances in signal processing (springer) and ieee signal processing magazine he is currently serving as editor-in-chief of eurasip journal on bioinformatics and systems biology an online journal edited by springer he has also served as technical chair for five major international workshops and conferences his research interests include applications of signal processing and computational statistics techniques in bioinformatics systems biology and wireless communications
578,"since the 1960s researchers around the world have been looking for ways to employ the unique properties of active materials such as shape memory alloys (smas) for the development of morphing aerospace structures dr darren hartl texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) research assistant professor teamed with james mabe of the boeing company last summer and fall to organize a collaborative effort through tees aerospace vehicle systems institute (avsi) to solve this issue in a unified way the project is co-funded by a number of industrial and federal proponents of sma technologies who are applying their joint technical expertise to the development of standardized experimental methods that have not existed to date boeing has completed multiple full-scale flight tests of such solutions and the benefits of these technologies have been successfully demonstrated repeatedly however the path to production of both military and commercial aerospace morphing applications has been hindered by the lack of a standardized approach toward testing and certification the goal is to develop experimental methods that are both technically effective and universally accepted "" said hartl ""the participation of researchers from seven organizations spanning five countries tells me that we are headed in the right direction this first sma actuator standardization effort includes the funded participation of industrial partners ati specialty metals boeing embraer rafael defense systems rolls-royce and saes getters as well as the participation of nasa researchers the kick-off meeting associated with this effort was held in college station texas in early december a series of events on the texas a&m campus allowed the industrial and government visitors to assess the various sma research efforts being performed in the aerospace engineering and material science and engineering departments focused meetings held at tees state headquarters allowed for technical discussion and debate and the initial drafting of the first experimental standards avsi is at the center of something important here "" said hartl ""i believe in the idea of sma-enabled morphing aircraft but now is the time to move these concepts out of the laboratory and into production we have assembled the right team and we are going to make this happen front row from left: frank sczerzenie saes smart materials; frederick calkins boeing; and royi padan rafael defense systems back row from left: brian van doren ati specialty metals; darren hartl avsi; ron noebe nasa-glenn; othman benafan nasa-glenn; james mabe boeing; andrea cadelli saes getters; and bryce conduit rolls-royce"
579,the ieee power and energy society scholarship plus scholar award was presented to texas a&m university undergraduates brian pabst benjamin jack and lindsey miller all majoring in electrical engineering these students are recognized for their high gpas with distinct extracurricular activities and for their commitment to explore the power and energy field this award includes a multi-year $2 000 annual scholarship and opportunities for hands-on career experiences jack also was selected for the 2014-2015 schweitzer meritorious scholarship given by the schweitzer engineering laboratories to encourage the most promising engineering students in the us and canada to focus their studies on power and engineering industry which is facing challenges such as making renewable energy sources cost effective more information can be found at https://wwwee-scholarshiporg/about-the-scholarship/pes-scholars/2014-2015-pes-scholars and at https://wwwee-scholarshiporg/about-the-scholarship/sel-scholars/2014-15-schweitzer-meritorious-scholars
580,two professors in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university were named fellows of the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) dr krishna narayanan (left) professor and dr mark weichold (right) regents professor and dean and ceo of texas a&m university at qatar were named ieee fellows for their research and educational contributions ieee fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement the ieee grade of fellow is conferred by the ieee board of directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the ieee fields of interest the total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting membership narayanan is being recognized for contributions to coding for wireless communications and data storage and weichold is being recognized for contributions to international development of engineering education narayanan is a professor and until recently served as the departments director of graduate studies his research interests are in information theory coding theory and signal processing with applications to wireless networks and data storage he has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed papers he says he is passionate about teaching and is particularly interested in using technology to personalize the educational experience of students narayanan has been recognized with a variety of awards for both his teaching and research including the 2014 professional progress in engineering award from the college of engineering at iowa state university the 2012 texas a&m association of former students college level teaching award the 2009 halliburton professorship the 2006 best paper award from the data storage technical committee within the ieee communications society the 2002 outstanding professor award from the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m the 2001 outstanding young faculty award from the college of engineering at texas a&m and the 2001 national science foundation career award an electrical engineer weichold has worked for general dynamics fort worth division motorola in austin texas and the us army electronic technology and devices laboratory in ft monmouth new jersey his research interests include electron device fabrication process development device design and characterization he has been author of more than 80 journal articles conference papers and scientific reports and holds three us patents weichold joined the electrical engineering faculty at texas a&m in 1982 and has served as associate provost for undergraduate programs and academic services dean of undergraduate programs and associate provost for academic services in 2009 he was named a regents professor for his outstanding work and exemplary contribution to texas a&m and the texas a&m university system and in january 2007 he became dean and ceo of texas a&m at qatar during his tenure as dean and ceo enrollment has grown to more than 550 students including 40 graduate students enrolled in two masters degree programs the faculty has increased to 81 and the research enterprise has grown to include 140 active projects in 2009 texas a&m qatar's four undergraduate engineering programs were accredited by the engineering accreditation commission of abet the branch campus has produced more than 500 graduates many of whom have enrolled in top graduate schools around the world including stanford mit cal tech uc berkeley imperial college cambridge illinois carnegie melon michigan and waterloo in addition to texas a&m's main campus in college station texas the undergraduate student population is 53 percent qatari nationals and includes 38 percent female enrollees texas a&m at qatar has attracted an outstanding faculty with annual research funding of approximately $20 million and produces more than 250 archival publications each year in addition the research projects have produced more than two dozen patents and disclosures in partnership with local industries weichold has seen the establishment of the qatar petrochemical company (qapco) chair in polymer science and engineering currently held by dr robert grubbs 2005 nobel laureate in chemistry and the qatar fertilizer company (qafco) chair in green chemistry and green engineering currently held by the father of green chemistry dr paul anastas under weicholds leadership the branch campus has also established itself as a presence in the community through its many engagement activities texas a&m at qatar has put in place a distinguished lecture series in which leading scholars many of whom have been members of the national academies and even nobel laureates come to qatar and contribute to the scholarly discourse within education city the branch campus has been instrumental in contributing to numerous conferences and symposia including the natural gas conversion symposium held for the first time in the middle east in 2013 that same year texas a&m at qatar also organized and hosted the first world congress on engineering education which brought together international experts who focused on innovations needed to energize engineering educators and create a robust future for engineering education recognizing the important role teachers play in preparing the next generation of engineers and scientists texas a&m at qatar in partnership with maersk oil qatar awarded the countrys first stem educator of the year award in 2014 the ieee is the worlds leading professional association for advancing technology for humanity through its 400 000 members in 160 countries the ieee is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering electric power and consumer electronics dedicated to the advancement of technology the ieee publishes 30 percent of the worlds literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields and has developed more than 900 active industry standards the association also sponsors or co-sponsors nearly 400 international technical conferences each year to learn more about ieee or the ieee fellow program visit wwwieeeorg
581,"twelve individuals from around the nation attended a graduate student invitational in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university where they learned first-hand about the program and had opportunities to meet and consult with faculty and students the attendees have been accepted into the graduate student program and have until april 15 to finalize their decision ""we offer a very vibrant and diverse academic environment which we think will prepare students for careers in chemical engineering and other opportunities after graduation "" said dr arul jayaraman professor of chemcial engineering and the director of the graduate program katie ford (above left) a visiting senior from auburn university listens as abhijeet shinde phd student discusses his research ford said she wanted to observe the ""different applications of research and how students were able to branch off to get a feel for their freedom all the answers were really positive"" while she said she hasn't made her decision yet ford said ""i'll probably be coming here"""
582,wen zhu (above left) phd student presents her research to dr chad mashuga assistant professor of chemical engineering and candria jones (center) a student visiting from prairie view a&m university
583,"phd student yanpu zhang (above) shared her various experiences in research with prospective graduate students ""even though i am a second-year student i've already finished a manuscript and i'll give an oral presentation at the american physical society (aps) next week in san antonio "" she said ""i'm happy to show our research and what can be done here"""
584,"dr christodoulos floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute and the erle nye 59 chair professor for engineering excellence was awarded the constantin caratheodory prize by the international society of global optimization (isogo) in a presentation at the world congress on global optimization in gainesville florida on feb 24 floudas is one of three individuals to receive this joint prize the bi-annual award is given to an individual or group who has made fundamental contributions to theory algorithms and applications of global optimization i am honored and humbled by this lifetime recognition especially since this award bears the name of the great mathematician constantin carathéodory "" said floudas who is a member of isogo floudas research interests lie at the interface of chemical engineering applied mathematics operations research computer science and molecular biology among other areas his research relies heavily on mathematical modeling at the microscopic mesoscopic and macroscopic level rigorous optimization theory algorithms and large-scale computations on high performance clusters of workstations he is also a member of the national academy of engineering"
585,"faculty and students from the department of computer science and engineering (cse) at texas a&m university recently participated in the top joint conference in the world for artificial intelligence research the aaai twenty-ninth conference on artificial intelligence (aaai-2015) co-located with the twenty-seventh annual conference on innovative applications of artificial intelligence (iaai-15) was held in austin texas from jan 25-29 during the iaai-15 paper session on semantic web knowledge based systems and ontologies cse doctoral student sasin janpuangtong presented ""leveraging ontologies to improve model generalization automatically with online data sources "" co-authored by cse assistant professor dylan shell and janpuangtong their research describes a framework that allows a novice to create models that generalize from data easily ""making it easier to produce models opens up vistas for inexperienced users; and helping automate the process of making sense ofand providing new interpretations forexisting data is one way to tame the deluge of data "" said shell an invited presentation ""fully decentralized task swaps with optimized local searching "" by lantao liu cse shell's former graduate student nathan michael and shell was presented by postdoctoral fellow liu during the texas vii section of the aaai-2015 technical sessions / robotics: science and systems 2014 presentations the research demonstrated that the proposed fully decentralized task swap method ""converges quickly without sacrificing much optimality"" cse associate professor tracy hammond director of the sketch recognition lab; laura barreto hammond's previous summer distributed research experiences for undergraduates student; and cse doctoral student paul taele co-authored ""maestoso: an intelligent educational sketching tool for learning music theory"" barreto and taele presented their research during the iaai-15 paper session on machine learning information fusion and hci they described an intelligent sketch user interface for teaching music theory to novice music students through sketching and automated feedback in aaai-2015's technical funding information session cse graduate student anshul gupta presented an article entitled ""automatic assessment of ocr quality in historical documents "" which describes an iterative classification algorithm to identify errors in optical character recognition of early-modern texts (1475-1800) the work was a collaborative project between professor laura mandel from texas a&m's department of english and cse professors richard furuta and ricardo gutierrez-osuna workshops to discuss frontiers in ai were featured at the conference cse professor yoonsuck choe director of the brain networks laboratory and his students presented the poster ""tool construction and use challenge: tooling test rebooted"" at workshop 6 - beyond the turing test the poster proposed the possibility of using tool construction and tool use as a measure of intelligence an ability observed only in humans and a handful of animals another workshop co-located with aaai-2015 was the nsf-sponsored workshop on research issues at the boundary of ai and robotics organized by cse unocal professor nancy m amato cse's shell and dr sven koenig of the university of southern california one of the goal's of this workshop was to produce a roadmap for future work at the boundary of ai and robotics cse raytheon professor robin r murphy was an invited speaker posing the questionai and robotics: are we asking the right questions murphy also co-chaired a breakout session for the workshop tees center for robot-assisted search and rescue (crasar) students nsf graduate fellow brittany duncan nsf bridge to the doctorate fellow jesus suarez and grant wilde a cse graduate student in computer engineering exhibited different rescue robots at the aaai-15 exhibition the students and crasar director murphy were featured in interviews by austin affiliate kvue (https://wwwkvuecom/article/news/local/artificial-intelligence-on-display-in-austin/152637501) photo top left: dr yoonsuck choe (3rd from left) and his students photo bottom left: jesus suarez manning the crasar booth photo right: laura barreto at lectern"
586,"dr jeff huang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was chosen by the google faculty research awards program as a recipient of financial support for his proposal ""scalable and practical debugging techniques for large concurrent software"" this project is one of 122 chosen from a total of 808 considered by google during its winter 2015 call for research project proposals ""software debugging is a challenging task yet debugging parallel software is harder "" said huang ""the goal of this research project is to investigate scalable and practical debugging techniques for real world parallel software running on multicore platforms ""parallel software which allows multiple computations executed in parallel is the only way to unleash the computation power provided by today's multicore processors unfortunately parallel programming is much harder and debugging parallel programs is notoriously difficult when a failure occurs in a parallel program it is even challenging to reproduce the failure because the scheduling of parallel computations may not be deterministic ""the hoped for result of this research is that it will lead to a debugging framework that will help diagnose failures in large complex parallel software by quickly detecting reproducing and localizing failures with minimal program slowdown"" huang joined the parasol laboratory in fall 2014 he came to texas a&m from the department of computer science at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign where he was a postdoctoral research associate working with dr grigore rosu on ""runtime verification of concurrent and distributed systems"" huang currently teaches a graduate course in fundamentals of software analysis his research focuses on developing techniques and tools for improving software performance and reliability based on fundamental program analyses and programming language theory among huang's many honors are the 2013 acm sigsoft outstanding dissertation award for his doctoral thesis ""effective methods for debugging concurrent software "" and a distinguished paper award from the 2013 acm sigplan conference on programming language design and implementation (pldi) he was also the winner of the 2012 pldi student research competition and a winner of the 2010 professor samuel chanson best teaching assistant award one of the goals of the google faculty research awards program is to fund leading edge advancements in new technology projects in computer science engineering and related fields its next submission deadline is april 15 2015 to learn more about the google faculty research awards program visit http://researchgooglecom/university/relations/research_awardshtml"
587,"dr daniel a jiménez associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been included in the high performance computer architecture (hpca) hall of fame for having seven papers in the ieee international symposium on high performance computer architecture there are 47 researchers from across the country who have this prestigious designation for which one needs six or more papers published in the hcpa jiménez has been a faculty member with since 2013 he received his bachelor's degree in computer science and systems design and his master's degree in computer science both from the university of texas at san antonio he received his phd in computer sciences from the university of texas at austin his five most recent hpca papers are listed below ""adaptive placement and migration policy for an stt-ram-based hybrid cache "" hpca 2014 co-authored with zhe wang cong xu guangyu sun and yuan xie this paper proposes a hybrid last-level cache using spin torque transfer ram alongside sram giving the capacity advantage of stt-ram with the write-latency advantage of sram ""improving cache performance using read-write partitioning "" hpca 2014 co-authored with samira khan alaa r alameldeen chris wilkerson and onur mutlu this paper shows that distinguishing between clean and dirty blocks in cache sets enables a superior replacement policy yielding improved performance this paper was nominated for the best paper award ""improving multi-core performance using mixed-cell cache architecture "" hpca 2013 co-authored with samira khan alaa alameldeen chris wilkerson and jaydeep kulkarni this paper introduces a last-level cache design that mixes large sram cells with small sram cells to provide improved capacity while maintaining reliability by keeping modified data in the large cells the idea enables an improvement in both performance and power ""decoupled dynamic cache segmentation "" hpca 2012 hpca 2012 co-authored with samira m khan and zhe wang this paper shows how to divide cache sets into two partitions each of which is managed with a different replacement policy it proposes a novel prediction mechanism to find the best size for a partition the technique improves performance while allowing a reduced hardware budget ""a decoupled kilo-instruction processor "" hpca 2006 co-authored with miquel pericàs ruben gonzález adrian cristal and mateo valero this paper shows how to combine many in-order components to build a large-instruction-window processor with low implementation cost it introduces the concept of ""execution locality"" and exploits it to build a high-performance microprocessor jiménezs research interests include computer architecture and compliers he is known for inventing the perceptron branch predictor first published with co-author calvin lin in hpca 2001 this method for predicting conditional branches is now used in machines made by amd and oracle this semester he is teaching csce 613: (advanced) operating systems yingying tian is a current phd student at texas a&m and zhe wang is a former texas a&m phd student who is now working for intel the ieee computer society is a community for leaders in the technology sphere and the world's leading membership organization dedicated to computer science and technology this organization sponsors more than 200 technical conferences and events each year and the meeting this february was the 21st conference in the series"
588,a texas a&m university-led research effort aimed at treating potentially fatal brain aneurysms by filling them with polymer foams has received a $25 million grant from the national institutes of health (nih) with the goal of beginning human trials by 2018 the three-year grant which is supported by the nih national institute of neurological disorders and stroke (ninds) is led by duncan maitland professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m maitlands team of researchers includes colleagues from his department the college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences at texas a&m and mayo medical school the research is a collaboration between maitlands biomedical device laboratory and the startup company shape memory therapeutics the treatment maitland explains makes use of special plastics called polyurethane-based shape memory polymer foams (smps) and could provide doctors with a more effective and less risky method for treating aneurysms – blood-filled balloon-like bulges in the walls of a blood vessels that can rupture and cause neurological damage that is debilitating or even fatal especially if near the brain cerebral aneurysm ruptures occur in 30 000 people per year in the united states and nearly 75 percent of those patients will either die or become neurologically debilitated maitland says typically treatment of aneurysms involves implanting platinum coils to reduce pressure on the vessel walls so that healing can occur before the aneurysm ruptures maitland says these coils he explains can be effective but also can pose risks to the patient in addition to sometimes causing inflammation that can inhibit healing these coils can compact over time and cause subsequent rupture or re-rupture or lead to the formation of aneurysms adjacent to the original aneurysm he says maitland is working to overcome the limitations of conventional treatment methods by employing an alternate filling method for aneurysms that relies on polyurethane-based smp foam instead of platinum coils these foams have the ability to be made into a primary shape and then transformed into another shape with an increase in temperature maitland notes their shape-shifting ability makes these foams an ideal material for filling aneurysms he explains in maitlands system the smp foam remains in a temporary crimped shape so that it can be inserted into a blood vessel and delivered to the aneurysm with the use of a microcatheter once at the aneurysm site the foam is triggered to expand and fill the aneurysm sac by body temperature maitland says similar to how a sponge works the smp foam enables blood to fill the aneurysm forming a clot and promoting and accelerating healing through the volume of the aneurysm and importantly at the neck or opening of the aneurysm no current devices maitland says match both the volume filling and surface area characteristics of the teams smp-based device for the 2mm diameter coil the surface area is 29 times more than the next best device and the volume filling is 20 times better than the next best device maitland notes thats important because high surface area and improved volume filling lead to dramatically improved healing when compared to bare platinum coils maitland explains test results have revealed smp foams promote long-term health of the areas of the blood vessel affected by the aneurysm reducing the chances of the aneurysm reforming maitland says this is evidenced he explains by the formation of the types of cells and tissue that lead to a more stabilized healing for example aneurysms treated with smp foams show an increased presence of collagen instead of fibrin collagen he says is a far more mechanically stable tissue than fibrin which is a short-term patch and abundant in aneurysms treated with coils thats a promising finding maitland says because the more stabilized an aneurysm is the less likely it will be to require re-treatment – something that unfortunately occurs in about 40 percent of aneurysms treated with coils in addition to demonstrating the promotion of an aggressive healing response in aneurysms the smp foams developed by maitland and his team are showing strong signs of biocompatibility – their ability to be accepted by the body in fact the foams are outperforming other fda-approved materials used in blood vessels he notes thats important maitland says because it means less inflammation in the area which can inhibit the healing process typically foreign objects implanted in the body trigger an inflammatory response as the body attempts to reject them but the smp foams used by maitland show minimal inflammation once they are inserted into the aneurysm histology studies comparing smp foams to two types of commonly used fda-approved sutures used in vascular surgeries show the foams to outperform both types of sutures meaning fewer cells associated with inflammation are showing up near the foams maitland notes [a crimped smp foam device is delivered to an aneurysm via catheter and then expands to a permanent shape within the aneurysm where it stabilizes the aneurysm and promotes healing] the teams grant is titled shape memory polymer embolic foams for treating cerebrovascular aneurysms and is funded under the ninds cooperative program in translational research (u01) shape memory therapeutics has contracted with biotex inc a medical device manufacturer based in houston to lead product development and manufacturing for the project ashok gowda president of biotex will work with the research team gowda is a 2014 outstanding alumni award recipient of the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m additional senior team members include elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m; fred clubb director of the cardiovascular pathology laboratory in the college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences at texas a&m; jonathan hartman chair of the shape memory therapeutics advisory board; david kallmes md at the department of radiology mayo clinic; and linda mummah-schendel namsa medical research manager pre-clinical quality systems and regulatory support will be provided by namsa a medical research organization providing expert regulatory laboratory clinical and compliance services to medical device and healthcare product manufacturers contact: duncan maitland professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university at 9794583471 or via email: djmaitland@tamuedu or ryan garcia at 9798475833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
589,"mikayla barry always knew she wanted to make a difference in peoples lives but the undergraduate biomedical engineering major had no idea she would be helping develop a potentially life-saving technology so soon after embarking upon her academic career at texas a&m university merely a year into the pursuit of her degree the 20-year-old barry is working to develop a coating for medical devices that prevents clotting as well as infection shes part of a research team led by associate professor melissa grunlan an authority on biomaterials and regenerative therapies from the universitys department of biomedical engineering though its still in its initial stages of development early tests indicate the coating – which can be applied to a variety of implantable medical devices such as catheters – demonstrates a reduction in protein adhesion as well as common bacteria adhesion grunlan notes in other words blood and bacteria are less able to stick to the coating meaning fewer clots and a decreased chance of infection thats particularly important for patients treated with catheters grunlan explains people who have end-stage renal disease may receive dialysis with a catheter but these catheters are very prone to failure due to thrombosis or clotting on the device grunlan says the worst-case scenario is that the clot can be dislodged and lead to a potentially fatal embolism ""its a learning experience that integrates what i am learning in the classroom with what i would like to do in a laboratory environment someday after i graduate looking to overcome this serious issue medical professionals have relied on the anti-clotting drug heparin which is typically locked within the catheter but that approach can result in the inadvertent leaking of heparin into a patient when this happens grunlan notes the patient is essentially on a blood thinner during a time when he or she may require surgery due to poor health its a bad combination and whats more the outer surfaces of the catheter remain susceptible to clotting she explains a better solution grunlan believes lies in the manufacturing of a better catheter – one thats more effective at preventing clotting and infection and less of a risk to patients achieving this however is no easy task; it requires manipulating the materials from which the catheter is made on a molecular level… thats where barry comes in while such work may seem exceedingly complex for the average sophomore the biomaterials research being conducted by barry is right in her wheelhouse an academic standout with a lifelong love for chemistry (her mother is a chemistry teacher) and the medical field the bryan texas native was eager to work in a lab environment coming to texas a&m i was amazed by the biomedical engineering department and the applications that were available in pretty much anything medically related she said when i realized that i could combine that with chemistry i knew i had a future in this and im excited the acclimation process was a rapid one for barry; within weeks of joining grunlans lab she was producing the polymer coatings for the catheters and studying how the coatings interacted with the devices on which they were applied she took a typical path that a lot of our undergraduate student researchers do although she started earlier than is typical – being a freshman is quite young to start research grunlan said she is a very bright and motivated student and has demonstrated a strong research ability barry acknowledged her initial days in the lab were defined by a steep learning curve those first couple of weeks were quite exhausting but considering where i am now i am really glad i was put in head first because it gave me such a great opportunity to grow as a researcher and scholar barry said while its a lot of time investment its also time that is invested in my ability to learn and what i learn in the lab corresponds with other things that im learning in my classes its the ultimate hands-on experience for someone with barrys aspirations spending about 10 hours a week in the lab she conducts a range of experiments and tests that involve not only manufacturing the polymer coating but constantly measuring its effectiveness through a variety of different techniques that enable her to assess and refine the design of the coating this coating barry explains works by blending in a polymer additive that when incorporated into the main catheter material causes a specific interaction when the device surface contacts blood when this happens she says a molecular reorganization of the surface takes place and a hydrophilic or water-attracting polymer blooms to the surface because bacteria and proteins dont adhere well to hydrophilic surfaces the polymer coating prevents potential clots and infections from forming she says one of the greatest things about working in dr grunlans lab is that while i am an undergraduate they dont treat me like one barry said they include me in all of the theory and they help me understand why im doing what im doing its not like a part-time job where i am just fulfilling tasks; its a learning experience that integrates what i am learning in the classroom with what i would like to do in a laboratory environment someday after i graduate"
590,"for now its a fast and furious start to an academic career thats already seen barry honored as texas a&ms first beckman scholar through an intensive written application and interview process that probed her goals values and commitment to a career in scientific research and community service the award honors the memory of arnold o beckman beckman was founder-chairman emeritus of beckman instruments inc and inventor of several scientific instruments including the beckman du spectrophotometer which revolutionized chemical analysis through the scholars program barry and grunlan attended the beckman symposium in newport beach last summer to meet other beckman scholars and mentors and hear presentations from prominent scientists from across the nation now a sophomore barry is engaging in additional activities as part of her beckman scholars program she is part of the first-year university scholars seminar through which she is further developing her leadership skills in addition she meets periodically with the executive and editorial boards of explorations: the texas a&m undergraduate journal to discover how review and publication decisions are made and she is preparing applications for several national fellowships in stem areas those first couple of weeks were quite exhausting but considering where i am now i am really glad i was put in head first"" barry also has taken on leadership roles in the texas a&m wind symphony and advocates for christ today a church-based social justice organization while maintaining a 40 gpr and her status as an honors student in the dwight look college of engineering honors program this spring she will present her research from grunlans lab at a meeting of the national american chemical society in denver where she will have the opportunity to speak with people from around the world about her work and also learn more about graduate school and a career in the biomaterials field areas barry intends to pursue with the same fervor thats characterized her undergraduate studies after i graduate from texas a&m with my biomedical engineering degree i hope to continue graduate studies preferably in polymer chemistry or some sort of biomaterials field she said i would like to earn my phd and do postdoctoral research and become a faculty member at a research university where i can be in a position to enable other undergraduates with the same type of experience i am having with dr grunlan at texas a&m"
591,dr christodoulos floudas was recognized tuesday feb 17 by governor greg abbott at the 2015 state of the state address in austin texas before a joint session of the texas house and senate floudas was welcomed to the event by abbott and introduced for his leadership of the texas a&m energy institute a full-length press release and a video of the event have been released by the governor's office floudas is the erle nye '59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university he is the director of the texas a&m energy institute and a member of the national academy of engineering
592,the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university in partnership with the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recently hosted more than 140 high school science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) teachers from across texas at the eighth annual engineering teacher summit & p-12 leadership forum the teacher summit is offered at no cost to the teachers and administrators through the generous donations of texas a&ms public partnership and outreach office of the provost eta hand2mind and texas instruments in addition to receiving materials to supplement their high school curriculum teachers and administrators earned eight hours of continuing education for participating in the event dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs in the look college each spoke to the attendees banks and taylor emphasized the importance of properly preparing high school students for success in an engineering major each provided overviews of the college of engineering and applauded the participants efforts to attend teacher summit in order to serve their students using innovative and interactive teaching methods dr christine cunningham was the keynote speaker cunningham is the vice president at the museum of science boston and founder of engineering is elementary™ a groundbreaking project that engages elementary children (and their teachers) in principles of engineering and technology cunningham spoke on the importance of making engineering more relevant accessible and understandable to underserved and underrepresented populations breakout sessions in the form of experiential workshops followed the morning presentations the workshops were designed with participants in mind allowing interactions with workshop facilitators and fellow high school teachers the introduction of new curriculum is imperative to addressing the disconnect students have regarding stem fields the sessions allow for teachers and administrators to work hands-on with the curriculum allowing for transformation to take place at multiple levels said dr johannes strobel director of educational outreach programs teachers and administrators leave the summit filled with ideas on how to incorporate their experiences with the curriculum into their own classrooms immediately following the sessions panel presentations gave attendees an opportunity to ask questions directly to texas a&m faculty and students about how to best prepare their students for college courses departments within the look college along with the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and several educational companies hosted resource tables to promote programs and opportunities of interest to high school students to learn more about the engineering teacher summit & p-12 leadership forum visit the website or call the office of educational outreach programs at 979-458-8590
593,the dwight look college of engineering participated in aggieland saturday the premier open house event for prospective current and former students and their families hosted by the texas a&m university office of admissions on feb 14 2015 this years event welcomed approximately 12 000 visitors to campus to explore all aggieland has to offer through guided tours presentations resource tables and the opportunity to meet with faculty and staff representatives the daylong event kicked off with presentations in rudder auditorium dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for engineering and academic student affairs (easa) represented the look college and discussed the top 10 reasons individuals should pursue engineering at the look college immediately following taylors presentation thousands of interested students lined up for the opportunity to talk to academic advisors faculty and staff at the engineering resource table located in rudder exhibit hall in addition to attending the deans presentation and collecting general information prospective engineering students were encouraged to visit individual departments within the college of engineering in the departments visitors were invited to sign-up for laboratory tours visit resource tables participate in demonstrations and attend information sessions students also had the opportunity to meet with student organizations
594,ryan morton a senior technical safety engineer with anadarko petroleum became the first individual to receive the masters degree in safety engineering through the distance learning program at texas a&m university the degree is administered by dr sam mannan director of the mary kay oconnor process safety center a center housed within the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) by pursuing the masters in safety engineering degree ive gained valuable technical knowledge through academia while being able to practice in the workplace said morton the degree is offered via distance learning to professionals employed in industry who cannot enroll and complete their degree by attending on-campus classes by offering this degree more widely texas a&m not only develops and trains the workforce needed to fill the demand for safety professionals over the next 10 years but it is also ensuring an environment for national and public health security engineers with their bachelors of science degree working on the masters degree via distance learning will have the opportunity to integrate course work with real-time industry experience to enhance job performance leadership skills and classroom involvement realizing that my courses were covering the same content and challenges faced at work i quickly gained confidence and credibility with how i approached problems and generated solutions said morton i learned philosophical aspects of engineering safety to be better equipped to influence organizations toward safer engineered products and operations this type of learning is difficult to find on the job another benefit i found was most companies have been interested in supporting this effort financially while working making the argument to pursue very strong for anyone who is interested i suggest starting today and youll be done before you realize it
595,amy and john doucet of dripping springs texas have recently made two contributions to the zachry department of civil engineering the first establishes the herman m giesen ‘49/ amy 82 and john 81 doucet scholarship in civil engineering with their gift to the texas a&m foundation distributions from the endowment will be used to provide an annual scholarship to a full-time student pursuing a degree in civil engineering at texas a&m university in addition to the establishment of this scholarship the doucets have contributed $25 000 to the zachry department of civil engineering endowed excellence fund which supports the advancement of the department both amy and john earned degrees in engineering from texas a&m amy graduated in 1982 with a bachelors in industrial distribution and john graduated in 1981 with a degree in civil engineering they are both employed by doucet & associates a civil engineering company headquartered in austin texas where john is the president and ceo
596,texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor dr bjarne stroustrup was named a 2015 fellow by the computer history museum for his invention of the c++ programming language as stated in his award recognition c++ revolutionized the software industry by enabling a variety of software development techniques-including object-oriented programming generic programming and general resource management-to be deployed at scale it is one of the most widely used programming languages in the world many of the popular applications used today such as mozilla firefox microsoft office internet explorer amazon google and facebook are written at least in part using c++ the computer history museum fellow awards honor exceptional men and women whose ideas have changed the world the fellowship is a lifetime award for individuals who have made major contributions to the computer industry the list of fellows is a veritable who's who of the computer industry stroustrup received a master's in mathematics from aarhus university and a phd in computer science from cambridge university his research interests include distributed systems software development tools design and programming and programming languages he is currently a managing director in the technology division of morgan stanley in new york city a distinguished research professor in computer science at texas a&m university and a visiting professor in computer science at columbia university the three 2015 fellows will be inducted into the museums hall of fellows on april 25 at a formal ceremony where high-level executives entrepreneurs innovators professors and previous fellows will be in attendance this recognizes c++s place in computing history and also honors the many people who helped make it one of the most successful programming languages ever and the many who used c++ to build awe-inspiring systems stroustrup said of the award
597,william j and william r winkelmann have established the william j 73 and william r 09 winkelmann endowed scholarship with their gift to the texas a&m foundation funds from this endowment will provide scholarships to undergraduate students in civil engineering william j bill winkelmann earned his bachelors in civil engineering from texas a&m university in 1973 his son william r winkelmann graduated from texas a&m in 2009 with a degree in ocean engineering a degree program in the zachry department of civil engineering bill and his wife diane have been active supporters of the texas a&m foundation and the association of former students for the last 35 years
598,"the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university is honoring dr richard furuta with the charles w crawford service award* he is among three college of engineering faculty members receiving the award this year for his significant contributions to the college during the past five years furuta is a professor in the department of computer science and engineering (cse) he has been the cse department's adviser to computer science and computer engineering undergraduates since 2006 and was a member of the computer engineering curriculum coordination committee from 2006-2011 he also was coordinator of the engineering projects in community service course from 2009 to 2014 and has served on a number of college committees during that time these include both the cse department's and the college's promotion and tenure committees a college of engineering grievance committee (2009-2010) and the college's engineering scholars program from 2007-2012 and again from 2013 to the present this is the second time he has received the crawford service award his many honors include being named acm senior member ieee senior member tees fellow and acm distinguished engineer ""dr furuta's exceptional service record has resulted in great visibility for the department of computer science and engineering the dwight look college of engineering and texas a&m university "" said dr dilma da silva department head and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii furuta will receive a certificate and monetary award at a faculty recognition banquet to be held on may 6 * dr charles w crawford graduated from texas a&m in mechanical engineering in 1919 as a professor at texas a&m he taught mechanical engineering and was the dean of engineering in the 1950's in 1962 crawford became the inaugural recipient of the charles w crawford distinguished service award the charles w crawford papers ""one hundred years of engineering at texas a&m university"" are housed at the cushing memorial library and archives"
599,"the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a contract to support vertically integrated projects (vip) such as the aggie-challenge program the contract is part of the $5 million grant awarded by the leona m and harry b helmsley charitable trust to the vip university consortium to support large teams of undergraduates working with graduate students and faculty on long-term research projects the vip consortium is led by georgia tech university and the university of michigan and consists of the following schools: purdue university texas a&m university rice university university of washington howard university morehouse college florida international university boise state university colorado state university university of hawaii-manoa virginia commonwealth university and two international universities ""the helmsley charitable trust is thrilled to support the vip consortiums transformative approach to active learning in engineering "" said ryan kelsey program officer at the trust ""it is very compelling to see such a range of engineering schools across the country that are ready to adopt large-scale effective practices that we expect will retain more students particularly more women and students of color""dr prasad enjeti dr prasad enjeti associate dean for academic affairs is the principal investigator (pi) while magda lagoudas executive director for industry partnerships and dr jeff froyd tees research professor are co-pis we are thrilled to collaborate with our peer institutions in the vip consortium and join our efforts to promote innovation and research among engineering undergraduates through working on real-world projects graduate world-class engineers to address the needs of our nation and improve retention of students in engineering enjeti said the vip funds will support two major efforts on the texas a&m campus: (1) improving the infrastructure for recruiting registering tracking and evaluating the undergraduate students who participate in the vip projects; and (2) improving the processes through which the learning outcomes that have been established for the vip projects which are a subset of the learning outcomes required by abet are evaluated for more information on the collaboration with vip please contact lagoudas at m-lagoudas@tamuedu"
600,alyssa michalke a junior ocean engineering major in the zachry department of civil engineering has been selected as the leader of the texas a&m university corps of cadets for the 2015-16 school year michalke's selection marks the first time in texas a&m's 139-year history that a woman will lead the university's legendary corps of cadets michalke will take command of the 2 400-plus member unit the largest of its type in the nation except for the service academies at the conclusion of the spring semester
601,sherry escalante manager of faculty services in the office of the vice chancellor and dean of engineering and holly toschlog business coordinator in the department of materials science and engineering are two of the 15 individuals selected to receive the 2014-15 presidents meritorious service award escalante and toschlog will receive their award during a ceremony feb 25 at 9:30 am in rudder theater nominations for the award were submitted in the fall and an anonymous committee comprised of representatives from across campus selected the winners each individual recipient receives a $700 cash award a commemorative plaque and a lapel pin awards are funded through the generosity of the association of former students for a complete list of the recipients visit https://employeestamuedu/talent-management/managers/employee-recognition/pmsa/
602,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering recently announced the recipients for the 2014-15 college of engineering teaching service and contribution awards five individuals received the teaching awards three received the service awards and four received the contribution awards each award winner will receive a monetary gift and an award plaque at a banquet on may 6 teaching awards: tenneco meritorious teaching award sandun fernando biological and agricultural engineering; erick moreno-centeno industrial and systems engineering george armistead jr 23 faculty excellence teaching jodie lutkenhaus chemical engineering lockheed martin teaching excellence award kelly brumbelow civil engineering; richard malak mechanical engineering service awards: charles crawford distinguished service award victor ugaz chemical engineering; richard furuta computer science and engineering; scott miller electrical and computer engineering contribution awards: ed brockett professorship arum han electrical and computer engineering william keeler memorial award daniele mortari aerospace engineering; zhengdong cheng chemical engineering; anastasia muliana mechanical engineering
603,delesicca mccradic brooks 85 has established the ollie and etta henigan scholarship named in honor of her grandparents with her gift to the texas a&m foundation full-time undergraduate students pursuing a degree in chemical engineering will be eligible for this scholarship brooks earned her bachelors in chemical engineering from texas a&m university in 1985 currently employed with exxonmobil she resides in the woodlands texas with her husband kermit and their two children
604,tom and diane fisher have created the diane p and thomas e fisher 66 scholarship in mechanical engineering this scholarship established through the texas a&m foundation will benefit undergraduate students pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering tom fisher graduated from texas a&m university in 1966 with a degree in mechanical engineering he has contributed to the association of former students and serves on the advisory council for the dwight look college of engineering the couple resides in manhattan beach california and has two sons clinton and mark
605,dr robert h grubbs 2005 nobel laureate and the qapco chair of polymer science and engineering at texas a&m university at qatar has been elected to the national academy of engineering (nae) for developments in catalysts that have enabled commercial products grubbs is the victor and elizabeth atkins professor of chemistry at the california institute of technology (caltech) in the united states and he is an adjunct professor of chemistry at texas a&m at qatar where he has a research group a world-renowned scientist in the field of chemistry his research involves design synthesis and mechanistic studies of complexes that catalyze basic organic transformations his recent focus has been on olefin metathesis reaction to optimize the utility of this reaction new catalysts have been developed that are extremely tolerant of organic functional groups he has more than 500 publications and more than 115 patents based on his research at texas a&m at qatar grubbs works closely with dr hassan s bazzi chemistry professor in the science program and the assistant dean for research and graduate studies they recently received an exceptional research project award of $436 million from the national priorities research program for the proposal synthesis of novel and sustainable functionalized linear and cyclic polymers via olefin metathesis the research seeks to develop novel and environmentally friendly ways in which to synthesize polymers that like polyolefins are produced on an immense scale in qatar the nae was founded in 1964 to advance the well-being of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshalling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology
606,"texas a&m university computer science and engineering assistant professor dr dylan shell and unocal professor dr nancy m amato co-organized the workshop on research issues at the boundary of ai and robotics alongside dr sven koenig of the university of southern california the workshop was sponsored by the national science foundation and was held on jan 25 2015 in austin texas it was co-located with the association for the advancement of artificial intelligence (aaai) conference of which koenig was program chair many of the aaai attendees also participated in the workshop this event was put on with the intent of bringing together experts in artificial intelligence and robotics including senior researchers to assemble a list of recommendations to funding agencies professional organizations and individual researchers on how to push the boundary of ai and robotics this included research areas that would benefit the most from the collaboration of these researchers such as possible challenge problems another goal of the workshop was to produce a roadmap for future work at the boundary of these disciplines members of the ieee international conference on robotics and automation senior program committee met in college station texas just before the workshop and many also spoke recently at the texas a&m robotics symposium at the workshop speakers from universities around the world gave short invited talks as well as participated on panels and in discussion sessions to establish a common ground among the participants raytheon professor dr robin murphy texas a&m university; dr ruzena bajcsy university of california berkeley; dr george konidaris duke university; carme torras polytechnic university of catalonia; and katia sycara from carnegie mellon university were among the many invited speakers topics included semi-automated coaching for elderly ai robotics: finding common ground and ai and robotics interface: why hri needs ai ""it was a unique opportunity to draw on the experience of luminaries in both areas; the workshop was successful in emphasizing common interests and helping chart a direction for the future that could help unify efforts that are more disparate than they ought to be shell said shell amato and koenig are currently working on preparing a report to share with nsf and the research community"
607,the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university held its annual student paper contest (spc) on jan 31 with the runoff competition held feb 7 this event is sponsored by industry donations and $46 900 was raised this year over half of which goes back to the students as award money each year industry members come and help judge the event this year 130 industry representatives were involved with the contest without their continued support this event would not be as successful as it is many of the industry volunteers are former students who competed in past paper contests and believe in the value of the competition and the learning opportunities it provides after two saturdays of competition (488 students for the preliminaries and 55 for the runoffs) the texas a&m division winners were named: juniors: first place – kristina klock; second place – trey tomlin; third place – juan diez (in photo from left: diez klock and tomlin) seniors: first place andrew abbott; second place – amanda nelson; third place – jonathan soto ortega (in photo from left: nelson and ortega) masters: first place emmanuel oyewole; second place – clay strack; third place – raphael coelho (in photo from left (oyewole strack and coelho) doctoral: first place ernesto valbuena; second place – karin gonzalez; third place – mohammadreza ghasemi (in photo from left: valbuena gonzalez and ghasemi) the objective of the spc is to develop technical presentation skills in students participation is required by all juniors seniors and graduate students who present orally the results of their graduate research or independent study of a petroleum engineering problem to a panel of judges from industry and academia presentations are 10-15 minutes followed by a five minute question and answer period with the judges the first and second place seniors masters and doctoral division winners move on to the society of petroleum engineers (spe) gulf coast region spc one of several regional contests held by spe in the regional competitions the students will compete against other students from their region for the opportunity to participate in the international student paper contest in the fall the regional contests are hosted on a rotating basis by a student chapter within each region currently these regions are canada russia and caspian europe gulf coast north america rocky mountain/mid-continent/eastern north america latin america and the caribbean western north america africa asia pacific middle east and south asia
608,when the email from the queensland maroons rugby team hit his inbox dr jaime grunlan thought it was another in a long line of spam so he treated it as such when he received it a second time he decided to open it and see why someone more than 9 000 miles away would be contacting him it looked like a phishing email the texas a&m university mechanical engineering professor said i asked for more information so that i knew it was real it was a contact from the rugby team in australia which is basically the national football league of australia the email was legitimate and what the eight-time rugby champions were looking for was someone to help them develop a technology that would allow their players to power sensors contained in their jersey the idea behind the sensors is to monitor a players hydration or the level of g-force they experience when taking a hit a key component in determining if a player may have suffered a concussion the nfl college everybody is worried about concussions grunlan said rugby has less protection right now they have sensors in their jersey that monitor those things but they are powered by a battery pack it is intrusive and players do not like it the maroons started working with queensland university of technology a research university in brisbane australia when team officials decided to inquire about furthering the sensor technology they asked researchers at queensland whom they should contact the overwhelming response from the researchers despite none of them ever working with the university was texas a&m they asked queensland university if money was no object and we were to work with anyone in the world to make this happen who should it be grunlan said they said texas a&m university that led them to contact grunlan who has conducted research in polymer composites grunlan has also enlisted the expertise of fellow mechanical engineering professor choongho yu who conducts research in energy harvesting and cooling as well as thermoelectrics according to grunlan the sensors they are working to develop are polymer or plastic-based thermoelectric materials that can be applied as coatings to fabrics when the body heats up when working out as long as there is a temperature gradient it can drive electricity grunlan said that electricity could power sensors built into a jersey of an athlete and supply power to transmit information to a computer that can tell you about a persons hydration level or the g-force they experienced from a hit representatives from the rugby team traveled to college station last fall where they were able to experience an aggie football game from the sidelines and tour the newest athletic facilities at kyle field the main objective of the journey however was to meet with grunlan and yu to discuss the project if we can make shirts that power the sensors we have solved their biggest problem grunlan said i hope this is the just the tip of the iceberg
609,"dr robin r murphys book ""disaster robotics "" earned honorable mention in the engineering & technology category of the 2015 american publishers awards for professional and scholarly excellence (prose awards) murphy is the raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and is the director of the center for robot assisted search and rescue (crasar) a center within the texas a&m engineering and experiment station (tees) the prose awards annually recognize the very best in professional and scholarly publishing by bringing attention to distinguished books journals and electronic content in more than 40 categories judged by peer publishers librarians and medical professionals since 1976 the prose awards are extraordinary for their breadth and depth"
610,the dwight look college of engineering will participate in texas a&m universitys annual premiere recruiting event aggieland saturday on feb 14 from 9 am to 3 pm the open house will include resource tables from each of the undergraduate programs in the look college for prospective students and their families to visit with faculty and staff the departments will also offer laboratory tours for guests to observe their facilities and to see various research projects underway engineering academic and student affairs and engineering student organizations will have resource tables available for visitors as well the college of engineerings activities will be coordinated in rudder tower the jack e brown building the emerging technologies building scoates hall richardson building cain building hr bright building and the engineering activities building to register visit the aggieland saturday website for more on the college of engineering events visit the look college site
611,"the executive committee of the asme applied mechanics division has selected dr sevan goenezen as one of the four haythornthwaite research initiation grant recipients of $20 000 this program and award is funded by the haythornthwaite foundation and targets university faculty engaged in research in theoretical and applied mechanics at the beginning of their academic careers goenezen received his award certificate during the applied mechanics division honors and award banquet at the palais des congres montreal convention center the outcome of dr goenezen's project titled ""feasibility to characterize heterogeneous subsurface material properties from surface deformations"" will be presented at the imece conference 2015 in houstonthe link to this award announcement can be found on imechanica"
612,"seven nationally and internationally prominent scholars including four who will be part of the dwight look college of engineering were inducted as faculty fellows of the the texas a&m university institute for advanced studies (tias) on friday jan 30 tias primary mission is to bring renowned scholars to texas a&m to interact with current faculty and students during extended visits one of this years faculty fellows is dr william s marras an industrial engineer who will work with the department of industrial and systems engineering more specifically this appointment provides funding for two phd students to conduct research at texas a&m as an extension of marras research marras currently holds the honda chair professor in the department of integrated systems engineering at the ohio state university and conducts research to understand the role of biomechanics in spine disorder causation and its role in the prevention evaluation and treatment of spine disorders his projects include epidemiologic studies laboratory biomechanics studies mathematical modeling and clinical studies his findings have been published in more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and have been cited more than 11 000 times he has written numerous books and book chapters including his most recent book the working back: a systems view he has appeared as a guest on abc cnn and npr and has presented a tedx talk entitled back pain and your brain marras is a member of the national academy of engineering he is also a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science the american institute of medical and biological engineers the american industrial hygiene association the human factors and ergonomics society the ergonomics society (united kingdom) and the international ergonomics association for his work marras has received international recognition he is a two-time winner (1993 and 2002) of the prestigious swedish volvo award for low back pain research has won austria's vienna award for physical medicine and the liberty mutual prize for injury prevention research he was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree from the university of waterloo (canada) for his work on the biomechanics of low back disorders as a tias faculty fellow marras will visit campus to interact with faculty and students in a recent interview tias founding director john l junkins said the positive impact on the university as a consequence of attracting these extraordinarily accomplished individuals cannot be over-emphasized these exceptional scholars together with our current top-flight faculty will help foster an even more vibrant environment for research and teaching and will pay tremendous future dividends through enhanced collaborations and faculty recruitment dr césar malavé department head of the industrial and systems engineering department expressed excitement at the prospect of having someone of marras stature working with the department marras involvement could have a significant impact on building our human factors and ergonomics program attract more high-quality phd students and faculty and most certainly will bring unprecedented opportunities for research collaborations "" malavé said"
613,stephen butler (center) manager of texas research and development for eastman chemical company presents a check for $75 000 to dr m nazmul karim (left) department head and chair professor ii and dr benjamin wilhite (right) associate professor eastman chemical company of texas city texas has contributed $75 000 toward experimental development in the area of fluid dynamics specifically multiphase flow in porous media led by dr benjamin wilhite associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university the donation will fund the production of a transparent columnar apparatus that will provide students with the unique opportunity to study multiphase flow in porous media gather data and prove transport equations it remains a critical challenge for engineers to fully understand how gas liquid and gas-liquid mixtures flow through porous mediabe it a packed bed soil or shale rock said wilhite we expect that the resulting experiment will thus be of significant pedagogical value not only to the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering but also to our colleagues across the dwight look college of engineering
614,geotrooper a project created by dr tracy hammond that addresses the complex difficulties of navigation and assembly for paratroopers on the drop zone is featured in a video released through discovery channel canadas daily planet hammond is an associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university the geotrooper project began with funds from the darpa ipto program and with equipment donated through the rockwell collins charitable corporation program during times of national emergencies thousands of paratroopers simultaneously drop out of the sky and attempt to coordinate quickly on land among an array of hazards including enemy fire darkness and confusion to address these difficulties hammond director of sketch recognition lab and student members of the lab created and developed a multi-modal mobile navigation system that uses ruggedized beacons to mark assembly points and heavy drop equipment and smartphones to assist in navigating to these points while minimizing cognitive load and maximizing situational awareness the commanding general of the 18th airborne corps at fort bragg aided significantly with the development of the project visiting the sketch recognition lab twice to evaluate and discuss solutions additionally he enabled dr hammond and her students to visit the military base at fort bragg north carolina so they could observe and interact with the paratroopers other officers and subject matter experts during their jump training and tests texas a&m's rotc was pivotal in the success of geotrooper every other weekend members of texas a&m's rotc volunteered to test and provide feedback on the system in order to ensure an ideal system the texas a&m department of military studies was also pivotal as instructors provided significant feedback during the life of the project in the end geotrooper evolved to haptigo a jacket embedded with modules on the left right shoulders and one in the small of the back to get paratroopers and other military personnel to a rendezvous point without occupying their hands or distracting their ears and eyes in multiple demonstrations the soldiers arrive at their destination quickly; what could take more than two hours now takes ten minutes needless-to-say the military has adapted the haptigo technology for field use hammond and her students danielle cummings manoj prasad george lucchese and chris aikens were nominated for best case study for their geotrooper research at the 2013 acm sigchi conference on human factors in computing systems prior to that geotrooper won first place in the graduate research poster in social sciences category at the texas a&m 2013 student research week the texas a&m cse undergraduate research excellence award in 2012 and the people's choice award at the 2011 tapia conference
615,dr nk anand and dr jean-louis briaud were named recipients of the texas a&m university systems regents professor award and regents fellow service award respectively both anand and briaud will be formally honored wednesday (feb 11) at a banquet in the bethancourt ballroom of the memorial student center on the texas a&m university campus anand is the executive associate dean of the dwight look college of engineering the associate director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and the james and ada forsyth professor of mechanical engineering anand joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1985 as a tenure-track assistant professor in mechanical engineering after working as a systems engineer with the link division of the singer company in silver spring maryland he became a full professor in 1996 and in 2007 was appointed the holder of the james and ada forsyth professorship since 1998 he has served the department of mechanical engineering look college and tees in several leadership roles briaud is the buchanan chair professor in the zachry department of civil engineering and a tees researcher he is also a distinguished member of the american society of civil engineers and president of the federation of international geoengineering societies briaud came to texas a&m in 1978 and has served the department college and tees and the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) with distinction for 36 years he received tenure and promotion to halliburton associate professor in 1983 and in 1986 became one of the youngest faculty members to be promoted to full the rank of full professor in 2002 he was awarded the buchanan chair the regents professor award honors individuals at the rank of professor or equivalent whose distinguished performance in teaching research and service have been exemplary the award is the highest honor bestowed by the a&m system on faculty members the performance of those selected is considered meritorious and worthy of recognition of their achievements that had an impact on not only their institution or agency but also the community the state of texas and/or at the national and international levels the regents fellow service award honors and recognizes extension research and service professionals within the agricultural and engineering agencies health science center and veterinary medical diagnostic laboratory these professionals must have demonstrated a significant commitment and contributions to their respective agency by providing exceptional leadership in educational or program delivery/scholarship research or service that have resulted in significant impact and lasting benefits to the state of texas and beyond
616,"dr jennifer l welch regents professor and chevron professor ii in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is the editor of the acm sigact news distributed computing column welch succeeds professor idit keidar of the israel institute of technology who held the position from 2007 to 2013 the distributed computing columns have been published since december 2000 and were originally edited by professor sergio rajsbaum of the national autonomous university of mexico the association for computing machinery special interest group on algorithms and computation theory (acm sigact) is an international organization that fosters and promotes the discovery and dissemination of high quality research in theoretical computer science the formal analysis of efficient computation and computational processes it also recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the field in research and service sigact started publication of its newsletter in 1969 and now publishes it quarterly in print and electronic form ""the success of the column is thanks to the contributions by guest authors "" welch said she encourages authors to submit tutorials reviews of events related to distributed computing or provide new insights on well-studied topics by organizing them in new ways since 1992 welch has been a faculty member of the department before joining texas a&m welch had been an assistant professor at the university of north carolina a member of the technical staffs of gte laboratories inc and at&t bell laboratories and also a programmer for sipes williamson & associates and tracor inc she received a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from the university of texas in 1979 and her master's and doctoral degrees from the massachusetts institute of technology in 1984 and 1988 respectively her research approach encompasses formal models algorithm design and analysis and lower bounds and impossibility proofs recently she has applied some of her research ideas to mobile ad hoc networks metamorphic robot systems and randomized distributed data structures she is the author of over 100 refereed publications and the co-author of a respected textbook in the field ""distributed computing: fundamentals simulations and advanced topics"" among the many awards she has received is the acm distinguished scientist award the texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching and the ieee education society hewlett-packard harriet b rigas award for outstanding woman engineering educator she has participated in texas a&m's women's faculty network mentoring program and has mentored numerous junior faculty welch is the faculty ombudsperson officer for dwight look college of engineering a two-year appointment she received in the fall of 2013"
617,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr christodoulas floudas holder of the erle nye 59 chair professorship for engineering excellence the endowed professorship appointment was effective feb 1 floudas is the director of the texas a&m energy institute and a professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering he was also named a 2012-2013 texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) faculty fellow floudas is a world-renowned authority in mathematical modeling and the optimization of complex systems and conducts research in chemical process systems engineering which is found at the intersection of chemical engineering applied mathematics and operations research he earned his doctorate in chemical engineering from carnegie mellon university in 1986 and joined the faculty at princeton university as an assistant professor later that year prior to coming to texas a&m floudas was a professor of chemical and biological engineering at princeton and served as the stephen c macaleer 63 professor in engineering and applied science
618,bp named the maroon cog the winner of the texas a&m university ultimate field trip (uft) competition campus finals an annual competition that asks university students pursuing degrees in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) fields to solve a real-world global energy challenge the team of three engineering students from texas a&m will compete in april at bps houston campus in the national finals against other campus finals winners from us universities the maroon cog is composed of undergraduate students coleman fincher (mechanical engineering) omer yasin (petroleum engineering) and george gillette (civil engineering) now in its third year in the us the uft competition is one of the many ways bp works with universities to support stem education initiatives and provides students with opportunities to explore energy industry careers bp believes that addressing americas energy challenges requires long-term partnerships between the private sector and leading educational and scientific institutions said khymberly booth us university relations director for bp the uft has proven to be a fun and effective way to do just that participants in the 2015 contest were asked to identify and develop a novel technical solution to reduce the amount of water used and find an effective use for water produced by drilling operations the grand prize winner of the us competition will join the winning teams from ultimate field competition contests in the uk canada and angola on a two-week field trip to bps natural gas operations in trinidad and tobago
619,from jan 6-10 faculty from the tees nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) joined with sandia national laboratories (snl) to lead a four-day workshop for indian universities focused on advanced nuclear security topics on the campus of pandit deendayal petroleum university (pdpu) in gadhinagar gujarat india sponsored by pdpu and the department of states partnership for nuclear security (pns) this workshop was a follow-up to a workshop on basic nuclear security topics conducted by nsspi faculty at the indian institute of technology at kanpur (iit-kanpur) in august 2014 the workshop consisted of lectures on a range of advanced nuclear security topics covering both the technical and policy aspects of securing nuclear facilities from potential threats it also included a number of tabletop exercises that actively engaged participants and challenged them to apply their newly-acquired knowledge to a series of real-world scenarios the 76 participants included faculty and students from various indian universities that have existing nuclear science technology or engineering education programs as well as participants from indian industry the universities represented were amity institute of science and technology (aist) delhi technological university (dtu) iit-bombay iit-kanpur jadavpur university the university of delhi pdpu and mody university the us team was led by daniel miller from pns and consisted of department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m and nsspi faculty members dr sunil chirayath and dr craig marianno dr richard macnamee of the bush school of government and public service at texas a&m and dr matthew sternat from snl who is also a nsspi graduate as part of pnss efforts to build capacity among indian academics indian faculty who received previous pns training provided nuclear security lectures alongside technical experts from texas a&m and sandia national laboratories the indian university instructors for the workshop were g vaitheeswaran (pdpu) vikram rathore (pdpu) dr nitin puri (dtu) archana yadav (aist) and dr jagadeesan velmurugan (anna university) the tees nuclear security science and policy institute is a multidisciplinary organization at texas a&m focusing on graduate education research and service related to the safeguarding of nuclear materials and the reduction of nuclear threats
620,the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering welcomes dr phanourios tamamis assistant professor tamamis research includes computational methods in the area of protein structure prediction and de novo protein design he leads his research group in developing novel frameworks for among other purposes the design of new molecules to cure diseases in his lab diseases such as hiv cancer and diabetes are targeted and studied at atomic and molecular levels similarly he develops bio-nanomaterials for applications in biomedicine nanotechnology and energy for tamamis the blend of computational biophysics with computational biomolecular engineering provides fascinating research horizons i cannot imagine not working on this one single day it is my oxygen tamamis said for his students and group members he aims to provide an environment filled with excitement to perform research and enthusiasm to invent he teaches thermodynamics and courses associated with computer analysis and simulations
621,daniel hellfeld jonathan scherr and matthew garza students from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university traveled to tokyo for the 4th international symposium and seminar on global nuclear human resource development for safety security and safeguards titled nuclear safety in the post-fukushima era from feb 17-26 the symposium and seminar was organized by the academy for global nuclear safety and security agent at the tokyo institute of technology in cooperation with the international atomic energy agency (iaea) the embassy of france in japan the japan atomic energy agency (jaea) the japan chapter of the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) and the international nuclear research collaboration center at the tokyo institute of technology students and young professionals from various countries and disciplines gathered at the symposium and seminar to hear presentations from organizations such as the embassy of france in japan the french nuclear safety authority (asn) the international atomic energy agency (iaea) the tokyo electric power company (tepco) the japanese nuclear regulation authority (nra) the japan atomic energy agency (jaea) the toshiba corporation power systems company mitsubishi heavy industries the korea advanced institute of science and technology (kaist) among others the presentations were focused on topics such as the fukushima nuclear accident and the current state of the fukushima daiichi facility effective risk management and communication the importance of education and leadership in safety and resilience management creating safety culture in the nuclear regime and safety improvements for future nuclear reactors as part of the symposium and seminar dr william charlton professor in the department of nuclear engineering and director of the tees nuclear security science and policy institute gave a presentation titled synergies and conflicts on nuclear safety and security risk analysis in reactor design courses charlton discussed the benefits and challenges associated with the recent integration of nuclear safety and security design into the graduate-level nuclear reactor design course at texas a&m in addition to listening to presentations and interacting with the speakers the invited students and young professionals travelled to fukushima prefecture for two days to tour the fukushima daiichi and daini nuclear power plants at the fukushima daiichi facility the attendees were able to tour the anti-seismic building which serves as the headquarters for the decommissioning work currently being done at the facility the attendees were also taken on a bus tour throughout the facility to observe reactor buildings 1 through 6 the water treatment facility and the contaminated water storage tanks at the fukushima daini facility located 20 kilometers south of the daiichi plant the attendees were able to tour the diesel generator room as well as enter containment in reactor building 2 while in fukushima the participants also performed field work with several radiation detectors in order to measure the radiation dose levels and to compare the measurements to the measured levels in tokyo finally the invited students and young professionals were divided into multinational groups and each given a separate topic relating to nuclear safety over the course of two days each group researched their topic and presented their findings in the form of a 20-minute presentation
622,"the 2015 richard tapia conference diversity at scale was held feb 18-21 in boston about 800 people participated in the 2015 celebration of diversity faculty and two staff members from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university were in attendance and hosted a booth where they met other students professors and industry professionals about 20 computer science nd engineering students attended with graduate student raniero lara-garduno winning first place in the graduate poster contest at the conference dr tracy hammond director of the sketch recognition lab and an associate professor in the department is lara-gardunos advisor what my research entails is taking the sketch information that we capture digitally and performing sketch recognition on it to help determine new patient information that would otherwise be very difficult if not impossible to derive without using the power of modern computation lara-garduno said so far we can determine the age of a healthy patient as either ""above 50"" or ""below 38"" with up to 92 percent accuracy which has never been determined before just by analyzing the patient sketch of a connect-the-dots exercise with no other information to go off of it's a very promising finding that makes this a very exciting project in terms of helping develop a model of healthy patients so that we can provide neuropsychologists with vastly improved granularity of patient information made possibly only by sketch recognition algorithms in modern computing dr dilma da silva head of the department was the plenary speaker for the conference and research professor and tias fellow dr jack dongarra was among the many speakers who presented at this years conference in da silvas talk titled the challenges in mobile cloud computing she discussed the key technical innovations and business aspects that enabled the broad adoption of cloud services in our industry and highlighted the open technical problems being tackled by the academic and industrial research communities dongarras talk was the ken kennedy distinguished lecture and was titled algorithmic and software challenges when moving towards exascale in his talk he examined how high performance computing has changed over the last 10-year and look toward the future in terms of trends other speakers included freeman a hrabowski iii the president of the university of maryland baltimore county; odest chadwicke jenkins associate professor of computer science at brown university; shaun kane assistant professor in the department of computer science at the university of colorado boulder; and jacky wright vice president of microsoft it strategic enterprise services the richard tapia conference is presented by the center for minorities and people with disabilities in information technology (cmd-it) and is organized by the coalition to diversify computing (cdc) cmd-it is directed by dr valerie e taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs and royce e wisenbaker professor in computer science and engineering at texas a&m da silva and unocal professor dr nancy m amato are members of cdc"
623,zachry group headquartered in san antonio has given a lead gift of $25 million to the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university the contribution will support the construction of the engineering education complex (eec) establishment of the zachry leadership program and the zachry group professor of practice within the department of mechanical engineering we are humbled and honored to receive such a significant investment in our future said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering on behalf of aggies everywhere i would like to applaud the zachry group for its leadership and support this generous gift will be transformational impacting students in many ways zachrys contribution to the texas a&m foundation is the largest gift to date for the 550 000 square foot eec building that will become the hub of the colleges undergraduate program the building project will include an extensive renovation and addition to the existing zachry engineering center construction is underway and is expected to be completed in the spring of 2018 a second component of the gift creates the zachry leadership program at texas a&m the program jointly established by the look college and zachry group will expand leadership development and further empower engineering students to become leaders who are well versed in business collaborative in their decisions and self-aware in their behaviors when fully established 100 students will participate in the program and will receive scholarships each semester of the program we are very proud to make this gift as an expression of our commitment to corporate residentship and education at a time when there is a national shortage of engineers we are excited to support the vision of dean banks and texas a&m university to produce more engineers than any other institution said john b zachry 84 chairman and chief executive officer zachry group we view this as an investment in the future of our state and our country the third element of the gift from the zachry group will establish a professor of practice in mechanical engineering the endowment will enable the department to engage and place industry leaders in the classroom to share their real-world experiences and mentor the next generation of engineers about zachry group zachry group is america's pace-setter in turnkey construction engineering maintenance turnaround and fabrication services in the power energy chemicals manufacturing and industrial sectors zachry works with customers to plan build and renew their most critical facilities so they can achieve their immediate and long-term goals all at the highest safety standards zachry group operates 35 offices with more than 20 000 employees working in more than 400 locations nationwide visit wwwzachrygroupcom for more information about the dwight look college of engineering with more than 500 faculty members and more than 14 000 students the look college is one of the largest engineering schools in the country the college is ranked seventh in engineering graduate programs and eighth in undergraduate engineering programs among public institutions by us news and world report visit https://engineeringtamuedu/ for more information
624,reverse engineering is at the heart of numerous applications such as vulnerability exploit malware analysis compatible product development low level system design and debugging and legacy software maintenance it is a particularly critical skill for vulnerability analysis and protection of digital security across all system layers dr jyh-charn (steve) liu a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university developed a new course dedicated to teaching students the importance of reverse engineering as part of the curriculum of the course students are asked to engage in several codebreaker challenges which progressively become more difficult understanding how this process works is vital to understanding reverse engineering at its core the codebreaker challenges are a series of open challenges designed by professional engineers to stimulate the higher education community in learning and developing deep understanding of the fundamentals involved in breaking modern codes liu said in 2013 the first codebreaker was released to the public until spring of 2014 it remained unsolved when computer science and engineering first offered the reverse engineering course student nathaniel adkins broke that codebreaker challenge deciphering nearly all logic involved in the design the second codebreaker was released to 13 schools in the winter of 2014 based on the lessons learned from codebreaker 1 codebreaker 2 has been divided into four tiers to allow for incremental learning while doing the first two tiers tiers three and four gradually progress into stronger crypto protections currently six out of 24 students in the class have broken the tier three challenges ryan vrecenar set a record in breaking tier three in an impressive 10 days followed by james bowman and zachary vernadore this has all been done in less than two weeks vernadore and vrecenar were the first in the country to break the tier four code which was designed to be very difficult by brute force attacks the course which has shown great success among students will become a permanent offering next year
625,"monty mueller was a highly successful management consultant and partner with accenture from 1984 to 2003 in 2007 he was named vice president and regional director of phoenix house foundation inc where he was responsible for the management of a wide range of substance abuse prevention and treatment services in texas including residential and outpatient treatment aftercare and family support services he continued his affiliation with phoenix house till his retirement in 2011 mueller also ran his own businesses from 2004 to 2012 he graduated from the department of computer science and engineering (cse) at texas a&m university in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in computer engineering he is currently the cse advisory council vice chair before his current appointment mueller chaired the fundraising committee during that time unocal professor nancy m amato was the interim department head and had this to say about mueller's contributions as fundraising chair ""from summer 2013 to september 2014 we more than doubled the number of endowed scholarships in the department from 8 to 17 i attribute much of this success to monty's phenomenal leadership in chairing the fundraising committee of the department's advisory council he helped us to better reach out to the former students faculty and friends of the department"" this past fall mueller continued leading by example when he and his wife established the stephanie & monty mueller '84 endowed scholarship mueller and his wife requested that cse award this four year scholarship to incoming freshmen pursuing a degree in either computer science or computer engineering and maintaining at least a 35 gpa this spring mueller will be honored as a distinguished former student at the cse annual awards banquet ""mr mueller has been a key player in our strategy to engage former students actively creating new opportunities for us to involve more of them in our path toward excellence his successful career and his dedication to our department make him an outstanding role model for our current students "" said dr dilma m da silva department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii"
626,"dr dylan shell assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering (cse) at texas a&m university received a career grant from the nsf information & intelligent systems' robust intelligence program to investigate the limitations of traditional ways of programming groups of robots to cooperate in order to solve problems together the grant for ""career: bridging self-organized and algorithmic approaches to multi-robot systems "" is funded till the end of february 2020 ""this research is establishing new connections between methods developed for thinking about very large data mathematical models invented by physicists for small-scale phenomena and today's robot swarms "" said shell ""it will help realize a future where robots address important applications such as those with life-saving ecological and national strategic elements (eg manufacturing roboticized agriculture planetary exploration)"" asked to explain the impetus for this particular investigation shell responded ""over the last couple of decades two disparate perspectives have come to dominate thinking about multi-robot systems each perspective or paradigm having its own philosophy tools models and even publication venues the idea being explored by this research is that the existing separation of the paradigms is vestigial arising out of early ai questions about representation and that for progress to be made it is essential that methods and tools accommodate systems that mix the characteristics of both paradigms the work will improve scalability performance robustness and model predictability for multi-robot systems by bridging and consolidating the paradigms"" after receiving his bachelor's degree in computational and applied mathematics and computer science from the university of the witwatersrand in south africa and his master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from the university of southern california shell joined the faculty at texas a&m his research interests are in the areas of distributed ai biologically-inspired multi-robot systems coordinated system analysis of multi-agent systems and crowd modeling he is very active in his field publishing at competitive conferences in robotics each year shell was recognized as a montague-cte (center for teaching excellence) scholar in 2013 for excellence in undergraduate teaching and received the cse department's faculty service excellence award in 2010 he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in artificial intelligence multi-robot systems and system design"
627,"dr robin r murphy raytheon professor in the dwight look college of engineering's department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) center for robot-assisted search and rescue (crasar) and the center for emergency informatics was named one of the top 25 doers dreamers and drivers for 2015 in the april issue of government technology* an online publication and division of erepublic inc murphy is a founder of the field of disaster robotics and was selected for her use of innovative robotic technology to solve emergency challenges encompassing hurricanes chemical and radiological events earthquakes and infectious diseases to name just a few dr murphy has deployed to 18 incidents including the 9/11 world trade center collapse hurricane katrina and the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident most recently she led a team that flew small uavs at the bennett landfill superfund site her recent book disaster robotics won an honorable mention for engineering and technology at the 2015 the american publishers prose award in 2008 murphy joined the texas a&m faculty bringing with her crasar and founding the tees center for emergency informatics to engage faculty in the larger issues of using new sources of information from unmanned systems wireless networks social media etc to get the right data to the right agencies at the right time the cei conducts major exercises as disaster city a 52-acre training facility created by the texas engineering extension service an agency in the texas a&m university system among her many awards and recognitions are fast company's most influential women of 2011 auvsi foundation's al aube outstanding contributor award carnegie mellon's field robotics institute ""pioneer in field robotics "" time magazine innovators in artificial intelligence us air force exemplary civilian service award for distinguished service on the usaf scientific advisory board (2005) national institute for urban search and rescue eagle award (2001) murphy is an ieee fellow she received her bachelor's master's and doctoral degrees from georgia tech * for more than 25 years government technology has focused exclusively on advancing technology solutions for state and local government through collaboration and best practices government technology is about solving state and local problems through the smart use of technology government technology is a division of erepublic the nation's only media and research company focused exclusively on state and local government and education"
628,dr robin r murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university gave an invited talk to the public forum of the united nations world disaster risk reduction conference in sendai japan murphys talk current state and achievement of disaster robots reported that ground aerial or marine unmanned systems had been used for mitigation response and recovery in 43 disasters in 13 countries between 2001 and 2014 with the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) center for robot-assisted search and rescue (crasar) participating in 17 of those events murphy was part of a session that was organized by dr satoshi tadokoro president-elect of the ieee robotics and automation society murphy and tadokoro are recognized as the co-founders of disaster robotics the speakers at the conference consistently spoke of the need for roboticists to engage responders and industry in order to produce reliable and useful robots the speakers also called on governments to create regional teams and caches and to smooth the regulations and policies that lead to an average delay of 47 days for robots to be used at a disaster
629,daniel navid mohsenizadeh a post doctoral student from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the first place post-doctoral award at the twelfth annual conference of the midsouth computational biology and bioinformatics society mohsenizadeh a student of dr edward dougherty was given the award for his presentation a dynamical modeling methodology for uncertain genomic networks with co-authors jianping hua michael bittner and dougherty he currently is in the nih training program with the department of statistics in his paper mohsenizadeh proposes a new methodology to develop dynamical models for uncertain genomic networks the method does not require full knowledge of the network and can generate a dynamical model based on an available small data set and the results from experimental design can be examined in the laboratory a software package that can be used to study the dynamics of uncertain biological networks also was developed mohsenizadeh received his bachelor's degree from shiraz university iran in 2007 and his master's and phd degrees from texas a&m in 2010 and 2014 respectively all in mechanical engineering his phd research work developed a new measurement based approach to the analysis and design of linear systems which is a departure from the traditional model based approaches his most significant contribution to this subject is his co-authorship of a book entitled linear systems: a measurement based approach mohsenizadeh also has two peer-reviewed publications in highly respected scientific journals as well as 14 conference papers his research interests are in control theory and applications synthesis of fixed structure controllers computational biology and measurement based approaches his interests also lie in the field of structural analysis where he has worked with the boeing space & intelligence systems on designing a new generation of solar arrays
630,"christopher bertagne a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university working under the advise of dr darren hartl with co-chair dr john whitcomb was awarded second place in the spie/asme 2015 student paper competition spie the international society for optics and photonics held its 22nd international symposium on smart structures and materials and nondestructive evaluation and health monitoring (spie smart structures/nde) in march the conference generally averages 800 to 900 attendees most of them authors/presenters the paper ""simulating coupled thermal-mechanical interactions in morphing radiators "" was presented at the conference in san diego california nearly 60 papers were submitted from around the world for this year's student paper competition bertagnes second-place prize included a certificate and $300 cash award the first and third place prizes went to students form georgia tech and princeton respectively considering that chris has only been in graduate school for a year his performance in this venue was truly impressive "" said hartl ""he certainly held his own against a number of more senior phd students"" bertagnes research is sponsored by a nasa space technical research fellowship (nstrf) and involves the development of high-performance radiators that utilize shape memory alloys (smas) to change shape radiators such as these have applications in future space missions particularly long-term crewed missions"
631,shawna fletcher was recently hired as the director for women in engineering for the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university fletcher previously served as the director of the women in engineering program at the ohio state university shawnas role is integral in creating an inclusive environment not only for look college but for the engineering discipline overall said dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs in this newly created role fletcher will initiate develop and manage comprehensive activities and programs for the recruitment retention and success of women in engineering fletcher will collaborate with dr sonia garcia senior director of access and inclusion working towards the same goals of recruiting retaining and placing underrepresented engineering students it is very exciting to have shawna fletcher aboard as the director of women in engineering said garcia shawna brings a wealth of experience resources and expertise to our college we have already established a good working synergy and look forward to exceeding many goals with our concentrated efforts in recruiting a diverse student body fletcher believes women play an integral role in the field of engineering and is honored to serve in this new role diverse teams are important for the us to remain competitive said fletcher many times women are unaware of opportunities that exist in engineering or how engineering fits into their career path when women are included companies are stronger and better solutions are created fletcher has over 17 years of experience in the engineering education arena she previously worked for arizona state university's women in applied science and engineering program (1997–2007) she is a charter member of the arizona promoters of applied science in education (apase) a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization to promote robotics education she currently serves on the women in engineering proactive network (wepan) board as liaison to the professional development committee she has also been instrumental in creating new and innovative outreach and community partnership programs fletcher holds bachelor of science degrees in microbiology and physiological psychology (emphasis in neuroscience) with minors in chemistry and womens studies and a master of science degree in bioengineering from arizona state university
632,the department of mechanical engineering was recently visited by aarti shahani a reporter from nprs all tech considered program who interviewed dr hong liang to discover more about her robotic research involving cockroaches while most people are frightened at the thought of a room full of crawling roaches or insects in general dr liang sees the potential benefits that would arise from being able to control the locomotion of roaches with shocks from electrodes to learn more about the potential benefits of cyborg roaches you can read the full article from npr
633,a new material that triggers cells to begin forming bone could enable a more effective treatment for hard-to-heal bone breaks and defects says a texas a&m university biomedical engineer who is part of the team developing the biomaterial the teams research is detailed in the scientific journal acs nano and is supported by the national science foundation and the national institutes of health its findings could change the way medical professionals treat fractured bones that experience difficulty in healing and often require bone graft procedures says akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor of biomedical engineering at texas a&m the biomaterial which consists of nano-sized two-dimensional particles embedded within a gel stimulates bone growth through a complex signaling mechanism without the use of proteins known as growth factors gaharwar explains growth factors are used in conventional treatments but can lead to serious side effects due to the large amounts required to stimulate cells he says we are trying to overcome these problems by avoiding the use of growth factors as we recapitulate the natural bone-healing process gaharwar says our material is a totally different alternative strategy in which by using minerals we can induce differentiation in cells and promote formation of bone-like tissue [tiny nanosilicate particles that are 100 000 times thinner than a sheet of paper are embedded in a collagen-based hydrogel forming a material that helps trigger bone formation within the body] those minerals gaharwar explains are largely orthosilicic acid magnesium and lithium – combined in tiny nanosilicate particles that are 100 000 times thinner than a sheet of paper the ultrathin nanoparticles are embedded in a collagen-based hydrogel a biodegradable gel used in several biomedical applications because of its compatibility with the body when nanosilicates are incorporated into a gelatin matrix several physical chemical and biological properties of the hydrogel are enhanced gaharwar explains for example the hydrogel can be designed to remain at the injury site for specific durations by controlling the interactions between the nanosilicates and gelatin gaharwar adds this customization gaharwar says can allow the injected hydrogel to enter the defect cavity and help it heal while slowly degrading as it is replaced by natural tissue tests on the mechanical properties of the material are also promising gaharwar says in addition to its ability to be injected at the site of an injury the material achieves three-to-four times higher stiffness once inside the body allowing it to be locked in place this prevents the material from flowing to other parts of the body thereby avoiding unwanted side effects gaharwar says the results gaharwar says have been positive as evidenced by both short-term and long-term indicators of bone growth initial tests he says show a three-fold increase in alkaline phosphatase activity a marker for early bone formation (known as osteogenesis) this is confirmation gaharwar explains that the signaling process is indeed asking cells to differentiate into bone cells late markers are also positive he adds noting they demonstrate a four-fold increase in the presence of calcium phosphate a main component of bone the dynamic and bioactive nanocomposite gels we have developed show strong promise in bone tissue engineering applications gaharwar says our material is a totally different alternative strategy in which by using minerals we can induce differentiation in cells and promote formation of bone-like tissue as part of future research gaharwar plans further investigation into the process by which the nanoplatelets trigger cell differentiation additionally the shear-thinning characteristic of the gel can be used to print three-dimensional tissue structures loaded with cells he explains with this in mind gaharwar is working with colleagues to build customized vascularized scaffolds that employ the material and could be surgically inserted at the site of more serious injuries where injection is not an option the scaffolds he explains would allow the injury site to receive blood flow as part of the enhanced healing process initiated by the nanoparticles its a system that gaharwar believes will address some of the challenges associated with engineering complex tissues or organs based on our strong preliminary studies we predict that these highly biofunctional particles have immense potential to be used in biomedical applications he notes gaharwars research team includes colleagues elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez and roland kaunas associate professors in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m -30- contact: akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university at (979) 458-5540 or via email: gaharwar@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 847-5833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
634,dr césar malavé holder of the sugar and mike barnes department head chair in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was the speaker for the first session of the 2015 climate matters conference held at texas a&m the conference's goal is to provide an opportunity for dialogue about the importance of organizational climate and the influence and impact of diversity in educational workplace settings malavé focused his remarks on his personal journey and growth as an advocate for diversity and inclusion he shared stories from his life experiences and used slides with images and in most cases only titles to engage the audience for example on the topic of growing up in puerto rico the slide was titled baseball coffee and rice and beans and included photographs of traditional puerto rican dishes surrounding a ubiquitous sign with the words i can't keep calm i am puerto rican known for his easy-going manner infectious smile and sense of humor malavé shared his personal story and transition from militant to activist his message for conference attendees was a call to action and reassurance that every person can and should actively seek opportunities to improve climate and diversity at their level and within their own organizations he stressed that everyone has a role and the power to affect change malavé shared how he has brought his perspective on diversity into his role as a department head to ensure climate and diversity are considered and included when relevant he provided examples of his challenges and his successes that reinforced his belief that climate and diversity will not improve unless everyone takes an active role cheryl kocman a conference attendee said dr malavés presentation made me question myself about what i was doing to promote diversity and was i doing enough
635,three graduate students from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university received the stle-houston session scholarship zhihao tony huang and thomas kerr from the department of mechanical engineering and jingren li from the department of materials science and engineering were recognized at an award luncheon in houston in early march the scholarship is to encourage students to conduct research in the field of tribology huang is working on tribocorrosion one of the key factors to influence the service life of components used in oil/gas and automobile applications kerr is currently building a tribotesting system in order to characterize functional materials and li has been involved in studying nanoparticles that are used for improving tribological performance
636,dr pk imbrie and dr teri reed along with their co-authors have been selected to receive the william elgin wickenden award of the american society for engineering education the award which will be presented at the asee annual conference and exposition in june is given annually to recognize an article that represents the highest standards of scholarly research in engineering education among the articles published in the journal of engineering education in each volume year imbrie and reed were co-authors on the article research-informed policy change: a retrospective on engineering admissions that appeared in the april 2014 issue of the journal imbrie is the director of undergraduate academic programs in the engineering academic & student affairs office and an associate professor in the dwight look college of engineering reed is assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs the assistant agency director of workforce development for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and an associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering the other authors of the article include dr beth m holloway assistant dean for undergraduate education and director of the women in engineering program at purdue university and dr kenneth reid associate professor of engineering at virginia tech
637,"dr nick duffield professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was chosen by the google faculty research awards program as a recipient of financial support for his proposal ""traffic measurement from high-level names in software defined networking"" duffields project is one of 122 chosen from a total of 808 considered by google during its winter 2015 call for research project proposals the project is a collaboration between duffield and dr minlan yu assistant professor in the department of computer science at the university of southern california software defined networking (sdn) is a new paradigm for controlling computer networks which enables rapid and flexible reconfiguration of the network to realize operational policies such as balancing network loads over different links and servers or selecting suspicious traffic for inspection effective network management requires good systems measurement both routine measurement and debugging involve measuring subsets of traffic at all subsystems with which they interact however the identifiers used to select traffic and will differ between subsystems and may change during the type of configuration common in sdn resource constraints preclude simply measuring all traffic at all subsystems and correlating the results later this project investigates how to exploit the flexibility of sdn to efficiently measure traffic in a coordinated way across the network before joining the department duffield was a research professor at the center for discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science (dimacs) at rutgers university from 2013 until 2014 from 1995 until 2013 he worked at at&t labs-research florham park new jersey where he held the position of distinguished member of technical staff and was an at&t fellow he previously held post-doctoral and faculty positions in dublin ireland and heidelberg germany duffield received his bachelor's degree in natural sciences in 1982 and a mmath (part iii maths) in 1983 from the university of cambridge uk he received his phd in mathematical physics from the university of london uk in 1987 his research focuses on data and network science particularly applications of probability statistics algorithms and machine learning to the acquisition management and analysis of large datasets in communications networks and beyond in spring 2015 he is teaching an ecen/csce 489/689 special topics course in data mining and analysis duffield the author of numerous papers and holder of many patents is a co-inventor of the smart sampling technologies that lie at the heart of at&ts scalable traffic analysis service he recently was named specialty editor in chief of the newly created journal frontiers in ict and he was charter chair of the ietf working group on packet sampling duffield is an ieee fellow and was a co-recipient of the acm sigmetrics test of time award in both 2012 and 2013 for work in network tomography one of the goals of the google faculty research awards program is to fund leading edge advancements in new technology projects in computer science engineering and related fields its next submission deadline is april 15 2015 to learn more about the google faculty research awards program visit http://researchgooglecom/university/relations/research_awardshtml"
638,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr duane mcvay holder of the albert b stevens chair in petroleum engineering the endowed professorship was effective march 1 mcvay is a professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and is also the assistant department head for academics mcvay holds a phd masters degree and bachelors degree all in petroleum engineering and all from texas a&m university his research interests include reservoir simulation; uncertainty quantification; integrated reservoir characterization and management; project evaluation; and unconventional resources
639,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr jenn-tai liang holder of the john e & deborah f bethancourt professorship in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering the endowed professorship was effective march 1 liang who is a professor in petroleum engineering holds a phd in petroleum engineering from the university of texas at austin a masters degree in petroleum engineering from the university of alabama and a bachelors degree in chemistry from tamkang university liangs research interests include using nano drug delivery technologies for transport and controlled release of oilfield chemicals; hydraulic fracturing fluid cleanup; microbial enhanced oil recovery; scale wax and asphaltene inhibition; in-depth conformance control; and co2 injection for carbon sequestration and improved oil recovery
640,texas a&m engineerings graduate program ranked 12th overall and seventh among public institutions in the latest us news & world report survey americas best graduate schools 2016 individual programs ranked were: aerospace engineering 8 (5 public); agricultural engineering 2 (2); biomedical engineering 36 (17); chemical engineering 26 (16); civil engineering 15 (10); computer engineering 21 (13); electrical engineering 18 (11); industrial engineering 10 (6); materials engineering 39 (23); mechanical engineering 16 (8); and nuclear engineering 3 (2) computer science which is ranked in the sciences category was last ranked in 2014 and was 40th nationally and 21st among public institutions petroleum engineering was last ranked in 2008 and was second nationally and second among public institutions
641,the new website for the texas a&m energy institute is live at energytamuedu the energy institute is led by dr christodoulos floudas the erle nye '59 chair professor for engineering excellence dr stratos pistikopoulos tees distinguished research professor serves as associate director additional faculty from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering appear in the faculty expert guide on the website the texas a&m energy institute currently has over 205 affiliated faculty members from multiple disciplines: texas a&m college of agriculture and life sciences; college of engineering; college of geosciences; college of science; bush school of government and public service; mays business school; college of liberal arts; and school of law the texas a&m energy institute pursues and supports new approaches for multi-disciplinary energy research education and external partnerships these approaches cross departmental and college boundaries and address all facets of the energy landscape that naturally connect engineering sciences technologies economics law and policy decisions
642,five graduate students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university attended the 37th annual conference on guidance and control in breckenridge colorado in february during the conference the students gave two poster presentations and three paper presentations as well as presenting a technology exhibit explaining their work at the land air and space robotics (lasr) laboratory the posters presented were titled generalized covariance minimization algorithm for the continuous extended kalman filter for nonlinear plants and sensor models by kevin hernandez and james d turner and state transition matrix propagation for perturbed orbital motion using modified chebyhshev picard iteration by julie read dr john l junkins and ahmad bani-younes the papers presented were: hardware-in-the-loop validation of sensing and algorithms for autonomous decent and landing by austin probe dylan conway brent macomber clark moody and junkins optimal continuous thrust maneuvers for solving 3d orbit transfer problems by robyn woollands ahmad bani younes brent macomber xialoi bai and junkins and real-time mapping and localization under dynamic lighting for small-body landings by dylan conway and junkins the technical exhibit was based on the papers by probe and conway the exhibit included a video of past lasr work the lasr lab is a robotics facility operated by the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university the lab conducts research in robotic sensing and control with an aim to enhance the fields of proximity operations human-robot interaction stereo vision swarm robotics and autonomous aerial vehicles project funding comes from afrl us government nasa and the boeing company
643,dr john junkins distinguished professor of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university delivered the plenary lecture at the 55th israel annual conference on aerospace sciences at the technion in haifa israel on feb 25 2015 the lecture is named in honor of pioneering engineer/scientist theodore von karman who founded the jet propulsion laboratory junkins' presentation was the 24th offering of the bi-annual theodore von karman lecture junkins lecture was titled astrodynamics for modern space operations: recent analytical computational and experimental results in his lecture junkins discussed the challenges posed by the recent rapid accumulation of space debris in near earth orbit with particular emphasis on the large derelict spacecraft and spent rocket boosters at present 22 000 trackable objects (greater than 10 cm) are known and many hundreds of thousands of smaller objects are known to be there even though too small to track using conventional means the majority of the small debris objects are due to two recent collision events (the 2007 chinese fengung c deliberate intercept of one of their dead communication satellites to demonstrate their space warfare capabilities and the 2009 us/russian iridium/cosmos accidental collision) aside from increasing the probability of collisions the recent dramatic escalation of debris objects makes the recursive task of making extracting the needed information from tracking data orders of magnitude more challenging one severe challenge is the informational one our present catalogs do not include many pieces of dangerous debris from these two collisions and earlier events that created lesser amount of orbit debris methods for tracking space debris have been essentially overwhelmed by the 2007 and 2009 collisions and we are only recently establishing methodology needed for keeping track of the vastly increased volume of small objects each collisions debris cloud increases probability of subsequent collisions this cascading phenomena is partially counterbalanced by atmospheric drag that automatically removes objects with high surface to mass ratio albeit at too slow a pace to keep up with the challenge before us the cascading growth of debris and collision frequency is known as the kessler syndrome after don kessler a nasa engineer who foresaw this problem in the 1970s due to the increasing collision probability orbit debris can pose unacceptable safety hazards for space utilization already the international space station must maneuver three or four times per year to avoid debris in his lecture junkins makes the case that now is the time to develop the needed technology for remediation of space debris and take the national and multinational steps needed to minimize the further accumulation if we limit attention to the largest low earth orbit objects with intact nozzles there are approximately 3 000 large derelict objects in the mass range from 100 kg to 8 000 kg studies indicate that removing five to eight of these large objects per year will flatten the growth of orbit debris and is recommended as a high priority thrust for civilian and military space agencies worldwide under nasa sponsorship a novel approach has been investigated by junkins that seeks to utilize the nozzle as a universal docking port enable capture of these objects to send them on re-entry trajectories to burn in the upper atmosphere and for the larger objects to be safely guided into an ocean landing zone there are multiple challenges with this approach including autonomous sensing and control of sufficient fidelity and reliability; design of capture mechanisms and control strategies to incur minimal risk of creating more collision debris; and developing new designs that make the debris removal missions affordable junkins outlined the design of a capture device and discussed experiments wherein a probe is inserted into the nozzle and deploys an inflatable bladder in the pressure so the nozzle is firmly captured for disposal of the debris controllable pressure in the bladder can be used to make the approach broadly applicable to different sized nozzles and to enable ease of release once the object is on the desired re-entry trajectory in addition to addressing the challenges of removing debris junkins also treated the computational issues implicit in tracking identifying and doing hazard analysis for space debris these computational challenges must be addressed to establish the high fidelity catalogs needed for collision avoidance computations new spacecraft mission planning and especially to prioritize the most dangerous objects for removal in particular he reviewed recent dramatic speedups that have been achieved by the texas a&m team in solving the most fundamental computational problem in celestial mechanics namely highly parallelizable new methods for solving the differential equations of orbital motion
644,"dr arul jayaraman professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the ray nesbit professorship is the principal investigator for a $2 million research grant funded by the national institutes of health to study modeling and analysis of the role of microbiota metabolites in t-cell differentiation"" we hope that these studies will lead to the development of novel therapies for treating inflammatory diseases said jayaraman other collaborators include dr juergen hahn of rensselaer polytechnic institute and dr robert alaniz of the texas a&m health science center jayaraman also serves as the director of the chemical engineering graduate program and as associate department head"
645,aashwin mishra a recent phd graduate of the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was awarded second place in the annual poster competition at the 67th meeting of the american physical society dfd held recently in san francisco the competition featured more than 70 selected entries by graduate students from all over the world mishra's doctoral research with dr sharath girimaji involved statistical modeling for turbulent flows their research has been honored by the society for industrial and applied mathematics the office of graduate studies and the graduate students council at texas a&m among others mishra concluded his doctoral studies recently and was awarded the outstanding dissertation award in aerodynamics & propulsion by the department of aerospace engineering he has joined the department as a lecturer and is involved in teaching courses while co-authoring a textbook on turbulence with girimaji
646,dr hong liang professor in texas a&m universitys department of mechanical engineering is garnering international media attention for her research involving robotic cockroaches while it may sound like the stuff of nightmares liang and her team fit household cockroaches with miniature computers wired into the insects nervous system allowing operators to control its movements read more about liangs robot roaches in the guardian
647,dr ravi iyer is the senior principal engineer cto and director in new business initiatives (nbi) at intel corporation he directs a team of 15-plus senior technologists incubating technologies and emerging new business opportunities in nbi iyer attended texas a&m university for his bachelor's master's and doctoral degrees receiving his phd in 1999 from the department of computer science and engineering (cse) he joined intel that same year he is an ieee fellow and has received more than 20 recognition awards at intel iyer is well recognized in the world-wide architecture community has numerous academic collaborations and has chaired multiple conferences and workshops he has also been an associate editor for ieee/acm journals iyer's research and development interests include computer architecture and design such as socs (system-on-a-chips) cmps (chip multi-processors) wearable/iot (internet of things) devices accelerators cache/memories small cores recognition and analytics performance modeling and analysis he collaborates with several academic groups on architecture research for cmp and soc platforms and mentors and advises phd students sitting on several dissertation committees at the cse department's annual awards banquet on april 20 this year iyer will receive a distinguished former student plaque and a scholarship in his name will be presented to a computer science or computer engineering student
648,dr robin autenrieth department head and ap and florence wiley professor iii is pleased to announce the addition of three new faculty members dr xingmao samuel ma dr arash noshadravan and les pittman to the zachry department of civil engineering ma joined the department in january 2015 as an associate professor ma received his bachelor of science in environmental engineering from taiyuan university of technology master of science in environmental engineering from tongji university and phd in civil engineering from missouri university of science and technology ma is a member of the environmental and water resources division his research interests include environmental health and safety of engineered nanomaterials biogeochemistry of emerging contaminants phytoremediation ecosystem restoration and water reuse noshadravan joined the department in january 2015 as a research assistant professor noshadravan received his bachelor of science in civil engineering from sharif university of technology master of science in structural engineering from university of tehran master of engineering in computer-aided engineering and phd in civil engineering from university of southern california he previously served as a postdoctoral associate at massachusetts institute of technology noshadravans research interests include probabilistic multiscale modeling of materials life-cycle sustainability assessment of materials and systems and uncertainty modeling and analysis pittman joined the department in february 2015 as an associate professor of practice pittman received his bachelor of science in civil engineering from texas a&m university and his master of science in civil engineering from colorado state university pittmans 40 years of professional experience includes his role as senior vice president and director of sustainability with klotz associates he has experience with countless land development projects including higher education and texas parks pittman is a licensed professional engineer accredited leed ap registered land surveyor and an env sp
649,a workshop on big data was recently organized at texas a&m university to foster connections across disciplines that intersect this area and help people to identify opportunities for collaboration there are many researchers across texas a&m whose current or emerging research falls under the auspices of big data methods systems or applications and there are currently opportunities at the federal level for major funding of cross-disciplinary projects in data science dr nick duffield professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and dr dilma da silva department head in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m organized the workshop to address these possible collaborations i hoped that one outcome of the workshop was for researchers at texas a&m to create teams that can submit strong proposals for this funding duffield said the workshop achieved its aims in helping to link overlapping interests in big data a number of attendees told me that they enjoyed hearing about the problems the speakers were working on and that these had suggested collaboration opportunities that they were previously unaware of the big data workshop enabled many researchers across the university to describe their problems in short 15 minute presentations with a discussion period at the end of each participants heard about challenges of large-scale data science in applications to physics and astronomy materials science agricultural engineering geosciences hydrology business and marketing digital humanities systems and methods statistics and computer science and engineering duffield hopes to continue this collaboration by making the workshop a yearly event together with da silva and dr yu ding in the department of industrial and systems engineering he is organizing a big data colloquium series that can host longer talks from texas a&m researchers and host leading external speakers in the field
650,"dr nick duffield a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was announced as specialty chief editor of the newly created journal frontiers in ict frontiers in ict is an international multidisciplinary peer-reviewed open-access journal that brings all specialisms across information and communications technologies together on a single platform duffield is specialty chief editor of the section on big data ""the big data field is exciting because advances in computational platforms and the emergence of data sources across new domains provide fresh motivation and opportunities for research in data science and systems he said ""research in big data will increasingly involve multiple disciplines and integrate both methods and applications ""this presents a challenge for any journal of how to draw from a sufficiently wide base of reviewers to fairly evaluate submissions frontiers in ict provides an attractive solution by establishing a social network of reviewers whose collective expertise covers many technical areas before joining the department duffield was a research professor at the center for discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science (dimacs) at rutgers university from 2013 until 2014 from 1995 until 2013 he worked at at&t labs-research florham park new jersey where he held the position of distinguished member of technical staff and was an at&t fellow he previously held post-doctoral and faculty positions in dublin ireland and heidelberg germany duffield received his bachelor's degree in natural sciences in 1982 and a mmath (part iii maths) in 1983 from the university of cambridge uk he received his phd in mathematical physics from the university of london uk in 1987 his research focuses on data and network science particularly applications of probability statistics algorithms and machine learning to the acquisition management and analysis of large datasets in communications networks and beyond in spring 2015 he is teaching an ecen/csce 489/689 special topics course in data mining and analysis duffield the author of numerous papers and holder of many patents is a co-inventor of the smart sampling technologies that lie at the heart of at&ts scalable traffic analysis service he was charter chair of the ietf working group on packet sampling duffield is an ieee fellow and was a co-recipient of the acm sigmetrics test of time award in both 2012 and 2013 for work in network tomography in february 2015 he was the recipient of a google faculty research award to learn more about the journal or duffields role with it visit the website about frontiers frontiers is a community-driven open-access publisher and research network established by scientists in 2007 frontiers drives innovations in peer-review article level metrics post publication review democratic evaluation research networking and a growing ecosystem of open-science tools the ""frontiers in"" journal series has published 25 000 peer-reviewed articles across 49 journals which receive six million monthly views and are supported by over 160 000 leading researchers worldwide for more information visit frontiers"
651,the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university held its annual professional day recently practicing engineers and former students of the department from civil engineering companies across the state were in attendance to visit with students and give presentations on their experience in the workforce the afternoon began with concurrent technical presentations in each area of civil engineering followed by a panel discussion and reception presentations focused on how the profession has developed what trends are expected in the near future and what companies expect of new hires
652,alexandra wisniewski 10 and michael nance 08 of houston texas have joined together to create the alex wisniewski 10 and michael nance 08 endowed scholarship the endowment created through the texas a&m foundation will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering in the dwight look college of engineering or from any department within the mays business school the award will alternate each year between a petroleum engineering student and a business school student nance received his bachelors degree in petroleum engineering in 2008 and is employed by anadarko petroleum corporation and wisniewski is a 2010 recipient of a bachelors in business administration contributions to the endowment were made in part by friends and family of nance and wisniewski in addition to matching funds from anadarko
653,"dr mm faruque hasan assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university wants to capture the invisible he wants to bury it deep in the earth miles below rock and bedrock hasan plans to sequester tons of carbon dioxide keeping it from harming the atmosphere he also could sell it and advance a new commercial enterprise hasan says carbon dioxide emissions are a big challenge ascribing the abundant utilization of fossil fuels as the trigger of a rise in global temperature a worsening of global warming as well as an agent in climate change hasans research focuses on making fossil fuels clean before co2 emissions can be stored or utilized downstream hasan considers different technologies for the first two critical steps of the process capture and transportation large-scale implementation is met with high cost thus the approach must take into account energy conservation practices in harnessing this very dilute gas using pressure swing adsorption technologies and advanced materials such as zeolites the process is now modeled to cost 40 percent less than any other competing technology in capturing co2 hasan seeks to create a product and not just a liability ""when cost is leveraged industry will be more inclined toward progress in the areas of energy economics and the environment hasan said carbon capture activities at the source such as coal-fired power plants may become part of a larger network that connects environmental constraints to marketplace profit its a win-win situation hasan said after capturing co2 at the source a pipeline transports the gas for enhanced oil recovery the increased extraction rate of the oil will lead to greater commercial yields in the industry as well its creating economic drivers in different places framework and policy level studies direct considerations about where sites and transportation venues could be outfitted in this multi-scale work"" hasan said while displaying a chart that projects pipeline possibilities hasan began studying carbon sequestration/utilization in his postdoctoral studies at princeton university as part of dr christodoulos floudas research group"
654,"the chemical engineering graduate student association (chegsa) presented the 2015 texas a&m university chemical engineering research symposium march 13 at the campus memorial student center in college station texas the symposium showcased the graduate-level research of the department and provided students with a platform to present their work to industrial attendees companies represented were the dow chemical company shell exxonmobil basf dupont eastman and sabic dr joe powell shell chief scientist was the keynote speaker (photo below) ""the symposium is an excellent opportunity to strengthen relationships between industry and academia said chegsa member leonardo gomez-ballesteros in addition to serving as an opportunity for students professional and academic development the event elevates a theme of collaboration among industry members and the university community the one-day event included oral and poster presentations covering a variety of topics: process safety reaction engineering process design and optimization systems biology material science nanotechnology and microelectronics a discussion panel lunch reception and break-out sessions also took place last year the symposium was attended by approximately 140 students faculty and industrial representatives in 2015 there were 172 attendees additional information for the chegsa organization can be found at chegsatamuedu"
655,the zachry department of civil engineering american society of civil engineers (asce) steel bridge and concrete canoe student teams have qualified for their respective national competitions concrete canoe qualified for the national competition in june at clemson university after placing first at the regional competition april 24-25 the team placed first in design paper first in oral presentation second in display and third in co-ed sprint paddle allowing the team to take first place overall and earning a place at the national competition steel bridge qualified for the national competition in may at the university of missouri-kansas city after placing third overall at the regional competition in january the team placed first in the stiffness category and second in lightness this year marks the 20th consecutive year that the texas a&m team will compete at the national competition concrete canoe:
656,steel bridge:
657,dr b don russell professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been named chair of the committee on membership of the national academy of engineering (nae) in washington dc in this capacity russell will be responsible for the election of new members of the most prestigious engineering organization in the united states the academies serve and provide advice to the president congress and government agencies on matters of science and engineering russell regents professor and distinguished professor in the department is a long-term member of nae having been elected to the academy in 1999 for his seminal work characterizing power system faults and his development of new protection and diagnostic tools during his time with the academy he served in several other positions including vice chair for membership chair of the electric power and energy engineering section and liaison to the national research council russell who also is the harry e bovay jr chair professor in the department is director of the power system automation laboratory and has been on the faculty of the department for 40 years he is a fellow of six technical societies and past president of the ieee power and energy society russell is internationally recognized for his development of automated techniques for detecting arcing faults and failures on electric power systems
658,"the texas a&m engineering program recently invested 20 new chair and professorship appointments for the 2015-2016 academic year in addition to recognizing current chair holders and professorships the event was held april 19 at the annenberg presidential conference center dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering spoke briefly in regards to what investiture means for the university it is among the oldest traditions in academia with its origins tracing back to british universities honoring those who wear the universitys insignia and regalia said banks in short as the preeminent faculty members among our ranks you are key to the success of texas a&m engineering engineering faculty who were awarded the new designation of a chair or professorship were presented with bronzed medallions the medallions symbolize the honorees commitment to teaching research and service we are extremely fortunate to have an abundance of faculty members who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their peers at the top institutions in the world said banks as holders of chairs and professorships each of you are on the leading edge of this important charge and you are serving us well new honorees: christodoulos a floudas – erle nye 59 chair professorship for engineering excellence reza langari – jr thompson department head chair duane a mcvay – albert b stevens chair professorship in petroleum engineering luis san andres – mast-childs chair in mechanical engineering rodney bowersox – ford motor company design professorship i satish bukkapatnam – rockwell international professorship mark burris – herbert d kelleher professorship in transportation hamn-ching chen – ap & florence wiley professorship i dilma da silva – ford motor company design professorship ii yu ding – mike and sugar barnes professorship mark a lawley – tees research professorship jenn-tai liang – john e and deborah f bethancourt professorship rabi h mohtar – tees research professorship alan needleman – tees distinguished research professor stratos pistikopoulos – tees distinguished research professor lawrence rauchwerger – eppright professorship in engineering helen reed – edward pete aldridge `60 professorship peter rentzepis – tees distinguished research professor hung-jue sue – tees research professorship victor ugaz – charles d holland `53 professorship current chair and professorship holders: stuart d anderson - zachry chair in construction integration m katherine banks – harold j haynes deans chair in engineering maria a barrufet – baker hughes chair bill batchelor - rp gregory class of 32 chair jean-louis briaud – spencer j buchanan `26 chair kai chang – ti chair in analog engineering dara w childs – leland t jordan `29 chair akhil datta-gupta – lf peterson `36 chair edward r dougherty jr – robert m kennedy `26 chair costas georghiades - delbert a whitaker chair kenneth r hall – jack e & francis brown chair in engineering je-chin han – marcus c easterling `30 chair a daniel hill - noble chair david c hyland - royce e wisenbaker class of 39 chair john l junkins - royce e wisenbaker class of 39 chair in innovation m nazmul karim – mike oconnor chair ii michael j king - lesuer chair in reservoir management pr kumar – chair in computer engineering dimitris c lagoudas – john & bea slattery chair f barry lawrence - leonard and valerie bruce leadership chair in industrial distribution dallas n little – eb snead 25 chair robert l lytton - fred j benson chair cesar malave - sugar and mike barnes department head chair in industrial and systems engineering mahboobul sam mannan – mike oconnor chair i binayak mohanty - college of agriculture and life sciences chair in hydrological engineering and sciences hisham nasr-el-din - john edgar holt class of 27 chair john m niedzwecki - wofford cain senior chair in engineering offshore technology calvin parnell – endowed chair in cotton engineering ginning and mechanization kr rajagopal - forsyth chair in mechanical engineering jn reddy - oscar s wyatt jr class of 45 chair b don russell jr - harry e bovay jr chair for the history and ethics of professional engineering edgar sanchez-sinencio - t-i jack kilby chair in analog engineering william s saric - george j eppright class of 26 chair marlan scully – tees distinguished research chair chanan singh - irma runyon chair vijay singh - caroline and william n lehrer distinguished chair in water engineering peter p valko – robert whiting chair in petroleum engineering marvin l adams – htri professorship nancy m amato – unocal professorship nk anand - james m class of 12 and ada sutton forsyth professorship kalyan annamalai - g paul pepper class of 54 professorship robin l autenrieth - ap and florence wiley professorship perla b balbuena - gas processors suppliers association professorship in chemical engineering shankar p bhattacharyya - robert m kennedy class of 26 professorship thomas a blasingame – robert l whiting professorship joseph m bracci – ap & florance wiley professorship ii dragomir b bukur – joe m nesbitt professorship jerald a caton - gulf oil/thomas a dietz professorship david e claridge - leland t jordan class of 29 professorship gerard l cote - charles h and bettye barclay professorship aniruddha datta - jw runyon jr professorship in electrical engineering mehradad ehsani – robert m kennedy 26 professorship i mahmoud m el-halwagi – mcferrin professorship in chemical engineering prasad n enjeti - t-i professorship in engineering sharath girimaji – general dynamics professorship yassin a hassan – sallie & don davis 61 professorship in engineering arul jayaraman - ray b nesbitt professorship daniel f jennings - i andrew rader professorship ibrahim karaman - chevron professorship mladen kezunovic – eugene e webb 43 professorship in electrical engineering yue kuo – dow chemical professorship victor jorge leon - allen-bradley professorship john mander - zachry professorship in design and construction integration scott miller - debbie and dennis segers class of 75 professorship robin murphy - raytheon company professorship in computer engineering cam v nguyen – ti professorship ii in analog engineering zivko nikolov dow professor in process engineering eric l petersen – nelson-jackson professorship andreas a polycarpou - meinhard h kotzebu class of 14 professorship robert e randall - wh bauer professorship in dredging engineering al narasimha reddy - jw runyon jr professorship in electrical engineering william schneider – zachry industry teaching program taher m schobeiri - oscar s wyatt jr professorship jorge m seminario - lanatter and herbert fox professorship in chemical engineering jose silva-martinez - t-i professorship in analog engineering arun r srinivasa – holdredge/paul professorship ramesh talreja - tenneco professorship valerie e taylor - royce e wisenbaker professorship hamid a toliyat - ratheon professorship in electrical engineering jennifer welch - chevron professorship steven m wright - royce e wisenbaker professorship ralph a wurbs - arthur mcfarland class of 1905 professorship in engineering ding zhu - lf pete peterson class of 36 professorship behbood ""ben"" zoghi - victor h thompson professorship"
659,"the officers of the texas a&m university student chapter of the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) and faculty from the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) led participants in a table-top exercise focusing on the practical applications of nuclear security at facilities during the 2015 american nuclear society (ans) student conference held at texas a&m the nuclear security initiative (nsi) is an exercise designed by the faculty at nsspi to be very similar to the exercises used by technical and public policy officials to simulate security and protection systems for nuclear facilities around the world for many this was their first exposure to this sort of analysis the session was sponsored by los alamos national laboratory the exercise was moderated by dr william charlton nsspi director and texas a&m professor of nuclear engineering and familiarized students with the basic concepts governing physical protection systems including the design and evaluation of a system to defeat outsider threats students were asked to recognize vulnerabilities in a security system implemented in a mock nuclear facility and to find ways to bolster the system against different types of security threats teams of participants were confronted with a specific nuclear security risk and then tasked with mapping the various pathways an adversary could use to reach the vital nuclear materials the teams then considered the impact on security due to collusion of an outsider with an insider threat lastly they developed strategies that could be employed to mitigate the impact of insider threats students who participated in the activity came from universities across the united states with representation from the university of tennessee the university of wisconsin georgia tech university the university of new mexico and north carolina state university among others ""overall the participating students felt this exercise was very informative and helpful ""said meyappan subbaiah texas a&m inmm student chapter officer ""most students were extremely surprised by the ubiquitous use of physical protection systems in today's society """
660,"a group of researchers in the department of mechanical engineering and the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university led by dr xinghang zhang has investigated defect dynamics in heavy ion (krypton) irradiated nanotwinned ag and revealed twin boundary-defect clusters interactions via in situ radiation the design of next generation nuclear reactors calls for materials with superior radiation tolerance under the extreme radiation conditions a large number of defects and their clusters are generated and consequently result in mechanical instability of irradiated metallic materials while studying radiation damage in nanotwinned ag by in-situ irradiation technique at the ivem facility at argonne national laboratory zhangs students jin li and kaiyuan yu discovered two interesting phenomena first they identified twin boundary affected zones wherein time accumulative defect density and defect diffusivity are substantially different from those in twin interior additionally in situ studies also revealed excellent resilience of twin boundaries in response to radiation: twin boundaries continue to change their geometry to facilitate the capture transportation and removal of defect clusters furthermore twin boundaries can recover by absorbing opposite type of defects without performing time accumulative studies we would have missed the existence of twin boundary affected zones said li this study provides further support for the implementation of twin boundaries as effective defect sinks for the design of radiation tolerant nanostructured metallic materials added yu who is now an assistant professor in china the paper ""in situ study of defect migration kinetics and self-healing of twin boundaries in heavy ion irradiated nanotwinned metals"" was published in the april 2015 issue in nano letters zhang is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering and an adjunct professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university his group has expertise on nanomechanics in nanolayered and nanotwinned metals radiation damage and magnetic shape memory alloys the co-authors of this paper include zhangs former graduate students dr youxing chen (postdoc at los alamos national laboratory) and dr miao song (postdoc at university of michigan) dr haiyan wang from the department of electrical and computer enigneering at texas a&m and dr meimei li and dr mark kirk both from argonne national laboratory this research is supported by nsf-dmr-metallic materials and nanostructures program the ivem facility at argonne national laboratory is supported by doe-office of nuclear energ"
661,"aashish priye a graduate student in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been named a texas a&m distinguished graduate student by the association of former students at texas a&m priye said the award came as a pleasant surprise ""i have thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from the stimulating interactions i had with my fellow colleagues students and professors in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering especially my research advisor [dr victor ugaz] who has been an excellent mentor and a necessary driving force for me "" said priye ugaz the charles d holland '53 professor said the dual nature of the award recognizes strengths in both research and teaching ""in addition to his own research aashish has distinguished himself by mentoring a team of undergraduate students in the 2013-2014 aggie-challenge to build a dna analysis system for a cost of approximately $20 a breakthrough that can help make advanced healthcare technologies available in resource-limited settings "" said ugaz ""he has also developed and published a smartphone app that enables the fluorescence signals used in many bioassays to be analyzed using an ordinary mobile phone camera"" the association of former students chooses up to 15 graduate students each year to receive a distinguished graduate student award for excellence in one of three categories: doctoral research masters research and teaching student nominations are supplied by faculty advisers or departments an honor and accomplishment in itself due to strenuous eligibility requirements a panel of reviewers made up of faculty and administrators choose award recipients from a large number of nominations"
662,"three members of the sketch recognition lab in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university attended the association for computing machinery (acm) conference on intelligent user interfaces (iui) in atlanta georgia where they were awarded the 2015 iui best poster award in attendance to present the poster were undergraduate student trevor nelligan graduate student seth polsley and dr tracy hammond director of the lab graduate student jaideep ray and dr michael helms and dr julie linsey both from georgia tech university were co-authors on award-winning poster for nelligan and polsley iui it was the first conference they have attended ""my experience at iui was amazing nelligan said it was an honor to take part in the exchange of ideas between some of the leading scholars in our field hearing the presenters share their work was great and being able to dialogue with them about it afterwards was an incredibly exciting opportunity along with that exploring atlanta and visiting our collaborators at georgia tech made for a perfect conference experience the title of the award-winning paper is ""mechanix: a sketch-based educational interface"" the mechanix project is funded in part by an nsf project trevor and seth did an amazing job presenting and it was even more impressive given that this was their first presentation at an international conference i am so proud of them as well as everyone on the mechanix team said hammond this years iui conference is the 20th annual meeting of the intelligent interfaces community and serves as a premier international forum for reporting outstanding research and development on intelligent user interfaces the conference is important because it is where the human-computer interaction (hci) community meets the artificial intelligence (ai) community acm is also interested in building relationships with professionals from related fields such as psychology behavioral science cognitive science computer graphics design and the arts acm iui 2015 include three keynotes 47 long and short papers 16 posters eight demonstrations four workshops three tutorials 12 student consortium papers and five invited papers and a demo from tiis"
663,dr scott socolofsky associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university participated in a 13-day research cruise aboard the e/v nautilus as part of the gulf integrated spill research (gisr) consortium funded by the gulf of mexico research initiative (gomri) the vision of the gisr consortium is to understand and predict the fundamental behavior of petroleum fluids in the ocean environment the groups focus on this cruise was to collect new field measurements needed to validate numerical models of oil and gas dissolution and fate in the water column to accomplish this goal the team used several tools to collect a comprehensive mass balance for hydrocarbon gas from the sea floor to the surface at a natural seep gas field in the gulf of mexico scientists acoustically and visually mapped the bubble/droplet plume and collected water and gas samples for concentration and biodegradation experiments through the water column at several different times while on-site more information is available on the nautilus website see a brief video overview of the gisr cruise during the cruise the group had a rare encounter with a sperm whale that circled their rov several times source: ocean exploration trust
664,shankar annamalai a graduate of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been named vice president of operations for technical solutions annamalai who also received a mba from a&m will drive the overall operational excellence in the business unit delivering expected results in the area of safety quality delivery and cost he will oversee all operations and site leads real estate and ehs annamalai has been with pentair for 10 years and was most recently the director of operations in the americas for the valves and controls business unit in this role he focused on lean transformation in legacy sites stabilization in certain facilities and service improvements across the board prior to joining pentair he worked for siemens in their operational development leadership program in chicago and mexico
665,the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) nuclear power institute (npi) hosted a group of 15 undergraduate students and two faculty members from harbin engineering university (heu) in china on a three-week study tour at texas a&m university the students were all nuclear engineering students in their final year of undergraduate studies the international atomic energy agency (iaea) sponsored the tour through the division for asia and the pacific in the department of technical cooperation nuclear engineering students and faculty from texas a&m have had the opportunity to participate in a study abroad summer program at heu for the past three years this was the first time that heu students have been given a similar opportunity to come to texas a&m and complete the exchange the event was opened by remarks from dr kl peddicord npi director judge michael ford of somervell county in texas mr oscar acuña section head for the division for asia and the pacific at the iaea dr yassin hassan department head for the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m and professor qiang zhao associate dean of the nuclear science and technology college at heu the students attended a reception at the end of the opening day which gave them the opportunity to re-connect with texas a&m nuclear engineering students who went to heu in the summer of 2014 the second week of the visit was spent touring facilities and locations across texas in glen rose texas they visited the comanche peak nuclear power station and met with senior elected officials of somervell county the group went to glen rose high school where it met students and teachers who are involved in npi's outreach programs and experienced life in a us high school a favorite cultural experience for the students was a morning spent at the ft worth stockyards before travelling to waco texas to visit the nuclear training facilities at texas state technical college they also traveled to austin texas where they visited the texas state capitol met with state nuclear waste control specialists and toured the bullock texas state history museum the heu students and faculty spent part of their tour in a professional seminar where they attended lectures on many topics related to the us commercial nuclear power industry including : the us nuclear regulatory structure; risk-informed analysis for nuclear power plants; radioactive waste storage; nuclear safety culture; nuclear communications; and human resource development all of these lectures were presented by prominent current and former industry government and agency leaders as well as professors and npi staff the students were also able to participate in an experiment in the department of nuclear engineering's accelerator laboratory led by dr lin shao nuclear engineering associate professor and to visit the texas a&m nuclear science center the university power plant and the texas a&m engineering extension service's disaster city facility where they participated in an emergency response activity some of the research groups within the texas a&m department of nuclear engineering also made presentations on their current research efforts the end of the official study tour coincided with the beginning of the 2015 american nuclear society student conference being hosted by texas a&m and the heu students were able to participate in the conference through support from westinghouse this was a great opportunity for them to interact with american students in nuclear engineering from around the united states the heu students were asked to complete group projects with the help of texas a&m professional mentors on various topics related to the presentations made during the professional seminar and the program culminated in the students' group presentations following the presentations dr zhijiang zhang dean of the nuclear science and technology college at heu spoke about the ongoing collaboration between the nuclear engineering programs at heu and texas a&m and conferred certificates on the participants
666,"dr jodie lutkenhaus the william & ruth neely faculty fellow and assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was an invited participant at the 2015 german-american frontiers of engineering symposium organized by the national academy of engineering (nae) and the alexander von humboldt foundation the meeting included 30 us engineers and 30 german engineers under the age of 45 and was held april 16-18 at the steigenberger hotel in potsdam germany the group was comprised of academic national lab and industrial representatives lutkenhaus participated in one of four sessions synthetic membranes and their applications presented a poster electroactive polymers for electrochemical energy storage and gave a flash talk on the same i felt that i was able to step out of my discipline and to think about the grand challenges such as clean water and healthcare and to focus not just on the world but the next generation "" said lutkenhaus ""if we dont have the next generation of engineers then we cannot solve the grand challenges i think the nae is doing great work with outreach i am extremely honored to have participated in this event it has changed my outlook as an engineer and i wish i could do this every year"" as a result of this experience lutkenhaus now has hosting privileges for german counterparts through the alexander von humboldt foundation"
667,after serving for several years on the department of industrial and systems engineering's advisory council brent lyon was recently elected chair lyon has been with lockheed martin aeronautics in fort worth texas for 28 years and currently holds the position of senior manager of industrial engineering systems he is responsible for common processes and systems across multiple sites within the aeronautics business line in addition to sponsoring an isen capstone project each semester lyon is a regular guest lecturer in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university on the topic of lean manufacturing and design for manufacturability he is a registered professional engineer in texas a lockheed martin black belt and holds a bachelor of science and a master of engineering in industrial engineering from texas a&m
668,"the interface ecology lab directed by associate professor andruid kerne of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is exhibiting the artchi 2015 gallery with innovative forms of curation in the acm chi 2015 conference in seoul south korea this month artchi 2015 is an exhibition of leading interactive art the web form of the artchi 2015 digital composition curated by andrew web doctoral candidate in computer science holistically connects and interprets the works that comprise the artchi 2015 catalog ""the interface ecology lab members are exhibiting this composition titled light bounces: space and body "" using two forms of its novel expressive web curation system ideamâché: one in browsers on the web and one body-based in acm chi 2015 interactivity in seoul "" said kerne during acm chi 2015 the premier international forum for human-computer interaction doctoral students webb william hamilton nic lupfer and rhema linder senior computer science student cameron hill and principal investigator kerne presented their exhibit and paper ""the artchi gallery: an embodied iterative curation experience "" in the interactivity(#i164) segment of the conference program ""here participants engage in a curation experience by using their bodies to explore the light bounces: space and body composition a novel form of zoomable spatial interface responds to body movement and gestures which are tracked with a microsoft kinect for windows v2 "" said kerne ""this provides an experience model which body-based ideamâché uses to generate a personalized iterative re-curation of the artchi 2015 catalog ""a unique qr code is assigned to the experience which enables each participant to manipulate their personalized composition on individual web-browsers initially on stations at the exhibit the participant then takes this personalized curation home through the cloud as a rich souvenir a record and reference point of their experience at the body-based exhibit of artchi embodied iterative curation is the project of interface ecology lab"" for more information email artchi@ecologylabnet and browse http://ecologylabnet/artchi"
669,dr jaime grunlan professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been invited to become a member of the international advisory boards of macromolecular rapid communications and macromolecular materials and engineering macromolecular rapid communications publishes high priority research in polymer science ranging from chemistry and physics of polymers to polymers in materials science and life sciences macromolecular materials and engineering is a high-quality polymer science journal dedicated to the design modification characterization and processing of advanced polymeric materials this is a major honor for a polymer-focused researcher like myself said grunlan it will also increase visibility for texas a&m both journals have high rejection rates because they have high impact factors and receive far more submissions than they can publish my group has published several times in both and our work has been featured on the cover of both grunlan who is also the director of the polymer nanocomposites laboratory was selected for his outstanding experience and important achievements in the field of polymer nanocomposites and his leading reputation in the research community as a member of the boards grunlan will advise on topics and authors of interest offer support in identifying new trends and developments and encourage colleagues to contribute their top results to the journals for more information on the journals visit the wiley online library
670,dr carmen gomes assistant professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m university is part of a team that has been awarded a three-year grant from the national science foundation gomes and her co-pi dr eric mclamore from the university of florida will receive $340 000 for their research project nanoengineering biomimetic nanobrushes for pathogen sensing this represents the first attempt to create biomimetic nanobiosensors based on the selective capture of bacteria by cilia in the bobtail squid light organ which is expected to have two distinct advantages over other biosensors: enhanced capture of target bacteria due to less non-specific binding and enhanced limit of detection and sensitivity said gomes according to the researchers recent foodborne outbreaks have heightened public concern about food safety and have created a greater impetus to improve methods for pathogen detection the biomimetic approach in this work is inspired by selective recruitment of symbiotic bacteria by ciliate actuation in the bobtail squid light organ which is capable of capturing a specific target species from a solution with a complex microbial background and a wide range of particle sizes the researchers aim to combine the actuation of stimuli-responsive polymers with selective capture of bacteria by aptamers immobilized on the polymer surface to increase selective capture and retention of target pathogens the nanotechnology platform is expected to significantly improve the field of pathogen detection gomes earned her bachelors degree in food engineering from the federal university of vicosa brazil and her phd in biological and agricultural engineering from texas a&m
671,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is the recipient of the ieee region 5 outstanding individual award dehghanian who is in dr mladen kezunovic's research group received the award during an ceremony on april 18 the award is given to those who have exceeded their responsibilities in ieee committees and volunteer jobs for ieee promotion such as those who have demonstrated excellent research success and publication records and outstanding editorial and reviewing services to the ieee conferences and journals region 5 covers all the ieee activities in the southwestern united states and includes eight states texas louisiana colorado oklahoma arkansas kansas missouri and wyoming within region 5 there are more than 23 000 higher grade members and over 3 600 student members they are aligned with 26 sections and over 90 student branches dehghanian received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications
672,yashwant prakash vyas a senior in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the diversity service student award 2015 from the department of multicultural services the diversity service awards acknowledge and honor the efforts of students faculty and staff who strive to promote understanding and appreciation of diversity in its multitude of forms at texas a&m university the recipients must have demonstrated outstanding commitment to the value of diversity outstanding efforts to promote an environment free from bias and discrimination and have worked to provide students faculty and staff a university experience rich in perspectives and opportunities to learn from each other only one student is selected each year vyas has participated in several student groups such as the international student association the student government association diversity commission the india association aggie replant the texas a&m unicef chapter and the aggie orientation leaders program just to name a few he also is involved in the future former students as a student ambassador and works as an ask us aggie worker in the library he has received several awards for his dedication to the texas a&m community including the isv spotlight award and the buck weirus spirit award
673,"james carrow graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of a sigma xi grant-in-aid of research (giar) carrow who is advised by assistant professor akhilesh k gaharwar was recognized for his project ""bioinspired silicate nanocomposites for cartilage tissue engineering"" the primary goal of the project is to design a new treatment for osteoarthritis a leading cause of physical disability in the united states osteoarthritis occurs when cartilage on the end of bones wears down carrow is developing a new biomaterials-based strategy to induce cartilage regeneration in absence of growth factors – proteins that can lead to serious side effects due to the large amounts required to stimulate cells his study gaharwar says could alter the traditional paradigm of growth factor incorporation for cartilage regeneration as a recipient of the grant carrow joins a select group of student standouts (only 10-15 percent of all grant applicants are awarded) and will receive funding for travel expenses to and from a research site or for purchase of non-standard laboratory equipment necessary to complete a specific research project james is a hardworking intelligent tenacious and creative researcher gaharwar says one of his huge strengths is that he is able to take complex problems or concepts and explain them in an easily understandable manner his combination of intelligence leadership work ethic and research talent is unique his genuine curiosity enthusiasm and mastery of biomedical research combined with his solid background in biomedical engineering will make him an asset to our graduate program the sigma xi giar program has provided undergraduate and graduate students with valuable educational experiences since 1922 by encouraging close working relationships between students and mentors the program promotes scientific excellence and achievement through hands-on learning sigma xi the scientific research society is the international honor society of science and engineering one of the oldest and largest scientific organizations in the world sigma xi has a distinguished history of service to science and society for more than 125 years sigma xi chapters can be found at colleges and universities government laboratories and industry research centers around the world"
674,vincent zaballa graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has earned top honors at a medical device design competition that evaluated the commercial potential of medical device projects the design of medical devices three-in-five competition hosted by the university of minnesota enabled researchers to get feedback about their projects from leaders in medical technology research engineering and development participants were required to present their research in the form of a five-minute pitch to a panel of leading medical technology innovators winners of the competition were selected based on the quality of their problem statement the technical soundness of their solution overall presentation quality and fundability of their research zaballa was recognized for a novel tissue treatment approach that involves applying biocompatible glues to damaged tissues in order to treat chronic wounds ulcers diffuse bleeding as well as surgically seal organs and vessel tissue working with covidien zaballa has developed a low-cost nanofiber mesh that can be applied to damaged tissue to more effectively promote healing zaballa a dallas native works in the laboratory of duncan maitland professor in the department of biomedical engineering and tees assistant agency director for commercialization and entrepreneurship earlier this year zaballa was recognized with the whitaker international fellowship and will have the opportunity to study at queen mary university of london and at imperial college this summer the whitaker international program sends emerging leaders in us biomedical engineering overseas to undertake a self-designed project that will enhance their careers within the field vincent is in the accelerated master of engineering program and has worked in the biomedical device laboratory for the last two years maitland said it is clear that he has found his calling in commercializing medical devices; i expect to see vincent in a successful cto role in a startup in the next 10 years as an award recipient zaballa earned a cash prize and was encouraged to expand his research paper for expedited review and publication in the asme journal of medical devices
675,mark tuck a mechanical engineering undergraduate student and hugo deleon and rebecca jones both electrical and computer engineering undergraduate students received scholarship awards at the gulf coast power association (gcpa) spring conference luncheon on march 31 the dave olver memorial scholarships were awarded to tuck and hugo deleon an electrical and computer engineering student while the gcpa empowering women scholarship was awarded to rebecca jones from electrical and computer engineering the gulf coast power association has served texas and the gulf coast for over 25 years as a regional electric power trade organization dedicated to promoting an improved understanding of the issues and opportunities impacting contemporary power markets pictured left to right: deleon jones and tuck
676,"for dr chad mashuga assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university explosive conditions create valuable learning opportunities he pursues experimental process safety in the research of perfect storms: scenarios involving varieties of dust that create powerful bursts of energy and fire when stressed by other factors mashuga joined the department in 2014 after having contributed 15 years of related expertise for the dow chemical company and basf as a faculty fellow with the mary kay oconnor process safety center mashuga feels his research remains timely dust hazards are not always recognized and accidents do occur "" he said ""attempts to understand dust explosions from a more fundamental standpoint are worthwhile"" as reported by the us chemical safety and hazard investigation board between 1980 and 2005 there were 281 combustible dust incidents that led to the deaths of 119 workers injuries to 718 and extensive damage to numerous industrial facilities given the prevalence of solids as raw materials or as intermediates in production and manufacturing mashuga wants to advance the fundamental understanding of the ignition combustion and explosion processes of these materials for such an explosion to occur there must simultaneously exist an oxidizer ignition source and a dispersed combustible dust in confinement while metals are typically not viewed as explosive during manufacturing shavings granules and dust often form from even common materials such as aluminum and iron the resulting metallic explosions are brilliant said mashuga similarly dust explosion potential can be hidden in common items such as cornstarch coffee creamer grains paper and dyes which can create a flash fire if a proper particle cloud is formed and an ignition source is available mashuga studies permeations of the dust fuel in these explosions; for example the impact of size distribution and chemical structure his research in this area shows that traditional reporting of size distribution can be inadequate and suggests an alternative that better represents the true dust hazard he has examined methodologies in preventing dust explosions in 2014 mashuga published research on the fundamental nature of inert dusts as a means to extinguish dust explosion hazards i am also suggesting new ways of using existing test equipment to have alternative mitigation strategies for dust explosions at more pertinent process conditions said mashuga illustration: carbon nanofiber agglomerates studied for dust explosion material"
677,youxing chen phd student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university received the 2015 distinguished graduate student award for excellence in doctoral research from the association of former students at texas a&m chen is completing his doctoral degree under the supervision of dr xinghang zhang associate professor chen will be honored at a ceremony on monday (april 27) in the memorial student center chens research in zhangs nanometal group focuses on understanding radiation damage mechanisms in nanolayered and nanotwinned metals which can be applied to design radiation tolerant materials in advanced nuclear reactors chen has published 20 peer-reviewed articles while at texas a&m including six first-author articles in premier materials science journals such as nature communications and acta materialia during his phd studies at texas a&m chen has given nine oral presentations at international conferences organized by the materials research society (mrs) and the minerals metals and materials society (tms) chen will work as a postdoctoral research associate at los alamos national laboratory after graduation chen is a hardworking and talented graduate student he has accumulated a variety of research skills including transmission electron microscopy magnetron sputtering nanoindentation various types of ion irradiations and molecular dynamics simulations said zhang chen also had the opportunity to visit and collaborate with scientists at los alamos argonne and sandia national laboratories during his phd studies he will be a promising candidate for academia in the near future the association of former students chooses up to 15 graduate students each year to receive a distinguished graduate student award for excellence in one of three categories: doctoral research masters research and teaching student nominations are supplied by faculty advisers or departments an honor and accomplishment in itself due to strenuous eligibility requirements a panel of reviewers made up of faculty and administrators choose award recipients from a large number of nominations
678,william scholten 14 a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has received the national science foundation graduate research fellowship program (nsf grfp) the nsf grfp is a highly competitive fellowship awarded to students pursuing masters and doctoral degrees in nsf-supported fields of science mathematics and engineering the fellowship lasts for three years pays for awardees tuition and fees and provides a monthly stipend scholten received his undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from texas a&m in december 2014 and has been doing research with dr darren hartl (research professor at texas a&m) and dr travis turner (researcher at nasa langley) for the past two years as an undergraduate scholten is now a graduate student and is co-advised by dr thomas strganac (professor at texas a&m) his current research focuses on the development of a new shape memory alloy (sma) implementation for aircraft noise reduction the leading edge slat device of transport aircraft is a significant source of airframe in the vicinity of airports the proposed solution developed by researchers at both texas a&m and nasa-langley is the concept of the slat-cove filler (scf) which reduces aeroacoustic noise by removing the cavity between the main wing and slat currently the team is looking into different methods of active scf retraction and is studying its interaction will the flow field during take-off and landing
679,"dr robin roberson murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is the recipient of the prestigious eugene l lawler award for humanitarian contributions within computer science and informatics murphy was recognized for her ""pioneering work in humanitarian disaster response through search and rescue robotics to the benefit of both survivors and responders"" the lawler award is presented every two years by the association for computing machinery (acm) murphy received the award during the computing machinery (acm) award ceremonies held in san francisco on june 20 2015 murphy directs the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center for robot-assisted search and rescue which is an arm of the center for emergency informatics encompassing all information science research relevant to emergency management her primary research focus is on artificial intelligence for mobile robots as applied to disaster robotics murphy had an early background in mechanical engineering and said she later fell in love with computer science/artificial intelligence she said she found cognitive engineering and how you put that into a mechanical creature just fascinating receiving her doctoral degree in the 1990's and her reaction to the 1995 oklahoma city bombing/kobe earthquake disasters led murphy to rescue robotics research ""people are trapped and you can't get to them but if you have something small you could have crawled in there "" said murphy ""you could have helped find people or stayed with them and that became a very compelling case study for me"" named one of the top 25 doers dreamers and drivers for 2015 for her use of innovative robotic technology to solve emergency challenges encompassing hurricanes chemical and radiological events earthquakes and infectious diseases murphy has deployed to 18 incidents including the 9/11 world trade center collapse hurricane katrina and the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident her recent book disaster robotics won an honorable mention for engineering and technology at the 2015 american publishers prose awards among her numerous professional awards are the motohiro kisoi award and the auvsi foundation al aube award murphy was declared an ""innovator in ai"" by time an ""alpha geek"" by wired magazine and one of the ""most influential women in technology"" by fast company she is a member of the ieee robotics and automation society administrative committee and co-founded the technical committee on safety security and rescue robotics and its annual conference she serves on several government and professional boards most recently the defense science board photos: (1) acm president alexander l wolf dr robin r murphy acm ceo john r white photo by scott sibley (2) dr robin r murphy | disaster robotics research"
680,dr huilin gao assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has received a 2015 national science foundation (nsf) career award for her research in environmental sustainability the nsf awards the prestigious career grants to outstanding junior faculty members to help them advance their research and teaching activities gaos project effects of river inflows on coastal ecosystem sustainability under climate change urbanization and flow regulation will continue through march 2020 i am very excited about receiving this honor and i am grateful for the support from my colleagues the department and then college said gao in the past several decades texas' population and economic growth have led to dramatic land cover changes from vegetated land and bare land to impervious areas the direct consequences are amplified urban runoff and degraded water quality the goal of this interdisciplinary project is to advance the frontiers of knowledge about environmental sustainability and to transform this knowledge into action the research in gaos project has three specific objectives the first is to identify the relationship between inflows and phytoplankton productivity the second is to evaluate the impacts of urbanization and climate change on inflows and phytoplankton productivity the third is to investigate the responses of phytoplankton productivity to flow regulation both with and without co-occurring climate change and urbanization the educational objectives of the project are to teach environmental sustainability to high school students by working with high school teachers and by participating in student events and to promote undergraduate and graduate environmental sustainability education by integrating education modules into courses and mentoring the students gaos project will create new knowledge leading to reliable predictions of phytoplankton productivity under a changing environment the interdisciplinary research approach will help close several critical knowledge gaps by using a combination of in situ observations and state-of-the-art remote sensing data to clarify the complex relationships between inflows and phytoplankton productivity by implementing a systems-level model that estimates inflows and productivity simultaneously impacts of watershed management plans on ecosystems can be evaluated directly the research will provide decision makers with a powerful tool to understand the interactions among climate change urbanization flow regulation and ecosystem sustainability gao received her phd from princeton university in 2005 and joined the faculty at texas a&m in 2012 prior to coming to texas a&m gao was a research associate in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the university of washington (2008-2012) and a research scientist in the school of earth and atmospheric sciences at the georgia institute of technology (2005-2007) the nsf established the career program to support junior faculty within the context of their overall career development combining in a single program the support of research and education of the highest quality in the broadest sense through this program the nsf emphasizes the importance of the early development of academic careers dedicated to stimulating the discovery process in which the excitement of research is enhanced by inspired teaching and enthusiastic learning for more on the nsf and the career program visit the nsf website
681,twenty nuclear forensics students and faculty from prairie view a&m university (pvamu) visited the texas a&m university campus april 10 as part of the nuclear forensics for minority serving institutions program sponsored by the us department of homeland securitys domestic nuclear detection office (dndo) the students are currently enrolled in a nuclear forensic analysis course being taught by pvamus dr irvin osborne-lee dr richard wilkins and dr brad gersey dr royal elmore a research assistant with the texas a&m engineering experiment stations nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) and a guest scientist with los alamos national laboratory organized the visit the students began their tour at the analytical chemistry laboratory in the department of chemistry where doctoral student aaron clubb from dr emile schweikerts research group introduced them to the labs multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (mc-icp-ms) system the presentation covered the theory behind mc-icp-ms a comparison of other mass spectrometry tools and the advantages of mc-icp-ms for nuclear forensics the pvamu students then participated in an informal lunch seminar with dr john kelly from the us department of energys office of nuclear energy kelly is the deputy assistant secretary of energy for nuclear reactor technologies and he addressed several policy and technical issues related to nuclear energy and forensics specifically the pvamu students learned about generation iii iii+ and iv reactors and nuclear fuel cycles from a proliferation resistance standpoint kelly also discussed how nuclear forensics is a later line of protection and deterrence for global nuclear security the students then visited the nsspi radiation detection laboratory with dr craig marianno visiting assistant professor with the department of nuclear engineering and research engineer with nsspi who explained the nuclear forensics applications of the different radiation detectors the pvamu students will be using the detectors in an upcoming hands-on field exercise at the texas a&m nuclear science center and texas a&m engineering extension services disaster city® facility in may the pvamu students will join students from texas a&m at the 4th annual nuclear facilities experience where they will visit the urenco uranium enrichment plant sandia national laboratories and the los alamos national laboratory all in new mexico and the pantex nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility in amarillo texas the nuclear facilities experience is being conducted by nsspi through the sponsorship of the texas a&m college of engineering and the department of nuclear engineering the students from pvamu are being sponsored through the nuclear forensics for minority serving institutions dndo established the nf-msi to strengthen the engineering and science programs at minority serving institutions (msi) located throughout the us and to enhance the partnerships between these institutions and other us universities with established academic programs in scientific disciplines relevant to nuclear forensics the objective is to increase the participation of msis in the national nuclear forensics expertise development program of which this initiative is a part and accelerate the involvement of minorities in the us government nuclear forensics mission
682,the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university honored eight alumni during the 2015 outstanding alumni awards banquet receiving the outstanding alumni honor award were david o craig 86 director of engineering and supply chain intelligent production systems for baker hughes; janeen judah 81 general manager of chevrons southern africa business unit; edelmiro munñiz 67 executive chairman of the board of mei technologies; ryan sitton 97 texas railroad commissioner and founder of pinnacleais; william d von gonten jr 87 president owner and founder of wd von gonten & company and wd von gonten laboratories llc; and anthony wood 90 chief executive officer of roku inc receiving the outstanding early professional achievement alumni honor award were zachary c reeder 05 project engineer at scaled composites; and steve brauer jr 02 president of hunter engineering service center david o craig 86 director engineering and supply chain intelligent production systems baker hughes craig is currently director engineering and supply chain intelligent production systems for baker hughes in houston texas craig started with baker oil tools in the manufacturing and supply chain organization in 2008 prior to joining baker hughes craig was the vice president and general manager of rti energy systems where he was responsible for the design development manufacture and sales of deep-water drilling production and catenary riser systems primarily for the gulf of mexico craig also spent over a decade in the high-tech industry having been an automation and real-time controls engineer for compaqs advanced engineering group and on ibms robotics and system integration team where he received the society of manufacturing engineering outstanding young manufacturing engineer of the year award craig has a masters degree from the mccombs school of business at the university of texas at austin and holds two bachelors degrees from texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering in engineering technology and industrial distribution and computer science craig has co-authored three us patents and was an elected participant in the frontiers of engineering engineer of 2020 sub-committee craig is currently a member of the look colleges engineering advisory council craig and his wife cynthia 87 live in spring texas with their three children julie 15 benjamin 18 and john janeen judah 81 general manager southern africa business unit houston & gas assets chevron judah is the general manager of chevrons southern africa business unit in houston texas with several hundred houston-based employees and billions of dollars committed to offshore development projects judah was responsible for environmental cleanup remediation and decommissioning for global operations as president of the chevron environmental management company before that she was general manager of reservoir and production engineering for chevron energy technology co responsible for global reservoir and production engineering research and services judah worked for texaco and arco in various engineering positions before joining chevron judah has held many leadership positions in the society of petroleum engineers (spe) starting as a student section officer at texas a&m university chairing both the gulf coast and permian basin sections and on the international board of directors as gulf coast north america region director current vice president of finance and will be the 2017 spe president judah is a member of the dwight look college of engineering advisory council and since 1996 the petroleum engineering industry board she holds bachelors and masters degrees in petroleum engineering from texas a&m as well as an mba from the university of texas of the permian basin and a jd from the university of houston law center edelmiro munñiz 67 executive chairman of the board mei technologies muñiz was born in harlingen texas along with his six brothers he often supplemented the family income as an agricultural field hand his family migrated annually to california to work in the fields picking peaches grapes tomatoes and other fruits his first exposure to the business world was through his fathers tortilla factory operated between trips to california he received a bachelors degree in 1967 and a masters degree in 1969 both in aerospace engineering from texas a&m university in 1969 he joined the united states air force and was assigned as a space systems launch controller at vandenberg air force base in california his air force career spanned over 20 years in numerous assignments all related to space research and development and management of space operations he retired from the us air force in 1989 to launch a new career in private industry in january 1992 he founded muñiz engineering inc to provide engineering and related technical services to the us government and the private sector in the houston area through his leadership and guidance muñiz engineering inc has developed into a successful fast-growing high-tech firm and in october 2005 the company changed its name to mei technologies inc (meit) muñiz resides in seabrook texas with his wife alicia he is a proud aggie and grandfather of six ryan sitton 97 commissioner texas railroad commission founder pinnacleais sitton is a native texan who grew up in the irving area he earned a degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university following college sitton went to work as an engineer in the energy industry in 2006 sitton and his wife jennifer founded pinnacleais an engineering and technology company focused on reliability and integrity programs for the oil gas and petrochemical industries since 2006 pinnacleais has grown substantially and today employs more than 350 people in 2012 and 2013 inc magazine recognized pinnacleais as one of the top 1 500 fastest growing privately held companies in the world for four consecutive years pinnacleais was an aggie 100 recipient with more than 15 years of experience in the oil gas and petrochemical industry sitton is considered a leading expert in his field hes been an active member of several industry groups including the texas alliance of energy producers american society of mechanical engineers and the american petroleum institute active in higher education sitton is a member of the department of mechanical engineering industrial advisory council and regularly works with leaders in texas higher education to support the principles that will keep our states institutions among the best in america sitton was elected to the railroad commission in november 2014 sitton and his wife have three children william d von gonten jr 87 president owner and founder wd von gonten & company wd von gonten laboratories llc von gonten jr is president owner and founder of wd von gonten & company and wd von gonten laboratories llc the houston texas based company opened for business in 1995 and currently employs a combination of highly talented and skilled reservoir engineers geologists and petrophysicists von gontens appetite for attempting to solve what others see as unsolvable has repeatedly earned him the respect of industry peers and thought-leaders alike recently von gonten brought a vision to reality for a rock lab located in research park on the texas a&m university campus wd von gonten laboratories llc is a state-of-art laboratory focusing on well core analysis and interpretation ultimately providing client recommendations regarding fracture landing point optimization the lab is currently evaluating well cores provided by clients from around the world von gontens father the late dr wd doug von gonten sr was an influential professor and department head whose 25 years of service resulted in the remarkable growth of petroleum engineering at texas a&m the younger von gonten earned a bachelors degree in petroleum engineering from texas a&m in 1987 von gontens deep-rooted beliefs in family and tradition his appreciation and respect for individuals who exhibit a take initiative attitude and his successful petroleum engineering career have all been driving forces behind his selfless time and financial support to texas a&m von gonten and his wife kelly 87 have two children rachel ann and william d iii anthony wood 90 chief executive officer roku inc a pioneer and innovator in television and digital media wood is the founder and chief executive officer of roku a name that means six in japanese to represent his sixth company in the early days of roku wood also served as the vice president of internet tv at netflix where he developed what is known today as the roku streaming player originally designed as the first video player to stream netflix today roku players offer the most extensive collection of streaming entertainment to tv with more than 2 000 channels featuring movies tv shows live sports news music casual games and more prior to roku wood invented the digital video recorder (dvr) and founded replaytv where he served as president and chief executive officer before the companys acquisition and subsequent sale to directv before replaytv he was co-founder and chief executive officer of iband inc an internet software company that was sold to macromedia the code base developed by wood at iband became a central part of the original core code of macromedia now known as adobe dreamweaver after selling iband wood became the vice president of internet authoring at macromedia earlier in his career wood was founder and chief executive officer of sunrize industries a supplier of hardware and software tools for non-linear audio recording and editing wood holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from texas a&m university zachary c reeder 05 project engineer scaled composites reeder graduated from texas a&m university in 2005 and is now an engineer project manager and test pilot at scaled composites in mojave california he has had a significant role in developing and testing at least six new types of airplanes he is a commercial instrument and multiengine rated pilot and learned to fly from his dad (texas a&m aerospace class of 80) reeders first solo flight was in a hang glider he designed and built for a hundred dollars while at texas a&m and he has now flown all over the united states in an rv-8 kitplane he built while living in a 60-year old bus shortly after receiving a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering reeder moved to mojave to work with aerospace visionary burt rutan inspiration from some of rutans work specifically the nine day voyager flight led reeder to several endurance adventures including running a marathon on the sea ice at the north pole and flying 16 hours non-stop to set a 5 000 kilometer world speed record in rutans catbird aircraft he now leads a team at scaled composites designing and building the wing for paul allens stratolaunch aircraft which will be the worlds largest airplane when finished steve brauer jr 02 president hunter engineering service center brauer jr serves as president of hunter engineering service center a division of hunter engineering company hunter designs and manufacturers computerized wheel alignment and balancing technology for the automotive industry hunter employs the largest team of scientists and engineers in the undercar industry and holds more than 200 patents brauer started with the company as a field representative and was promoted to regional manager in 2011 after bringing his region to number one in the country for the second year in a row he was promoted to his current role where he oversees parts and technical field support for north america he also leads hunters 120 member field organization covering the central and gulf states brauer received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering in 2003 and his mba from the university of texas at austin in 2007 while at texas a&m he served as president of the texas a&m student chapter of asm international he currently serves on the texas a&m university mechanical engineering department industrial council he also sponsors the texas a&m formula sae student design team brauer serves on the boards of the james green wildlife & conservation initiative and the fort worth stock show syndicate both of which support texas youth through education
683,christie bergerson graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2015 us senator phil gramm doctoral fellowship bergerson received the fellowship based on her outstanding academic record and contributions in research teaching and mentoring noted associate provost for graduate and professional studies karen butler-purry in a congratulatory letter to bergerson as a 2015 gramm fellow bergerson was formally recognized with a cash award of $5 000 and a framed certificate bergerson a phd candidate conducts research that focuses on the development of a novel bone-implant interface for the tibial tray of total knee replacements this research is a partnership with 4web medical inc during the course of her research bergerson has mentored 11 undergraduate students the majority of whom have entered graduate school in addition she has developed and taught a course on experimental design in biomechanical testing for undergraduate seniors bergerson also is founder of the bmen ambassadors an organization dedicated to enhancing accessibility to the department for the community prospective students visiting scholars and prospective faculty the gramm fellowship promotes encourages and rewards outstanding teaching and research by doctoral students whose command of their respective disciplines exemplifies the meaning of scholar/mentor in the highest sense students who are awarded this fellowship excel in both research and teaching in 2007 the universitys office of graduate studies began awarding deserving graduate students with the fellowship from an endowment created by the texas a&m foundation the endowment was created from donations given in honor of gramm who in addition to leading a distinguished legislative career served as professor of economics at texas a&m gramm spent two decades serving in the us congress and senate using his economic and financial expertise to create important laws and policies and to provide advice to legislators and the white house gramm is senior partner of gramm partners a public policy firm in washington dc
684,the mechanical engineering department held its annual awards and recognition banquet on april 9 at the phillips event center in bryan texas faculty staff members of the academy of distinguished graduates and a department graduate student were recognized for their excellence within the department click here for the program and list of awardees pictured left to right: dr andreas polycarpou reid mcnally dr ozden ochoa david barker quentin baker robert harvey (2015 inductee) dr bill g tompkins mike fossum dr nk anand dr ray bowen (not pictured: 2015 inductee ryan sitton)
685,dr john e kelly deputy assistant secretary for nuclear reactor technologies in the us department of energy will be giving a seminar on april 13 at 4:10 pm it will be held in the interdisciplinary life sciences building room 1105 it is open to all interested parties a reception will precede the lecture at 3:15 in the lobby kellys presentation will reflect on the new developments in the nuclear energy industry both domestically and internationally and project what is expected in the next wave following president eisenhowers announcement of the atoms for peace initiative in december 1953 commercial nuclear power grew rapidly around the world within a few decades nuclear power became a major element of electricity production worldwide today nuclear power accounts for nearly 11 percent of global electricity production and 21 percent of electricity production in the organization for economic cooperation and development countries however the momentum from the atoms for peace initiative waned in the late 1980s it was only in the early 2000s that new nuclear power was again being considered fueled by concerns about energy security and climate change over the last 15 years there have been dramatic changes in nuclear power worldwide from the licensing and construction of gen iii+ reactors (eg westinghouse ap1000 and ge esbwr) to small modular reactor development to generation iv nuclear energy systems research the world is now poised for a second wave of nuclear power deployment asian nations with rapidly developing economies and large under-served populations will likely lead the resurgence of commercial nuclear power construction rather than the traditional north american and western european countries whose mature nuclear power programs are only looking at modest growth the international energy agency continues to see nuclear energy as an essential long-term supply option currently there are more than 70 nuclear reactors under construction around the world with at least 26 in china alone the anticipated build out of generation iv reactor systems in the latter half of the century will ensure that enhanced sustainability and safety are incorporated in new nuclear technology while the ongoing deployment of generation iii systems will assure nuclear energys dominant role in emission-free baseload electricity generation kelly is the deputy assistant secretary for nuclear reactor technologies in the office of nuclear energy his office is responsible for the department of energy (doe) civilian nuclear reactor research and development portfolio which includes does programs on small modular reactors light water reactor sustainability and generation iv reactors his office is also responsible for the design development and production of radioisotope power systems principally for nasa missions in the international arena kelly chairs the generation iv international forum and the international atomic energy agencys standing advisory group on nuclear energy prior to joining the department of energy kelly spent 30 years at sandia national laboratories where he was engaged in a broad spectrum of research programs in nuclear reactor safety advanced nuclear energy technology and national security kelly received his bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering from the university of michigan in 1976 and his phd in nuclear engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology in 1980
686,"shankar bhattacharyya the robert m kennedy professor of electrical engineering at texas a&m university is an invited speaker at the international conference ""optimization in robustness and control "" organized by the institute of control science moscow russia the conference which is slated for may 13-15 will celebrate the 80th birthday of academician boris polyak who pioneered the use of optimization in control systems during his career spanning 50 years in the soviet union and russia bhattacharyya's talk will describe the new measurement based approaches to the design of static and dynamic systems developed by him and his students and coworkers the approach is based on an extension and generalization of thevenin's theorem of classical circuit theory which shows that a few measurements processed strategically can determine control or decision parameters without reconstructing a model of the system the design technique is applicable to electrical mechanical civil hydraulic and aerospace engineering systems it has the potential to circumvent some of the limitations of model based design which have spawned fields such as robust and adaptive control the most recent results have shown that extremal designs are also possible without knowledge of models bhattacharyya's fundamental contributions to control science are documented in more than 250 papers and eight books his honors and awards include being named ieee fellow (1989) ifac fellow (2011) and being elected a foreign member to the brazilian academy of sciences (2012)"
687,the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) smart grid center (sgc) will host the third smart grid workshop at the memorial student center at texas a&m university on april 21 2015 the previous workshops were attended by more than 150 professionals faculty and students as well as visitors from brazil qatar and mexico the theme of this year's workshop is challenges in evaluating smart grid solutions: metric testing certification modeling and simulation and testbeds invited speakers will elaborate on the topic two panel sessions on testbeds will include one on the existing modeling simulating testing and calibration facilities and another one on future developments of testbeds representation is expected from industry such as abb alstom austin energy centerpoint energy esri honeywell ibm incsys national instruments oncor osisoft and siemens and from several federal labs (ornl lbnl pnnl and llnl) in break-out sessions the following topics will be discussed: • big data weather impacts asset and outage management;• ems dms cybersecurity and substation automation;• demand-side management ancillary services and electricity markets;• building energy management smart meters and sensors;• synchrophasor systems pmus and pdcs and gps;• microgrids evs distributed generation and energy storage in addition texas a&m students will present pertinent posters associated with their research more information on the program and the online registration are available on the smart grid center website
688,dr jun zou an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and several co-authors recently had their paper published in the prestigious research publication nature methods zou and a phd student under his supervision chih-hsien huang were among the authors of the research paper titled high-speed label-free functional photoacoustic microscopy of mouse brain in action it is based on a four-year joint work between zous micro imaging/sensing devices and systems lab in the department and dr lihong wangs optical imaging lab at the washington university in st louis their work was funded by the national science of foundation and the national institutes of health the paper and its supplemental materials can be found here zous team first conceived and developed a novel liquid-immersible mems (micro-electromechanical systems) scanning mirror the unique feature of this mems scanning mirror is its capability of fast and simultaneous scanning of both focused optical and high-frequency ultrasound beams in a liquid environment which is necessary for high-frequency ultrasound propagation it overcomes the major limitations in existing mems scanning mirrors which can only operate in air but will fail in liquids with the new water-immersible mems scanning mirror the two teams worked together to build a new scanning microscope to enable high-speed and high-resolution photoacoustic imaging on the intact brain of live mice photoacoustic imaging is a hybrid biomedical imaging modality which utilizes optical and ultrasound waves to interrogate biological cells and tissues even without additional contrast agents the new scanning photoacoustic microscope achieved 50-times higher speed and 5-times higher resolution than its predecessors this makes it possible to capture not only still snapshots of the vascular network of the mouse brain but more importantly blood flow dynamics and oxygen metabolism at capillary level in this work the vascular morphology blood oxygenation blood flow and oxygen metabolism in both resting and stimulated states in the mouse brain were revealed this work provides a new approach to study the complex neurological functions of the brain given the importance of oxygen metabolism in basic biology and diseases progression it is also expected to find broad applications from fundamental biomedical researches to clinical diagnosis zou joined the department in 2004 after the completion of his phd study and a two-year postdoctoral training at the university of illinois urbana-champaign he currently is a faculty member in the device sciences and nanotechnology area within the department his current interests lie in the interdisciplinary research of mems-based optical and acoustic devices and systems for bio-sensing and bio-imaging applications
689,"(from left to right) dan hill department head; lindsay kalberer tamu spe vice president; ding zhu professor; jennifer wisler tamu spe president and steve holditch former department head the texas a&m university student chapter of the society of petroleum engineering (tamu spe) recently celebrated its 83rd anniversary marking its history as one of the oldest student organizations on the campus when the chapter members originally began to make plans for the celebration they thought it was for the organization's 25th anniversary the number provided to the student officers by the national spe office the members quickly learned that the organization had been active for much longer as former students who received invitations to the celebration informed them the organization had been active on the campus for a far longer period of time after much research and speaking with previous chapter advisors the current officers found out the chapter is one of the oldest student organizations at texas a&m prior to its affiliation with spe in 1978 the organization was simply known as the petroleum engineering club starting in 1940 before that beginning in 1932 it was known as the petroleum engineering-geology club some of the oldest former students suggest that there may have been a petroleum engineering student organization from the inception of the petroleum engineering degree in 1928 on february 26 the spe student chapter held a celebration honoring its 83rd anniversary and the history behind it the celebration at the memorial student center was attended by former students and current students and featured distinguished speaker dr stephen holditch former head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m there was also a slide show of memorable moments contributed by former and current students jennifer wisler the president of tamu spe gave a talk during the celebration regarding the history that occurred during the life of the chapter the organization had an auspicious start in 1932 the era of ""texas tea"" was just beginning with such oilfield discoveries as seminole north cowden goldsmith slaughter pearsall and tomball it was also the era of the great depression though with unemployment at an astounding 24 percent and the cost of a gallon of gasoline at 10 cents amelia earhart flew solo across the atlantic ocean and texas a&m had already been instructing students for 56 years now eight decades later the current student organization has over 1 300 members making it one of the largest student organizations on campus and the second largest spe student chapter in the world the tamu spe student chapter has won recognition many times as the ""outstanding"" spe student chapter its members are involved in many community organizations and the chapter provides resources to student scholarships via its fundraising in addition the student chapter continues to provide opportunities for students to enhance their technical and professional competence by learning from and networking with current professional engineers"
690,two phd students in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university were named exceptional reviewer for prestigious journals in the power engineering field po-chen chen (above left) was named exceptional reviewer for the journal of ieee transactions on power delivery (pwrd) and payman dehghanian (right) was named exceptional reviewer for the elsevier journal of energy both are students in the group of dr mladen kezunovic the award is extremely significant since the recipients can only be nominated by editors chen received his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from polytechnic institute of new york university in 2010 and 2012 respectively he currently is pursuing his phd in electrical engineering at texas a&m his area of interest includes distributed generation power system analysis power system protection and control voltage quality and stability studies and big data application for distribution system dehghanian received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering he is currently pursuing his phd in electrical engineering at texas a&m his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications
691,dr haiyan wang professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been named a fellow of the american ceramic society (acers) wang was one of 16 members elevated to the fellow status the fellow designation recognizes acers members who have distinguished themselves through outstanding contributions to the ceramic arts or sciences broad and productive scholarship in ceramic science and technology conspicuous achievement in ceramic industry or by outstanding service to the society the 2015 class comes from an international cross section of leaders in academia research labs industry and government the new fellows will be recognized at the acers annual honors and awards banquet in october the event is part of the societys annual meeting in 2006 wang joined the faculty at texas a&m as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor and full professor in 2010 and 2014 respectively she received a phd in materials science and engineering from north carolina state university in 2002 wangs research expertise is on nanostructured ceramic thin films for various applications including nitride-based materials for microelectronic and optoelectronics high temperature superconductor coated conductors ferromagnetic and ferroelectric oxide thin films perovskite oxides for thin film solid oxide fuel cells in situ tem work and others she has published more than 300 journal articles with a total citation over 6 500 times with an h-index of 39 she has organized 9 symposiums at international conferences and is an active committee member in the american society of metals (asm) american ceramic society (acers) and the metals minerals and materials society (tms) wang is a fellow of asm international (class of 2014) her major awards include the tamest odonnell award 2015 asm silver medal award in 2011 an nsf career award in 2009 a presidential early career award (pecase) in 2008 an office of naval research-young investigator award in 2008 and an air force of scientific research-young investigator award in 2007 for more visit the acers website
692,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr duncan maitland holder of the stewart & stevenson professorship i in engineering the endowed professorship is effective may 1 maitland is a professor in the department of biomedical engineering and the texas a&m engineering experiment stations assistant agency director for commercialization and entrepreneurship he earned a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from cleveland state university a masters in physics from cleveland state and his phd in biomedical engineering from northwestern university maitlands research focuses on novel treatments of cardiovascular disease with a focus on stroke his research projects include endovascular interventional devices microactuators optical therapeutic devices and basic device-body interactions/physics including computational and experimental techniques
693,"dr daniel ragsdale '80 has joined the department of computer science and engineering's faculty at texas a&m university as a professor of practice he comes to the department from the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) where he has served as program manager since 2011 during his time at darpa he managed a $175 million research and development portfolio of classified and unclassified programs that addressed a diverse array of topics including cybersecurity psychology education and training in recognition of his darpa service he was awarded the secretary of defense medal for exceptional civilian service the highest decoration for non-career federal employees prior to darpa ragsdale served in the us army for 30 years in various leadership capacities retiring in 2011 from the united states military academy at west point as a colonel and vice dean in recognition of his exemplary teaching research and service he was promoted to professor of computer science in 2007 a veteran of three combat deployments he served as the deputy commanding officer of a 2000-person task force responsible for defense of the largest coalition based in iraq in 2005-06 his research interests include cybersecurity vulnerability research reverse engineering computer ethics privacy ragsdale has more than 20 years of supervisory experience in research and development and educational settings his focus on the technical as well as the human dimension of cyber security helped him to bring innovation to the laboratory to the classroom and to operational settings he has authored or co-authored dozens of cyber security papers articles and book chapters in addition to the secretary of defense medal for exceptional public service ragsdale was designated a texas a&m department of computer science distinguished former student in 2007 he was awarded the colloquium for information system security education founder's medal in 2005 and in 2002 he received the us military academy apgar award for excellence in teaching and the federal information systems security education association educator of the year award this summer he will be inducted into the espn fan hall of fame ragsdale aggie class of 1980 holds a doctoral degree in computer science from texas a&m university a master's degree in computer science from the naval postgraduate school and a bachelor's degree from the united states military academy as a texas a&m student he received the computer science graduate student leadership excellence award ""after being away from an academic setting for the past few years i could not possibly be more thrilled to back in aggieland "" said ragsdale ""as an educator i have always believed that inspiration is the cornerstone of learning and it's my sincere hope that my teaching and research practices will be both inspiration and compelling for current and future aggies i commit to ever-acknowledge plutach's age-old assertion that 'the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be lit'"" ragsdale is a soldier and a computer scientist he is a ranger pathfinder master parachutist jungle expert and cybersecurity scholar and educator to his solders and students he is a deeply respected mentor and educator"
694,erica gacasan undergraduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named a goldwater scholar by the barry goldwater scholarship and excellence in education foundation goldwater scholars are selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1 206 mathematics science and engineering students who are nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide as a goldwater scholar gacasan will receive a one-year scholarship of $7 500 to apply towards the cost of tuition fees books and room and board gacasan is advised by associate professor melissa grunlan working in grunlans research group for two years since her freshman year gacasan is developing tissue-engineering therapies to treat deteriorating joints such as the knee so that individuals do not require a total joint replacement specifically her research is focused on producing synthetic hydrogel scaffolds that direct regeneration of osteochondral tissues in addition to being named a goldwater scholar gacasan has been selected as one of only 16 students in the nation to attend the 2015 biomedical engineering summer internship program at the national institutes of health where she will participate in cutting-edge biomedical research projects under the mentorship of world-class scientists for a 10-week period gacasan also recently represented texas a&m at texas undergraduate research day at the capitol in austin during which she presented her research to texas legislators as part of a select group of undergraduate students taking part in the event not only is she very strong academically erica seizes opportunities for growth and training in research; she never backs away from a challenge grunlan said goldwater scholars have impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs recent goldwater scholars have been awarded 86 rhodes scholarships 123 marshall awards 123 churchill scholarships and numerous other distinguished fellowships such as national science foundation graduate fellowships established 1986 the goldwater foundation is a federally endowed agency and the foundations scholarship program honoring senator barry goldwater is designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics the natural sciences and engineering since its first award in 1989 the foundation has bestowed 7 428 scholarships worth approximately 48 million dollars
695,joey jabbour former graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2015 distinguished graduate award for excellence in research-doctoral by the association of former students at texas a&m during her time at texas a&m jabbour was advised by associate professor kristen maitland as an honoree she will be formally recognized at an awards ceremony scheduled for april 27 during which she will receive a watch and framed certificate as a graduate student jabbour designed built and tested an in vivo confocal microscope to provide high-resolution images of tissue in the oral cavity to detect cancer in its earliest stages her research involved the development and characterization of the instrument and preclinical and clinical testing of the device to date she has eight peer-reviewed publications based on her doctoral research joey jabbour stands out in her passion motivation drive and commitment to research and education maitland said her research applying tunable focus lenses to confocal microscopy has attracted attention in the field of optical imaging the association of former students at texas a&m each year recognizes graduate students in one of three categories: excellence in research-doctoral excellence in research-masters and excellence in teaching the award recipients are chosen by a panel of reviewers which includes faculty and administrators
696,"dr mahmoud el-halwagi holder of the mcferrin professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university presented a distinguished lecture at virginia tech on april 6 el-halwagi's topic was sustainable process design through mass and property integration ""i am honored to give the bill and ann doumas/dow chemical company distinguished lecture and to have an opportunity to share the exciting research work that my group members are carrying out in the area of sustainable design of industrial processes "" el-halwagi said ""this is one of the key challenges facing industry"" the lecture explored recent progress in developing and applying process integration and systems optimization to come up with creative novel and systematic approaches for industrial process sustainability while also balancing the complex objectives and issues associated with the design of new processes or the revamping of existing plants"
697,"dr andrea strzelec assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was one of 24 international invited speakers at the 2015 rideal conference in berlin germany as an expert on automotive catalysis strzelec's talk was title ""the influences of fuel type on characteristics of exhaust particulate "" highlighting the novel characterization reactor that she and student justin nitz have developed at texas a&m for the physical and chemical characterization of powder samples"
698,"dr yu ding and dr mark lawley have been selected to receive the institute of industrial engineers (iie) fellow award iie recognizes 20 or fewer individuals at this level annually ding is the holder of the mike and sugar barnes professorship and associate department head for graduate affairs in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and lawley is a tees research professor in the department the significance of the recognition is captured in its description: this award recognizes outstanding leaders of the profession who have made significant nationally recognized contributions to industrial engineering presented at the iie annual conference on june 1 2015 in nashville tennessee the award bestows the highest classification of iie membership to each recipient ding has been with the department since earning his phd from the university of michigan in 2001 his research interests are in the area of system informatics and quality and reliability engineering ding won the nsf career award in 2004 and is a two-time best paper award winner from iie transactions lawley joined the department in july 2014 for the previous 17 years he was a member of the faculty at purdue lawleys research interests are in the optimization and control of large man-made systems with applications in manufacturing networked infrastructure and healthcare he was recognized as the provost fellow for engagement purdue university in 2012 and is a two-time best paper award winner from iie transactions these are two exceptional and very deserving scholars researchers and mentors "" said dr césar malavé head of the department ""their contributions to our field are significant and noteworthy and this award recognizes that the award is even more special because it is initiated and approved by peers"
699,kelly pettersen a phd student in the department of industrial and systems engineering is among the 2015 honorable mentions from the national science foundation (nsf) graduate research fellowship program (grfp) nsfs graduate research fellowship program (grfp) is a highly competitive nationally recognized program over 15 000 applications were received by nsf the top 2 000 applicants or about 125 percent are offered the nsf graduate research fellowship and the next 125 percent are the honorable mentions according to dr valerie p wilson acting division director for the division of graduate education at nsf receiving an honorable mention from nsfs grfp is considered a significant national academic achievement
700,david coleman a first-year graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won second place in the american helicopter societys (ahs) 2015 robert l lichten award competition there were eight finalists competing for the award one from each of the regional chapters of the ahs colemans paper was entitled design development and flight-testing of a robotic hummingbird the award was established to give young researchers who have not previously presented a paper at a technical conference the opportunity to showcase their results the award is focused on recognizing new and innovative research in the area of rotorcraft and vertical flight in addition coleman has been awarded the eugene k liberatore vertical flight foundation (vff) scholarship for the 2015-2016 academic year the vff scholarship which is $3 000 and is provided through the ahs is awarded to students engaged in vertical flight research this year a small number of winners were selected out of many applicants nationwide to receive the american helicopter society vff scholarship coleman along with the other students who won the scholarship will be honored at the 71st annual american helicopter society forum this may in virginia beach virginia coleman will be presented with an award certificate and check additionally coleman will be presenting his work on his robotic hummingbird during the forum proceedings coleman who works under the direction of dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department is developing a bio-inspired robotic hummingbird capable of sustained hover and controlled flight dr benedict who joined the aerospace faculty last august works on next-generation hover-capable uavs and heads the recently founded advanced vertical flight laboratory in the aerospace department
701,two distinguished graduates of the department of mechanical engineering returned to campus thursday march 26 and provided words of wisdom for current students pursuing a career in the engineering industry steve brauer jr steve brauer jr serves as president of hunter engineering service center a division of hunter engineering company brauer received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering in 2003 and his mba from the university of texas at austin in 2007 while at texas a&m he served as president of the texas a&m student chapter of asm international he currently serves on the mechanical engineering industrial advisory council and sponsors the texas a&m formula sae student design team he has recently endowed a faculty fellowship in mechanical engineering brauer said he believes that retaining a first class faculty is at the core of a strong mechanical engineering program he hopes that his endowment will help the department continue to attract the best faculty and student talent and produce the high quality graduates the industry needs his advice to students is to work hard and never stop thinking about ways to improve the world around them ryan sitton ryan sitton earned his degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university in 1997 upon graduation sitton went to work as an engineer in the energy industry in 2006 sitton founded pinnacleais an engineering and technology company he was elected as the texas railroad commissioner in november 2014 as the railroad commissioner he oversees the oil/gas industry which represents 40 percent of the texas economy sitton ran for railroad commissioner because he was driven to affect change and wanted the opportunity to impact the future of oil/gas in texas he is the first engineer to serve in 40 years and believes that his degree enables him to have technical conversations with industry professionals and truly allows him to present solutions to challenges that they face his advice to graduates and current students is to be tenacious and impactful with their time at texas a&m he also recommends that once employed they should immerse themselves in their new company and learn every facet of the operation in order to develop and maintain their education as well-rounded individuals
702,five texas a&m university faculty members including two from the dwight look college of engineering have been appointed as university distinguished professors the title which is bestowed in perpetuity is among the highest honors awarded to texas a&m faculty members the recipients from the look college are dr jean-louis briaud professor and holder of the buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering and dr edgar sánchez-sinencio professor and holder of the ti jack kilby chair in the department of electrical and computer engineering the other recipients are: dr martin b dickman christine richardson professor of agriculture professor in the department of plant pathology and microbiology and director of the institute for plant genomics and biotechnology college of agriculture and life sciences; dr catherine c eckel sara and john lindsey professor in liberal arts and professor in the department of economics college of liberal arts; and dr david w threadgill professor of veterinary pathobiology and director of the texas a&m institute for genome sciences and society college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences and professor and holder of the tom and jean mcmullin chair of genetics in the department of molecular and cellular medicine texas a&m health science center college of medicine university distinguished professors represent the highest level of achievement for our faculty said dr karan l watson provost and executive vice president for academic affairs they are recognized as pre-eminent authorities in their fields and their accomplishments are exemplified by outstanding teaching mentoring discovery and service they demonstrate to the world the high quality of scholarship underway at texas a&m university briaud dr jean-louis briaud professor and holder of the buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering joined the faculty of the texas a&m university dwight look college of engineering in 1978 he earned his phd from the university of ottawa in canada dr briaud pioneered the field of bridge scour in geotechnical engineering and helped drastically reduce the number of bridge failures due to scour his seminal contributions include the development of a patented soil erosion device and a method to calculate the depth of scour around bridge supports based on a targeted risk of failure his techniques are used worldwide dr briaud has also made seminal contributions to protecting embassies against terrorist trucks and building foundations of very tall buildings geothermal foundations to save energy and foundations for houses on shrink-swell soils he has more than 200 publications including two books he has received awards from organizations in the united states canada and kazakhstan and is a member of the russian academy of natural sciences he was also elected president of the international society of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering the highest honor bestowed on a geotechnical engineer sánchez-sinencio dr edgar sánchez-sinencio the ti jack kilby chair professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering joined the faculty of the dwight look college of engineering in 1983 he earned his phd in electrical engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign dr sánchez-sinencio is a pre-eminent scholar in the areas of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits and radio-frequency circuits and systems his seminal contributions to the field include pioneering work in switched-capacitor circuits continuous-time filters and current-mode filters and research on radio-frequency integrated receivers he has co-authored five books and co-edited another he has been co-author on more than 400 technical papers dr sánchez-sinencio is a life fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) his awards include: ieee guillemin cauer award; ieee darlington award; ieee circuits and systems society golden jubilee medal; ieee circuit and systems charles desoer technical award; an honorary doctorate from the national institute for astrophysics optics and electronics in mexico; and texas senate proclamation #373 for outstanding accomplishments the 2015 university distinguished professor honorees join a select group of more than 75 current faculty members that hold the prestigious title this designation denotes a faculty member who is pre-eminent in his or her field has made at least one seminal contribution to the discipline and whose work is central in any narrative of the field and is widely recognized to have changed the direction of scholarship in the field texas a&m interim president mark hussey and the texas a&m foundation will host a reception on april 29 recognizing the five new university distinguished professors and honoring all of the university distinguished professors more information including a complete list of university distinguished professors is available online
703,three engineering faculty members are among 24 faculty and staff members who have been selected to receive the 2015 texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award dr john c keyser from the department of computer science and engineering was selected for teaching while dr haiyan wang from the department of electrical and computer engineering and dr vijay p singh from the department of biological and agricultural engineering were selected for research the complete list 2015 honorees is here the university-level distinguished achievement awards were first presented in 1955 and have since been awarded to 1 002 professionals (including this years recipients) who have exhibited the highest standards of excellence at texas a&m the 2015 distinguished achievement awards will be formally presented at 1:30 pm april 27 during ceremonies in rudder theater on the texas a&m university campus in recognition of their achievements each recipient will receive a cash gift an engraved watch and a commemorative plaque
704,"students and faculty from prairie view a&m university (pvamu) visited the texas a&m university nuclear science center (nsc) and participated in a field detection exercise at the texas a&m engineering extension service disaster city facility it was the second visit to texas a&m for the group from pvamu as part of the nuclear forensics for minority serving institutions (nf-msi) program sponsored by the us department of homeland security's domestic nuclear detection office (dndo) the visit was organized by the texas a&m engineering experiment station's nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) nsspi faculty member and nuclear engineering visiting professor dr craig marianno and nsspi research assistant dr royal elmore coordinated in the planning of the event the nsc tour built upon the april 10 presentation by deputy assistant secretary of energy dr john kelly from the office of nuclear energy that the students attended the pvamu students learned about the nsc radiation detection equipment and safety aspects and visited the 1 mw testing research isotopes general atomics (triga) nuclear reactor where they were informed about the experiments carried out by the nsc from a nuclear forensics perspective the nsc tour emphasized the steps needed to produce nuclear material and some of the associated signatures after the nsc tour the students went to disaster city in preparation for a nuclear forensics field exercise led by marianno the disaster city event began with a series of briefings to orient the students to the exercise challenge awaiting them they were tested on their knowledge from pvamu professor dr irvin osborne-lee's nuclear forensics class and the pvamu students proved adept at explaining radiation detectors they saw during their april 10th visit to the nsspi nuclear security and emergency response laboratory marianno then took the pvamu students to one of the rubble piles at disaster city for the field exercise they used different radiation detectors to locate and characterize a simulated contamination event a major element of the exercise was teamwork just like first responders in the field the pvamu students needed to share information to identify and characterize the threat situation in real life marianno's emphasis on cooperation and working together may mean the difference between successfully protecting the public and unnecessary radiation exposure nuclear engineering graduate students manit shah and jose ""paco"" trevino both of whom work with marianno helped in setting up and carrying out the exercise later this month the pvamu students will be joining nuclear engineering students from texas a&m on the 4th annual nuclear facilities experience this will be the first time that the nuclear facilities experience will include students from another texas a&m university system partner the pvamu and texas a&m students will visit nuclear facilities in new mexico and texas including the urenco uranium enrichment plant sandia national laboratories los alamos national laboratory and pantex nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility"
705,aggie engineering innovation was the theme of the day at the third annual texas a&m engineering project showcase hosted by the dwight look college of engineering students gathered may 1 in reed arena to demonstrate and display their projects which highlighted how engineers can create solutions to solve real-world problems more than 160 engineering teams participated with posters and prototypes representing the work of more than 700 undergraduate engineering students the student participants presented work from senior capstone design courses aggie_challenge projects technical electives undergraduate research projects startup aggieland companies freshman design teams and others the event brought more than 140 industry representatives from 70 companies to campus the showcase provided them with the opportunity to meet with faculty to discuss possible collaborations for future industry-sponsored student projects the showcase event has become a signature event for the dwight look college of engineering and has grown every year both in attracting more student participants and more industry representatives the event captures both the innovativeness of texas a&m engineering students and the wide range of problems for which they have developed technical solutions an awards ceremony at the end of the showcase recognized the top teams with more than $11 000 in prizes made possible by gold sponsor conocophillips and silver sponsors emerson spectra energy and texas instruments the overall showcase winner award ($2 000) was the thermoformable shin guard team the biomedical engineering capstone team included ala tobeh deidre jacqueline higareda nicole hayes robert william reese scott bixler and william reyna there were five capstone winning teams and each was awarded $1 000 the winners were: autonomous acoustophoretic oil-in-water sensor system an electrical engineering capstone team team members: cameron shaw jacob hannusch and dale julson award sponsored by conocophillips pressure relief valve a mechanical engineering capstone team team members: hieu ha seth loveall matthew barth ryan rugg and kevin le award sponsored by conocophillips rapid manufacturing of a transtibial prosthesis a biomedical engineering capstone team team members: jessica reinhard zach stone rachael muschalek samantha schott and clayton smith award sponsored by texas instruments production of invent3d(tm) desktop additive manufacturing units an industrial and systems engineering capstone team team members: kyle steven adams sterling behrens john nettles ryan portwood and jaime rivas award sponsored by emerson assistive calf an electrical engineering capstone team team members: carlo bocatto karly oconnor and michael cantu award sponsored by spectra energy in addition three $1 000 awards were given to the top three teams in the multidisciplinary/vertically integrated/research category the winners were: on-demand manufacturing of rapidly deployable superabsorbents for oil spill cleanup an aggie_challenge team team members: raquel belnap neshme colmenero danielle cope andres mena adriano pangelinan courtney ann prestwood jiacheng sheng and duanduan han acoustic shield a startup aggieland company team members: luke neese liang ge and virginia neese self-heating exothermic warmer for biologics a biomedical student design team: nicholas abuid rahul dhuka colin dodson shannon waters paige adair and cassandra lutz the event was sponsored by the look college conocophillips spectra energy texas instruments and emerson for more information about the event visit engineeringtamuedu/project-showcase for project sponsorship information please contact magda lagoudas executive director industry and nonprofit partnerships
706,texas a&m university mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering researchers led by dr xinghang zhang have discovered superior radiation tolerance of cu with nanovoids and nanotwins their paper entitled damage tolerant nanotwinned metals with nanovoids under radiation environments was published in the april 2015 issue in nature communications material performance in extreme radiation environments is central to the design of future nuclear reactors radiation in metallic materials typically induces significant damage in the form of dislocation loops and continuous void growth manifested as void swelling in certain metallic materials with low-to-intermediate stacking fault energy such as cu and austenitic stainless steels void swelling can be significant and lead to substantial degradation of mechanical properties by using in situ heavy ion irradiation in a transmission electron microscope (in collaboration with ma kirk at ivem facility at argonne national lab) zhangs student dr youxing chen reported a surprising phenomena: during radiation of nanotwinned cu preexisting nanovoids disappeared the self-healing capability of cu arises from the existence of three-dimensional coherent and incoherent twin boundary networks such a network enables capture and rapid transportation of radiation induced point defects and their clusters to nanovoids (as evidenced by in situ radiation experiments and molecular dynamics simulations performed in collaboration with jian wang at los alamos national laboratory) and thus lead to the mutual elimination of defect clusters and nanovoids this study also introduces the concept that deliberate introduction of nanovoids in conjunction with nanotwins may enable unprecedented radiation tolerance in metallic materials the mobile twin boundaries are swift carriers that load and transfer customers (defect clusters) and nanovoids are also necessary to accommodate these customers the in situ radiation study also shows that after annihilation of nanovoids the self-healing capability of nanotwinned cu is degraded highlighting the significance of nanovoids the concept developed from this study the combination of nanovoids with nanotwin networks may also stimulate the design of damage tolerant materials in general that are subjected other extreme environments such as high stress and high pressure impact zhang is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m his research group has expertise on radiation damage and nanomechanics in nanolayered and nanotwinned metals as well as magnetic shape memory alloys chen is a former phd student in zhangs group and joined the los alamos national laboratory in may 2015 he received a bachelor's degree in materials science and engineering at chongqing university in china an master's degree in materials science at shanghai jiaotong university in china and a phd in materials science and engineering at texas a&m he is a recipient of the distinguished graduate student award by the association of former students at texas a&m and has published more than 20 journal articles to date the other co-authors of this paper include prof kaiyuan yu (china petroleum university); drs yue liu and s shao (postdocs at los alamos national lab); prof jian wang (university of nebraska-lincoln lincoln); dr haiyan wang (texas a&m) and dr mark kirk (argonne national laboratory) this research is supported by nsf-dmr-metallic materials and nanostructures program the intermediate voltage electron microscopy (ivem) facility at argonne national laboratory is supported by department of energy office of nuclear energy
707,"leadership is one of the core values of texas a&m university and instilling the value in students is accomplished in various ways the dwight look college of engineering and zachry group are teaming together to give engineering students a notable opportunity to further develop their leadership skills through the zachry leadership program the five-semester program will further empower engineering students to become future leaders who are well versed in our free enterprise system collaborative in their decisions and humbly self-confident in their behaviors students who will begin the spring semester of their second year in january 2016 are eligible to apply applications for the first class of 32 students are being accepted from june 1 until aug 20 and participants will be selected and notified by oct 22 the look college and zachry group are excited to offer a new program that provides students with an understanding of the interplay of engineering and leadership said dr john hurtado aerospace engineering professor and senior director for interdisciplinary engineering programs the establishment of the zachry leadership program is part of a $25 million gift given to the look college by zachry group in addition to the program zachry groups contribution will support the construction of the engineering education complex and establish a zachry group professor of practice within the department of mechanical engineering leadership is among our key core values and a cornerstone of the student experience at texas a&m university said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering through the zachary group leadership program our engineering students will be able to interact with and learn from nationally recognized leaders this will be highly competitive program for admission"" through exposure to business leadership and residentship perspectives interaction with remarkable people and opportunities to reflect on and apply learnings students in the zachry leadership program will gain a broader perspective of the world in which they will live and work the program is designed to give students a sense for how they will fit into this world a deeper insight into their individual potential and a specific view of how they want to begin their professional careers the overall goal of the program is to maximize students potential to contribute to business and society on a broad scale students will receive a $1000 scholarship and enroll in one leadership class for each of the five semesters of the program students who complete the 15-semester credit hour program will earn a certificate in engineering leadership to be considered for the program candidates must go through an application process and must be enrolled in the look college they must be in good academic standing at the time of entry and must remain in good academic standing throughout the program there are so many elements of this program that are unique said hurtado weve purposefully been creative in considering the course activities the learning environment and the participation of professional mentors for more on the zachry leadership program visit the program website"
708,connor aimone a senior in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won best thesis in the science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) category for the texas a&m university undergraduate research scholars program aimone who is minoring in mathematics completed his thesis work under the mentorship of dr le xie an assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering aimone chose to focus on developing and testing mathematical models for voltage source converter based dc lines for transmission and distribution of power the motivation behind this work revolved around finding an improved method for integrating renewable resources such as wind or solar power improper connection of these energy sources into the nations power system has the potential to cause stability issues that would crash the power grid and leave large swaths of the community without electricity aimones sophisticated mathematical representations allowed him to generate a detailed model that operators will be able to use to better understand the capabilities and limits of a particular system he was also able to generate a simplified model that is easier and faster to use allowing for modeling of systems over time both of his models are capable of standalone simulation or coupling with preexisting power system models a group of 170 students completed the undergraduate research scholars program which is open to any texas a&m student with a 30 or better who is interested in undertaking a research project under the mentorship of a texas a&m faculty member over the course of consecutive fall and spring semesters undergraduate research scholars submit a proposal and timeline for their project in early fall attend a series of events and workshops designed to support their progress over the two semesters present their work publicly at texas a&ms student research week or a professional conference in their field and submit a final scholarly piece (most commonly a thesis) by early april honors and undergraduate research staff evaluate student engagement and accomplishment and select the two best thesis award winners one in humanities/arts/social science and one in stem
709,two texas a&m agrilife research water resources experts have been chosen as laureates at the 15th world water congress held in edinburgh scotland recently dr vijay singh distinguished professor with the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the international water resources associations crystal drop award and dr rabi mohtar endowed professor with the same department has been selected to present the ven te chow memorial lecture its definitely a rare event that faculty members from a single university would be receiving these two awards the same year said dr stephen searcy head of the department of biological and agricultural engineering its even rarer that the award winners are from the same department according to the associations website it is a non-profit international network of multidisciplinary experts on water resources established in 1971 iwra provides a global knowledge based forum for bridging disciplines and geographies by connecting professionals students individuals corporations and institutions who are concerned with the sustainable use of the worlds water resources the crystal drop award is given to individuals or organizations in recognition of their laudable contribution to the improvement of the worlds water situation according to the website the ven te chow memorial award is one of the most prestigious awards of the iwra according to the website the award is named after dr ven te chow the first president of the association and an eminent water scientist and a leading figure in water resources in the second half of the 20th century both honors were bestowed at the associations international congress which is held every three years mohtar has a joint appointment with the zachry department of civil engineering is a holder of a texas a&m engineering experiment station professorship and is founding director of the qatar environment and energy research institute his primary research the development of a framework to quantify the inter-linkages of the water-energy-food nexus that is constrained by climate change and social political and technological pressures in addition he continues to work on the design and evaluation of international sustainable water management programs to deal with water scarcity singh is a distinguished professor with the department and holder of the caroline and william n lehrer distinguished chair in water his research principal research topics have encompassed: watershed modeling erosion and sediment transport in upland watersheds streamflow forecasting dam-break analysis entropy-based modeling and the hydrologic impacts of climate change we are extremely proud that two departmental faculty would be honored by this important water-resources organization searcy said were especially pleased that it could occur during the year of our centennial the department has a focus on water resources and as we move into our second century of serving texas we know that continued and enhanced emphasis on water will be critical
710,"doha qatar more than 20 teachers from 16 of qatars secondary schools participated in the inaugural engineering leaders institute for excellence in mathematics education the five-day institute organized by texas a&m university at qatar was designed to enhance teaching techniques to deepen students understanding of math as a foundation for advanced education said dr sandra nite institute facilitator and a research scientist in math education at aggie stem at texas a&m university in college station texas teacher professional development is an especially effective approach for stem outreach and enrichment nite said by helping 20 teachers enhance their teaching strategies you can impact the learning of hundreds or thousands of their students in the years that follow dr mohamed elgindi professor of math at texas a&m at qatar was nites co-instructor for the institute he reminded teachers of the significant contributions of ancient arab scholars to science and led sessions in which he highlighted math concepts that are important for success as a university engineering student teachers used graphing calculators with rangefinder devices to link mathematical data with real-world applications the institute was developed as part of the engineering leaders outreach strategy to prepare young qataris for university studies in science technology engineering and math known as stem disciplines said dr hamid parsaei director of academic outreach and professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m at qatar parsaei also thanked maersk oil qatar the exclusive sponsor and industry partner for the engineering leaders program our partnership with maersk oil qatar enables strategic outreach that contributes to human capacity for qatars growth parsaei said qatar needs broad technical expertise and professional development for teachers is at the core of our work to help young qataris prepare for the challenges of university studies in engineering and science sheikh faisal al-thani deputy managing director of maersk oil qatar said the company is investing in teacher development among other academic initiatives to strengthen human and social development for qatars knowledge-based economy ""as the operator of qatar's largest and most complex offshore oilfield al shaheen we are committed to supporting development of the specialist workforce needed to responsibly unlock qatar's important national resources sheikh faisal said we are therefore supporting a number of educational initiatives aimed at developing qatar's human capital and knowledge economy; investing in teacher development and nurturing and developing interest in stem disciplines is critical to achieving this"" the inaugural engineering leaders institute is helping professional teachers to broaden their experience and skills in a range of engineering disciplines in mathematics to be able to better attract and inspire the next generation to follow a technical educational track that can lead to successful and rewarding careers in industries like oil and gas al-thani added tahany abdel rahman alshouli a teacher at al-wakrah independent secondary school who has taught math in qatar for 27 years said last week's institute presented innovative and useful approaches for enhancing students' learning of math concepts this workshop provided participants with helpful techniques for developing and enriching our knowledge and teaching styles something that will enable us to improve our students educational background and learning process alshouli said by working with the supreme education council texas a&m at qatar and maersk oil qatar are shaping the future of education jowaher al-marri program for stem development for texas a&m at qatar said positive feedback from teacher participants highlights the importance of holding future programs for teachers and students alike this engineering leaders institute is the first of many stem enrichment programs we are planning in the months ahead al-marri said we are proud to be working with schools and industry partners such as maersk oil to promote education as the primary pathway to achieving the goals of the qatar national vision 2030 about texas a&m university at qatartexas a&m university recognized as having one of the premier engineering programs in the world has offered undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering electrical and computer engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering at qatar foundations education city campus since 2003 and graduate degrees in chemical engineering since fall 2011 more than 600 engineers have graduated from texas a&m at qatar since 2007 in addition to engineering courses texas a&m at qatar provides classes in science mathematics liberal arts and the humanities all four of the engineering programs offered at texas a&m at qatar are accredited by the engineering accreditation commission of abet the curricula offered at texas a&m at qatar are materially the same as those offered at the main campus in college station texas and the courses in doha are taught in english in a co-educational setting the reputation for excellence is the same as is the commitment to equip engineers to lead the next generation of engineering advancement faculty from around the world are attracted to texas a&m at qatar to provide this educational experience and to participate in research activities now valued at more than $196 million and that address issues important to the state of qatar visit wwwqatartamuedu"
711,"dr mark holtzapple professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was honored for patents he received in 2014 during the patent and innovation 2015 awards luncheon held may 8 at the annenberg presidential conference center the chancellor and president of texas a&m university presided over the ceremony i am thrilled that texas a&m recognizes the value of innovation invention and commercialization "" said holtzapple ""these activities are essential if our society is to meet the challenges of the future"" last year holtzapple received patents for the following: sealing system for gerotor apparatus us patent 8 753 099 june 17 2014biomass shock pretreatment us patent 8 765 429 july 1 2014gerotor apparatus for a quasi-isothermal brayton cycle engine us patent 8 821 138 september 2 2014apparatus for a quasi-isothermal brayton cycle engine us patent 8 905 735 december 9 2014"
712,"dr yossef elabd professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is a senior visiting fellow at the worlds oldest university the university of bologna in italy at the invitation of its institute of advanced studies elabd will present an institution-wide lecture entitled will we ever drive fuel cell cars on may 26 he will deliver a department seminar may 29 entitled ""water in glassy polymers: non-fickian diffusion and nonequilibrium thermodynamics established in 1088 and boasting a current enrollment of approximately 85 000 students the university is one of the most prestigious in the world ""i am excited to share our research in energy to a broad audience "" said elabd ""i hope that my talk will inspire others to think differently about fuel cells and the future possibilities of portable power"
713,the master of industrial distribution (mid) program recently graduated 51 professionals marking the 13th and largest cohort of graduates from the program since its inception in 2001 the students were on the texas a&m university campus to present their capstone projects to faculty research staff mid advisory board members and fellow students the next cohort of 74 students will be ready for graduation in may 2016 the mid program is a 21-month distance education graduate program specifically designed for working professionals the program is designed to serve the needs of working professionals who require flexibility in their schedules and location courses have been developed specifically to maximize web-based learning advantages the program dramatically increases the participants ability to think globally integrate trends acquire knowledge and act strategically the rigorous and interdisciplinary degree ensures that students are well equipped to handle both the demands of daily business as well as the unique challenges of doing business in a global economy the mid program is the largest distance-based graduate program in texas a&ms dwight look college of engineering for more information visit the program website
714,keith krenek a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a national science foundation (nsf) graduate research fellowship (grf) nsf awarded the grf to 2 000 individuals from among 16 500 applicants in 2015 krenek is advised by dr arum han director of the nanobio systems laboratory this highly competitive fellowship is awarded to the top graduate students who have demonstrated potential to strengthen the vitality of the us science and engineering enterprise krenek's proposed graduate research aims to improve how biomedical research is traditionally conducted by developing micro- and nano-technologies for life science applications krenek received his bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering in 2014 graduating summa cum laude and has received many honors including the leroy fouraker graduate fellow the lockheed martin excellent participation award the texas a&m nicole corser memorial scholarship the presidents award for educational excellence and national merit commended
715,dr krzysztof a michalski associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has won the 2015 ieee antenna and propagation sergei a schelkunoff transactions prize paper award michalski won the award which recognizes the best paper published during the previous year for his paper titled on the plane wave-excited subwavelength circular aperture in a thin perfectly conducting flat screen which was co-authored with a colleague from epfl switzerland where michalski is frequently an invited professor in the paper a rigorous analysis is presented of the light transmission through a small circular aperture in a conducting screen based on the so-called bethe-bouwkamp theory the utility of this work is in the modeling and better understanding of the operation of aperture-type near-field probes in scanning optical microscopy michalskis research interests include numerical and analytical methods for the solution of electromagnetic boundary value problems with emphasis on field interaction with plane-stratified media he received his phd degree from the university of kentucky in 1981 and a master's degree from the technical university of wroclaw poland in 1974 both in electrical engineering he is a fellow of ieee other honors include being named a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) fellow in 1991 winning the oliver lodge premium award from iee (london) in 1986 and the best emp paper award from the summa foundation in 1984
716,two years ago undergraduate students in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university took on the challenge of designing developing delivering and supporting a unique embedded intelligence system capable of monitoring controlling recording and reporting experiments run in the micro-gravity environment onboard the international space station (iss) since then the nasa extreme science program the center for the advancement of science in space (casis) national design challenge and a number of other research institutes have used the nanoracks embedded system interface (nesi+) for experiments conducted on the iss students participating in the national design challenge from the houston area recently watched as orbital sciences crs flight 3 which had their experiments onboard explode seconds after liftoff from the mid-atlantic regional spaceport at the wallops flight facility in wallops island virginia the students were notified by casis that they would be given another opportunity to fly their experiments and four teams made the decision to shoot for the spacex 7 launch scheduled for june of this year although not providing the embedded systems for the original experiments aggie undergraduates supported the teams through mentoring and subject matter expertise based on this interaction casis and the teachers asked if the redo of their experiments could include the nesi+ system and the support of the aggie undergraduates one of the outreach sessions hosted by the engineering students brought the teachers and their students to campus for a one-day workshop the workshop helped to ensure that all of the experiments schedule to fly on spacex-7 were ready for fit testing at nanoracks in houston having programs like this provides a great opportunity for young men and women to learn more about engineering at texas a&m university while giving our best and brightest undergraduates leadership experience said dr jay porter program coordinator for the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program the eset program is now participating in a number of other casis national design challenges including working with teams in denver chicago and boston
717,"life fuels life living matter in all its nuance creates energy for mankind that is a cut above the synthetic in the form of biofuel consumers are led back to the earth and sun for everyday solutions four distinct research groups of faculty members within the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university contribute daily to the momentum surrounding the biofuels industry their research and groundbreaking initiatives elevate the discussion of alternative-turned-mainstay fuels from niblet to new fuel: the ethanol fermentation process dr m nazmul karim professor of chemical engineering department head and t michael oconnor chair ii relies on a consolidated bioprocessing model (cbp) that genetically engineers microorganisms such as ecoli or yeast so as to not require the use of enzymes for ethanol production relying solely on cellulose to produce ethanol his research has produced a whole-cell biocatalyst that is beginning to prove its potential for industry with over 230 ethanol plants around the nation corn-based biofuels invite a serious discussion into the parameters surrounding the food versus fuel controversy from the use of pesticides to the end-distribution of corn among humans and animals there are many factors to consider in using food-based biofuels alternately there is a new approach that leads to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions specifically the recycling of carbon dioxide into the life-cycle of ethanol production switchgrass and sugarcane containing polymers known as lignincellulose and hemicellulose are often used in ethanol production karim has also made strides in biofuels research pertaining to the sweet potato regarding refuse: biofuels from waste dr mark t holtzapple professor of chemical engineering has garnered interest from media academia and industry over his assertion that there is vital value in waste using the carboxylate platform one method of bioprocessing he produces gasoline and jet fuel from refuse that the world otherwise tosses aside examples include manure sewage sludge municipal solid waste food scraps and agricultural residues economic analysis shows that his biofuels can be sold profitably for $100 to $250/gallon without subsidies; his scales up the technology at a demonstration plant in bryan texas in addition to environmental benefits holtzapples carboxylate platform proposes to reduce reliance on foreign oil and helps develop rural economies holtzapple garnered the top prize in the 2014 odebrecht award for sustainable development for his project titled ""production of gasoline from municipal solid waste by carboxylate fermentation recently he edited a series of biofuels-related articles in chemical engineering processes (march 2015) by the numbers: synthesis optimization and integration with industrial facilities dr mahmoud el-halwagi professor of chemical engineering holder of the mcferrin professorship and managing director of tees gas and fuels research center draws upon a synthesis of novel pathways for monetizing and converting biomass to value-added fuels and chemicals the work involves the efficient assessment and selection of the type of feedstock products conversion and processing steps through the use of computer-aided tools el-halwagis research group optimizes existing biorefineries and innovates new ones natural resources such as biomass water and energy can be conserved whilst continually addressing objectives related to cost profitability environmental emissions and safety additionally there are numerous opportunities for integrating biorefineries with industrial infrastructure such as in oil and gas processing in addition to sharing common facilities there is potential synergism between bio-based products with fossil-based products said el-halwagi microbes to fuel: catalysis and reverse engineering dr katy kao associate professor of chemical engineering relies on microbial systems to produce biofuels using biocatalyst systems that stress ecoli for example into having advanced tolerances the biocatalyst can have many sources including foodstocks and coupled with other processes the goal is to create a very robust microbe that could then be converted into a biofuel such as butanol considered a second-generation biofuel while it promotes various advantages over ethanol butanol also has toxic reactions within microbial systems the production yield [by volume] in industry would be impacted by this toxicity and such exploration in this area is at the center of her research in considering downstream operations and energy conservation kao will work to make these microbes more butanol-tolerant in hopes that it will increase the production of these biocatalysts she uses a reverse engineering process to let nature take its course as her research groups studies how microbial systems can increase their robust nature when stressed to do so clearly the nexus of energy solutions is quite complex the future of biofuels is informed by scholarly research and industrial advances that simultaneously unfold for more information about studies performed within the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering please see the research portfolio of 2014"
718,dr charles h bowman a 1959 graduate of texas a&m university and former head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering was one of 12 recipients of the 2015 distinguished alumnus award the award presented by texas a&m and the association of former students is the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of texas a&m dr charles h bowman 59 rose to the top of the oil industry becoming ceo of bp america in 1993 following retirement from bp in 1997 he joined texas a&m as head of the department of petroleum engineering and later led the negotiating team that created a new texas a&m campus in qatar eventually serving as its interim dean and a member of its joint advisory board he is now dean emeritus of texas a&m university at qatar and professor emeritus of petroleum engineering he received a bachelor of science degree from penn state university and received both a masters degree and doctorate in petroleum engineering at texas a&m among the gifts he and wife lynn holleran have given a&m are endowments for international programs the department of petroleum engineerings resource center and the college of liberal arts cervantes project as well as a college of engineering faculty fellowship he has been a director of the metropolitan transit authority of harris county a director of central houston inc a trustee of case western reserve university chairman of the cleveland ballet and a director and treasurer of the american petroleum institute since the inception of the award in 1962 only 249 of texas a&ms 425 000 former students have been recognized with the distinguished alumnus award awarded jointly by the university and the association this award recognizes those aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions and made meaningful contributions to texas a&m university and their local communities these honorees embody the core values that we seek to instill in each of our students said dr mark a hussey 79 who was texas a&ms interim president during the recipients selection they are all leaders in their professions and communities and are most deserving of this recognition the recipients learned of their honor when surprised in their places of business and other locations by a group of university and association representatives including the association of former students 2015 chair of the board of directors bo bradbury 89 association president and ceo porter s garner iii 79 and a ross volunteer along with reveille viii and her handler our 2015 distinguished alumni demonstrate the impact of aggies on industry science and the arts bradbury said while choosing diverse career paths their lives are all marked by the same core values of excellence integrity leadership loyalty respect and selfless service garner echoed the sentiments of hussey and bradbury and offered his congratulations on behalf of the aggie network since the distinguished alumnus award was established in 1962 less than one-tenth of one percent of texas a&ms former students have been recognized with the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of our university garner said those selected represent the very best of our worldwide aggie network the association of former students will further honor all recipients of this award during its annual distinguished alumni gala on oct 2 in addition the 2015 recipients will be recognized during the oct 3 texas a&m football game against mississippi state nominations for the 2016 distinguished alumnus award will be accepted through oct 1 the association of former students established in 1879 is the official alumni organization of texas a&m university the association connects more than 678 000 members of the worldwide aggie network with each other and the university and will provide $109 million in impact to university scholarships awards activities and enrichment for students faculty staff and former students in 2015 for more information about the distinguished alumnus award or the association contact kathryn greenwade or visit wwwaggienetworkcom
719,minhtuan nguyen a 2014 graduate of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was recently honored with the outstanding student award by the texas a&m foundation board of trustees nguyen who minored in petroleum engineering was the third recipient of the award that was created by former foundation trustee melbern glasscock and his wife susanne to honor an exceptional student each year with $2 500 nguyen was extremely involved in campus activities and in 2012 he became the founder and president of the texas a&m chapter of the society of asian scientists and engineers the first professional organization for asian americans on campus he was also active in the american society of mechanical engineers throughout his undergraduate career serving as a peer mentor to underclassmen and assisting in recruiting efforts in the dwight look college of engineering by promoting mechanical engineering to prospective students we had many exceptional applicants for this award but minhtuans determination and enthusiasm stood out to us as we made our final decision said van taylor chairman of the foundations board of trustees he is an excellent representative of the kind of student for whom this award was originally created
720,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr miroslav begovic holder of the caroline s & tommie lohman 59 professorship in engineering education the endowed professorship is effective for a term of three years begovic is the head of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) he received his phd in electrical engineering from virginia polytechnic institute and state university and came to texas a&m after serving as professor and chair of the electrical energy technical interest group at georgia institute of technology begovics research interests lie in wide area monitoring protection and emergency control using smart grid apparatus; sustainable and resilient energy infrastructures; and managing large assets in energy infrastructure he has participated in several collaborative research projects for the national science foundation and the department of energy resulting in more than $10 million of funding and collaborative research over the last five years
721,sixty undergraduate students from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering will graduate from texas a&m university thursday may 14 among which over 40 percent will walk the stage with honors dr m nazmul karim department head and t michael o'connor chair ii and dr victor ugaz the charles d holland '53 professor and director of the undergraduate program presided over the morning awards ceremony that included a presentation of accolades to top-performing students danielle cope (below with karim) received the outstanding senior award recognized for her demonstration of combined leadership academic excellence and service senior plant design team awards were presented in the following rankings:1st place: bryan bentley chadley box kyle croft erik maki and bryan zahner2nd place: danielle cope kymberly juettemeyer carlye longtin and leigh martin3rd place: kyle bowen spencer eggen adaora ofoegbu-johnson and david quiroz michael li and tasnim mohamed received undergraduate research scholars distinctions the recipient of the omega chi epsilon award was sarah clement recognized for her demonstration of combined academic performance and service to the chemical engineering honor society john rogers received the excellence in undergraduate research award that honors exceptional involvement and achievements in undergraduate research activities four students each received the academic excellence award that recognizes students with the highest gpas of the graduating class (spring 2015): kyle bowen jason chern matt milanowski and anna ryan in april graduate student aashish priye was named a texas a&m distinguished graduate student by the association of former students at texas a&m faculty member doug white (below) senior lecturer received the 2015 teaching excellence award in a ceremony earlier in the month
722,the following department of mechanical engineering faculty received patent awards at the patent and innovation 2015 awards luncheon held may 8 at the anneberg presidential conference center: dara childs phd annular seal for non-contact sealing of fluids in turbomachinery patent # 8 844 936 issue date: 9/30/2014 david e claridge phd charles h culp iii phd (department of architecture) systems and methods for multi-stage air dehumidification and cooling patent # 8 641 806 issue date: 2/4/2014 david e claridge phd charles h culp iii phd (department of architecture) jeffrey haberl phd (department of architecture) system and method for efficient multi-stage air dehumidification and liquid recovery patent # 8 685 145 issue date: 4/1/2014 david e claridge phd charles h culp iii phd (department of architecture) jeffrey haberl phd (department of architecture) system and method for efficient air dehumidification and liquid recovery with evaporative cooling patent #8 685 142 issue date: 4/1/2014 david e claridge phd charles h culp iii phd (department of architecture) jeffrey haberl phd (department of architecture) system and method for efficient air dehumidification and liquid recovery patent # 8 685 144 issue date: 4/1/2014 david staack phd plasma treatment and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition onto temperature sensitive biological materials patent # 8 920 361 issue date: 12/30/2014 hung-jue sue phd xi zhang phd (department of electrical engineering) dispersion and retrieval of de-bundled nanotubes patent # 8 894 963 issue date: 11/25/2014 alan palazzolo phd shaftless flywheel patent # 8 633 625 issue date: 1/21/2015 co-inventors alan palazzolo zhiyang wang and randall tucker
723,mr bob nichols longtime executive at freese and nichols and graduate of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university passed away friday may 8 in arlington texas mr nichols graduated from a&m with bachelors and masters degrees in civil engineering he was with freese and nichols for 67 years where he served as president vice chairman and president emeritus mr nichols was very supportive of the civil engineering department and served on the advisory council he was recognized as a distinguished graduate of the department in 2000 further information on mr nichols can be found at https://wwwfreesecom/freese-and-nichols-leaders-and-legacies-bob-nichols/
724,dr robin autenrieth department head and ap and florence wiley professor iii in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university is pleased to announce john barton deputy executive director of the texas department of transportation (txdot) as professor of practice for the department barton will create an interface for the department with the chancellors area 41 institute which aims to integrate the collective assets of the texas a&m university system to provide ideas that address critical challenges to the state and nation he will provide guidance in identifying promising new approaches to the critical challenges and define future avenues of research and integrate industrial collaborations with the civil faculty he will also have the opportunity to educate students through classroom lectures and seminars barton graduated with honors in civil engineering from texas a&m in 1986 and has spent his career with txdot in his role as the deputy executive director he provides executive control and oversight of all txdot operations and the management and operation of the states transportation system in 2014 he was recognized as a distinguished graduate of the civil engineering department and in february of this year he was honored as the inaugural recipient of the governor rick perry leadership in transportation award
725,"nineteen students from the sketch recognition lab directed by cse associate professor dr tracy anne hammond in the department of computer science and engineering received ten awards for their research comprised of a myriad of projects from digitizing sketch-based neuropsychology tests to putting an end to online child bullying the student research week 2015* awards and closing ceremony were held on march 20 in texas a&m university's memorial student center more than 175 people and miss rev (reveille viii) were in attendance for the awards and refreshments srw is an opportunity for students to present their research and for the community to learn about the research going on at texas a&m jaideep ray working on his master's degree in computer science in the sketch recognition lab under hammond won first place in the graduate poster competition (subject area: math statistics computer science) with ""approximate sketch matching and retrieval"" this project focuses on algorithmic recognition of sketches into related domains and then approximately matches a query sketch to its nearest neighbors ray plans to complete his master's thesis on this project next year anurag garg seth polsley and ray took second place in the graduate poster competition (subject area: math statistics computer science) for their project on ""optimizing corner finders"" garg and polsley are studying for master's degrees in computer engineering in the sketch recognition lab the project grew out of the team's final project from hammond's sketch recognition class csce 624 the result of this research is the significant improvement in run-time of the whole corner combiner algorithm as the number of strokes examined increases second place in the graduate poster competition (subject area: medicine biomedical neuroscience) for ""modeling radiologists' visual search patterns during mammographic screening"" went to folami alamudun who is working on his doctoral degree in computer science under hammond this is the third award that alamudun has won this year on his dissertation topic the others awards occurring at the oak ridge graduate poster competition and tamu cse iap competition in alamudun's project modeling analyzes the complexity of radiologists' ocular fixations during mammographic screening in clinical settings using a head-mounted eye-tracking device the gaze data are then analyzed to identify common properties across radiologists which can be used to develop personalized aids for decision support and diagnostic tools and for training purposes david turner studying for his master's degree in computer science in the sketch recognition lab won second place in the graduate oral competition (subject area: psychology sociology anthropology business education political science economics) for ""coursesketch"" the coursesketch mission is to deliver an intuitive as well as interactive learning experience that simplifies instructor and student interactions it allows the submission of handwritten homework online and allows unique course management functionality turner is the graduate mentor for the undergraduate aggiechallenge team of the same name where he and hammond lead 15 students to develop state of the art learning software raniero lara-garduno a sketch recognition lab doctoral student in computer engineering placed second in the graduate oral competition (subject area: math statistics computer science) with his presentation of ""smartstrokes: evaluating sketches from neuropsychological tests"" smartstrokes is a digital patient testing suite that aims to digitize sketch-based neuropsychology tests administered to alzheimer's stroke and parkinson's patients in addition to those suffering from severe concussions lara-graduno took first place at tapia's graduate competition earlier this year the project grew out of one of hammond's prior capstone projects with originally laramie goode andy hurley thomas klingshirn nick melnyk and josh rispoli the project is advised by hammond and dr nancy leslie a clinical neuropsychologist at the texas brain and spine institute abram gutierrez a senior dual majoring in mechanical engineering and computer science taking csce 491 research credit with hammond won the sigma xi interdisciplinary award and took first place in the undergraduate poster competition (subject area: math statistics computer science) for ""grec: a gesture recognition interface for coursesketch"" grec uses microsoft's kinect v2 sensor to scan the user's gestures in real time then compares the gestures to predefined gesture interaction cues which map to standard presentation commands it aims to create a more natural presentation environment that is less constrained by the hardware and presentation setup three projects from hammond's csce 482 senior capstone design also won awards: computer science seniors hayden wood harish vangavolu and joseph newman took first place in the undergraduate oral competition (subject area: math statistics computer science) with their senior capstone design project with hammond their project ""frontier "" proposes a browser extension that simplifies visualization traversal and analysis of the webgraph for a browsing session it can be used to significantly enhance the browsing experience matt bowersox waylon brown and chandler sauers all seniors majoring in computer science captured first place in the undergraduate oral competition (subject area: health nutrition kinesiology physiology) for their senior design capstone project with hammond their project ""shoot responsibly "" creates an environment in which users can develop safe habits when dealing with fire arms the end goal of this project is to ensure that the user is learning safe gun control habits six cse computer science seniors harry zhang joshua privett frank tian thomas mulholland matthew carrasco and eduardo cestafe also in hammond's senior design capstone garnered second place in the undergraduate poster competition (subject area: history literature fine arts communication languages philosophy) with ""kidgab: a social media tutorial"" this project is a follow-up to research developed by sketch recognition lab doctoral student stephanie valentine to counter online child bullying the tutorial develops a message filter that has the administrator manually approve every single post and it uses game design principles to improve the current reward system * srw celebrated its 18th annual research extravaganza with oral and poster presentations by texas a&m graduate and undergraduate students this year's theme was connecting ideas photo left: (l-r with miss rev) seth spolsey abram gutierrez harish vangavolu jaideep ray photo right: srw 2015 poster exhibit"
726,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university received the kate gleason medal for leadership in engineering education from the rochester institute of technology (rit) the award which was presented to banks during a ceremony on may 7 was established in recognition of the influential role that academic leaders of engineering colleges play in creating the engineers of tomorrow in addition to receiving the award banks presented a public lecture to the students faculty and staff of rit on growth with excellence: engineering education transforms texas a&m banks lecture highlighted the dwight look colleges 25 by 25 initiative a transformational program to increase access for qualified students to pursue engineering education at texas a&m to an enrollment of 25 000 engineering students by 2025 the initiative was prompted as a response to the growing demand in texas and the us for more engineers the texas workforce commission is projecting a 19 percent growth in engineering jobs in the next 12 years equating to more than 43 000 jobs this projection mirrors a xcall by the presidents council of advisors on stem science technology engineering and mathematics for the nation to increase the number of stem graduates to one million in the next 10 years the award is inspired by the reality that the future of our society is shaped by the work of engineers and the shaping of those engineers is the business of engineering colleges said harvey palmer dean of rits kate gleason college of engineering those individuals who are providing outstanding leadership at engineering colleges deserve special recognition for the good of our nation and our global society
727,at its may 11 meeting the texas a&m university faculty senate elected dr walter daugherity senior lecturer in the department of computer science and engineering to the faculty senate executive committee for the 2015-2016 academic year previously daugherity served as the speaker of the texas a&m faculty senate dr robert h strawser professor and arthur andersen & co chair in accounting in the mays business school will hold the speaker position beginning this fall dr angie hill price associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution was elected secretary-treasurer and was speaker in 2007-2008 the faculty senate was formed to foster a community of mutual respect and cooperation and to broaden communication in matters of concern to the university it is the body elected by faculty to represent them in all academic matters daugherity received a bachelor's degree from oklahoma christian university and master's and doctoral degrees from harvard university he joined the texas a&m faculty in 1987 in addition to research and publication he has been very active in creating and upgrading courses especially in the honors program he developed the honors sections of introduction to program design and concepts data structures artificial intelligence and ethics and engineering and has been the adviser for six senior honors theses in this past academic year daugherity taught the introduction to program design and concepts course and programming studio where students work on 2 or 3 month-long projects that emphasize a different specialization within computer science and focus on programming techniques to ease code integration reusability and clarity among his numerous honors and awards are the harvard bowdoin prize acm's outstanding regional intercollegiate programming contest director award the cse department's undergraduate faculty award and the outstanding graduate faculty award from the graduate student council
728,alejandro azocar an undergraduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university received the 2015 ammon andes national award from sigma gamma tau (sgt) the national aerospace engineering honor society in addition azocar was awarded the national science foundation graduate research fellowship a memorial to the late university of kansas administrator and longtime sgt executive secretary-treasurer the andes award is presented annually to one outstanding student for exceptional academic achievement and participation in extracurricular activities this prestigious award honors azocar as the top outstanding aerospace engineering student in the united states based upon his academic service and extracurricular accomplishments the honorarium is in the form of a check for $750 and a plaque documenting his award in addition a brass nameplate will be installed on the department's sigma gamma tau award perpetual plaque the sigma gamma tau undergraduate awards serve to select outstanding aerospace engineering students at both the regional and national levels to recognize the accomplishments of these young students as they start their professional careers texas a&m is a member of the southwest region which also includes the university of oklahoma oklahoma state university the university of texas at arlington and the university of texas at austin the texas a&m university chapter leads the country with the most national winners six in total the national winners are designated as the top aerospace engineering senior in the united states for that year the most recent texas a&m national winners were joseph e bishop (1989) john michael fife (1992) justin wilkerson (2009) and kristin nichols (2013) the nsf graduate research fellowship program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in nsf-supported science technology engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited united states institutions he conducted research as a freshmen with dr john hurtado in the land air and space robotics lab as a junior he worked with dr john valasek in the vehicle systems and control lab and this year he conducted research with dr aaron ames in mechanical engineering he also spent five terms as a co-op at nasa johnson space center azocar graduates in may and will continue his studies pursuing a phd in biomedical engineering at northwestern university he will be working at the rehabilitation institute of chicago with a research focus on either bionics or brain-machine interfaces he hopes to develop prosthetic arms legs and exoskeletons that can be robustly controlled using neural signals
729,duncan maitland the stewart & stevenson professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2015 innovation award presented by texas a&m system technology commercialization (ttc) the award recognizes individuals whose research and accomplishments exemplify the spirit of innovation within the texas a&m university system maitland received the award during the annual patent and innovations awards luncheon held this month at the annenberg presidential conference center dr maitland was recognized with an innovation award because he not only is a great scientist but he has taken the leap into entrepreneurship by founding shape memory therapeutics to commercialize his innovations noted brett l cornwell associate vice chancellor for commercialization for the ttc he has also applied his passion for commercialization to his work in tees assisting researchers with their commercial ideas maitlands research focuses on novel treatments of cardiovascular disease with a focus on stroke his research projects include endovascular interventional devices microactuators optical therapeutic devices and basic device-body interactions/physics including computational and experimental techniques in addition to his research and teaching duties maitland is the texas a&m engineering experiment stations assistant agency director for commercialization and entrepreneurship maitland earned a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from cleveland state university a masters in physics from cleveland state and his phd in biomedical engineering from northwestern university it is the mission of ttc to encourage broad practical application of system research for public benefit; to encourage and assist those associated with the system in the protection licensing and commercialization of their discoveries; to ensure the equitable distribution of royalties and other monetary benefits resulting from the commercial application of intellectual property; and to see that commercialization activities benefit the research education and outreach missions of the system into the future
730,"dr m nazmul karim head of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the t michael o'connor chair ii is participating in a recently funded initiative by the national institute of standards and technology (nist) the project is titled ""biomanufacturing science and technology consortium to advance us manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals"" along with the university of massachusetts lowell the primary institution and several other universities karim and his group will research quality control aspects the federally funded project will cover a two-year period drawing upon close to half a million dollars to complete"
731,"dr mahmoud el-halwagi professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the mcferrin professorship has pursued the study of issues surrounding sustainability for nearly three decades the interplay of water and energy especially as it relates to industrial processes is the basis of his present research a three-year $1 million dollar project that was funded in 2014 by the qatar national research fund el-halwagi is a co-principal investigator on the project while dr patrick linke professor of chemical engineering at texas a&m university at qatar is the principal investigator water in its many forms has a direct relationship with the fulfillment of energy demands said el-halwagi the duo of water and energy is met with financial trade-offs and environmental implications while these topics are usually studied independently the duo is rarely separable in order to produce energy typically you need water "" said el-halwagi ""in order to transform energy from one form to another you also need water however in order to use water you need to treat it and that usually requires energy so these two are intertwined"" as an example of the pressing opportunity for his methodologies el-halwagi considers the chemical conversion of natural shale gas to fuel a process that produces a substantial amount of water as a result of the reaction in qatar they have the worlds largest gas-to-liquid plants "" he said ""in the us we will also be building gas-to-liquid plants so if a country like qatar or a state like texas is blessed with energy resources such as shale gas we are also implicitly blessed by water within that gas you just have to properly get it out"" the end goal is broad deep and interconnected with reality and necessity the nexus is influenced by the needs of a given industrial objective and balanced by the environmental considerations el-halwagi said that his conceptual approach is for the ultimate benefit of industrial agricultural and residential sectors for which there is often a shared water source in terms of balancing water usage discharge and environmental impact one needs to step back and look at the bigger picture for a whole region he said if we as a society are able to do this he said this will translate into reduced cost and improvement of environmental performance and more sustainable manufacturing not only is it good for the environment but its also good for the business advancing this science and technology in mainstream application is only part of the objective academically there is much potential in the classroom he said i always endeavor to bring these advanced techniques to my undergraduate students so they are always at the cutting edge of technology"
732,texas a&m university computer science and engineering assistant professor dr jeff huang has been selected by the scientific committee of the heidelberg laureate forum foundation (hlff) to participate in the 3rd heidelberg laureate forum only the 200 most qualified young researchers are granted the opportunity to experience the unique atmosphere of the heidelberg laureate forum according to the foundation's website in times when communication is increasingly relegated to technical platforms and digital media it is particularly important to create an environment for personal communication among people who are dedicated to science among role models and young researchers for physics chemistry and life sciences the lindau meetings have provided such an opportunity for over 60 years now doing the same thing for the oldest scientific discipline mathematics and one of the youngest computer science is arguably overdue and the heidelberg laureate forum will try to close that gap the prestigious forum will be held from aug 23-28 in heidelberg germany where accepted young researchers will have the opportunity to personally meet the winners of the most prestigious prizes in their fields the event combines scientific social and outreach activities for an unforgettable experience twenty-four laureates attended last years forum including martin hairer and manjul bhargava both 2014 fields medalists and 2013 acm am turing award winner leslie lamport this year several award winners will also be in attendance including 2015 abel prize recipient louis nirenberg and leslie g valiant who won both the nevanlinna prize in 1986 and the acm am turing award in 2010 the forum format consists of formal lectures in the morning and the remainder of the day is set aside for the young researchers to meet informally with the laureate scientists as well as with their peers from around the world huang joined the department and parasol laboratory in fall 2014 he received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the national university of defense technology china and his phd in computer science from hong kong university of science and technology his research interests include software engineering programming languages concurrency and runtime verification he has received the acm sigplan pldi distinguished paper award the acm sigsoft outstanding doctoral dissertation award acm sigplan research highlights and most recently the google faculty research award
733,"texas a&m university at qatar graduated more than 100 engineers at its spring commencement exercise thursday (7 may) evening at the ceremonial court at education city the ceremony celebrated the branch campus new spring graduates with approximately 105 degrees across four engineering disciplines and its chemical engineering graduate program these graduates mark an achievement for texas a&m at qatar: more than 600 degrees awarded since its inception during the celebration texas a&m at qatar acknowledged its comprehensive growth from its inaugural class of 29 students in 2003 to one that boasts more than 500 current students as well as a graduate program and more than $196 million in research dr mark h weichold texas a&m at qatar dean and ceo acknowledged the graduates who are well prepared to become qatars future leaders saying the texas a&m degrees being conferred tonight represent many years of hard work and dedication on the part of some very talented young people committed to achieving their goals i share their happiness and excitement and commend them on receiving the degrees which they so richly deserve i know this rising generation of engineering leaders will continue to excel in their lives future endeavors just as they have done so in getting here my challenge to each of them is to find their passion and then use that passion to make a difference in qatar the region and the world"" her excellency dana shell smith the us ambassador to qatar addressed the branch campus graduating class congratulating them for their accomplishments and sharing a few of the lessons she has picked up along the way since her own graduation in her remarks he smith said youve all been working hard over the past four years striving to excel reaching for those perfect scores and now youre leaving here with one of the most important privileges in todays world one only 1 in 15 adults on earth can claim a college degree and yours isnt just any old degree its a degree in engineering from one of the worlds premier educational institutions the wealth of knowledge you have gained through your years here at texas a&m is something of priceless value that no one can ever take away from you today im sure you are all thinking about what a nice break it will be to sleep in tomorrow with no homework no exams hanging over your head and the world spread out before you its true what they say: today is the first day of the rest of your life you deserve a breather and by all means you should sleep in then its time to get up and start to think about how to use this incredible gift you have earned the may 2015 graduating class is diverse with 13 graduate and 22 undergraduate chemical engineers 29 electrical engineers 29 mechanical engineers and 14 petroleum engineers the graduating class is almost 40 percent female and represents more than 20 countries vip speakers at the commencement event also included doha aggie club member mr john campbell 95 and student speaker omar suleman khan 15 who graduated with a degree in chemical engineering about texas a&m university at qatartexas a&m university recognized as having one of the premier engineering programs in the world has offered undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering electrical and computer engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering at qatar foundations education city campus since 2003 and graduate degrees in chemical engineering since fall 2011 more than 600 engineers have graduated from texas a&m at qatar since 2007 in addition to engineering courses texas a&m at qatar provides classes in science mathematics liberal arts and the humanities all four of the engineering programs offered at texas a&m at qatar are accredited by the engineering accreditation commission of abet the curricula offered at texas a&m at qatar are materially the same as those offered at the main campus in college station texas and the courses in doha are taught in english in a co-educational setting the reputation for excellence is the same as is the commitment to equip engineers to lead the next generation of engineering advancement faculty from around the world are attracted to texas a&m at qatar to provide this educational experience and to participate in research activities now valued at more than $196 million and that address issues important to the state of qatar visit wwwqatartamuedu"
734,joshua lockhart a junior in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the 2015 region 5 national society of black engineers (nsbe) academic improvement scholarship lockhart who is the secretary for the texas a&m chapter of nsbe received the award during the nsbe 41st annual national convention in anaheim california lockhart along with other members of the texas a&m chapter represented the university at the convention the mission of the nsbe is to increase the number of culturally responsible black engineers who excel academically succeed professionally and positively impact the community for more information on the texas a&m chapter of the nsbe visit the groups website
735,a team of three undergraduates including two from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university won the deep space deep ocean student award for excellence for its research poster at the deep space deep ocean forum hosted by aramco the texas a&m team organized by the student chapter of the society for underwater technology (sut) was composed of aerospace engineering student farid saemi ocean engineering student carson pepper and geography student matthew ballard the teams poster was titled improving remote operations: intuitive controls and rover automation and the team was awarded certificates and $2 500 attending the forum was a great experience said saemi who was the team leader through the lectures guided by industry experts we learned about the technical similarities both industries face in designing reliable systems for extreme environments the team was mentored by sut student members weston gallo (mechanical engineering) natalie zielinski (oceanography) and sut faculty advisor dr zenon medina-cetina from the department of civil engineering at texas a&m the deep space deep ocean forum provided a platform for participants to go on a deep dive to analyze similar operational challenges between the two industries then set the stage to solve these challenges through technology collaboration
736,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recognized faculty and staff award winners during the 2015 faculty and staff awards banquet banks presented faculty awards staff excellence awards a new employee award a key contributor award and the engineering team award i believe that excellence should be recognized and rewarded said banks this year 50 faculty and 17 staff members were honored for their contributions their passion and commitment to elevating our programs staff awards key contributor award nicole pottberg (engineering human resources) new employee award amber muenzenberger (engineering academic and student affairs) staff excellence award larissa pschenitchnaia (chemical engineering); dedra nevill (office of the vice chancellor and dean); sharon loe (electrical and computer engineering); faye greenwade (engineering technology and industrial distribution); adam farmer (engineering technology and industrial distribution); blake dworacyk (computer science and engineering); chantale deuel (engineering human resources) engineering team award texas center for applied technology (michael atkinson; paul bilnoski; graham booker; joshua cook; eric gonzalez; larkin ohern; austin riddle; thomas schneider) faculty awards college of engineering teaching awards tenneco meritorious teaching award dr sandun fernando (biological and agricultural engineering); dr erick moreno-centeno (industrial and systems engineering) lockheed martin teaching excellence award dr kelly brumbelow (civil engineering); dr richard malak (mechanical engineering) george armistead jr 23 faculty excellence dr jodie lutkenhaus (chemical engineering) instructional faculty teaching award dr fred dupriest (petroleum engineering); dr ray mentzer (chemical engineering); dr kristi shryock (aerospace engineering); dr jeffrey otey (civil engineering) college of engineering service awards charles crawford distinguished service award dr victor ugaz (chemical engineering); dr richard furuta (computer science and engineering); dr scott miller (electrical and computer engineering) college of engineering contribution awards ed brockett professorship dr arum han (electrical and computer engineering) william keeler memorial award dr daniele mortari (aerospace engineering); dr zhengdong cheng (chemical engineering); dr anastasia muliana (mechanical engineering) tees young faculty fellows dr diego donzis (aerospace engineering); dr zoya heidari (petroleum engineering); dr jodie lutkenhaus (chemical engineering); dr david staack (mechanical engineering); dr richard malak (mechanical engineering) tees fellows dr shuguang cui (electrical and computer engineering); dr jaime grunlan (mechanical engineering); dr yue kuo (chemical engineering); dr michael mcshane (biomedical engineering); dr lin shao (nuclear engineering) tees senior fellows dr sharath girimaji (aerospace engineering); dr duncan maitland (biomedical engineering); dr binayak mohanty (biological and agricultural engineering); dr lawrence rauchwerger (computer science and engineering) tees center fellows dr jeff haberl (energy systems laboratory); dr frank shipman (computer science and engineering/center for the study of digital libraries) association of former students college level distinguished teaching award dr sharath girimaji (aerospace engineering); dr javier jo (biomedical engineering); dr john keyser (computer science and engineering); dr arun srinivasa (mechanical engineering) texas a&m engineering faculty fellows william keeler faculty fellow dr elena castell-perez (biological and agricultural engineering); dr samuel palermo (electrical and computer engineering); dr jean ragusa (nuclear engineering); dr elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez (biomedical engineering); dr yucel akkutlu (petroleum engineering) herbert h richardson faculty fellow dr daniele mortari (aerospace engineering); dr vladislav yakovlev (biomedical engineering); dr daniel mcadams (mechanical engineering); dr scott schaefer (computer science and engineering) william brothers construction co faculty fellow dr moo-hyun kim (civil engineering); dr dominique lord (civil engineering) william o and montine p head faculty fellow dr amine benzerga (aerospace engineering); dr hong liang (mechanical engineering); dr raymundo arróyave (materials science and engineering); dr sheng-jen hsieh (engineering technology and industrial engineering); dr jean-francois chamberland (electrical and computer engineering) dean of engineering excellence award assistant professors dr le xie (electrical and computer engineering); dr david staack (mechanical engineering) associate professors dr anastasia muliana (mechanical engineering); dr miladin radovic (materials science and engineering) full professors dr jaime grunlan (mechanical engineering); dr krishna narayanan (electrical and computer engineering) montague center for teaching excellence scholar dr jodie lutkenhaus (chemical engineering) regents fellow dr jean-louis briaud (civil engineering) regents professor dr nk anand (mechanical engineering)
737,"the gulf nuclear energy infrastructure institute (gneii) celebrated the graduation of its 2015 fellows with a symposium and graduation ceremony at khalifa university in abu dhabi united arab emirates (uae) the annual symposium offers gneii fellows an opportunity to share the results of their study and to network with other academics professionals and government officials in their area fellows presented their capstone projects on day one with two projects selected to be presented to a wider audience at the ceremony on day two of the symposium the projects selected were ""evaluation of threats by drones to nuclear power plants"" and ""evaluation of uae security culture - insider threat"" on day two a keynote address titled ""regional perspectives on nuclear security"" was given by al ­sharif nasser bin nasser the managing director of the middle east scientific institute for security based in amman jordan nasser bin nasser laid out a strong argument for the regional benefit of programs like gneii and the need for qualified professionals in nuclear energy in the region day two also included presentations of the two selected capstone projects as well as a poster session this year's symposium was attended by representatives from key entities from the uae the us government and sandia national laboratories texas a&m university and texas engineering experiment station (tees) were represented by dr yassin hassan department head and professor of nuclear engineering this year the texas a&m department of nuclear engineering and the tees nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) supplied three instructors for the gneii courses: dr cable kurwitz senior lecturer; dr karen vierow associate professor; and dr david boyle nsspi deputy director gneii is a regional institute housed at khalifa university whose objective is to immerse future nuclear program decision makers in safety safeguards security and nonproliferation concepts and to familiarize them with how these concepts apply in a regional and international context under the guidance and support of the us department of energy/national nuclear security administration and the us department of state the key implementing partners in the us include sandia national laboratories and nsspi whose responsibilities included developing the curriculum providing instructors and preparing khalifa university staff and gneii program alumni to become permanent gneii faculty this is the fifth year of the program"
738,"dr yue kuo dow professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was the recipient of the gordon e moore medal from the electrochemical society (ecs) kuo was also appointed the vice president of ecs regarding his continued involvement in the organization kuo plans to keep and further promote the good tradition of the century-old premium professional society in scientific and technological leadership on solid state and electrochemistry in addition he plans to encourage engineers and scientists to publish more high quality papers in ecs journals and transactions to present state-of-the-art papers in ecs meetings to enhance members professional development to educate students with new knowledge and to help the society obtain a clean and healthy environment he receiveed the award during the ecs society awards in chicago in may ""the gordon e moore medal is one of the highest honors that a solid state researcher can receive "" kuo said ""i am humbled [to receive it]"" the award recognizes achievements not only in the solid state field but also has been awarded for research in physics chemistry materials electrical engineering industrial engineering and many other scientific areas the mission of the electrochemical society is to advance theory and practice at the forefront of electrochemical and solid state science and technology and allied subjects to encourage research discussion critical assessment and dissemination of knowledge in these fields the society holds meetings publishes scientific papers fosters training and education of scientists and engineers and cooperates with other organizations to promote science and technology in the public interestsee video of kuo accepting the gordon e moore medal"
739,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr timothy jacobs as the steve brauer jr 02 faculty fellow in mechanical engineering the endowed faculty fellowship was effective may 1 jacobs is an associate professor and the undergraduate program director in mechanical engineering at texas a&m university jacobs received his bachelors masters and phd all in mechanical engineering and all from the university of michigan jacobs research interests include internal combustion engines in-cylinder combustion and emission formation processes fundamental experimental diagnostics and investigations advanced and novel combustion processes (low temperature combustion homogenous charge compression ignition premixed compression ignition) alternative fuels (natural gas bio-based fuels hydrogen) aftertreatment systems and their coupling to ic engines (lnt scr doc dpf)
740,undergraduate students in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering were members of two multidisciplinary teams that competed in the 2015 engineering project showcase at reed arena may 1 one of the teams won first place in two separate categories the team earned the first place prize of $1 000 in the category of multidiscipline/vertically integrated/research the team also placed first in the high school students choice award category for best overall project which was voted on by high school student attendees the project was titled on-demand manufacturing of rapidly deployable super-absorbents of oil spill cleanup and discussed ways oil could be recovered from waterway spillage the group presented its solution to embed a 3d-printed oil-absorbing polymer sponge in an autonomous robotic skimmer to enable inexpensive routine cleanup of small-scale spills
741,"team member courtney ann prestwood a freshman in the department of chemical engineering said the process of coming together in the development of the project concept began as only an idea coming into college i did not see the entire picture of engineering through this project i was able to learn how to carry out a project and take an idea to new heights "" she said ""i learned how fun it can be to work on a team explore new ideas and see all of your work become a success we discovered something revolutionary but we never forgot to have fun along the way"" the success of this years engineering showcase has motivated prestwood to continue to enter this competition in the years to come as an undergraduate student at texas a&m university i will 100 percent be participating again in the engineering showcases "" prestwood said ""our team worked so hard on our project and i had a blast conveying my passion and my drive to the judges and the high school students at the showcase the high school students appreciated our team slowly explaining what it was like to take a project and build upon it it is unusual to be successful with both high school students and judges from industry our project can revolutionize the way small scale oil spills are [handled] and i want to tell as many people as possible"" other team members include raquel belnap neshme colmenero danielle cope ryan fernando andres mena adriano pangelinan nathan retherford and jiacheng sheng four of the team members were from other departments in the dwight look college of engineering the graduate student mentor was duanduan han in chemical engineering the event showcased the work of capstone design projects aggie-challenge and student research projects overall 165 teams represented the work of 729 students who registered to participate in the event additionally over 130 industry representatives attended the event"
742,texas a&m university computer science and engineering former student will hurd has been elected to the united states congress hurd originally from san antonio received his bachelors degree from texas a&m in 2000 during his time here he served as student body president and president of the student union he served for almost 10 years as an undercover officer at the central intelligence agency there he worked with some of our nations most important national security issues leading intelligence operations on counterterrorism cybersecurity and other critical threats the majority of his career with the cia was spent overseas in south asia and the middle east where he was tasked to recruit foreign assets collection and dissemination of intelligence in support of the president and senior government policymakers national security decision making hurd is the republican representative for congressional district 23 and currently serves as chairman of the information technology subcommittee for the committee on oversight and government reform the committees primary responsibility is to oversee the departments of state defense and homeland security and the united states agency for international development (usaid) hurd gave his very first muster speech as student body president the year the aggie bonfire collapsed this year he took the stage once more as the main speaker dr nancy amato member of the computing research association (cra) board of directors and unocal professor met with hurds office as part of the cra congressional visit this past february to talk about the importance of federal funding for computing research
743,the 2015 texas a&m computer science and engineering spring banquet and awards ceremony was a very memorable one for the department it was held on campus at the bethancourt ballroom in the memorial student center and hosted cse faculty staff current students and distinguished former students the night started with the annual undergraduate poster competition before the banquet once the banquet began csegsa president jory denny welcomed everyone to the event then department head dr dilma da silva presented the awards certificates and recognitions cse former student and astronaut steve swanson made a special appearance to present the department with a computer science and engineering flag that had accompanied him to space da silva presented the distinguished former student awards which were given to ravi iyer 99 and monty mueller 84 iyer who received his phd here is now a senior principal engineer cto and director in intels new business initiatives (nbi) group he has published more than 150 papers and actively participates in conferences and journals he is also an ieee fellow and has made significant contributions in new soc/cmp architectures cache/memory hierarchies qos accelerators wearables/iot and performance/power analysis iyer received the feiyu yu cs –g7 scholarship for his recognition mueller who received his bachelors degree here in 1984 is now the department of computer science and engineerings advisory council vice chair previously he worked as a consultant and partner with accenture for over 20 years he was vice president and regional director of phoenix house foundation inc and ran his own business until 2012 retiring shortly thereafter mueller received the matthew bulluck cs –g7 scholarship for his recognition denny presented the student faculty and staff excellence awardsfollowing the distinguished former student awards da silva announced the iap research poster winners department selected peer teaching excellence award kevin vece student selected peer teaching excellence award colton williams nathan de jong department selected teaching assistant excellence award tanzir ahmed grant wilde student selected teaching assistant excellence award michael nowak undergraduate faculty teaching excellence award dr akash tyagi graduate faculty teaching excellence award dr nancy amato undergraduate research excellence award trevor nelligan graduate research excellence award jialong zhang undergraduate leadership excellence award rafael moreno graduate leadership excellence award jory denny mentoring excellence award stephanie valentine student selected staff excellence award valerie sorenson kimberly mallett department selected staff excellence award karrie bourquin elena rodriguez ace program co-directors dr nancy amato and dr jennifer welch recognized the ace scholar graduates and dr teresa leyk peer teacher advisor and dr john keyser associate head for academics recognized the upsilon pi epsilon (upe) spring 2015 inductees i thought this years event was fun and everyone seemed to have a great time denny said all the award winners this year were very deserving of their respective awards i was honored to be able to emcee for the event; it gave me a chance to give back to the department for all it has done for me over the years overall the event was a huge success! the annual cse spring banquet and awards ceremony is hosted by the student organizations and is funded by the iap program and the department
744,"three students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university presented and won awards at the aiaa region iv student conference there were 20 presentations in various categories david coleman won first place in the graduate category for his paper and presentation on the development of a robotic hummingbird coleman works under the guidance of assistant professor dr moble benedict on developing a biologically inspired hummingbird capable of controlled hovering flight coleman will receive a $500 cash prize benedict who joined the aerospace faculty last august works on next-generation hover-capable uavs and heads the recently founded advanced vertical flight laboratory in the aerospace department a video showing coleman's robotic hummingbird in flight can be found here alejandro azocar won first place in the undergraduate category azocar will receive a $500 cash prize azocar's presentation was on preliminary evaluation of an electromyographically controlled quadrotor (undergraduate technical category) the openbci system was used to record electromyographic (emg) signals electrical activity produced by muscles in order to control the thrust of a high fidelity quadrotor simulation although the quadrotor simulation was controlled using individual eye winks the ultimate goal of this project is to use electroencephalography (eeg) to control and fly a real quadrotor using only one's thoughts mauricio coen won first place in the community outreach category and second place in the undergraduate category he will receive a $200 cash prize for the outreach category and a $300 prize for the undergraduate category coens presentations were on ""recovery of an uncontrolled asymmetric spacecraft with limited control "" (undergraduate technical) and ""bringing zero robotics to texas "" (community outreach) coen's presentation in the undergraduate technical category was inspired by the recent movie interstellar and a novel failure scenario is examined using accurate dynamics and control systems this gives insight into future space vehicle contingency operations and ways to design them with failure mitigation in mind coen's community outreach presentation focused on a zero robotics middle school competition that was brought for the first time to texas in the summer of 2014 with the help of astro center the aerospace department and engineering academic and student affairs the presentation highlights this effort the mentoring experience provided by undergraduate students at texas a&m and benefits of the competition to middle schools around texas the three students will travel to the 2016 aiaa science and technology forum and exposition (scitech) in san diego courtesy of aiaa due to their achievements in the student conference they will present their papers at the international student conference"
745,"with two years of intense planning and dedication the 2015 ans student conference was successfully executed april 9-11 the conference theme was powering tomorrow together and aimed to highlight the growing globalization of the nuclear and health physics industries the conference provided attendees the opportunity to become familiar with the international nuclear community through internationally recognized keynote speakers workshops technical sessions special paper tracks and interaction with international students and attendees the final count for registered attendees was 530; 25 guests were international students overall 43 schools were represented in attendance in order to integrate the theme into the events and sessions a special session for summaries of international relevance was added this saw a diverse set of projects and presentations over international collaboration and was definitely a unique technical session due to the subject matter two of the panels specifically focused on the theme each from a different angle international business experiences looked outward to highlight the ways students can be part of the global community while the diversity panel was introspective and sought to educate and start a dialogue on the complex make-up of the nuclear engineers of today and tomorrow there was also international representation on the regulatory affairs panel which added a unique perspective on governance of the nuclear industry there were opportunities for students to network with professionals at the dinners and peers at the socials this year incorporated company tables at dinner allowing students to seek out professionals they had heard speak on panels or met at the career fair earlier in the day there was also a large attendance at the socials each night which kept the conference attendees together as they explored college station in the evenings ""for the student conference we sought to provide an environment for networking the memorial student center on the texas a&m university campus is a great space for a conference and we were fortunate to host all conference activities in the same building with the exception of a few of the workshops hosting the conference in a single location allowed attendees to stay close and connect with other attendees between conference events "" said timothy crook co-chair of the planning committee particularly outstanding workshops included the young members group involvement in ans national & hosting a student conference and the global fuel cycle workshops the former was a new workshop for student sections interested in hosting a student conference attendees found the panelists full of great information and this panel will be continued for future student conferences the global fuel cycle workshop was one of the largest workshops this year this unique learning opportunity allowed students to practice diplomacy and trade participants were able to experience the development of nuclear technology in nations without as well as the maintenance of infrastructure for existing nuclear states one nation actually staged a covert operation to steal nuclear materials for its own nuclear plant workshop facilitators enjoyed seeing the participants think as both technical experts and political strategists in order to accomplish their country's goals"
746,to discuss challenges in evaluating smart grid solutions including metrics testing certification modeling and simulation and testbeds the third smart grid workshop organized by the smart grid center (sgc) was held on april 21 the workshop included invited talks by kenneth mercado (senior vice president centerpoint energy electric operations) on evaluation of business cases for smart grid solutions and by robin podmore (president and ceo incsys) on the future synergy of large-scale testbeds and training simulators panel sessions discussed the state of the art technology of existing modeling simulating testing and calibration facilities and the future developments of testbeds focus groups facilitated discussions on targeted themes:• big data weather impacts asset and outage management;• ems dms cybersecurity and substation automation;• demand-side management ancillary services and electricity markets;• building energy management smart meters and sensors;• synchrophasor systems pmus and pdcs and gps;• microgrids evs distributed generation and energy storage the more than 110 participants included 22 faculty members 53 students and 27 industry experts from abb alstom austin energy centerpoint energy ercot iai incsys ni nrg energy oncor opal-rt osisoft siemens and the non-profit electric reliability council of texas (ercot) and southwest research institute (swri) took part in the event government agencies such as the national institute of standard and technology (nist) national renewable energy laboratory (nrel) lawrence berkeley national laboratory (lbnl) and pacific northwest national laboratory (pnnl) were also represented visitors came from qatar china brazil and chile cutting edge research projects were featured in a poster session prior to and following the workshop further opportunities for enhancing partnerships with companies were explored in thematic meetings with incsys nrg energy opal-rt osisoft and pg&e the workshop was sponsored by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the tees smart grid center office of the vice president for research the department of electrical & computer engineering the texas a&m energy institute and the following companies: centerpoint energy national instruments nrg energy opal-rt and osisoft
747,"five faculty members from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university were recognized by the dwight look college of engineering at an awards banquet may 6 for honors they have recently received dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor and holder of the william and ruth neely faculty fellowship received the george armistead jr 23 faculty excellence teaching award for the second time ""my approach to teaching is to make the material as interesting as possible i also believe that all the students deserve a fair chance in the course so i try to help any who are weak in a particular area to bring them up to speed "" said lutkenhaus dr yue kuo professor and holder of the dow professorship received the tees faculty fellows award it is very special to to be honored for my research and i wish to continue expanding my field of study so the work can bear on greater initiatives in the future said kuo dr victor ugaz professor and holder of the charles d holland 53 professorship received the charles crawford distinguished service award ""it is an incredible inspiration to work at a place like texas a&m where the students and faculty are so committed to service both in their profession and in the community "" said ugaz dr ray mentzer senior lecturer was honored with the instructional faculty teaching award ""i'm most honored to receive this recognition for teaching during my seven years at a&m i have strived to be an effective educator attending regular meetings of the center for teaching excellence and i'm most pleased to be recognized by my fellow teachers and students"" dr zhengdong cheng associate professor received the william keeler memorial award ""the opportunity to contribute toward the ever-advancing state of chemical engineering at texas a&m is a wonder and a passion for myself and others in this discipline to see my research group collaborate in this way makes the award all the more meaningful "" said cheng"
748,texas a&m at qatars society of petroleum engineers (spe) student chapter has won the 2015 outstanding student chapter award of the year award for the middle east region this award is the highest honor for a chapter there are hundreds of chapters in the region and it is a remarkable achievement for texas a&m qatars spe student chapter to win the award recognizes the chapters work in industry engagement operations and planning community involvement professional development and innovation spe president helge hove haldorsen announced the award this week the student chapter will travel to the united states in september to receive this prestigious award during the student awards luncheon at spes annual technical conference and exhibition (atce) in houston
749,dr lin shao an associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded $12 million in funding by the us department of energy as a part of an initiative to promote projects with potential in the fields of nuclear energy research and infrastructure enhancement the three projects which shao will either lead himself or serve as a collaborator are through an integrated program combing the nuclear energy university program (neup) the nuclear energy enabling technologies (neet) and integrated research project (irp) shaos first $800 000 grant will be applied to a texas a&m-led neet project titled advanced surface plasma nitriding for development of corrosion resistant and accident tolerant fuel cladding his team will design an advanced plasma nitriding device to convert the surface of fuel cladding into a thin nitride film for better performance under extreme conditions different from traditional plasma nitriding techniques the new technique is able to uniformly nitride fuel cladding tube surfaces with significantly reduced edge effects reducing spacing issues the team will test the treated materials under harsh irradiation conditions and off-normal steam conditions to evaluate the structural integrity of the materials shaos second grant totaling $200 000 will contribute to a collaborative irp project led by dr mujid kazmi at the massachusetts institute of technology the team will develop accident tolerant fuel though a combination of modeling material synthesis and testing the texas a&m research team will focus on ion accelerator irradiation of candidate nuclear fuel/cladding materials in addition to contributing to atomic scale modeling in addition shao will receive another grant totaling $225 000 through a collaborative neet project led by dr michael nastasi at university of nebraska-lincoln the project is focused on developing nontraditional composite materials made by combining metals and amorphous ceramics projects involving amorphous ceramics which do not have a clearly defined shape or form are ideal for the future development reactor applications and design since they are able to remain formless under the stresses of irradiation and heating radiation materials science has become more and more important in nuclear energy research due to the desperate need to develop radiation tolerant materials for better and safer reactors shao said studies these days require atomic scale modeling atomic scale characterization and atomic scale design and we are lucky to have second-to-none facility and program on campus to meet these challenges shao said
750,trevor terrill a doctoral student in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded a 2015 outstanding iac student award by the national industrial assessment centers the program which receives its funding through the united states department of energy recognized terrill for his research study titled a novel method for non-intrusive measurement of compressed air leakage flow rates the result of the research was the creation of a device that can be used for faster more accurate leak rate detection in a manufacturers air compression system the iac award is presented to an individual student for outstanding accomplishments in promoting the practices principles and procedures of energy engineering dr bryan rasmussen assistant director at the energy systems laboratory (esl) and an assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department supervised the research conducted by terrill and undergraduate students texas a&ms industrial assessment center has served almost 700 clients since its inception rasmussen said in almost 600 of those we have found leaks in compressed air systems those leaks could cost the manufacture anywhere from $5 000 to $20 000 a year having a device that can detect leaks better saves companies money faster terrill and rasmussen were also jointly awarded the excellence in applied energy engineering research award for the study texas a&ms industrial assessment center gives students real world experience in working to resolve industrial manufactures energy consumption issues students in the program gain skills and knowledge that teaches them how to effectively communicate with both plant managers as well as plant workers youre working with the equipment and you get exposure to a lot of different engineering systems used in todays manufacturing plants terrill said being a part of texas a&ms iac has been a great learning experience and being recognized for my research has been a great honor and achievement for myself as well as the mechanical engineering department as whole
751,james eggebrecht assistant director of texas a&m universitys industrial assessment center (iac) and a lecturer in the department of mechanical engineering was recently awarded the outstanding alumni award by the us department of energy industrial assessment centers the industrial assessment centers program which receives its funding through the united states department of energy began nationally in 1976 since 1986 texas a&ms iac has recommended 5 209 projects of which 3 231 were implemented saving manufacturers an estimated $76 million a year eggebrecht has been a part of texas a&ms iac since he started working with the program as a graduate student in 1992 he has personally been a part of an estimated $50 million a year in estimated savings for manufacturers eggebrecht enjoys fostering the hands-on interactions between students and manufacturers which teaches the students to see the assessment's direct impact on the nations energy consumption as a lecturer in the mechanical engineering department eggebrecht teaches mechanical engineering students real world applications for looking at energy usage as part of the design process for what is done in the manufacturing of products that is why the department of energy has continued to foster the program he said it allows the students who graduate from a&m that are a part of the industrial assessment centers program to take what they have learned and apply it to the future of energy consumption five alumni were recognized in 2014 and this year eggebrecht was one of two national recipients of the iac award this award shows to the local community as well as the national audience how texas a&ms engineering department has continued to excel as a world class program eggebrecht said it gives us yet another feather in our hat which showcases the college's many capabilities eggebrecht said eggebrecht s career at a&m has spanned 22 years and he says he still enjoys working in the program and plans to continue teaching students well into the future with each new semester a grand adventure begins again eggebrecht said
752,dr mark avnet and dr alaa elwany assistant professors in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university jointly won best engineering management track paper at the annual institute of industrial engineers (iie) conference in nashville tennessee their paper entitled additive manufacturing of complex products by dsm-based analysis of architecture discussed a novel approach for overcoming some limitations of current additive manufacturing or 3d printing technologies currently additive manufacturing is a relatively slow process limited to manufacturing small parts avnets and elwanys paper introduced a proof-of-concept method that optimizes and enhances the printability of larger more complex objects this paper was about articulating an idea that we think is important and innovative avnet said and i am really excited about applying a systems approach to new additive manufacturing technologies winning this award was instrumental for mine and dr avnets continued collaboration elwany said now we are taking it to the experimental level because of that paper
753,"vishal patel a graduate student researcher in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university and other experts from the us department of energys national laboratories gathered via webinar to answer questions about the forms of energy used in the ""star wars"" universe patel is a researcher at idaho national laboratorys center for space nuclear research where he works on finding new energy solutions in nuclear power that can fuel future spacecraft the topics of the webinar ranged from questions about ""star wars"" weaponry to fuel sources and energy efficiency using case studies from the ""star wars"" films patel and the other experts were able to determine the kind of energy needs it would take to power cities in the ""star wars"" universe and how much energy it would take for the death star to destroy a planet patel was the only student-level researcher among the expert panel and answered questions primarily on fuel source applications for popular franchise items such as the light-saber jango fetts jetpack and the death star while much of the discussion was able to apply the technology to our current scientific understanding the experts agreed that due to unknown conditions of available materials in the ""star wars"" universe it would be difficult to account for all the variables youre talking about a people where energy is not an issue said chris ebbers a physicist from lawrence livermore national laboratory theyre probably not using conventional fuels to be burned additional topics of discussion included the science behind deflector shields charged energy weapons such as blasters and the feasibility of a battery powered r2-d2 according to patel and the other members of the expert panel discussions of the energy usage in fictional universes such as star wars have similar merit to real world energy discussions if we can inspire just a single person to think about something new and outside the box to help them in their day or help civilization that would be wonderful said patel"
754,nuclear engineering graduate students ryan kelly and richard vega have received scholarships from the american nuclear society for the 2015-2016 academic year kelly is the recipient of a general graduate scholarship and vega is the recipient of the alan f henry/ paul a greebler memorial scholarship that is targeted toward students pursuing graduate studies in the field of reactor physics both scholarships are valued at $3 000 to be considered for a scholarship graduate students in the nuclear engineering community fill out a general application form that is reviewed by the scholarship committee school is expensive and every bit of money helps thats why these scholarships are so important vega said nowadays its not uncommon to have a child and family in grad school and i think a lot of people are further along in their lives at earlier points a lot more people are starting their families earlier while doing grad school vegas graduate work revolves around computational transport acceleration and is focused on researching methods that better enable graphics processing units (gpus) to introduce more concurrency allowing multiple data type algorithms that dont require as much talking back and forth as current processors do vega is currently working an internship for sandia national labs in albuquerque new mexico doing neutron spectrum unfolding and adjustment kellys focus shifted between his masters degree and his doctorate he is now working on the development of genetic algorithms to help design nuclear reactors my goal is to bring it to the next step where we can actually start automating at least part of the design of nuclear reactors said kelly this is interesting because we are not just reproducing old designs we are coming up with non-standard solutions for things we cant figure out analytically kelly plans to graduate next spring and has a two-year work commitment at knolls atomic power laboratory in nikayuna new york im self supporting at this point kelly said the graduate scholarships are the way i can focus on my research and get my research done without holding down a full-time job to cover the expenses i am also covered through fellowships but my graduate scholarships have been a big help
755,robin hall a senior in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the ao putnam memorial scholarship by the institute of industrial engineers (iie) the scholarship recognizes exceptional undergraduate students in industrial engineering and amounts to $1 500 over the academic year it is an absolute honor to receive this scholarship from iie said hall this scholarship relieves stress i dont have to worry about where the money is coming from i can focus on studying to be awarded the scholarship students must demonstrate academic excellence which includes a gpa of at least 34 three letters of recommendations and a faculty nomination dr natarajan gautam professor and associate department head for undergraduate affairs nominated hall for the scholarship robin is an ambassador for our field and our department said gautam she has phenomenal leadership skills and is gifted both academically and socially it is a tragedy that she never took my class i could have learned a lot from her in addition to being academically successful hall has been actively involved in iie for three years she also serves as the pledge coordinator for alpha pi mu the industrial engineering honor society after graduation hall plans on working as an industrial engineer and is excited about the opportunities the career will offer im looking forward to going out in the real world and making a difference she said
756,texas a&m university has announced the formation of the texas a&m-chevron engineering academies at four two-year colleges across the state of texas this innovative co-enrollment partnership was developed to address the states growing need for engineers houston community college in houston; texas southmost college in brownsville; alamo colleges in san antonio; and el centro college in dallas are the first partners in the program which is supported by a $5 million gift from chevron qualified students will be admitted to the texas a&m dwight look college of engineering complete the first two years of coursework at selected two-year colleges and finish their engineering degrees in college station texas the texas a&m-chevron engineering academies will allow students to remain close to home for their first two years while pursuing one of 16 majors within the college of engineering at texas a&m texas has a significant need for more engineers and has an abundance of capable students this new academy program provides a unique pathway toward earning a bachelors degree in engineering by completing the first two years of coursework at a two-year college as a texas a&m engineering student said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system a 2012 report by the presidents advisory council on science and technology projected that 1 million more stem degrees would be needed in the next decade in texas alone the projected need for engineers in the workforce is 62 000 by 2022 to meet this need universities and two- year colleges will need to work together to bridge the gap and attract and retain students who are interested in stem fields chevron is committed to increasing access to and the quality of education around the world said steve green chevron vice president of public and government affairs we are proud to partner with texas a&m on this important initiative to help ensure an educated and skilled workforce chevron is excited to be able to continue our longstanding relationship with texas a&m through support of the engineering academy initiative which will help provide opportunities in the field of engineering for many underrepresented and first generation college students said shariq yosufzai chevron vice president of ombuds diversity & inclusion and university & association relations partnering with texas a&m a top source of engineering hires for chevron to help provide opportunities in the field of engineering will support our efforts to help build the diverse workforce of tomorrow that will be required to meet the energy needs of the future texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean m katherine banks said the academies have the potential to reach beyond the typical pathways for access to a top-ranked engineering program we are excited about this program because our goal is to attract the very best students to texas a&m engineering even if circumstances require them to stay close to home for the first two years of college said banks this is not a traditional transfer program the academy students are enrolled in the engineering college at texas a&m from day one we are committed to supporting these students throughout their academic program which will result in a degree from one of the premier engineering colleges in the nation for additional information and event photos see our online media kit
757,a team of four engineering students from texas a&m university placed second in the inaugural drillbotics competition hosted by the society of petroleum engineers drilling systems automation technical section (spe dsats) the competition was created to give students the opportunity to test their engineering and teamwork skills by establishing their own multidisciplinary teams of four to five students to build a miniature robotic drilling rig inside a lab when finished they used these automated drilling rigs to drill a sample formation provided by dsats the goal was to drill the multi-rock layered sample with the fastest straightest hole in the most energy- and cost-efficient manner panels of judges working in the petroleum industry visited each university to watch as the students tested the automated drill rigs they created to see which system would best handle an unknown formation sample the four teams participating were from the university of texas at austin texas a&m university the university of oklahoma and norways university of agder the texas a&m team included graduate students john kim (petroleum engineering) prudhvi maddineni (electrical and computer engineering) seounghyun rho (petroleum engineering) and narendra vishnumolakala (petroleum engineering) vishnumolakala and rho are shown left and middle in photo below with enrique zarate (petroleum engineering) an advisor the team was also advised and assisted by dr satish bukkapatnams research group (industrial and system engineering) and dr eduardo gildin and dr sam noynaert (petroleum engineering) i am very proud of these students they did a great job especially for a competition in its first year which had quite a few questions and uncertainties throughout the entire process said noynaert they did it all on their own with only a limited amount of help from the faculty the team from the university of oklahoma was the winner and will exhibit its rig at the 2015 spe annual technical conference and exhibition (atce) in houston this september the team will also present a paper at the conference the teams from texas a&m and texas which came in third will also present their work at the dsats symposium at the atce prior to drilling all student teams had to complete two stages of preparation first a design stage where they submitted a full engineering design for the competition committee to review once approved they proceeded to the building and testing stage the rigs were approximately eight feet tall which necessitated having the judges visit each university rather than moving the rigs to one location baker hughes and national oilwell varco provided the drillbits and drillstrings the students designed and built (or had built) all of the other rig components including the automated control systems from start to finish the competition took 13 months the teams were tested with purposeful alterations in the provided materials which forced quick redesigns and produced unusual outcomes that reflected the difficulties brought on by real world situations industry often face in the field the texas a&m team conducted its portion of the competition on june 12 beginning with a brief presentation in front of a panel of industry judges from baker hughes national oilwell varco and shell the rig test was then conducted the only time human intervention was allowed was during the placement of the drill bit on the surface of the formation from that point the rig was required to drill ahead and handle any dysfunctions (drillstring dynamics issues changes in rock types etc) on its own
758,each year engineering students at texas a&m university participate in a senior project that will tie together and challenge all the skills they have achieved while pursuing their degrees these projects are designed to showcase not only the students capabilities but also each departments world class learning opportunities in one of the projects the department of mechanical engineering sponsors students to work on a formula sae race car this project challenges students to apply not only mechanical engineering concepts but also several other engineering disciplines ranging from aerodynamics to electronics engineering through a multi-disciplined project the students learn how all the systems within a vehicle work best together industry requires collaboration of individuals across many disciplines said dr peter hamilton associate professor of practice in mechanical engineering during most of their academic experience students are graded on their individual contributions these senior projects teach students to collaborate much as they will be required to do when they leave a&m and begin their engineering careers senior projects such as the sae car test the students design skills and give them a direct understanding of how those designs are applicable in a real world scenario there are all kinds of systems that make up the car whether its structures like the chassis that have to resist all the bending and vibrations of the car or the dynamic spinning systems such as the engine and intake that have suck in as much air as quickly as possible and push it out even faster to make the car move said junior gill lipton who is the driver of the sae car this project is truly interdisciplinary and is designed to highlight students capabilities starting at the initial meeting in the fall semester students begin by writing the functions they must provide while meeting the competition rules formula sae competitions have been held since 1979 when according the sae website mark marshek contacted sae and pitched the idea of adding an event to the mini baja competition in 1980 a lack of funding caused the competition to cease but thanks to a grassroots push the event underwent restructuring which allowed more teams to compete under new rules and a new name formula sae much like the original race structure had to adapt to succeed what was originally a strictly senior project at texas a&m eventually evolved to allow any student at any level to participate in the project starting off as a freshman at a&m i knew i wanted to be a part of the fsae team lipton said its one of the reasons i choose a&m to pursue my education as a freshman i started volunteering with the team and getting involved however i could after i proved how dedicated i was the project eventually set up an official underclass volunteer system to allow any engineering student to join the team the formula sae project begins in the fall semester and by spring break the cars are ready for paint once assembled car testing begins during testing things get dicey because things break and we have to fix them quickly lipton said for instance i hit a cone driving about 50 miles an hour on the practice course it caused the front wing to snap and we had to fix it according to the specs within days of the competition the culmination of each teams hard work comes annually at the fsae competitions as they face schools from around the world at the 2015 competition the texas a&m team placed 12th in business presentation 39th in cost seventh in design ninth in skid pad second in acceleration second in autocross and did not finish in endurance and efficiency the team finished 14th overall out of 65 teams who made it to the competition with their finished cars although building the car is a lot of hard work and commitment rules of the competition dictate each year a new car must be built from scratch we are constantly looking for new students from any engineering major to join our team said lipton as it stands now we have a truly interdisciplinary design project texas a&ms mechanical engineering department puts a strong emphasis on bringing all other departments together and exposing them to multiple disciplines so that when students graduate we are ready to lead the way in the engineering professions
759,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr jaime grunlan holder of the linda & ralph schmidt 68 professorship in mechanical engineering the endowed professorship is effective july 1 grunlan is a professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and is also an affiliated faculty member of the department of materials science and engineering grunlan earned his bachelors degree from north dakota state university and his phd from the university of minnesota grunlans research is focused on polymer nanocomposites with transport properties that rival materials and ceramics while maintaining beneficial polymer mechanical behavior his research group is particularly interested in the development of multifunctional surfaces prepared using the layer-by-layer assembly technology in addition the group is developing fully organic thermoelectric materials that can efficiently convert waste heat to useful voltage
760,logan harbour a senior in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university gave a presentation on the student exchange program between texas a&ms nuclear engineering department and the college of nuclear science and technology at harbin engineering university china during the infrastructure development working group (idwg) meeting held recently in paris harbour along with zhu zhiqiang a student from harbin who came to texas a&m in march as part of the exchange program delivered the report at the request of dr alex burkart of the us department of state who served as the meetings co-chair it is believed that this marked the first time students have been invited to deliver a presentation burkart feels that the program between texas a&m and harbin brings together the upcoming generation of nuclear leaders in the two leading countries and builds networks that will endure over their professional careers and represents a global best practice in human resource development for the future of the nuclear industry the idwg meeting was held in conjunction with the international framework for nuclear engineering cooperation (ifnec) a group of more than 30 countries around the world focusing on nuclear energy one of the components of ifnec is the idwg which deals with a number of crosscutting infrastructure issues in support of nuclear energy we hope to promote international collaboration and introduce younger students to the nuclear industry with unique opportunities harbour and zhiqiang said during their presentation the nuclear energy field is global and international therefore challenges need to be dealt with on such a level and we hope this program will prepare young students for those challenges later in their career these programs have given our students another understanding and respect for other cultures and countries it has also built strong relationships among students that will potentially become important contacts in our nuclear careers as young leaders the exchange program between the two universities has been held for the past three summers and will be held again next month as a group of students from texas a&m traveling to china the program at a&m has been organized and carried out by dr lin shao and dr cable kurwitz shao and kurwitz along with one other professor from the department have accompanied the students on their trip the a&m contingent usually consists of 15 undergraduate students and this years group will include 19 students from the department participants go through an intensive course on nuclear technology during the first week with the students from texas a&m and harbin joining together on teams of two individuals the texas a&m students also tour three different nuclear power plants in china before spending the last week in beijing where they take part in cultural events and receive a briefing from the department of energy office in the us embassy on the joint government collaboration in the nuclear area the college of nuclear science and technology at harbin engineering university is the largest academic nuclear program in china while texas a&m is the largest nuclear engineering program in the united states
761,texas a&m university chapter of the american nuclear society (ans) elected a new officer cabinet for the 2015-2016 school year and recently sent five student representatives to the june ans conference the goal of ans is to provide public information to those outside of the nuclear engineering community and to continue outreach and education efforts that will benefit the nuclear industry recently elected ans president cody orsak a senior nuclear engineering major said the main goals for the texas a&m chapter are to continue to develop a strong membership base provide more opportunities for members to network with industry professionals and to expose members to different fields of interest within nuclear engineering our guest speaker meetings are our main attraction said orsak in the past weve had speakers that are in the same sectors of the industry so what weve been doing is seeing what social events and speakers students would like to see to get more outside of our usual topics of discussion five ans members just finished one of several meetings at the national level this june in san antonio students presented on topics ranging from reactor physics thermal hydraulics and the power industry among others we are starting to see the organization become more focused on the policy aspects of the industry orsak said overall the organization is facilitating the growth of the nuclear industry in a way that allows everyone to get involved in addition to activities at the national level the texas a&m chapter has other goals in regards to its local members one of our main focus points this year is that we have really been trying to set up meetings that could introduce students to research in areas that they may not get as much exposure to here at a&m orsak said some topics like waste management for example dont get as much exposure here at a&m in addition to educating members and providing networking opportunities the society also puts on a variety of public outreach programs and social events recently the society put on a workshop for local boy scouts to help them in completing their nuclear science merit badge we also do social events where we just meet somewhere to hang out said orsak the organization is mostly professionally focused but we also like to have a lot of fun according to orsak ans has many benefits but the most prevalent is the network and friendships it creates between other members and industry and academic professionals for ans the biggest thing to me is the networking said orsak you get to meet people that you can go to with questions that you might not have been exposed to otherwise its a privilege to meet these people who are experts in their field that you may not have been exposed to at a&m and also to make good friends along the way
762,dr yossef elabd professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has received a 2015 defense university research instrumentation program (durip) grant funded by the department of defense the title of the study: small-angle x-ray scattering for nanostructured polymers research and education the requested saxs system will have a significant impact on advancing this research with a detailed understanding of morphology and properties at the nanometer scale said elabd the proposed instrument will also have a strong educational impact which will build on existing strengths of texas a&m in graduate post-graduate and undergraduate research as well as interaction with students and teachers at the k through 12 level elabd is one of 225 university researchers across 111 academic institutions to receive the award of the $678 million in total program funding elabd's portion is close to $400 000
763,anthony ramirez a senior in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to be a student ambassador for the national action council for minorities in engineering (nacme) for the past 40 years nacme has awarded engineering scholarships to african american american indian and latino students seeking a postsecondary degree nacme distributes these awards through the nacme scholars program nacme scholar ambassadors are part of a select group of students chosen from each partner institution to represent the nacme scholars on their campus as student ambassador ramirez will relay important information about nacme to the scholars and the resources it can provide he will also represent texas a&m at the annual nacme symposium and gala ramirez is from deming new mexico he is a member of the society of hispanic professional engineers the institute of electrical and electronics engineers fish camp and also is a nacme scholar he hopes to make a difference as an engineer with his many activities and his new role engineers main concerns are for security safety and well-being of the public they seek to improve upon existing conditions and technology for the betterment of society he said i want to make a positive impact in peoples lives and thought it best through electrical engineering nacme is an organization whose mission is to ensure american competitiveness by leading and supporting the national effort to expand us capability through increasing the number of successful minority young women and men in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) education and careers through scholarships middle school high school and community college programs research and engineering public policy
764,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr anthony guiseppi-elie head of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university guiseppi-elie will also be the tees professor in the department both appointments are effective august 17 guiseppi-elie currently serves as professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering professor of bioengineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at clemson university where he directs the center for bioelectronics biosensors and biochips he received his phd in materials science and engineering from massachusetts institute of technology his masters degree in chemical engineering from the university of manchester institute of science and technology and his bachelors degree in analytical chemistry biochemistry and applied chemistry from the university of the west indies guiseppi-elie spent more than 15 years in intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial industrial research and development before becoming a professor of chemical and life science engineering and emergency medicine at virginia commonwealth university he is the founder president and scientific director of abtech scientific inc a near-patient biomedical diagnostic company he also serves as editor-in-chief of bioengineering and associate editor of biomedical microdevices and is a member of the editorial boards of the journal of bioactive and compatible polymers nanobiotechnology and applied biochemistry and biotechnology he has been a guest editor for ieees journal of biomedical and health informatics guiseppi-elies research interests are in engineered bioanalytical microsystems in the service of human health and medicine his specific areas of scholarship are bioelectrochemistry and bioelectronic devices implantable bioactive hydrogels for the healing of chronic wounds in vivo biosensors for the management of trauma-induced hemorrhage and dna biochips for biomedical diagnostics and prognostics he has published more than 145 archival scientific papers 31 book or proceedings chapters holds eight us and foreign patents and has given in excess of 200 invited lectures/colloquia guiseppi-elie has been a principal investigator on more than $20 million in funding of sponsored programs gifts and contracts including a recent $3 280 000 award from the us department of defense
765,"students from the texas a&m university department of nuclear engineering and prairie view a&m university (pvamu) participated in the 4th annual domestic nuclear facilities experience (nfe) may 17- 23 this was the first year that the nfe included students from another texas a&m university system partner this year's nfe included visits to an extensive range of nuclear sites throughout new mexico and texas including the urenco uranium enrichment plant sandia national laboratories los alamos national laboratory and the pantex nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility ""the nfe was a wonderful opportunity that gave students the chance to go out and see what the nuclear engineering field is really about said pvamu senior dahvien dean who participated in the tours texas a&m engineering experiment station's nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) organized the event jointly with faculty from the texas a&m department of nuclear engineering and pvamu the students were accompanied by pvamu faculty and texas a&m coordinators dr craig marianno nsspi senior research engineer and visiting professor in the department of nuclear engineering and dr royal elmore nsspi research assistant texas a&m students participation in the nfe was funded through support from the department of nuclear engineering pvamu students and faculty attended the nfe as part of a nuclear forensics for minority serving institutions grant which was awarded to pvamu by the us department of homeland security's domestic nuclear detection office nsspi and los alamos have been key collaborators on this project the nfe began at the urenco usa uranium enrichment facility in eunice new mexico where the site's president gave the group a short welcome before their tour of the facility urenco provided an array of managers across its functional areas to interact with the students during their visit participants saw the uranium hexafluoride feed and withdrawal stations cascade hall support equipment and control room ""urenco provided a wonderful opportunity for nuclear engineering students to experience the inner workings of a uranium enrichment facility "" said steven horowitz a texas a&m graduate student on the tour the group then visited sandia where they toured the museum and visited the reactor the cobalt irradiation system the critical experiments site and the centrifuge center ""the sandia museum and facility tours were great and led by very dedicated and engaging sandia staff and scientists "" marianno said the sites visited at sandia covered a range of interests from power systems to health physics to chemical engineering and appealed to a wide student audience sandia and in particular integrated military systems director david keese and his staff have been strong ongoing partners in the nfe the los alamos visit began at the bradbury museum with a talk by a lab historian dr joseph martz then gave an insightful account of the los alamos site and took the group on a guided bus tour pvamu coordinator dr richard wilkins said ""to have someone of dr martz's experience and stature spend the time that he did with our group was tremendous and it was fascinating listening to his narration during the museum visit and bus tour"" the group attended lectures by los alamos staff members on post-detonation nuclear forensics the goiania incident nuclear policy student opportunities at los alamos and the international atomic energy agency inspection process the students then participated in the institute for nuclear materials management (inmm) taos technical meeting where students were able to experience a technical conference on a smaller scale the graduate students who participated in the nfe presented their research at the meeting this experience was valuable to the undergraduate students from both pvamu and texas a&m the last stop for the nfe was the pantex nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility near amarillo texas students had access to experts across multiple pantex operational areas who answered questions from the students pantex is a unique facility in the us ""it's not every day you get to touch a nuclear weapon mock-up while talking to the relevant subject matter expert but the nfe students had the opportunity when visiting pantex "" horowitz said leadership also spoke with the students about opportunities for internships co-ops and careers at pantexoverall the students who participated in the nfe found it a rewarding and fruitful experience texas a&m graduate student robert zedric said ""the site tours resonated with students and often inspired new coursework focuses and research interests"" additionally elmore noted ""the nfe helped build camaraderie friendship and educational exchanges between texas a&m university system faculty and staff"""
766,dr maria barrufet professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university received the 2015 society of petroleum engineers north america gulf coast regional distinguished achievement award for petroleum engineering faculty the award was presented during the spe gulf coast section annual awards banquet on may 21 the award recognizes barrufets superior teaching excellence in research significant contributions to the petroleum engineering profession and special effectiveness in advising and guiding students barrufet is the director of distance learning in the petroleum engineering department and is the baker hughes endowed chair she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from universidad nacional de salta in argentina and a phd from texas a&m all in chemical engineering a registered professional engineer in texas barrufet is a member of spe the american institute of chemical engineers and omega chi epsilon honor society of chemical engineers she has received numerous awards and has served as a consultant for both national and global energy corporations since 1988 her research interests include the valuation of different methods to desalinate oilfield brines; unit operation aspects of evaporators membranes osmotic separation heat transfer energy and mass balance computations; enhanced oil recovery including thermodynamics and transport phenomena applied to chemical miscible and thermal recovery processes; multiphase flow including pipe flow design numerical methods optimization and statistics; and rock and fluid properties correlating and measuring capillary pressures and relative permeabilities polymer and gel rheology some of her many publications on her research activities can be seen here
767,some of the best and brightest engineering minds from around the country will be coming to texas a&m university in january for a spacex competition to design and build the companys proposed hyperloop transit pod the competitions design weekend which spacex announced monday will be hosted by the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m is geared toward university students and independent engineering teams it begins in january 2016 in 2013 spacex ceo elon musk outlined his futuristic rapid-transit system that involves transporting passengers via pods in pressurized tubes above ground the pods theoretically would move as fast as 800 miles per hour at the january competition in college station teams will meet with spacex officials to present their ideas the best designs will be tested in the summer of 2016 at a one-mile test track to be built adjacent to spacexs hawthorne california headquarters student innovation is a hallmark of texas a&m university and we will look forward to hosting the hyperloop competition design weekend said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system were honored that spacex chose a&m as the site for this unique event michael k young president of texas a&m said we are honored that texas a&m has been selected to host the design competition for this exciting and potentially trailblazing endeavor its another good example of how our engineering students in the dwight look college of engineering who are taught by world-class design experts are viewed in the realm of innovation and all that it embraces i am confident that mr musk and his colleagues at spacex will be highly pleased they chose texas a&m as the site for this program that will attract and challenge some of the brightest students in america spacex officials approached texas a&m in april about hosting the competition and asking how best to engage the top engineering programs in the country competitions such as these bring out the best in our students said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering given that innovation is the essence of engineering partnering with spacex is important to provide students with the hands-on experiences needed to prepare them to make an impact in todays increasingly technological world september 15 is the deadline for applicants to submit their intent to compete * bottom two photos courtesy of tesla motors
768,dr mark lawley tees research professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and dr michelle alvarado a postdoctoral research associate in the department were recently presented the patient-centered outcomes research institutes (pcori) tier i award the award which is for a total of $15 000 over nine months will help fund the diabetes education and wellness through faith-based organizations (fbos) in texas project developed in partnership with dr hye-chung kum associate professor at the texas a&m school of public health in 2014 i had an aggie challenge group do a study on diabetes resource access in texas lawley said we found that diabetes education is one of the most difficult resources for most patients to find and use so with this work we are interested in identifying new avenues for diabetes education and self-management training the incidence of type 2 diabetes is increasingly prevalent in the texas population said alvarado we feel that utilizing fbos as a means of communicating diabetes education and wellness can be effective in reducing this prevalence fbos of various religious affiliations are uniquely suited for health promotion and diabetes education as they have regular captive audiences and credibility within the community by connecting over 40 diabetes researchers educators physicians patients and fbos the project will help determine if receiving diabetes education from fbos is more effective than receiving it through traditional means we think faith-based organizations provide several advantages including motivation trust and strong presence in texas lawley said only 17 percent of proposals submitted were selected to receive pcoris tier i award projects selected for the tier i award are eligible to compete for advancement to tier ii which provides $25 000 for 12 months and later tier iii which provides $50 000 for 12 months the purpose of the three-tier system is to develop a strong collaborative partnership of stakeholders who in turn produce high-quality research proposals on the comparative effectiveness of patient-centered outcomes this award is to put together a stakeholder network people who will help us understand what research needs to be done to improve access to diabetes care and education and whether faith-based organizations can play a role lawley said the pcori funding will be instrumental in allowing us to develop the partnerships necessary to pursue this research idea said alvarado dr césar malavé industrial and systems engineering department head commented this award is significant for the collaboration opportunity it provides mark lawley and his research team and the door it opens for advancing their very important work
769,dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has received a 2015 defense university research instrumentation program (durip) grant from the army research office for his proposal titled instrumentation for performance blade-loads and flowfield measurement of novel hover-capable meso-scale aerial platforms [ts1] [mjm2] benedict directs the recently founded advanced vertical flight lab (avfl) which focuses on the development of the next generation of vertical take-off and landing capable aircraft concepts this grant will provide $110 000 towards the development of a state-of-the-art micro air vehicle test facility at avfl this fully instrumented facility will be capable of measuring not only the fixed-frame hub loads but also the blade airloads/surface pressure distribution in the rotating frame and the unsteady flowfield the test rig will be designed to have the resolution and bandwidth to accurately measure low-magnitude/high-frequency airloads and also resolve highly unsteady/vortex-dominated velocity field which are typical of these small-scale hovering concepts such as cycloidal rotors and flapping wings once developed the facility will be a significant step in the direction toward the development of next-generation meso-scale hover-capable aerial robotic platforms for army and department of defense applications
770,dr christodoulos a floudas erle nye 59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and director of the texas a&m energy institute has been elected as a corresponding member of the academy of athens the most prestigious scientific society in greece and the worlds oldest academy he was inducted may 26 at a ceremony at the academy of athens hall in athens greece floudas is a world-renowned authority in mathematical modeling and optimization of complex systems he is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for teaching and research including election to the national academy of engineering in 2011 a siam fellow in 2013 a tias fellow and eminent scholar for 2013-14 an aiche fellow in 2013 a thomson reuters highly cited researcher and recipient of the constantin caratheodory prize in 2015 dr christodoulos a floudas (left) is inducted into the academy of athens by academy president dimitri nanopoulos in the academy of athens hall in athens greece on may 26
771,texas a&m university recently recognized 70 engineering undergraduate and graduate students who earned their business management certificates the business management certificate (bmc) program which is a joint program between the dwight look college of engineering and the mays business school was established in 2005 to provide engineering students with a highly intensive program to acquire knowledge in the areas of accounting finance marketing supply chain management and communications the college of engineering has launched a number of programs to promote innovation and entrepreneurial mindsets and provide our graduates with the knowledge and skills to lead corporations in technological innovations the business management certificate is one of these programs said magda lagoudas executive director of industry and nonprofit partnerships the annual program is composed of an intensive 90-hour course between the spring and summer semesters where students attend class from 8 am to 5 pm daily participants have an opportunity to practice their newly acquired skills on a team project seven capstone design projects from the engineering project showcase were nominated by faculty to be considered for the bmc program bmc participants worked with the project inventors and completed a business market analysis as part of the program all teams presented their business market analysis findings at the conclusion of the program in front of a panel of judges consisting of industry engineers and faculty i love the fact that there was a project presentation it really challenged us to use the skills we learned and apply them as we would in a real life manner said one participant of the program i find a program of this type very valuable and i am so happy that i was given the opportunity to participate another participant added this entire experience was amazing i was shocked at how much information i learned and was able to retain i now feel confident that i can share my knowledge of the skills taught to potential employers and that my participation has increased my value not only as an employee but also as an individual students who complete the course are awarded a business management certificate from mays business school center for executive development the highly competitive program received more than 170 applications from students the program which is open to both undergraduate and graduate students is offered to students at a significantly reduced cost through the generous support of halliburton in addition to the financial support halliburton engineers also served as judges for the project market analysis
772,michael bass an undergraduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the 2015 brown foundation-earl rudder memorial outstanding student award through a gift from the brown foundation of houston the brown foundation-earl rudder outstanding student award was established to honor the memory of the late president earl rudder and to provide public recognition to the outstanding senior students graduating each year from texas a&m each college may nominate up to two students to be considered by a special committee appointed by the president from the nominations the committee selects two award recipients on the basis of academic achievement leadership extracurricular activities community service and dedication to texas a&m bass enjoyed many aggie traditions including midnight yell aggie muster and the aggie ring he also started a new texas a&m tradition called the layne's challenge a triathlon combining running biking and eating fried chicken the layne's challenge is now a student organization at texas a&m and raises money for the brazos valley food bank bass will continue his studies at texas a&m as phd student in the department under the advisement of dr sunil khatri
773,dr jean-louis briaud distinguished professor and holder of the spencer j buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was recently elected technical region director in the american society of civil engineers (asce) for 2015-2018 briaud brings over many years of experience to the position and has innovative visions for the technical branch of asce he wants a more balanced structure that better represents the importance of the institutes whose publications generate around 40 percent of the budget for asce he also feels there needs to be a shift in focus from numbers to quality education in civil engineering it is time to make an effort to concentrate on improving the engineering practice and education there needs to be a focus on quality not quantity; we need to raise the bar and encourage pioneers and think tanks more often said briaud the first time dick fosbury a civil engineering student from oregon state first used his method in the high jump many were quick to criticize it was so different from what was considered standard like the scissors jump or straddle technique but that did not stop him from using his intelligence to craft a new approach by studying the position of his center of gravity when he took the gold at the 1968 summer olympics it was a huge deal all of this to say that innovation takes courage patience effort and a great deal of time we need to encourage this discovery process again he said a distinguished member of asce and a registered professional engineer briaud received his bachelors degree from the ecole speciale des travaux publics in france in 1972 and his doctorate from the university of ottawa in canada in 1979 his expertise is in foundation engineering and more generally geotechnical engineering he is currently president of the federation of international geoengineering societies he has served as president of the association of geotechnical engineering professors in the us and the geo-institute of the american society of civil engineers and the international society for soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering among other awards he has received the asce ralph b peck award the canadian geotechnical society (cgs) geoffrey meyerhof foundation engineering award the american society for testing and materials (astm) hogentogler award the asce huber research prize and the asce martin kapp award over the last 35 years dr briaud has conducted about 10 million dollars of research most of which was on foundations and retaining walls he has supervised 50 doctorate students and over 90 masters students he is author of the books geotechnical engineering: unsaturated and saturated soils and the pressuremeter and has published about 300 articles and reports in geotechnical engineering asce represents more than 146 000 members of the civil engineering profession in 174 countries founded in 1852 asce is the nations oldest engineering society through the expertise of its active membership asce is a leading provider of technical and professional conferences and continuing education the worlds largest publisher of civil engineering content and an authoritative source for codes and standards that protect the public the society advances civil engineering technical specialties through eight dynamic institutes and leads with its many professional- and public-focused programs
774,ali beheshti tanil ozkan and stephen keen tribologists from the microtribodynamics group led by dr andreas a polycarpou represented texas a&m universitys department of mechanical engineering at the student stem camp held in may the event was hosted by the society of tribologist and lubrication engineers (stle) during its 70th annual meeting and exhibition in dallas a map in the shape of texas was printed using a 3d printer and joined to a commemorative ‘north garland stle 2015' label using frictional welding the multifunctional (key chain + bottle opener) gadget was designed by mechanical engineering senior yasushi mizuno thin rods of pla a polymeric material commonly used in 3d printing were applied along the edges of the commemorative level the students then rubbed the material at above 1 500 rpm using a rotary tool the friction between the two contacting polymeric surfaces at the high rpm generated enough heat to bring the thermoplastic polymer to its melting point students then combined the created polymer puddle adjusted the feed rate and controlled the rotary movement using a hand tool allowing them to create the desired weld line during the exhibition the capabilities of 3d printing technology were discussed with participating high school students the north garland high school students in attendance had already been exposed to 3d printing technology and shared that they also believe it is a useful process for joining separate 3d printed pieces the experiment and accompanying poster showed students how basic principles of frictional heat induced welding can be utilized in many of the complicated tasks facing todays manufacturing technology industry the process has direct applicability to products ranging from consumer electronics to aerospace applications
775,"carlos briseno-vidrios a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university presented innovative engineering research at the fourth annual broadcom foundation university research competition sponsored by broadcom foundation a non-profit funded by broadcom corporation briseno-vidrios who is advised by dr jose silva-martinez presented his project titled high-performance low-power continuous-time sigma-delta modulator (ctsdm) for broadband applications briseno-vidrios was among student finalists from 12 universities competing at broadcom corporations annual technical conference held in irvine california selected by broadcom foundations selection committee comprised of preeminent engineers finalists shared insight into their engineering research and how its future application will contribute to advancement of society in the final round more than 400 distinguished broadcom engineers judged the finalists on a three-minute presentation with a single slide and a four-hour poster session where they demonstrated the scientific rigor technology sophistication and innovation of their work ""spearheaded by broadcom corporations co-founder and chairman of the board henry samueli this competition celebrates both academic excellence and social awareness by graduate students whose engineering innovations will yield unlimited benefits not only to their generation but society at large said paula golden president and executive director of broadcom foundation and director of community affairs at broadcom corporation the talent and intellectual fire-power of these finalists who are engaged in ground-breaking research at premier universities from across the world is profound we are honored to have them compete in the broadcom foundation university research competition"" broadcom foundations mission is to advance education in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) by funding research recognizing scholarship and increasing opportunity the goal of the university research competition is to encourage young researchers throughout the world to become the next generation of great innovators in electrical engineering and related fields"
776,dr nobuo morita an expert in rock mechanics has joined the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university as a professor moritas contributions in the area of rock mechanics include initiating the oriented perforation technique for reducing sanding; clarifying the complex mechanism of onset of sand production; and developing new methods of casing design under geotechnical loading and new fluid loss control materials reducing formation damage additionally morita is the patent holder of a widely used stand-alone metal woven screen we are extremely fortunate to have professor nobuo morita join our faculty after retiring from waseda university said a dan hill head of the department of petroleum engineering i have admired his research going all the way back to his time at conocophillips where he was their leading expert on borehole stability and sand control for the past 15 years i have been supervising phd students who graduated from dr moritas program at waseda university and i know from the quality of his graduates that he is also an outstanding teacher morita attended the university of tokyo in japan and earned his bachelors degree in petroleum engineering in 1968 he began his masters program at the university of tokyo switching to the university of texas at austin to complete his degree in 1971 he received his phd in petroleum engineering in 1974 from the university of texas at austin he was previously a tenured full professor in the department of resources and environmental engineering at waseda university in japan with a rock mechanics and completion engineering lab under his direction since waseda university has significant spring and summer breaks he held sand control and borehole stability schools twice per year and also conducted consulting services in major oil companies around the world after receiving his phd he served as a senior researcher at the university of texas he has held the positions of research scientist for the university of texas reservoir and production engineer for the teikoku oil company in japan and technical advisor for the well completion and reservoir engineering group in bergen norway he is currently a consultant for conocophillips in houston i have been designing large scale rock mechanics experimental equipment and i am also interested in teaching numerical modeling such as the boundary element methods the finite element methods and the finite difference methods for oil industry applications said morita he was presented with the us national committee rock mechanics award in 1989 he received the distinguished achievement award for petroleum engineering faculty from the society of petroleum engineers (spe) northern asia pacific region in 2013 and the cedric k ferguson certificate from spe in 2013 morita served as a committee member for the ministry of economy trade and industry; the japan oil gas and metals national corporation; and the japan agency for marine-earth science and technology
777,the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university began its new student conference orientations for those considering a specialization in nuclear engineering the department sessions allow students a general overview of the program environment and other opportunities available to them in an informal setting the orientations were led by dr pavel tsvetkov associate professor and undergraduate advisor who discussed an outline of the four-year program and the employment and research opportunities students can choose to pursue tsvetkov also introduced students to the overall impact of nuclear engineering in the development of national defense applications medical technologies and practical energy solutions in addition to the morning sessions each conference also holds faculty and current student panels for the incoming freshmen all of whom will be enrolled in general engineering classes this fall while the students will not be able to enroll in nuclear engineering until their sophomore year the sessions provide an avenue for aspiring students to show their interest in the department when discussing the many advantages of pursuing a nuclear engineering degree at texas a&m tsvetkov cited the size and variety within the department as being two of its most attractive factors the department is very diverse said tsvetkov we are also a small department in relation to others in engineering but this allows us to facilitate as close of a connection as possible with every student along with tsvetkov undergraduate advisor marna stepan discussed the opportunities that coursework in nuclear engineering could provide students stepan also stressed that time management skills would be a necessity for the incoming students highlighting the academically challenging but rewarding nature of the program everyone wants you to transition from a successful high school student to a successful college student stepan said when you come to a major four-year university it is very different your time management skills are very important for you to succeed especially in an engineering major after the presentation tsvetkov answered questions from the incoming freshmen about the different opportunities within the two disciplines that the department offers nuclear engineering and radiological health tsvetkov also promoted the applicability of a nuclear engineering degree to a variety of different fields and its foundation in the disciplines of science technology and mathematics to demonstrate its significant value nuclear engineering is unique tsvetkov said its shows you how to apply all stem fields together we are focused on taking advantage of all those areas and teaching students how to apply those principles to certain engineering objectives
778,"dr stratos pistikopoulos tees distinguished research professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university received an honorary doctorate from the university of pannonia in veszprém hungary at a ceremony june 19 at the university ""this is indeed a great honor and a distinct privilege to be recognized in this way "" said pistikopoulos who is also associate director of the texas a&m energy institute the honorary degree displays the institution's highest scientific recognition the university of pannonia was founded in 1949 and provides a professional career for students top-level scientific performance for international scientific partners and participation in the development of competitive products for industrial partners(caption: pistikopoulos featured on left) pistikopoulos research interests lie in the field of process and multi-scale systems engineering with particular emphasis on the developments of model-based optimization theory and computational tools for multi-parametric programming and explicit model predicitive control and an integrated framework for design control and scheduling of complex multi-scale networks with applications in sustainable energy systems smart manufacturing and personalized health engineering he is a fellow of the royal academy of engineering uk"
779,the department of aerospace engineering in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university inducted 10 individuals into the aerospace engineering distinguished alumni academy during the aerospace engineering 75th anniversary and annual awards banquet receiving the outstanding young engineer award were maruthi akella phd 98 darren hartl phd 03 and kayleen helms phd 00 this award is presented to an alumnus under the age of 40 who has shown outstanding work in their field and is a promising leader for the future this person must have a strong commitment and interest in the university and the department of aerospace engineering the outstanding aerospace engineer award is presented to an alumnus 40 years or older who has proven superior professional achievement community service and service to the university this person is a role model for all to follow and their example of distinguished professional practice deserves recognition the alumni receiving this award were david bodden 76 richard matus phd 80 and rush robinett iii phd 82 the aerospace engineering honorary engineer award is presented to non-texas a&m university alumni who have made major contributions to the engineering profession and whose support of the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m merits recognition the two honorees given this distinction were oran nicks and john slattery phd two alumni were honored with the highest distinction in the academy the distinguished aerospace engineering alumni award this award is presented to an alumnus who is retired or near retirement with outstanding career records this award recognizes sustained and meritorious contributions to engineering and engineering management the two honorees were charles haines 57 and benjamin ben smith 65 for more information on the distinguished aerospace engineering alumni academy see /aerospace/former-students/alumni-academy
780,dr arul jayaraman a professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the ray nesbitt professorship was one of the recipients of the 2015 engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research the award was presented to during the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) external advisory board meeting may 29 as a tees researcher jayaraman received this award in recognition of securing significant research funding valued at $1 million or more he was awarded a $19 million grant from the department of health and human safety/national institute of health/national institute of allergy and infectious diseases his co-pi is dr robert alaniz from the texas a&m health science center his research project modeling and analysis of the role of microbiota metabolites in t-cell differentiation seeks to understand the role that the microbiota metabolites play in mediating an anti-inflammatory environment in the gut which will potentially improve treatment for inflammatory bowel disease
781,the plight of malaysia airlines flight 370 (mh370) is one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history but an interdisciplinary research team led by a texas a&m university at qatar math professor has theorized the ill-fated plane plunged vertically into the southern indian ocean in march 2014 the researchers computer simulations lead to the forensic assertion that a 90-degree nosedive explains the lack of debris or spilled oil in the water near where the plane is presumed to have crashed the research was the cover story in the april 2015 issue of notices of the american mathematical society dr goong chen is an applied mathematician who teaches and researches at texas a&m at qatar and texas a&m universitys main campus in college station texas usa he led the interdisciplinary team of collaborators from texas a&m penn state virginia tech mit and the qatar environment and energy research institute (qeeri) in simulating and modeling what might have happened to the plane his research is supported by the qnrf national priority research project grant #5-674-1-114 the researchers used applied mathematics and computational fluid dynamics to conduct numerical simulations on the raad supercomputer at texas a&m at qatar of a boeing 777 plunging into the ocean a so-called water entry problem in applied mathematics and aerospace engineering the team simulated five different scenarios including a gliding water entry similar to the one capt chesley b sully sullenberger skillfully performed when us airways flight 1549 landed in the middle of new york citys hudson river a feat thats referred to as the miracle on the hudson chen said based on all available evidence especially the lack of floating debris or oil spills near the area of the presumed crash the mostly likely theory is that the plane entered the water at a vertical or steep angle in any rescue and recovery effort of airplane crashes in water the look for floating debris and oil is key for example for the disaster of air frances flight 447 on 1 june 2009 3 500 pieces of floating debris have been recovered so chen wondered why has there been no debris found at all so far for mh370 the fluid dynamic simulations indicate for a vertical water entry of the plane that there would be no large bending moment which is what happens when an external force or moment is applied to a structural element (such as a plane) which then causes the fuselage to buckle and break up as the vertical water-entry is the smoothest with only small bending moment in contrast with other angles of entry the aircraft is less likely to experience global failure or break up on entry near the ocean surface which would explain the lack of debris or oil near the presumed crash site based also on the suggestions of other aviation experts chen said in such a situation the wings would have broken off almost immediately and along with other heavy debris would have sunk to the bottom of the ocean leaving little or no trace to be spotted the true final moments of mh370 are likely to remain a mystery until someday when its black box is finally recovered and decoded chen said but forensics strongly supports that mh370 plunged into the ocean in a nosedive
782,"texas a&m university computer science and engineering raytheon professor dr robin murphy was a keynote speaker for the robouniverse conference and expo the conference was held may 11-13 2015 in new york city her talk was titled ""disaster robotics: lessons learned from 15 years of deployments "" and covered the history of small unmanned ground aerial and marine vehicles for search and rescue and recovery operations included in murphy's presentation were the lessons learned from approximately 50 reported international deployments the 18 incidents that involved the center for robot-assisted search and rescue (crasar) were discussed in depth these include the 9/11 world trade center hurricane katrina the tohoku tsunami and the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident murphy was recently honored with the acm humanitarian award for her work in disaster response through search and rescue robotics she was named one of the top 25 doers dreamers and drivers for 2015; one of the ""most influential women in technology"" by fast company in 2011; and appeared in time magazine as an innovator in artificial intelligence murphy is an ieee fellow and co-founded the technical committee on safety security and rescue robotics and its annual conference she also received the national institute for urban search and rescue's eagle award for her role in introducing ground robots at the world trade center disaster her research interests include artificial intelligence as applied to emergency informatics especially tactical land sea and air vehicles human-robot interaction heterogeneous teams victim management and perceptual directed behavior-based control in 2008 murphy joined the texas a&m faculty bringing with her crasar and founding the tees center for emergency informatics to engage faculty in the larger issues of using new sources of information from unmanned systems wireless networks and social media to get the right data to the right agencies at the right time she received her bachelor's master's and doctoral degrees from georgia tech"
783,"aditya konduri a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university working under the supervision of dr diego a donzis received the best graduate student presentation award at the american physical society meeting texas section this past fall the presentation titled ""asynchrony-tolerant finite difference method for partial differential equations at extreme scales"" reflects an interdisciplinary work at the crossroads of aerospace engineering computer science and applied mathematics for his doctoral dissertation aditya has been working on a novel highly scalable asynchronous computing algorithm to solve partial differential equations on massively parallel supercomputers the method relaxes communication synchronization of data between processors at a mathematical level which significantly improves the scalability of computational fluid dynamics applications on current petascale machines and paves the road towards true exascale simulations on future computing systems this work will facilitate state-of-the-art scalable simulations of high reynolds number turbulence a multi-scale problem of great importance in aerospace engineering as well as many other natural and man-made systems aditya has recently been a scholar of the extreme scale computing training program at argonne national labs and has been awarded a runner-up in the immersive visualization competition 2012 organized by the institute of scientific computation texas a&m and nvidia he will be joining the combustion research facility sandia national labs at livermore california in the fall"
784,"dr m m faruque hasan assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the ralph e powe junior faculty enhancement award from oak ridge associated universities (orau) hasan will use the award to research accurate and efficient characterization of gas adsorption inside microporous materials (zeolites and metal-organic frameworks) for energy applications such as methane separation and storage carbon capture and hydrogen separation this award is substantial because it comes with a significant prestige due to its rigorous peer-review and selection process "" said hasan ""the award will also enhance my research for the design and discovery of novel materials and processes for energy applications"""
785,a multi-university team that includes vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a five-year grant totaling more than $7 million from the department of defenses (dod) multidisciplinary university research initiative (muri) program the grant which was issued by the air force office of scientific research is in support of the project nanoelectropulse-induced electromechanical signaling and control of biological systems yakovlev is joined by colleagues from old dominion university the massachusetts institute of technology and the university of nevada school of medicine yakovlevs portion of the project for which he received more $1 050 000 in funding will focus on the development of new approaches to microscopic imaging of electric fields across cellular membranes and elastic properties of those membranes the highly competitive muri program supports research by teams of investigators that intersect more than one traditional science and engineering discipline in order to accelerate research progress most of the program's efforts involve researchers from multiple academic institutions and academic departments the muri program complements other dod basic research efforts that support traditional single-investigator university research grants by supporting multidisciplinary teams with larger and longer awards in carefully chosen research topics identified for their potential for significant and sustained progress muri awards provide strong support for the education and training of graduate students in new cutting-edge research the army research office the air force office of scientific research and the office of naval research solicited proposals in 19 topics important to dod and the military services and received a total of 289 white papers which were followed by 76 proposals the awards were selected based on merit review by a panel of experts and are subject to successful negotiation between the institution and dod yakovlev who joined texas a&m in 2012 has made many significant contributions to the field of optical instrumentation for biomedical sensing and imaging including advancing the technology of ultrafast solid-state lasers making it an indispensable tool for multiphoton microscopy imaging and sensing yakovlev holds the rank of fellow in the optical society of america the american institute of medical and biological engineering and the international society for optics and photonics he has published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals given 50 invited public presentations and more than 100 presentations at different conferences he also has edited one book on the biochemical applications of nonlinear optical spectroscopy and contributed to several books as co-author throughout the past 29 years the dod's muri program has resulted in significant capabilities for our military forces and opened up entirely new lines of research examples include advances in laser frequency combs that have become the gold standard in frequency control for precision in navigation and targeting; atomic and molecular self assembly projects that have opened new possibilities for nano-manufacturing; the field of spintronics emerged from a muri award on magnetic materials and devices research
786,dr hong liang professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed as co-editor for the journal tribology international liang joins michel fillon professor from the université de poitiers and weimin liu professor from the chinese academy of sciences as the third editor of the journal since june 2015 liang has served the tribology community in various capacities including associate editor for several journals including journal of tribology transactions of stle lubricants lubrication science and friction she served as a member of the board of directors for the society of tribologists and lubrication engineers (stle) from 2007 to 2013 and served on the annual meeting program committee for stle from 1998 to 2007 and was the chair of the committee in 2007 tribology international seeks to publish original research papers of the highest scientific quality to provide an archival resource for scientists of all backgrounds the journal accepts written contributions reporting experimental and modelling studies both in established areas of tribology and emerging fields scientific topics include the physics or chemistry of tribo-surfaces bio-tribology surface engineering and materials contact mechanics nano-tribology lubricants and hydrodynamic lubrication according to the journals website tribology is the science of rubbing surfaces and contributes to every facet of our everyday life from live cell friction to engine lubrication and seismology
787,[from left: vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering dr m katherine banks president and ceo of noninvasix inc graham randall and vice chancellor for research jon mogford] new medical technology that enables monitoring of a babys brain oxygen levels during labor and delivery is a step closer to reality after its startup company noninvasix inc was awarded $100 000 in funding as the top company at the 2015 texas new ventures competition (tnvc) at texas a&m university the competition which attracted more than 90 young companies promoted the commercialization of emerging technology by recognizing companies with high growth potential it was hosted by texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and sponsored by the texas a&m university system the texas a&m division of research the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship the aggie angel network texas a&m system technology commercialization and the research valley this is important; its important for texas a&m for the texas a&m system for the region and i have never heard of an argument built that says this is not one of the core elements that makes this country strong and great said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system noninvasix a galveston-based company headed by president and ceo graham randall received $50 000 as a first-place winner of the competition and an additional $50 000 from the research valley partnership via the texas emerging technology fund (tetf) funding randall said was important to companies attempting to make their ideas into realities were still very early stage randall said weve got pretty hefty patent expenses coming up so this will help us lots of eyes have looked at us and said that theres something here and this will help us get through the door to potential investors in addition to noninvasix seven other companies were recognized and received prize money scribesense an online service aimed at reducing the time it takes teachers to grade tests earned second-place honors and received $30 000 thermal expansion solutions llc ranked third and received $20 000 for its alloy technology intended for the opto-electronics industry in addition the company also received $30 000 in tetf money fourth-place honors and $15 000 in prize money were awarded to brevitest technologies for its point-of-care device that performs clinical laboratory tests in 10 minutes tevido biodevices a company that uses 3d bio-printing of a womans living cells to build custom grafts for breast reconstruction was awarded fifth place and $10 000 it also received $15 000 in tetf money sano chemicals was ranked sixth and also was awarded $10 000 for its antifungal compound as part of the tnvc elevator pitch competition guardian sensors inc took top honors winning $10 000 for its one-minute pitch of its solution for vital sign monitoring of inpatients ecm technologies earned second place and $5 000 for its one-minute pitch of biomaterial dressing for chronic wounds addressing the companies vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering and director of tees dr m katherine banks lauded their work and the efforts of the event sponsors we are here to help close the gap between the lab and the marketplace banks said tees works to ensure entrepreneurs like you successfully transform your innovative ideas into reality and ultimately into the hands of the public the daylong competition which was open to all texas-based companies seeking to bring new or enhanced technology to the marketplace required 20 companies in the pre-seed/seed start-up or early growth stages to pitch their ideas to judges that included angels and venture capitalists experienced entrepreneurs non-profit founders legal professionals patent experts and banking/investment professionals the esteemed group of companies was previously selected from a pool of more than 90 tnvc applicants in the days leading to the competition participants received personal coaching and access to mentor strategists as they developed their competition business plans and presentation pitches for james monroe whose company thermal expansion solutions earned a total of $50 000 in prize money the competition was his first exposure to the fast-paced environment of business plans and pitches and he said it provided some validation of the personal investments hes already made in his company this is the first competition ive ever done first competition for the company and honestly the first influx of cash for the company monroe said this is tremendously helpful really good companies competed today and i feel lucky to be in the top tier of them to win this money it will really kind of launch us into the next stage the next level i really believe in the technology and thats why im investing a lot of my time a lot of my effort into trying to make it a reality funding for tnvc was made possible by texas a&m engineering experiment station the texas a&m university system and the texas a&m division of research additional funding was provided by the research valley partnership through the texas emerging technology fund for more information on the texas new ventures competition including a full list of the days competitors visit wwwtexasnvcorg contact: duncan maitland tees assistant agency director for commercialization at 9794583471 or via email: djmaitland@tamuedu or ryan garcia at 9798475833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
788,"charles peak first-year graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded best poster at biomaterials day funded by the society for biomaterials (sfb) peak's abstract was selected from more than 60 abstracts for the events graduate student competition held at rice university this year in addition peak was awarded second place in the oral presentation portion of the event for his four-minute rapid fire talk in which he discussed his research peak who is advised by assistant professor akhilesh k gaharwar was recognized for his project ""elastomeric cell-laden nanocomposite microfibers for engineering complex tissues"" working in gaharwars laboratory peak has developed elastomeric microfibers-based cellular constructs from natural and synthetic polymer via ionic and covalent crosslinking by controlling the interactions between nanoparticles and polymers he was able to design the nanocomposite hydrogels with tunable mechanical and degradation properties gaharwar explained these elastic microfibers may serve as model systems to explore the effect of mechanical stress on cell-matrix interactions for engineer scaffold structures fabric sheets bundles or as building blocks for 3d tissue construction he said charles is a creative and hard working researcher gaharwar said charles has demonstrated the ability to synergistically combine his background with new knowledge from various scientific and engineering disciplines to forge new ideas and develop simple yet innovative bioengineering tools and approaches"" biomaterials day is a one-day symposium at six different locations throughout the united states it is designed to enhance networking between academic industrial and government sectors and increase student exposure to biomaterials research students throughout the area sfb industry members as well as non-sfb members interested in the biomaterials field attend the event"
789,research conducted in the advanced vertical flight laboratory (avfl) at texas a&m university was featured in the recent ieee spectrum online magazine the project highlighted was the robotic hummingbird being developed by graduate student david coleman and moble benedict an assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering the hummingbird robot is capable of controlled hovering flight and does so via a custom-developed ultra-light autopilot with an on-board microprocessor and imu employing a set of light-weight actuators the vehicle is able to modulate the flapping wing kinematics in order to stabilize itself this is the second hover-capable two-winged flapping-wing platform ever built; the other one being the darpa funded nano-hummingbird developed by aerovironment in 2011 the project results have been presented at several regional and national level conferences with good peer reception research at the avfl is focused on next-generation hover-capable uavs particularly small-scale cycloidal-rotor and flapping-wing based vehicles to read the article visit the ieee spectrum website
790,nuclear engineering faculty members from the universidade federal do rio de janiero (ufrj) in brazil visited the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) to learn about the nuclear security courses being taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university the visit was sponsored by the us department of state's partnership for nuclear security the faculty members professors su jian paulo frutuoso and fernando carvalho all have interest in incorporating nuclear security education into the traditional nuclear engineering curriculum at ufrj nsspi staff and faculty shared information on the courses currently being taught in the area of nuclear security at texas a&m as well as other nsspi activities contributing to the practical education of students in nuclear security and research projects produced by graduate students in areas relevant to nuclear security these were conveyed through presentations discussions and tours of texas a&m and tees facilities the faculty members from ufrj are looking to incorporate nuclear security topics discussed in this visit into their curriculum in the near future as well as implementing a new nuclear security research area at their university based on the interactions between nsspi and ufrj during this visit the two institutions plan to work together to hold a nuclear security week event at ufrj in the fall of 2015 this event will consist of a one-week 10-hour-long course for graduate students and faculty members on nuclear security concepts two undergraduate lectures in nuclear security-safety integration and a 20-hour workshop for brazilian participants from across the country in nuclear security principles and culture
791,dr jenn-tai liang and dr duane mcvay of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university have been selected 2015-2016 society of petroleum engineers (spe) distinguished lecturers liang and mcvay will join 30 other experts who will share their knowledge with spe members around the world lecturing on a variety of critical topics for the energy industry liangs topic involves nano technologies for oilfield applications and the title of his lecture is think outside of the box nano drug delivery technologies for oil recovery applications his lecture will concern his main research focus: developing promising uses of nanotechnology for oilfield applications in both conventional and unconventional reservoirs based on drug delivery technologies from the pharmaceutical industry liangs research group successfully developed a chemical delivery system that uses nanoparticles to entrap and protect the chemicals from the hostile underground environments the current oilfield applications include delayed gelation for water shutoff and in-depth conformance control delayed release of scale inhibitors to extend the treatment life time wax and asphaltene inhibition for flow assurance microbial enhanced hydrocarbon recovery and fracture fluid cleanup it is a great honor and professional recognition for me to be selected as an spe distinguished lecturer giving lectures around the world said liang during the 2015-2016 lecture season liang will travel to europe asia south america and us destinations to talk about his exciting work he joined the petroleum engineering department in august 2014 and was recently awarded the john e & deborah f bethancourt professorship mcvays topic involves management and information and the title of his lecture is the value of assessing uncertainty (what you dont know can hurt you) his lecture addresses chronic overconfidence optimism and resultant portfolio underperformance of the petroleum industry relative to expectations it highlights mcvays research on the impact of biases on portfolio performance and on methods for improving probabilistic forecasting he demonstrates that reliable assessment of uncertainty can add value to the bottom line and believes it will require re-education as well as changes in businesses processes and incentive structures mcvay will also lecture in south america asia europe and the us i am grateful to both the society of petroleum engineers and texas a&m university for this opportunity to lecture about my groups research said mcvay in addition to uncertainty assessment mcvays research interests include reservoir simulation integrated reservoir characterization and management project evaluation and unconventional resources he is the albert b stevens chair professor in petroleum engineering and serves as both a professor and the assistant department head for academics he is also an associate director of the berg-hughes center for petroleum and sedimentary systems
792,graduate student jialong zhang and associate professor guofei gu of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university received the best paper award at the 35th ieee international conference on distributed computing systems (icdcs) the research paper systematic mining of associated server herds for malware campaigning discovery was recognized at the annual conference held in columbus ohio out of 543 submissions 70 were accepted to the conference zhang and gus paper beat all submissions to be chosen as the top zhang and gus research focuses on cybersecurity their techniques find previously undetected malicious server groups and malware campaigns their prototype systematic mining of associated server herds (smash) monitors and traces groups of servers that may be working together in a malicious campaign their research allows for a greater detection and prevention of malware campaigns cyber security analysts will no longer have to identify singular malicious domains but will detect and eliminate multiple servers at one time criminals are using multiple servers to be more efficient in operation and more robust against security analysts gu said we can leverage this insight to defend against them our smash system uncovers malicious servers through monitoring related server groups this enhances defense capabilities against malware threats and cybercrime that is impacting millions of americans along with zhang and gu the paper was authored by sabyasachi saha from symantec usa; sung-ju lee from kaist korea; and marco mellia from politecnico di torina italy icdcs is sponsored by the ieee computer society the conference provides a premier venue for engineers and scientists to present their research findings related to network and distributed systems
793,brandon sweeney and blake teipel graduate students in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university jointly won the center of new ventures and entrepreneurships 14th annual raymond ideas challenge at mays business school teipel won the competition for the second year in a row their business idea entitled customizable prosthesis via 3d printing was voted the best out of the 300 ideas entered into the competition with 40 finalists sweeney and teipel pitched the idea through a written proposal and video sweeneys business idea stems from his research with dr micah green associate professor in the department of chemical engineering and an affiliated faculty member in the materials science and engineering department he applied a unique property of carbon nanotubes to overcome the difficulty of the weld strength of polymers increased weld strength can bring about stronger 3d-printed prosthetic devices at a fraction of the cost of currently available prosthesis brandons creative and innovative approach has the potential to greatly expand the reach of 3d printing in industrial applications said green its a pleasure to work with graduate researchers like brandon who combine such engineering creativity and innovation both sweeney and teipel are interested in using their research experience in materials science and engineering to accelerate their entrepreneurial aspirations i want to develop the nanotechnology research i have worked on in the lab into a successful market product that transforms the way we manufacture parts and resolves the current limitations of energy storage said sweeney
794,bringing the real world into the classroom is a key focus of texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering and two individuals in the department of mechanical engineering are doing just that dr andrew duggleby visiting assistant professor and yuval doron a lecturer in the department are using the industry experience they gain on a daily basis through their company exosent engineering in the way they approach teaching mechanical engineering students the company which designs and manufactures transport trailers for hauling hazardous materials and liquids on the highway uses cutting edge computer software that allows it to account for every aspect of the design process down to the final weld in their classes the pair continuously apply knowledge gained in daily operations at the company to their mechanical engineering classrooms by teaching students to understand how engineering is evolving through the new technologies available i teach students to think about the big changes in the engineering process said duggleby i want them to be able answer prior to even starting a design what questions are you asking what are you thinking about i want them to think about the realities of fabrication how objects have to be bent formed or welded will impact their designs i stress to students there may be 100 different ways to build a part and end up with the same functional apparatus but only some designs will lead to a high quality low cost better performing apparatus since starting the company in 2010 duggleby and doron have taught mechanical engineering courses such as engineering science and engineering design and senior design courses such as the fsae car build doron shares his fabricating knowledge with his students which he believes will offer unparalleled value to their academic experiences ive been a fabricator for over 25 years said doron six of those years were spent as a propulsion engineer in the us navy current mechanical engineering student ben skinner was hired by the company to perform computer aided drafting using software he learned through the mechanical engineering program the classes ive taken at a&m really emphasized design work the technical electives i chose focused on the cad work i was interested in said skinner what i have learned through texas a&m mechanical engineering has allowed me to come to exosent engineering and use what ive learned in their classrooms to my job here at exosent on a daily basis
795,dr choongho yu the gulf/oil thomas a dietz career development professor ii in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and his group in mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering have recently published a paper in the journal energy & environmental science yus paper scalable synthesis of bi-functional high-performance carbon nanotube sponge catalysts and electrodes with optimum c–n–fe coordination for oxygen reduction reaction focuses on developing new non-precious metal based catalysts as alternatives to the bench mark pt-based catalysts for the sluggish oxygen reduction reaction in various electrochemical systems such as proton exchange membrane fuel cells (pemfcs) one of the major roadblocks in commercializing electrochemical cells is the high cost of pt-based catalysts in the past few years efforts have been devoted to develop or find low-cost alternatives but most of them fail to show comparable long-term stability especially in acidic environments in addition as pt-based catalysts almost all of them are powders limiting catalyst loading and requiring an additional gas diffusion layer yu and his phd students gang yang woongchul choi and xiong pu have developed a new low-cost and scalable method to synthesize 3-d sponge-like carbon nanotubes which are self-standing and highly porous after post-treatment striking catalytic activity and stability are found to be comparable to or better than those of pt-based catalysts in both acidic and basic environments more importantly by eliminating the precious metal and gas diffusion layer the cost of this catalyst is only 1/50 of pt-based catalysts which would help to commercialize current lab-based electrochemical cells as well as reduce the cost of the commercial fuel cell stacks
796,dr raktim bhattacharya associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering and director of the laboratory for uncertainty quantification at texas a&m university has received a $670 000 grant from the air force office of scientific research to develop new algorithms for space situational awareness the grant covers a three-year time period space situational awareness (ssa) refers to the ability to view understand and predict the physical location of natural and manmade objects in orbit around the earth with the objective of avoiding collisions as space becomes more congested maintaining a timely and accurate picture of space activities becomes both more important and difficult in this research titled cloud computing based robust space situational awareness bhattacharya along with co-pi dr bani mallick distinguished professor from the department of statistics of texas a&m will develop new algorithms for accurate uncertainty propagation in nonlinear manifolds and nonlinear non-gaussian state estimation of satellite characteristics for more accurate prediction of possible collisions the research will incorporate real-time streaming data from geographically-dispersed satellite observatories and national astrodyamic databases such as jgm-2 neos usno iers noaa jpl goddard flight center and nima which provides real-time updates on various physical parameters necessary to model the astrodynamics forces acting on space objects this research will also address challenges in real-time computing with large-scale geographically distributed data sets
797,the texas a&m engineering program co-sponsored the 2015 chancellors summit on academic technology that was held recently at the annenberg presidential conference center on the texas a&m university campus the a&m system council on academic technology and innovative education (catie) organizes this premier academic technology event that is in its second year catie is an advisory body with representation from a&m system universities and agencies this years summit attracted more than 200 faculty members administrators and staff from a&m system universities and agencies among the participants were high-ranking academic and technology officers provosts vice presidents assistant and associate vice presidents chief information technology officers and directors of outreach technology and instructional technology units the summit was a unique opportunity that allowed attendees and presenters to engage in a broad conversation on academic technology issues and topics that impact all a&m system components the program included a keynote presentation by dr ellen wagner the co-founder and chief strategy officer of the predictive analytics reporting (par) framework wagner framed the summits conversations around radical and forward-thinking ideas to improve student success and the importance of data based decisions other plenary sessions explored intellectual property identity and collaboration in the era of open and integrated teaching and next generation learning spaces attendees were offered breakout sessions on competency-based education creating and growing online programs virtualization and universal design the day culminated with a closing speech from michael k young president of texas a&m university who emphasized the important role academic technology and academic technologists play at their organizations to support the institutional mission the summit provided a valuable update on a&ms ongoing work to improve and increase the use of technology in teaching said dr david ford an associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university the keynote speaker gave us a glimpse of one possible future through a data-driven strategy for curriculum design i encourage those who are interested in being a part of moving to the forefront of using advanced technology in education to participate next year the full program and presentation materials are available online the 2016 chancellors summit on academic technology is slated for june 22-24 contact dr yakut gazi or sheri pappas for more information
798,ray rothrock 77 has been named a tau beta pi distinguished alumnus for 2015 rothrock who graduated from texas a&m university with a bachelors degree in nuclear engineering will be presented the award at the engineering honor societys convention in october in providence rhode island the purpose of the award is to recognize alumni who have demonstrated outstanding adherence to the ideals of tau beta pi and fostered a spirit of liberal culture in our society on local national and international scales rothrock is a partner of the venture capital firm venrock which he joined in 1988 to fund and build early-stage technology companies that aimed to solve big problems and improve lives by bringing great products and technologies to market in 2013 rothrock received the outstanding alumni honor award from the dwight look college of engineering and in 2011 he was named the first distinguished former student of the department of nuclear engineering he has served on the board of trustees of the texas a&m foundation chairing the investment committee and as co-chair of the arts and science theme group for the universitys vision 2020 additionally he has made significant contributions to the universitys student affairs college of liberal arts and 12th man foundation rothrocks support has contributed to multiple endowed scholarships for the department of nuclear engineering
799,a team of students from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university recently showcased its 3d printing skills by printing braille labels on prescription bottles the team is led by dr tanil ozkan who is a visiting assistant professor in the department dr andreas polycarpou head of the department encouraged the team to showcase how its skills could help benefit society the team members brainstormed and decided that visually impaired individuals might benefit from braille on many surfaces found around campus the teams work was featured in a recent 3dprintcom article where it used generic materials purchased at a local drugstore combined with an adhesion promoter and surfactant to add labels to the tops of the bottles as well as signs found outside of classrooms the researchers realized early on that the challenges they faced couldnt be met with traditional 3d printers to resolve this challenge they designed a 3d printing filament that allowed for the enhanced adhesion characteristics needed to print onto the surfaces mechanical engineering senior yasushi mizuno boston-based professional software engineer artug acar and ozkan worked to bring this proprietary technology to fruition we did this as a service to the community and affectionately named the 3d printer texas a&m 3d braille printer in true aggie spirit said ozkan
800,students in the department of industrial and systems engineering (isen) at texas a&m university recently returned from a college-sponsored trip to puerto rico on this trip students experienced industrial and systems engineering in the context of another culture a total of 27 isen students participated in the trip and studied at the university of puerto rico mayagüez (uprm) many students enrolled in engineering economics and robotics classes and some participated in research experiences for undergraduates projects the knowledge students gained in the classroom was reinforced with visits to local manufacturing facilities students were able to see firsthand the operations of amphenol sensors edward lifesciences and the compañía cervecera de puerto rico brewery what we saw in class we got to apply at the professional level and the classes reinforced the processes that we saw in the plants said carlos fortin-yacub an isen junior not only did the trip offer valuable classroom and real-world experience it gave students the opportunity to learn about puerto rico and its culture the students visited the arecibo observatory uprm department of marine sciences and cueva ventana or window cave even though it is part of the united states puerto rico is different in many ways said katherine young an isen senior the trip also forged lasting connections among the students i liked the bonding said fortin-yacub i only knew a few people in the beginning but by the end of the trip i was friends with all the other students the trip to puerto rico is a unique and valuable experience said jeana goodson senior academic adviser its a great opportunity for students to learn while still enjoying themselves and getting to know each other the trip to puerto rico is offered each summer i session and lasts four weeks for more information see isens webpage on the trip
801,jose de jesus rico jimenez graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the texas a&m dissertation fellowship the fellowship supports a students final analyses and dissertation writing it offers $1 500 per month to be disbursed in monthly payments payment for tuition and required fees for the minimum number of required credit hours and a reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses related to individual health insurance coverage jimenez who is advised by associate professor of biomedical engineering javier jo is developing computational tools for the automated processing of data collected using different optical imaging modalities specifically he is developing several computational platforms for the clinical detection of high-risk coronary atherosclerotic plaques the leading cause of death in the united states towards this goal he is using a unique intravascular imaging approach that integrates optical coherence tomography and fluorescence lifetime imaging jo notes as a fellowship recipient jimenez will participate in an intensive writing workshop aimed at assisting students in progressing through the difficult writing stages of their dissertations and towards the completion of their dissertations jose has superb background in computer sciences and is not only very focused and hard working but is also able to formulate his own hypotheses and test them under minimal supervision jo said he is also a great team player and has been assisting several of his lab mates developing different computational tools for their respective research needs
802,a video created by the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is a finalist in the national academy of engineerings (nae) engineering for you 2 video contest the inheritance a two-minute video describing how the use of solar energy can provide sustainable and environmentally friendly energy solutions and emphasizing the need for innovative engineers is one of six finalists in the general public category to vote for the inheritance visit the contest website and search the general public category according to the nae website the goal of the contest is to highlight how engineering will create a more sustainable healthy secure and/or joyous world by addressing the nae grand challenges for engineering the competition is comprised of a peoples choice winner (by category) and a best overall winner with results to be formally announced in september 2015 voting ends aug 3 dr m nazmul karim department head and t michael oconnor chair ii led the video project with dr mark holtzapple professor in the department production was directed by igor kraguljac and supported by kidron vestal department communications manager
803,students from across the country are spending their summer conducting scientific research with faculty in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university the research experience for undergraduates program (reu) funded by the national science foundation is a nationwide research program for undergraduates students work with a faculty mentor to conduct real-world research and understand the atmosphere of graduate school throughout the summer students will develop a personal website a research paper a research poster and complete two presentations additionally students will attend weekly brown bag luncheons to hear from guest speakers and graduate students they will also network with professionals in the industry lilas dinh a senior at george mason university pointed to the community that is developed through the program everyone is very friendly and willing to help dinh said i will keep these friends for the rest of my life the department of computer science and engineering received two grants from the national science foundation and one grant from the dwight look college of engineering to host 27 students for the 10-week program the grants cover all expenses for students and provide them with a stipend for their research this is a great program to get students excited about research said theresa roberts coordinator of the reu program
804,dr hamid parsaei professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and director of academic outreach at texas a&m university qatar was recently inducted into western michigan universitys (wmu) college of engineering and applied sciences alumni excellence academy the alumni excellence academy recognizes outstanding graduates of the college of engineering and applied sciences at wmu who have become leaders in engineering inductees will be recognized at the colleges inaugural ceremony in october it is an honor to be selected said parsaei who earned his masters degree in industrial engineering from wmu the mentorship of the faculty and the quality education provided during my years in the college shaped my career and gave me lifelong vision i am forever indebted to the college to western michigan university and to those who inspired me and guided me before joining texas a&m parsaei served as professor and chair of the department of industrial engineering in the cullen college of engineering at the university of houston for over nine years within the institute of industrial engineers (iie) parsaei served as the director of the engineering economy division senior vice president-at-large (international) and a member of the board of trustees he is also a fellow of iie and the american society for engineering education parsaei has acted as principal or co-principal investigator on projects sponsored by the national science foundation us department of homeland security qatar national research fund and texas department of transportation among many others parsaei is a registered professional engineer in texas and holds a doctorate in industrial engineering from the university of texas at arlington
805,baixin wang graduate student in the zachry department of civil engineering was selected to receive a texas a&m university dissertation fellowship for the 2015-2016 academic year wang currently works with dr kung-hui chu associate professor in the department together they search for a method to reduce the cost of the production of biodiesel if the cost of biodiesel becomes lower than fossil fuel in the future there will be no reason against this renewable clean and non-toxic fuel wangs research focuses on a carbon-neutral and low-cost extraction approach to produce bacterial lipids (natural fats) used as a source for a greener renewable fuel- biodiesel the easiest way to explain the process is to compare the process to hansel and gretel chu said we have these bacteria fatten them up with growth accelerants and use them as fuel since lipids and fats are the raw materials of biodiesel that can be derived from animals plants and oleaginous microorganisms biodiesel is thus considered as a renewable fuel also since the raw materials all rely on carbon dioxide to grow the use of biodiesel recycles what was already there biodiesel is a promising alternative to petroleum-derived diesel fuel because it is a renewable nontoxic liquid fuel that generates much less greenhouse gas emissions the use of fossil fuels is releasing carbon that has been stored underground for millions of years so use of biodiesel can help prevent global warming however the cost for biodiesel production is still not competitive to that of fossil fuel more people should focus on this sort of research said wang its good for everyone and the environment and its sustainable wang moved from jilin china in 2009 after obtaining his bachelors and masters degrees from tongji university in shanghai he plans to continue academic work in the area of bioenergy production bioremediation of persistent contaminants wang seeks a career in education as a faculty member or a researcher after graduation the dissertation fellowship through the office of graduate and professional studies offers $1 500 per month for tuition and fees and an additional reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses like health insurance
806,rachel hayden ‘89 president and founder of hayden consultants inc and former american society of civil engineers (asce) dallas branch president was awarded the 2015 civil engineering entrepreneur of the year award hayden was selected for her outstanding entrepreneurial efforts with her company which recently celebrated 15 years in business hayden earned her bachelors degree in civil engineering in 1989 from texas a&m university she maintains her involvement with the department by serving as a member on the department's advisory council hayden consultants inc is an engineering partner to texas municipalities state agencies transit agencies and private developers the company was founded in 2000 by hayden as a woman-owned historically underutilized disadvantaged business enterprise with a staff of one the firm now has a staff of 22 and provides a diverse range of engineering services the asce committee on leadership and management established the award in order to recognize entrepreneurs who create successful private-sector organizations that employ civil engineers and/or expand the civil engineering horizon the award is given annually to an owner founder principal or manager of a private company who was primarily responsible for the recent performance of the company the individual must be an asce member in good standing and preferably a licensed professional engineer qualifications judged include success standard character and professional integrity how individuals have contributed or have given back to the community how they have empowered and retained employees and innovative approaches and their business model demonstrating vision and growth the texas section of the asce contributed to this article
807,nine students from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university were named recipients of the 2015 kaneka scholarship given by the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) polymer technology center the scholarship awards $1 000 in tuition to graduate and undergraduate students who display academic excellence and research interest in the polymers industry kaneka americas holding inc a japanese bioplastics and organic technologies company established the scholarship fund in 2013 it partnered with the university to launch a new research and development facility on campus we appreciate kanekas contribution to our students conducting research in materials science or organic chemistry said dr hung-jue sue director of the center and a tees professor in the department of materials science and engineering it helps us attract top talent in the field we are grateful for the scholarship and hope to continue building our relationship with kaneka the polymer technology center is a cooperative program of the departments of aerospace engineering chemical engineering chemistry mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering the center features seminars for students faculty and industry partners and an educational component with an emphasis on polymers 2015 kaneka scholarship recipients: ying-pin chen graduate student department of materials science and engineering peng liu graduate student department of mechanical engineering anna kristen means graduate student department of materials science and engineering parvin karimineghlani graduate student department of materials science and engineering xiaosong liu graduate student department of materials science and engineering morgan plummer graduate student department of materials science and engineering yasheng liu graduate student department of materials science and engineering jose leonardo gomez graduate student department of chemical engineering kevin dong undergraduate student department of chemical engineering
808,students from dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university were allotted 60 seconds to pitch their research to a panel of judges during the pitch your research competition earlier this month the competition which included participants from the departments of materials science and engineering biomedical engineering mechanical engineering chemical engineering and aerospace engineering was organized by the texas a&m materials advantage student program officers from the program received a grant from the office of graduate and professional studies to organize the competition the idea for this event originated from our materials advantage officers who felt that describing a technical idea to an industry sponsor which was not sufficiently covered in the typical current graduate curriculum was an important part of graduate student training said dr patrick j shamberger research assistant professor in materials science and engineering and faculty advisor for the group students from biomedical engineering swept the top three spots nick sears who pitched his research about a three-dimensional bone printing won first place michael whitely and colin dodson won second place for their pitch about an injectable bone graft material stacy cereceres and allison post won third place for their research on a synthetic vascular graft that is resistant to blood clotting judges were industry experts and engineering faculty at texas a&m they highlighted common mistakes to avoid when communicating with industry such as using jargon to describe research the importance of communication for students pursuing a career in research is more important than your scientific and technical knowledge said dr karl hartwig professor in the materials science and engineering department who was one of the judges good communication is crucial for success in all fields of research because it enables advancement and decision making if there is no clear and appropriate communication there will be little if any impact of the work
809,"dr alan needleman professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university organized a two-day ""ductile fracture workshop"" at the dwight look college of engineering a group of nine local and international researchers met to develop interactions and collaborations in the field of ductile fracture the workshop brought together leading researchers in the field of ductile fracture to assess the current status of the predictive capability and to identify the modeling computation and experimental advances needed to develop a predictive framework for ductile fracture fracture can be described as a single body being separated into pieces by an imposed stress complex underlying physics and societys need for safer and more efficient structures make fracture a significant research topic in materials science ductile fracture in structural metals takes place by a process of nucleation growth and coalescence of micro-scale cavities these cavities link up to form a crack that then threatens the integrity of a component or structure ductile fracture plays a role in a wide range of important technologies such as limiting the manufacturability of metal components determining the crashworthiness of vehicles and limiting the integrity of pipelines and industrial pressure vessels predicting ductile fracture is difficult because of the complexity of the micro-scale mechanism and the range of length and time scales involved the participants explored the opportunities and challenges in predicting structure and component lifetimes limited by ductile fracture and in designing material microstructures to improve the fracture resistance of engineering materials"
810,"this workshop is particularly timely because recent modeling computational and experimental developments seem on the verge of making it possible to quantitatively relate the characteristics of a materials microstructure and its macro-scale fracture resistance said needleman however to make this possibility a reality further advances are needed the workshop brought together leading researchers primarily young researchers who are making key contributions with the hope that the cooperative work stimulated by this workshop will lead to making the needed advances happen needleman joined texas a&m in january 2015 as a professor in the materials science and engineering department he is also a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor needlemans research contributions include the development of a ductile fracture computational methodology the development of cohesive zone methods for fracture analysis and creation of a framework that enables using discrete dislocation plasticity to solve general boundary value problems ""dr needlemans workshop tackled the critical aspects of materials reliability said dr ibrahim karaman head of the materials science and engineering department the research problems identified and collaborations established in this workshop are expected to result in predictive tools that can be used in the design of advanced materials materials reliability is an important area of research and one that we usually do not pay much attention to when we design new materials we hope to make an impact on these research areas with the support of the expertise of our faculty and new computational and experimental infrastructure that the university has put together in the last few years"
811,monty mueller a distinguished former student of the department of computer science and engineering and an avid supporter of the department will be greatly missed by students faculty and staff at texas a&m university mueller who graduated in 1984 was recognized this spring as a distinguished former student for his contributions he was recently chosen to serve as chair of the cse advisory council in all of his interactions with the department muellers attitude of service was evident he recently started a mentoring program with graduate student jory denny who serves as president of the cse graduate student association monty was very passionate about improving the student experience at texas a&m denny said he was extremely receptive of student opinions and concerns doing everything in his power to bring about change his style of leadership showed his true qualities mueller improved the student experience through scholarships for students the stephanie and monty mueller 84 endowed scholarship is a 4-year scholarship awarded to incoming freshman pursuing a degree in the department of computer science and engineering scholarship recipients are required to maintain a 35 gpa prior to serving as the chair of the advisory council mueller served as chair of the fundraising committee through his efforts the department increased the number of endowed scholarships from 8 to 17 i attribute much of this success to montys phenomenal leadership in chairing the fundraising committee said dr nancy amato unocal professor of computer science and engineering phenomenal leadership was a recurring theme throughout muellers life mueller was a management consultant and partner with accenture and a successful business owner he brought this leadership with him wherever he went even volunteering to educate dr dilma da silva when she was hired as head of the computer science and engineering department his warm leadership was contagious and his encouragement was empowering da silva said it was very special that he educated me on the a&m traditions i couldnt have had a better or funnier teacher in 2008 mueller made a conscious decision to devote more time to his family his wife stephanie son justin and daughter alison were loved dearly by mueller he took great enjoyment in spending quality time with them he inspired his son to follow in his footsteps by enrolling in the college of engineering as a freshman in 2014 the department of computer science and engineering faculty staff and students will miss monty mueller a great friend and supporter of the department his legacy of service and giving will live on for years to come
812,lisa bratton a sophomore engineering student won first place in the women's 200-meter backstroke at the 2015 world university games on at the nambu university international aquatics center in gwangju south korea bratton from richland washington won with a lifetime-best time of 2 minutes 931 seconds bratton who is a member of the texas a&m swim team and is texas a&m's record holder in short-course yards and long-course meters covered the last 50 meters a full second faster than anyone else in the field at the 2012 united states olympic trials bratton made it to the semifinals of the 200-meter backstroke touching the wall in 2:1653 bratton earned her spot on the 2013-14 national junior team with her performance at the 2013 speedo junior national championships she placed third in the 200-meter backstroke with a time of 2:1154 the fifth fastest time in the country bratton also placed sixth in the 100-meter backstroke with a time of 1:0232 she started swimming at age 8 and won washington high school state titles in her sophomore junior and senior years she was named swimmer of the year as a senior at washington state high school
813,"roozbeh dehghannasiri a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the best paper award from the midsouth computational biology and bioinformatics society (mcbios) 2015 conference dehghannasiri won the award for his paper titled ""efficient experimental design for uncertainty reduction in gene regulatory networks his co-authors are dr edward dougherty and dr byung-jun yoon in his paper dehghannasiri proposes a new experimental design framework for uncertainty reduction in gene regulatory networks the method utilizes the concept of mean objective cost of uncertainty and incorporates a network reduction scheme to reduce the computational complexity dehghannasiri received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2010 and his master's degree from mcmaster university in 2012 both in electrical engineering since 2012 he has been a phd student in the genomic signal processing laboratory under the supervision of dougherty and yoon he was awarded the mcmaster outstanding thesis research award in 2012 for his masters thesis the dwight look college of engineering travel award in 2013 and 2015 and the nsf travel award in 2014 dehghannasiris current research interests include experimental design in gene regulatory networks objective-based uncertainty quantification computational biology robust filtering and statistical signal processing mcbios advances the understanding of bioinformatics and computational biology; brings together scientists of various backgrounds and disciplines; facilitates the collaboration of researchers with similar or complementary backgrounds to solve biological health and/or medical problems; promotes education in bioinformatics and computational biology; informs the general public on the results and implications of current research in bioinformatics and computational biology; and promotes other activities that will contribute to the development of bioinformatics and computational biology"
814,hangtian lei a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won the best poster award at the power systems engineering research center (pserc) industry advisory board meeting lei (left) whose advisor is dr chanan singh (right) won for his poster that describes the research from a collaborative project titled reliability assessment and modeling of cyber enabled power systems with renewable sources and energy storage singh and dr alex sprintson from the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m and dr v aravinthan of wichita state university were the other investigators lei received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from huazhong university of science and technology in 2011 he is currently working toward his phd leis research interests include electric power system operation reliability evaluation and substation automation singh is a regents professor and the irma runyon chair professor in the department his research and consulting interests are in the application of probabilistic methods to power systems he is a fellow of ieee and the recipient of the 1998 outstanding power engineering educator award given by the ieee power engineering society in 2010 he was the inaugural recipient of the ieee-pes roy billinton power system reliability award as the largest national science foundation industry-university cooperative research center pserc draws on university capabilities to creatively address the challenges facing the electric power industry its core purpose is to empower minds to engineer the future electric energy system hosting one of the largest power/energy systems programs texas a&m is a strong participant of pserc
815,payman dehghanian a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is the recipient of the 2015 ieee-eta kappa nu outstanding professional award the award is presented to an individual selected from a nationwide search to recognize an exceptional young engineering professional for meritorious service in the interests of humankind as well as for outstanding professional achievement the award formerly called the outstanding young engineer award has been presented annually since 1936 many recipients of this award have gone on to make major contributions to the electrical and computer engineering fields in noteworthy positions in academia industry and government dehghanian will receive the award at the educational activities board awards ceremony in november in new brunswick new jersey dehghanian is supervised by dr mladen kezunovic who is the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station smart grid center and the eugene e webb professor in the department dehghanian received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from the university of tehran in 2009 his masters degree in electrical engineering from the sharif university of technology in 2011 and is currently pursuing his phd in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications
816,(from left to right) thomas blasingame akhil datta-gupta and a rashid hasan three faculty members in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university have been selected by the society of petroleum engineers (spe) to receive spe international awards dr thomas blasingame dr akhil datta-gupta and dr a rashid hasan will be honored during the spes annual reception and banquet on sept 29 at the george r brown convention center in houston the spe international awards recognize individuals and companies that make significant technical and professional contributions to the petroleum engineering profession and to the worldwide oil and gas industry blasingame the robert l whiting professor was awarded honorary membership this is the highest honor spe presents to an individual and is limited to 01 percent of spes total membership this elite group represents individuals who have given outstanding service to spe or who have demonstrated distinguished scientific or engineering achievements in the fields within the technical scope of spe datta-gupta regents professor and holder of the lf peterson chair will receive the distinguished achievement for petroleum engineering faculty award this award recognizes superiority in classroom teaching excellence in research significant contributions to the petroleum engineering profession and/or special effectiveness in advising and guiding students this will be the third year in a row a texas a&m faculty member has received this award hasan professor and the larry a cress 76 faculty fellow was named an spe distinguished member established in 1983 the distinguished member award recognizes spe members who achieve distinction deemed worthy of special recognition this award acknowledges members who have attained eminence in the petroleum industry or the academic community or who have made significant contributions to spe distinguished membership is restricted to not more than 1 percent of spes membership and is equivalent to fellow status in other professional societies thirty-nine percent of the petroleum engineering faculty at texas a&m hold this prestigious title spe is the largest individual member organization serving managers engineers scientists and other professionals worldwide in the upstream segment of the oil and gas industry with more than 93 000 professional members and about 50 000 student members worldwide
817,the lori cardenas memorial scholarship has been established to honor the memory of the longtime employee of texas a&m university cardenas who began working for the university in 1989 passed away march 31 2015 the majority of cardenas career was spent in what is now the engineering academic and student affairs office within the dwight look college of engineering she served in various positions during her more than 20-year career with the look college including managing programs to enhance access and inclusion for women and underrepresented populations in engineering at the time of her death cardenas was a senior program specialist in this position she was responsible for collecting analyzing and reporting data for the college cardenas was well respected for her work ethic integrity and dependability and was recognized for her dedication and hard work through several awards: staff excellence award (2014); presidents meritorious service award (2009); and the outstanding support staff achievement award (1992) lori was more than a colleague she was a good friend said valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs she truly cared about the look college and the success of engineering students always raising important issues based upon data analysis this scholarship is a wonderful way to honor her memory by providing funding for successful engineering students which was her passion proceeds from the endowment will provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree from the look college contributions to the lori cardenas memorial scholarship can be made through the texas a&m foundation
818,jen copestake a reporter from bbcs technology television program click recently visited texas a&m university's mechanical engineering department to showcase the result of a 10-year research project carlos sanchez a phd student in the department was interviewed and the question of whether cyborg cockroaches can help in nuclear disasters was raised while most people see roaches as filthy insects a research team at texas a&m led by dr hong liang has proven that these roaches when outfitted with small sensors can have their movements controlled the future technology is at work today said liang unlike previous technology that manipulated the roachs movement through stimulating antennae this study inserts electrodes directly into the roachs nervous system in the study the overall success rate of initiating and maintaining a turn averaged around 60 percent the details of the study were recently published in the journal of the royal society interface which liang says brought the current attention to learn more about the potential benefits of cyborg roaches visit the click website
819,"fifteen ocean engineering students from the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university raced their human-powered submarine the 12th mantaray to fourth place overall with a speed of 58 knots at the 13th international human-powered submarine races (isr) june 22-26 the isr which took place in west bethesda maryland at the naval surface warfare center carderock division (nswccd) saw 27 teams compete and was hosted by the foundation for underwater research and education (fure) the texas a&m team was made up of sara clark co-team leader dylan sanderson kevin ariyanonthaka pilot melanie tidwell chris williams pilot alyssa bennett martina garcia ben torrison jake taylor colton wylie raylene hylland pilot hannah huezo lauren waldron david patterson co-team leader and pilot and amanda massingill all four pilots completed several races over the course of the week and the team took third place in the collegiate division for a one-person propeller submarine and second place in the female pilot category pattersons speed of 580 knots broke the all-time aggie speed record of 550 knots set in 2013 hyllands performance in the female pilot category saw a top speed of 302 knots at the end of the weeklong competition the winning teams were recognized for best overall performance innovation speed best design outline and spirit of the race this year teams from the united states canada the united kingdom germany the netherlands new zealand oman and united arab emirates competed in the races each team designs and builds a one- or two-person ""wet"" submarine relying upon the principles of hydrodynamic design buoyancy propulsion guidance systems underwater life support and systems engineering the teams race the submarines using scuba equipment for a 100-meter stretch in nswccds 3 200 feet long model basin human-power has been the chosen propulsion plant since the first isr was held in florida in 1989 because of its safety fairness and the unique engineering challenges it provides the isr has been hosted at nswccd since 1995 since 1989 the isr competition has grown to include participation from universities colleges corporations research centers high schools and privately sponsored teams from all over the world the purpose of the isr is to inspire high school and college-age students of various engineering disciplines to pursue careers in science technology engineering and mathematics delve into the broad areas of underwater technology and provide an educational experience that translates their theoretical knowledge into reality the texas a&m team was sponsored by the zachry department of civil engineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station offshore technology research center haynes coastal engineering laboratory marine technology society (houston section) society of naval architects and marine engineers (texas section) machine works tasco auto color classic collision baumann marine oceaneering baxter & knoll penske truck texstars diab duna oe reunion texan scuba great lakes dredge & dock and intermoor links for more pictures videos and information: https://wwwfacebookcom/carderockdivisionfref=photo https://wwwyoutubecom/channel/ucofeeyvt5ksxfqscbedb0gg https://wwwflickrcom/photos/nswccarderock/albums https://wwwyoutubecom/watchv=uiufsp03ml4&feature=youtube"
820,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and her robotic unmanned aerial vehicles will be featured on cnn in a special about the 10th anniversary of hurricane katrina that is scheduled to air in late august murphy director of the center for robot-assisted search and rescue (crasar) develops and deploys robots to assist responders during disasters her research focuses on applying artificial intelligence to emergency informatics when there is a disaster robots from crasar and its roboticists without borders program are used to collect critical data and information that a human could not collect because of safety or cost constraints the data is used to help with disaster response and recovery through this technology we are providing images to key decision makers murphy said they get the data in real-time and at higher resolutions than satellites can produce this allows for 3d reconstructions of the disaster area to be produced days faster than traditional methods in 2005 hurricane katrina warranted the first use of small uavs during a disaster murphys uavs were used to gather information and provide imagery to key decision makers allowing for a quicker recovery time in the 10 years since hurricane katrina advancements in aerial ground and marine robotics have allowed murphy and her team to use robots at 19 disasters across the world these advancements and how they affect disaster response and recovery today will be featured in the cnn special
821,dr erick moreno-centeno assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was recently honored with the 2015 association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching – college level he is one of four faculty members in the dwight look college of engineering selected to receive the award since 1955 the distinguished achievement award has recognized outstanding faculty members at texas a&m for their talent and commitment to teaching award winners will be honored at the colleges annual spring awards banquet in 2016 where they will receive a monetary gift and an award plaque a letter from dr guy curry professor in industrial and systems engineering and six letters from students supported moreno-centenos nomination i feel blessed that my passion for teaching is valued moreno-centeno said i am very grateful to dr curry and all the students who provided the endorsement letters since joining the department in 2010 moreno-centeno has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in operations research and optimization
822,ahad esmaeilian a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2015 conocophillips graduate fellowship the texas a&m energy institute awards the fellowship which is funded through conocophillips to recognize outstanding energy research work performed by phd students under the supervision of affiliated faculty members of the institute each graduate fellowship consists of a $5 000 stipend esmaeilian is currently a third year phd candidate he is working as a research assistant under the supervision of dr mladen kezunovic in the power systems control and protection laboratory his main research interests are wide area power system protection fault location and application of intelligent methods to power system monitoring and protection the texas a&m energy institute pursues and supports new approaches for multi-disciplinary energy research education and external partnerships these approaches cross departmental and college boundaries and address all facets of the energy landscape that naturally connect engineering sciences technologies economics law and policy decisions
823,dr gretchen miller assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was recently recognized as the dwight look college of engineerings montague scholar for the coming year her nomination stemmed from efforts in curriculum innovation and modification and her dedication to teaching sustainability principles across civil engineering we all have a broader responsibility to society: to protect the safety of the public to act in an ethical and dependable manner and to use our skills to enhance human welfare said miller millers teaching methods address the cutting edge developments in civil engineering so students can come to respect the contributions of engineering research and development and better incorporate new technologies and methodologies into their future work students are encouraged to develop their own critical thinking skills through a challenge to find mistakes in her calculations and better ways to solve a problem students have described feeling comfortable in the classroom knowing her approach is more flexible; they feel free to request that she do something differently and it is apparent that she treats their questions and answers respectfully while handling their mistakes as simply part of the educational process i believe in treating students as junior members of our wider professional community said miller this implies that i have a responsibility to my students to prepare them for the work they will be doing in their future careers not only by teaching them a set of fundamental skills and competencies but also by instilling in them a sense of professional ethics and pride and a commitment to lifelong improvement with the award miller proposes to purchase equipment for in-class demonstration and group learning of important fluid mechanics phenomena this sort of equipment can be adapted to the specific focus and instructional level of the class and has the potential to be shared across the college wherever fluid mechanics is taught a recent recipient of a national science foundation career award miller received her doctorate from the university of california – berkeley and her masters and bachelors from the university of missouri – rolla she is a licensed professional engineer and received the dick and joyce birdwell award for teaching excellence in 2013 and the truman r jones excellence in graduate teaching award in 2011 she is a member of the american geophysical union the american society of civil engineers environment and water resources institute and the national ground water association her service to the university community includes serving as faculty affiliate to the texas center for climate studies advisory committee and co-advisor to the american water resources association student chapter the montague-cte scholar award is named in honor of kenneth montague 37 a distinguished alumnus and outstanding trustee of texas a&m foundation who had a long and storied career in the texas oil industry ken and judy montague endowed a generous gift in 1991 to benefit the future ken montagues aggies who are life-long learners and contributors to their communities the montague-cte scholar award is given annually to a tenure-track faculty member one selected from each college based on their early ability and interest in teaching awardees receive a $6 500 grant to encourage further development of undergraduate teaching excellence there are more than 150 montague-cte scholars on the texas a&m campus today
824,dr kenneth r hall senior professor in the chemical engineering program at texas a&m university at qatar and a regents professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has the fifth most cited paper in the history of the journal of industrial & engineering chemistry research having begun publishing in 1909 it is the oldest chemical engineering journal and today it is the largest and most cited journal in its field halls article pore- and solid-diffusion kinetics in fixed-bed adsorption under constant-pattern conditions dealt with the fundamentals of fixed-bed adsorption and was noteworthy for having provided numerical solutions hall was previously head of the chemical engineering department at texas a&m deputy director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) associate vice chancellor and associate director of tees and associate dean for research and graduate studies at texas a&m at qatar hall is an inventor or co-inventor in 12 patents including four that support the gas to liquids process that is licensed to synfuels inc his research includes thermophysical fluid properties obstruction flowmeters and gas-to-liquid (gtl) processing
825,brandon martinez and eli zamora received second place for their research poster at the summer undergraduate research symposium held at texas a&m university their poster titled toward guiding semi-autonomous vehicles was about their research in motion planning they worked with researchers from the parasol lab in the department of computer science and engineering to develop their project as high school students the duo competed against 25 college students within computer science and engineering and over 100 college students at the symposium their research poster was judged based on quality of research and effectiveness of the presentation at the symposium participating in the program as a high school student was the first and most crucial step in my education zamora said now i know what research is like and what i want to pursue martinez and zamora are high school students at the thelma r salinas stem early college high school in the rio grande valley they came to texas a&m to participate in a 10-week research experience for undergraduates program in the computer science and engineering department through the program they worked with unocal professor nancy amato and graduate students jory denny and read sandstrom bandon and eli were fun to work with amato said many times we would forget they were still in high school i wasnt surprised to see their project come out as a winner in the poster competition through their research martinez and zamora worked with the motion of robots they combined two algorithms that were never combined before the result allowed their robot to travel six times faster than previous algorithms the research symposium was the official end of the summer research experience for undergraduates program throughout the summer students conducted research developed personal websites wrote research papers and posters and attended weekly brown bag luncheons with guest speakers from the industry the reu program is a great way go get students excited about research and interested in coming to graduate school at texas a&m said theresa roberts coordinator of the reu program
826,dr robin murphy raytheon professor and her graduate students hosted a robot petting zoo for over 100 high school students in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university the students came from across texas to participate in the women in engineering ideas summer camp this six-day summer camp gives female high school students the opportunity to explore diverse aspects of engineering within the dwight look college of engineering at the petting zoo the students interacted with graduate students tested robots and learned about the life-saving technology grant wilde the ‘zoo keeper educated students about the use of the robots and the research being conducted at texas a&m i enjoy the robot petting zoos because it gives students exposure to robots that have been used in real life disasters wilde said in addition to educating the students wilde hopes to inspire them to have high goals i believe exposing young students to robots and computer science at an early stage in their lives can really make an impact on them wilde said in high school i never saw myself working in a robotics lab because i had never been exposed to it wilde works as a graduate student with the center for robot assisted search and rescue (crasar) the center is part of the texas a&m engineering experiment station and directed by murphy murphy uses robots to assist responders in emergency situations her research in emergency informatics involves collecting data with unmanned robots and efficiently analyzing the data the data she provides allows responders to make decisions and reduce response time as one of the first females to work in emergency informatics murphy is passionate about inspiring young women to become involved in computer science these young women have a great potential to impact the world through computer science and emergency informatics murphy said im looking forward to seeing many of them come to the department of computer science and engineering for more information about emergency informatics please visit crasarorg
827,anthony guiseppi-elie tees professor and head of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected for a fulbright specialists project at universidad nacional de tucumán (unt) facultad de ciencias exactas y tecnología (facet) in argentina during the 2015 fall semester by the us department of state and the j william fulbright foreign scholarship board guiseppi-elie will work in the areas of technology transfer for the creation of business spin-offs from scientific developments and on interdisciplinary instruction in nanotechnology nanobiosensors and tissue engineering guiseppi-elie is one of more than 400 us faculty members and professionals who will travel abroad this year through the fulbright specialists program the fulbright specialists program created in 2000 to complement the traditional fulbright scholar program provides short-term academic opportunities to prominent us faculty members and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at post secondary academic institutions around the world prior to joining texas a&m this year guiseppi-elie served as professor of life sciences and chemical engineering and professor of emergency medicine at virginia commonwealth university/medical college of virginia and later as professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering professor of bioengineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at clemson university where he was the dow chemical professor and directed the center for bioelectronics biosensors and biochips his research interests are in engineered bioanalytical microsystems in the service of human health and medicine and he has been principal investigator on more than $20 million in funding of sponsored programs gifts and contracts including a recent $3 280 000 award from the us department of defense he is a fellow of the american institute for medical and biological engineering and the royal society of chemistry a senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers a lifetime member of the american institute of chemical engineers and holds memberships in the american association for the advancement of science the american chemical society the materials research society and the biomedical engineering society the fulbright program americas flagship international educational exchange activity is sponsored by the us department of state bureau of educational and cultural affairs throughout its 60 years of existence thousands of us faculty members and professionals have taught studied or conducted research abroad and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the united states more than 285 000 emerging leaders in their professional fields have received fulbright awards including individuals who later became heads of government nobel prize winners and leaders in education business journalism the arts and other fields recipients of fulbright scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement among thousands of prominent fulbright scholar alumni are: milton friedman nobel prize-winning economist; alan leshner ceo of the american association for the advancement of science; rita dove pulitzer prize-winning poet; and craig barrett chairman of the board of intel corporation distinguished fulbright specialist participants include: mahmoud ayoub professor of religion at temple university; heidi hartmann president and ceo of the institute for women's policy research; percy r luney jr dean and professor in the college of law at florida a&m university; and emily vargas-barone founder and executive director of the rise institute about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative medicine medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences -30- for further information about the fulbright specialists program please contact fulspec@ciesiieorg or consult wwwciesorg
828,dr john valasek director of the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) and a professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university spoke recently at the high-throughput plant phenotyping and unmanned aerial vehicles in agriculture workshop the goal of the workshop was to provide attendees with an expert overview and keen practical insights into the two related research topics speakers from both aerospace and agriculture focused on how uavs and high-resolution remote sensing as well as automated sensor platforms can be used to efficiently measure phenotypic traits to facilitate advances in plant breading and genetics the workshop also included multiple uav demonstrations at the texas a&m agrilife research farm sponsors for the workshop included canvass texas a&m agriculture and life sciences and feeding our world
829,"dr patrick shamberger assistant professor and undergraduate degree program director in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university was selected to attend the national academy of engineerings (nae) frontiers of engineering education symposium the two-and-a-half-day symposium will be held oct 25-28 at the national academies beckman center in irvine california m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering nominated shamberger who was selected by nae through a competitive selection process ""this workshop allows me to share education innovations that we have developed here at texas a&m as well as to integrate some of the forward thinking approaches developed across the nation into our graduate and undergraduate curricula said shamberger a faculty member since 2013 shamberger received his phd in materials science and engineering from the university of washington his research interests include science and engineering of phase transitions functional materials thermal energy storage transport and conversion he is actively involved in undergraduate science and engineering education and mentoring the symposium brings together some of the nations most engaged engineering educators to discuss pioneering technical work and leading edge research in various engineering fields and industry sectors established in 1964 the nae seeks to advance the well being of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshaling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology"
830,payman dehghanian a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is the recipient of the best phd student award from the department the award is presented to a student in the electrical and computer engineering department for outstanding performance during his phd program dehghanian is supervised by dr mladen kezunovic who is the eugene e webb professor in the department and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station smart grid center dehghanian received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from the university of tehran in 2009 his masters degree in electrical engineering from the sharif university of technology in 2011 and is currently pursuing his phd in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications recent honors include receiving the 2015 ieee-eta kappa nu outstanding young professional award the ieee region 5 outstanding individual award and being named exceptional reviewer for the elsevier journal of energy
831,a team of undergraduate students in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was among the top finalists in the 2015 texas instruments (ti) innovation challenge the ti innovation challenge contest is designed to encourage engineering students to submit design projects that utilize ti technology justin bishop nathan parish shelby turner and rachel vaughan seniors in the department created cyclefit which placed in the top 10 out of 300 teams in the ti contest cyclefit is designed to allow stationary bike riders to observe their workout performance and health status in real-time so that they can make their workout more effective and efficient the system consists of a wearable biosensor interface that measures the users heart rate speed hydration level and leg muscle efficiency and an android app that displays this information to the user the project is broken into six subsystems: the biosensor-body interface for measuring biometric data from the user; the microcontroller processing network that converts the analog sensor data into digital signals and formats the data; wireless communications which sends the digital signals to the android app via bluetooth; an android app that processes the digital signals and displays results to the user; power that provides the necessary voltages and currents for the mcu and circuit components; and a control board that consists of the stellaris the power circuits and the filter circuit for the emg sensor data their design also earned the best overall capstone award for the department in the dwight look college of engineerings project showcase and placed third in the departments capstone invitational demo day
832,dr john hurtado professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and senior director for interdisciplinary engineering programs has been selected by the southeastern conference (sec) to participate in the secu academic leadership program (aldp) for 2015-16 secu is the academic initiative of the sec and serves as the primary mechanism through which collaborative academic endeavors and achievement of sec universities are promoted and advanced hurtado is one of four professors from texas a&m selected to participate in the aldp joining ginger e carney from the college of science violet showers from the college of liberal arts and kathleen l kavanagh from the college of agriculture and life sciences using its secu academic initiative the sec sponsors supports and promotes collaborative higher education programs and activities involving administrators faculty and students at its member universities the goals of the secu initiative include highlighting the endeavors and achievements of secu faculty and universities; advancing the merit and reputation of sec universities outside of the traditional sec region; identifying and preparing future leaders for high-level service in academia; increasing the amount and type of education-abroad opportunities available to sec students; and providing opportunities for collaboration among sec university personnel
833,the research of four faculty members in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was featured in special edition publications of american chemical society (acs) and industrial & engineering chemistry research the recent acs virtual issue on carbon capture and sequestration technology includes how impurities affect co2 capture in metal–organic frameworks modified with different functional groups by jiamei yu and dr perla balbuena gpsa professor in the department this paper uses first principles computations to explore one of the attractive features of metal-organic frameworks (mofs) their great versatility said balbuena organic ligands in mofs can be tuned to alter the adsorption of impurities with the ultimate goal of improving co2 adsorption dr m m faruque hasan assistant professor co-authored nationwide regional and statewide co2 capture utilization and sequestration supply chain network optimization with three others including dr christodoulos floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute and erle nye 59 chair professor for engineering excellence the article also appears in the acs special edition we considered large databases of carbon dioxidesources and sequestration sites as well as the optimal design and screening of potential capture materials and processes said hasan we not only obtained the minimum cost for co2 capture utilization and storage (ccus) but we also uncovered several novel materials for co2 capture for the first time added floudas this is the first study reported in the literature that addresses in a quantitative way all possible trade-offs at multiple scales (ie macroscopic atomistic supply chain) and establishes the importance of tandem selection of materials technologies and optimal processes for both individual systems and supply chain networks of ccus dr hae-kwon jeong associate professor and graduate recruitment admissions coordinator published current status of metal–organic framework membranes for gas separations: promises and challenges that was included in i&ec researchs inaugural virtual issue which features a collection of most-cited papers this paper was the first extensive review article on the gas separation membranes of nanoporous mof materials an emerging class of porous framework materials said jeong my group which has secured over $15m in research grants on this subject since 2012 is known to be one of the leading research groups on mof membranes
834,new technology that transforms a cell phone into a powerful mobile microscope could significantly improve malaria diagnoses and treatment in developing countries that often lack the resources to address the life-threatening disease says a texas a&m university biomedical engineer who has created the tool the add-on device which is similar in look and feel to a protective phone case makes use of a smart phones camera features to produce high-resolution images of objects 10 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair says gerard coté professor of biomedical engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for remote health technologies and systems cotés development of the instrument known as a mobile-optical-polarization imaging device (mopid) is detailed in the online scientific journal scientific reports published by nature the full article can be accessed at wwwnaturecom/articles/srep13368 mopid coté explains is capable of accepting a small cartridge containing a patients blood-smear sample the sample is then imaged using polarized light in order to detect the presence of hemozoin crystals coté notes hemozoin crystals are the byproduct of the malaria parasite and they occur in the blood of an infected host as polarized light bounces off of these crystals they appear as tiny bright dots when observed through the phones camera lens – enabling an instant accurate diagnosis while polarized light has been the preferred option for malaria detection due to its increased sensitivity its implementation into mainstream microscopy has been hindered by its complex configurations maintenance size and cost – up until now what weve achieved with mopid is the design of a polarized microscope platform using a cell phone which can detect birefringence in histological specimens infected with the malaria parasite coté says its a simple low-cost portable device that we believe is more sensitive than the standard rapid diagnostic tests (rdts) and potentially as accurate as standard microscopy or the more complex polarized microscope
835,mopid could represent a significant advancement in the detection methods for malaria a disease that the world health organization estimates was responsible for 584 000 deaths in 2013 along with an estimated 198 million new cases in that span of time given those numbers a dire need exists for a low-cost accurate and portable method of detection particularly in areas of the world with few resources coté says many of these regions he notes suffer from misdiagnoses due to inadequate or even nonexistent medical infrastructures – and the consequences can be devastating while failure to treat malaria can be fatal the administering of unnecessary malaria medications as a result of misdiagnoses can results in new drug-resistant strains of the disease in addition to increasing costs for malaria medications coté notes cotés solution takes advantage of existing mobile phone technology and networks – something to which a whopping 75 percent of the world has access this ever-increasing access to mobile networks and the fact that most mobile phones are equipped with advanced camera features make mobile phones the ideal platform for advanced imaging applications such as mopid coté says the mopid system has demonstrated both the resolution and specificity to detect malaria with both ios- and android-based devices and requires less user expertise than traditional microscopy coté says that user-friendly aspect coupled with the systems portability and expected low cost of about $10 per unit makes it an easily adoptable technology in low-resource areas ravaged by malaria he adds whats more analysis of a blood sample can be instantaneously made with the patient in the field without the need for a mobile network says coté who notes that a network is only required for transmitting the images to a central location for further analysis or storage these factors increase the likelihood of adoption of the technique in developing countries where cost complexity and lack of expertly trained technicians can often prohibit the use of a polarized microscopy technique or even traditional laboratory microscopy as the standard of diagnosis coté says for now coté and graduate student casey pirnstill are continuing to refine the design of the system by making it more compact as well as improving its durability plans for in vivo field-testing are scheduled to take place in rwanda africa in the near future coté notes about the center for remote health technologies and systems (crhts) the center for remote health technologies and systems is designing and developing advanced health technologies and systems to enable healthy living through health monitoring and disease diagnosis management and prevention the centers mission is to identify and overcome the unmet needs of patients and health care providers through the development of breakthrough remote health care devices biosignal mapping algorithms remote health analytics and information systems that will improve access enhance quality and reduce the cost of health care about the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) as an engineering research agency of texas tees performs quality research driven by world problems; strengthens and expands the states workforce through educational partnerships and training; and develops and transfers technology to industry tees partners with academic institutions governmental agencies industries and communities to solve problems to help improve the quality of life promote economic development and enhance educational systems tees a member of the texas a&m university system is in its 100th year of engineering solutions contact: gerard l coté professor in the department of biomedical engineering and director of the center for remote health technologies and systems at 9798454196 or via email: gcote@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at 9798475833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
836,dr jodie lutkenhaus the william and ruth neely faculty fellow and assistant professor of in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is a member of a multidisciplinary team responsible for the design and deployment of a national science foundation research traineeship (nrt) program titled data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) the five-year $3 million grant was recently awarded to texas a&m lutkenhaus will oversee student mentoring in the program the d3em initiative leverages interdisciplinary graduate level curriculum opportunities for students who are accepted into the two-year sponsorship program currently students in lutkenhaus research lab primarily study materials the introduction of d3em will allow participants to also engage in design and informatics research my hope is to recruit chemical engineering students in this new area said lutkenhaus materials informatics and design separately are pretty established but when you combine them all it becomes a whole new thing which is part of the materials genome initiative in addition to academics seminars and networking opportunities will be available for program participants they become part of the nrt community and that means they get to spend time with student and faculty mentors committed to this new area of research said lutkenhaus upon graduation students will receive a certificate the principal investigator is dr raymundo arróyave associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering
837,dr berna hascakir assistant professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university has been named one of five recipients of the prestigious 2015 spe petroleum engineering innovative teaching award this award recognizes excellence in commitment to academic research and student supervision the society of petroleum engineers (spe) uses this award to recognize the important role petroleum engineering faculty such as hascakir play in enhancing the educational environment of petroleum engineering departments and programs she will receive the award during the annual spe dinner hosted in houston in september hascakir (shown third from left in photo above) is committed to academic research and dedicated to improving her teaching abilities through workshops she credits her attendance at workshops given by the center for teaching excellence at texas a&m for improving her skills and says learning from professors with vast experience in education makes her more conscious of the ways she imparts information to her students and how effective she can be in the classroom and the lab i am thankful to dr steve holditch dr robert lane dr carolyn sandoval and the center for teaching excellence and to my undergraduate and graduate level students who helped me to receive the award said hascakir hascakir has been with texas a&m since april 2012 and currently teaches undergraduate level reservoir fluid and graduate-level enhanced oil recovery methods (thermal) enhanced oil recovery processes and waterflooding she also teaches these three graduate level classes as electives to senior undergraduate students her research interests include heavy oil and oil shale recovery by thermal enhanced oil recovery methods challenging reservoirs (such as tight heavy oil reservoirs carbonates reservoirs with a strong aquifer and oil shales) thermal front tracking and the environmental impact of thermal recovery department head dan hill commented this is quite an achievement for dr hascakir to receive this award after only a few years of teaching experience dr hascakir takes her teaching duties very seriously and that has led to this recognition by spe international
838,akhilesh k gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named a 2015 young innovator of cellular and molecular bioengineering (cmbe) by the biomedical engineering society (bmes) gaharwar is one of only 11 distinguished honorees this year who are tenure-track assistant professors working in the field of cellular and molecular bioengineering this years honorees represent some of the best and brightest working in the field and were chosen from a highly competitive pool of candidates noted a cmbe official as part of the selection process they were invited to submit full-length manuscripts that underwent a rigorous peer-review process prior to publication in the most recent issue of the scientific journal cellular and molecular bioengineering as a 2015 cmbe young innovator gaharwar will present his research at the 2015 annual biomedical engineering society meeting in tampa florida a special two-part platform session will be held at 8 am and 1:45 pm oct 9 as part of the cellular and molecular bioengineering track and each corresponding author will present his or her research and be recognized as a 2015 cmbe young innovator gaharwar was recognized for the development of a new biomaterial composite from poly (ethylene glycol) (peg) diacrylate silicate nanoparticles and denaturalized collagen via ionic and covalent crosslinking his research group has demonstrated the utility of these materials for creating complex multicellular structures laying the foundation for a class of materials for the controlled presentation of mechanical and chemical cues their findings are published in september issue of cmbe journal
839,applications for such a composite system ranges from nerve tissue regeneration to blood vessel formation; additional complex geometries could be obtained through use of three dimensional printer capabilities said charles w peak lead author of the paper and graduate student in gaharwars laboratory gaharwar who joined texas a&m in 2013 received his phd in biomedical engineering from purdue university in 2011 he completed his postdoctoral training at massachusetts institute of technology and harvard university his research spans diverse fields including materials science chemistry biology and micro-fabrication of polymeric biomaterials and nanocomposites for more information on the 2015 cmbe young innovators and gaharwars research visit http://linkspringercom/journal/12195/8/3/page/1 and http://linkspringercom/article/101007/s12195-015-0406-7
840,dr raymundo arróyave associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering has been appointed as associate editor of the journal of phase equilibria and diffusion arróyave begins his new role in the fall as the emphasis on accelerated development of materials has increased so has the importance of understanding the thermodynamics and kinetics of materials said arróyave the journal of phase equilibria and diffusion (jped) by its very nature fulfills a very important mission within this grand challenge arróyave currently serves as vice-chair of asm international (previously american society for metals)s alloy phase diagram committee which oversees the editorial direction of jped among other activities related to the dissemination of knowledge on the thermodynamics and kinetics of materials the journal is critically reviewed and contains basic and applied research results a survey of current literature and other pertinent articles it covers the significance of diagrams as well as new research techniques equipment data evaluation nomenclature presentation and other aspects of phase diagram preparation and use
841,texas a&m engineering was ranked as one of the top 10 engineering programs worldwide by the academic ranking of world universities compiled by shanghai jiao tong university global rankings such as this are important because they put an international spotlight on the excellence of our faculty and their research said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system we recognize the importance of engineering in our increasingly technological society and are committed to supporting our faculty as they address the global challenges of tomorrow just two years ago the dwight look college of engineering was ranked 22nd in this survey the 12-place jump to 10th was exceptional texas a&m engineering had the largest ranking increase of any us engineering college in the top 20 since 2013 nowhere has texas a&ms advancement – reputational and otherwise – been more apparent in recent years than in our college of engineering thanks in large part to the commitment of the board of regents and chancellor sharp and the leadership of dr katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering said michael young president of texas a&m university of particular note is the successful recruitment of a broad spectrum of students and faculty with diverse background together we are laying the foundation for even greater enhancements – through both faculty and facilities – that will well serve our students as well as help meet the technological and economic needs of our state and nation – and yes the world to rise from 22nd to 10th in just two years is extraordinary said banks this would not have been possible without chancellor john sharp and the texas a&m system board of regents significant investment in our engineering program and full support of our 25 by 25 initiative banks attributes the 12-place increase in rankings to the recruitment of top faculty from around the world and the impact of the research generated by the college of engineerings 413 faculty members recruitment of top scholars was made possible through the chancellors research initiative a $150 million fund to recruit world-renowned scholars to elevate the engineering research portfolio in addition through the 25 by 25 initiative 51 new faculty members in targeted research areas were added along with the creation and expansion of several new state-of-the-art research facilities on the college station campus expansion of the engineering research infrastructure on campus has also transformed texas a&m engineerings research program new research facilities include the 70 000-square-foot giesecke engineering research building which is an integrative research facility focusing on nanofabrication materials characterization and energy research also the soon-to-be-constructed centennial research building will house research on robotics advanced manufacturing logistics and chemical safety the new center for infrastructure renewal facility funded in 2015 by the texas legislature will focus on addressing the nations aging infrastructure challenges in transportation electric power and pipeline safety and security through investments in our high impact research programs innovative engineering educational initiatives state-of-the-art facilities and comprehensive partnerships with industry we are building the best engineering program possible said banks
842,"matthew aguirre a senior in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university placed second at the summer undergraduate research symposium poster session he was among more than 100 undergraduate researchers from the research experiences for undergraduates (reu) and the undergraduate summer research grant (usrg) program dr john criscione assistant dean for graduate programs presenting matthew aguirre with the second place award at the session aguirre presented his poster entitled point of care device analytics for proactive epileptic seizure alert which is based on a research project he participated in through the usrg program under the guidance of dr satish bukkapatnam a professor in industrial and systems engineering aguirre monitored variations in electroencephalogram signals and used statistical modeling to detect and predict the occurrence of seizures in those with epilepsy this knowledge will ultimately be used to design a wearable noninvasive early warning device i liked exploring the biomedical applications said aguirre through this research experience i was able to look at the problem from an industrial engineers point of view aguirre plans on continuing to participate in this research project in the upcoming year he said he expects this experience will help him in his goal to pursue a doctorate in industrial engineering from texas a&m aguirre has been part of bukkapatnams research group for the past year he has been involved in a project funded by the national science foundation and an aggie challenge project i am proud of the work that matthew has done in my lab said bukkapatnam he is dedicated to research in industrial and systems engineering and this award is well deserved it is also pertinent to acknowledge texas a&m university for providing the usrg program and other marvelous enrichment opportunities for talented students"""
843,a smart device that translates sign language while being worn on the wrist could bridge the communications gap between the deaf and those who dont know sign language says a texas a&m university biomedical engineering researcher who is developing the technology the wearable technology combines motion sensors and the measurement of electrical activity generated by muscles to interpret hand gestures says roozbeh jafari associate professor in the universitys department of biomedical engineering and researcher at the center for remote health technologies and systems although the device is still in its prototype stage it can already recognize 40 american sign language words with nearly 96 percent accuracy notes jafari who presented his research at the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) 12th annual body sensor networks conference this past june the technology was among the top award winners in the texas instruments innovation challenge this past summer the technology developed in collaboration with texas instruments represents a growing interest in the development of high-tech sign language recognition systems (slrs) but unlike other recent initiatives jafaris system foregoes the use of a camera to capture gestures video-based recognition he says can suffer performance issues in poor lighting conditions and the videos or images captured may be considered invasive to the users privacy whats more because these systems require a user to gesture in front of a camera they have limited wearability – and wearability for jafari is key
844,"""wearables provide a very interesting opportunity in the sense of their tight coupling with the human body jafari says because they are attached to our body they know quite a bit about us throughout the day and they can provide us with valuable feedback at the right times with this in mind we wanted to develop a technology in the form factor of a watch in order to capture the intricacies of american sign language jafaris system makes use of two distinct sensors the first is an inertial sensor that responds to motion consisting of an accelerometer and gyroscope the sensor measures the accelerations and angular velocities of the hand and arm jafari notes this sensor plays a major role in discriminating different signs by capturing the users hand orientations and hand and arm movements during a gesture however a motion sensor alone wasnt enough jafari explains certain signs in american sign language are similar in terms of the gestures required to convey the word with these gestures the overall movement of the hand may be the same for two different signs but the movement of individual fingers may be different for example the respective gestures for please and sorry and for name and work are similar in hand motion to discriminate between these types of hand gestures jafaris system makes use of another type of sensor that measures muscle activity known as an electromyographic sensor (semg) this sensor non-invasively measures the electrical potential of muscle activities jafari explains it is used to distinguish various hand and finger movements based on different muscle activities essentially its good at measuring finger movements and the muscle activity patterns for the hand and arm working in tandem with the motion sensor to provide a more accurate interpretation of the gesture being signed he says"
845,in jafaris system both inertial sensors and electromyographic sensors are placed on the right wrist of the user where they detect gestures and send information via bluetooth to an external laptop that performs complex algorithms to interpret the sign and display the correct english word for the gesture as jafari continues to develop the technology he says his team will look to incorporate all of these functions into one wearable device by combining the hardware and reducing the overall size of the required electronics he envisions the device collecting the data produced from a gesture interpreting it and then sending the corresponding english word to another persons smart device so that he or she can understand what is being signed simply by reading the screen of their own device in addition he is working to increase the number of signs recognized by the system and expanding the system to both hands the combination of muscle activation detection with motion sensors is a new and exciting way of understanding human intent with other applications in addition to enhanced slr systems such as home device activations using context-aware wearables jafari says jafari is associate professor in texas a&ms department of biomedical engineering associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering and the department of electrical and computer engineering and researcher at texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for remote health technologies and systems his research focuses on wearable computer design and signal processing he is director of the embedded signal processing laboratory (http://jafaritamuedu/) about the center for remote health technologies and systems (crhts) the center for remote health technologies and systems is designing and developing advanced health technologies and systems to enable healthy living through health monitoring and disease diagnosis management and prevention the centers mission is to identify and overcome the unmet needs of patients and health care providers through the development of breakthrough remote health care devices biosignal mapping algorithms remote health analytics and information systems that will improve access enhance quality and reduce the cost of health care about the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) as an engineering research agency of texas tees performs quality research driven by world problems; strengthens and expands the states workforce through educational partnerships and training; and develops and transfers technology to industry tees partners with academic institutions governmental agencies industries and communities to solve problems to help improve the quality of life promote economic development and enhance educational systems tees a member of the texas a&m university system is in its 100th year of engineering solutions contact: roozbeh jafari associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m at 9798628098 or via email: rjafari@tamuedu or ryan a garcia communications manager at 9798475833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
846,balakrishna haridas roozbeh jafari balakrishna haridas a biomedical engineer with 24 years of experience in development of products for minimally invasive laparoscopic and endovascular surgery and roozbeh jafari a biomedical engineer whose research focuses on wearable computer design and signal processing have joined the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university in addition both faculty members will serves as researchers within the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) center for remote health technologies and systems haridas is professor of practice within the department and head of entrepreneurship programs for the tees division of entrepreneurship & commercialization prior to joining texas a&m haridas was director of the medical device innovation & entrepreneurship program the master of engineering program and associate professor of biomedical engineering at the university of cincinnati projects in haridas lab include collaboration with cincinnati childrens hospital aimed at developing a viable replacement for neonatal/pediatric trachea as a treatment for congenital tracheal stenosis this same technology also is being engineered to serve as a tracheal repair/replacement implant for adult patients who have airway injury as a result of blunt or penetrating trauma or cancer another new research project in his laboratory is in the development of biomaterials/synthetic matrices and minimally invasive delivery systems for endoscopic repair of gastro-intestinal perforations that result from trauma cancer chronic ulcers and other related pathologies haridas has directed research and product development projects exceeding $70 million with funding from the national science foundation (nsf) national institutes of health industry the nsf sbir program and venture capital sources with a total product impact of $2 billion during his career haridas received his master of science in engineering mechanics from the university of alabama and his phd in biomedical engineering from the university of cincinnati jafari is associate professor in the departments of biomedical engineering computer science and engineering and electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m his research focuses on wearable computer design and signal processing with applications in health care wellness and enhancing productivity and safety of the users his research has been funded by the national science foundation national institutes of health the us army's telemedicine & advanced technology research center the us air force research laboratory the air force office of scientific research the defense advanced research projects agency src and industry jafari received his master of science and phd in computer science from the university of california los angeles prior to serving in a postdoctoral position in electrical engineering and computer sciences at the university of california berkeley about the center for remote health technologies and systems (crhts) the center for remote health technologies and systems is designing and developing advanced health technologies and systems to enable healthy living through health monitoring and disease diagnosis management and prevention the centers mission is to identify and overcome the unmet needs of patients and health care providers through the development of breakthrough remote health care devices biosignal mapping algorithms remote health analytics and information systems that will improve access enhance quality and reduce the cost of health care about the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) as an engineering research agency of texas tees performs quality research driven by world problems; strengthens and expands the states workforce through educational partnerships and training; and develops and transfers technology to industry tees partners with academic institutions governmental agencies industries and communities to solve problems to help improve the quality of life promote economic development and enhance educational systems tees a member of the texas a&m university system is in its 100th year of engineering solutions
847,texas a&m university has received a five-year $3 million grant from the national science foundation for graduate training and research texas a&m is one of only 10 institutions recognized nationwide with the award out of approximately 200 proposals that were received by the nsf for the current funding cycle the nsf research traineeship (nrt) program titled data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) will provide approximately 40 nrt fellowships over a period of five years to graduate students from six different departments––materials science and engineering mechanical engineering chemical engineering electrical engineering and computer science as well as physics and chemistry––across the colleges of science and engineering in addition to the nrt fellows d3em will support two phd students who will evaluate the pedagogical impact of the program this nrt program constitutes a valuable opportunity for the creation of a novel interdisciplinary graduate training program that places texas a&m at the forefront of stem graduate training said dr raymundo arróyave principal investigator and associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering co-investigators include dr joseph h ross professor department of physics and astronomy; dr debra fowler associate director center for teaching excellence; dr richard malak associate professor and morris e foster faculty fellow i department of mechanical engineering; and dr edward dougherty robert m kennedy 26 chair professor and distinguished professor department of electrical and computer engineering dr jodie lutkenhaus assistant professor and holder of the william and ruth neely faculty fellowship department of chemical engineering; dr miladin radovic associate professor and associate department head materials science and engineering; dr hongcai (joe) zhou davidson professor in science department of chemistry; and dr douglas allaire assistant professor mechanical engineering; are also members of the core team responsible for the design and deployment of d3em other d3em affiliated faculty include ibrahim karaman department head materials science and engineering patrick shamberger assistant professor materials science and engineering; dimitris lagoudas senior associate dean for research; alan needleman professor materials science and engineering; sarbajit banerjee professor chemistry; tahir cagin professor materials science and engineering the d3em team will join forces to develop the graduate curriculum with a pedagogical model developed in partnership with the center for teaching excellence the program will create a new training model to equip ms and phd students with the skills to conduct interdisciplinary research in materials science informatics and engineering design moreover the interdisciplinary curriculum will also include energy and entrepreneurship-related courses and activities through partnerships with the texas a&m energy institute and the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship at the mays business school there is a growing need to accelerate materials discovery and development particularly in energy-related technologies we need to instill in scientists and engineers the capability to transform data into knowledge and use this to discover and design advanced materials that way they can truly internalize the interdisciplinary research process the d3em program addresses all these needs said arróyave more importantly d3em will help catalyze new collaborative research opportunities among participating faculty infographic credit: d3em program
848,dr bimal nepal dr monica cortez and dr michael johnson have been awarded a $409 000 national science foundation (nsf) advanced technological education (ate) grant for their collaborative research in providing an adaptive learning environment for high school and community college students who are interested in acquiring high value manufacturing skills these skills encompass a superior knowledge in production which drives the growth and success of the advancement of manufacturing as a whole dr bimal nepal associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university is the principal investigator on the proposal dr monica cortez former director of the texas a&m engineering academies and workforce development programs and dr michael johnson associate professor and program coordinator of manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution nepal are the co-principal investigators on the project the ate grant will provide students an avenue to meet the engineering workforce needs of texas and the nation the dwight look college of engineering has developed a unique program the texas a&m engineering academies which in addition to the grant will offer students an opportunity to pursue an engineering degree while co-enrolled at texas a&m and a partnering community college the ate grant will further the texas a&m engineering academies response to the anticipated growth in the engineering industry expected by 2022 the ate grant program will provide an adaptive learning environment for students to attain the skills necessary to work in high value manufacturing to meet the needs of the oil and gas energy industry houston community colleges (hcc) petroleum engineering technology program and manufacturing engineering technology program and texas a&ms department of engineering technology and industrial distribution are working to create a sustainable certificate program in high value manufacturing the certificate would offer multiple tracks for community college students and the curriculum would meet the critical workforce needs of a vital industry the certificate program will offer three options for students: enter the workforce after receiving their certificate; transition to earning their associate degree before entering the workforce; or transfer their hcc credits to a four-year degree program in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m additionally the program will develop high value manufacturing modules for high school students aligned with the next generation science standards as part of a summer program for teachers the texas a&m principal investigator and co-principal investigators in collaboration with the faculty at hcc will develop the certificate program courses the idea is to provide community college students with pathways to texas a&m university if they do complete these courses through community college engagement nepal said these programs will serve as an integral part of continuing to build our nations technical workforce the project will seek to provide different populations of students with multiple entrance and exit points either to the chevron engineering academies or to industry
849,all disease begins in the gut natural forces within us are the true healers of disease said hippocrates an ancient greek physician of the many disciplines studied in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering biomedicine and biotechnology are areas represented by faculty research dr arul jayaraman ray nesbitt professor and associate department head was recently awarded funding from the research development fund by the vice president for research at texas a&m university the award supports metabolomics researchthe scientific study of the set of metabolites present within an organism the collected data would then lead to industrial development of biomedicines jayaraman narrows in on what he believes to be the source location of all human diseases the gastrointestinal tract there are molecules present in our body that have been generally ignored until now previously categorized as mostly related to digestion and the breaking down of food said jayaraman however what is now emerging is that these same molecules have profound impacts on how our immune system develops how we fight infections and how we combat the development of disease jayaramans focus involves the development of a therapeutic drug discovery pipeline integrating primary techniques such as detection identification and quantitative analysis of biomolecules he then will build upon the research by using modeling and other analytical techniques with the goal of treating inflammatory disease these are molecules that can be made within the body by ones own bacteria said jayaraman this leads toessentially the new frontier of medicine we have co-evolved beneficial ways to use these molecules that extend way beyond their intended purpose said jayaraman who collaborates with dr robert c alaniz assistant professor and director of the college of medicines cell analysis facility who is an immunologist and inflammatory disease specialist once the team determines which molecules have the best medicinal potential pre-clinical testing would then be performed by pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries
850,vladislav yakovlev arum han a team of researchers led by vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering and arum han associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a major research instrumentation grant from the national science foundation for its efforts in developing a new tool for studying large populations of cells with single-cell resolution without destroying them the instrument yakovlev says is expected to overcome many of the challenges associated with conventional cell analysis such as the use of molecular labels or analytical approaches that destroy cell viability while providing a more effective alternative to the labor-intensive and slow approaches used for characterizing cells biophysical and chemical properties the overall instrument will be composed of an optical sensing unit optimized for chemical and biophysical analysis of cells and multifunctional microfluidic devices providing standardized platforms for cell delivery sorting and in situ validation of cells elastic properties all with single-cell resolution yakovlev explains this unique instrument to be developed will have broad applicability in the areas of molecular and cellular biology agriculture engineering medicine (most notably cancer research diagnostics and drug delivery) and national defense joining yakovlev and han on the research team are paul de figueiredo of the texas a&m health science center robert burghardt of the college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences at the texas a&m and michael pishko of the university of wyoming the major research instrumentation program serves to increase access to shared scientific and engineering instruments for research and research training in the nations institutions of higher education not-for-profit museums science centers and scientific/engineering research organizations the program provides organizations with opportunities to acquire major instrumentation that supports the research and research training goals of the organization and that may be used by other researchers regionally or nationally
851,three graduate students in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university were recently awarded mills scholarships the students john blake askarali karimov and gang zhao will use the $5 000 scholarships to pursue water-related research blakes proposed research will investigate and better define green water which is generally perceived as the soil water available for plants to use and its potential to alleviate the projected water shortage for texas agriculture gaining a better understanding of the quantity of this abundant resource within the soil will open new avenues for agricultural irrigation conservation practices the outcome of this research project would be a recommendation for a new dynamic water management plan for crop irrigation through the quantification and understanding of green water and how it relates to water productivity blake will be studying under dr rabi h mohtar tees endowed professor in the civil engineering department karimov is advised by dr ralph wurbs arthur mcfarland professor of civil engineering karimovs research focuses on future water availability and allocations in the rio grande river the purpose of the research is to extend and simulate the rio grande model using a modeling system and to develop short and long-term water availability scenarios the benefits include drought contingency plans based on likeliness of storage availability in the amistad-falcon reservoir system for short-term planning and water conservation and will provide quantitative water allocation analysis and potential water availability for irrigation districts ahead of time in addition once updated the rio grande model system can be used to simulate various reliability scenarios based on future demands that will develop future water plans for the region zhao is advised by dr huilin gao associate professor in the civil engineering department and his research focuses on the joint effects of climate change urbanization and flow regulation on water supply in a metropolitan area the goal of this research is to understand the general processes of these environmental changes and how they will impact our sustainable water resources management the wg mills endowment supports diverse disciplines pursuing research in water-related studies and is used to assist current and prospective texas a&m graduate students studying water resources and hydrology issues in texas other students receiving the scholarships are jifar nata and kimberly rhodes of the water management and hydrological science program at texas a&m mills cox a former chairman of the texas water development board funded the wg mills endowment which provides the scholarships since 2001 the program has awarded more than $265 000 in mills scholarships to 171 students involved in water-related studies more information on the mills scholarship program and the students projects is available online
852,answering the nations call for viable solutions to its energy and manufacturing needs requires the input and collaboration of experts from a variety of disciplines those experts were on the texas a&m university campus monday (aug 17) as part of the council on competitiveness dialogue series the focus was to identify common challenges and opportunities in the areas of clean energy and advanced materials manufacturing in the united states the event is the third in a series of themed dialogues the council and us department of energy (doe) are hosting this year to engage thought leaders from industry academia national laboratories and non-profit organizations on the topic of accelerating the production of advance materials the discussions are part of an overarching partnership between the council and doe to enhance the countrys energy and manufacturing competitiveness we are honored to host these discussions in college station said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station bringing together top experts from industry and academia is critical to solving todays challenging technology problems the future of us manufacturing depends increasingly on the novel research deployment and commercialization of advanced materials said deborah l wince-smith president and ceo of the council on competitiveness bringing together the nations top leaders from academia industry national laboratories and government to uncover the steps to partner and accelerate advanced materials development in the united states is a critical step to boosting americas long-term productivity potential and prosperity the event was hosted by the council on competitiveness us department of energy office of energy efficiency and renewable energy (eere) and office of fossil energy and texas a&m engineering the series is part of the american energy and manufacturing competitiveness (aemc) partnership a three-year effort between the council and eere to increase american competitiveness through advanced clean energy manufacturing and increased energy productivity about the council on competitiveness the council on competitiveness is the only group of corporate ceos university presidents labor leaders and directors of national laboratories committed to the future prosperity of all americans and enhanced us competitiveness in the global economy through the creation of high-value economic activity in the united states the council is a non-partisan and non-governmental organization learn more about the council here or view the full list of publications here
853,six members of the women in nuclear chapter at texas a&m university were recently selected to attend the annual women in nuclear (win) national conference on a travel scholarship it is the highest number of scholarship winners for the conference in the chapters history the basis of the conference was a focus on fundamentals said chapter president jessica taylor i had a great time just seeing all the professionals there it was nice to see everyone get together and see people who dont know each other talk about things that are going on in our field the conference provided networking opportunities for the attendees and a look at professional development opportunities in the field of nuclear engineering because we were a part of this sponsorship they gave you a mentor and you get to talk to them and meet with them and see what others around the country are doing taylor said there are some conferences ive gone to where it is just like being at a career fair and its intimidating but at the win conference all these women and men act friendly towards you
854,other delegates felt the ability to attend the conference on scholarship provided opportunities for them to not only network with industry leaders but to gain some relative job related training graduate nuclear engineering student kristina spencer attended the conference for a third time and was in charge of one of the discussion sessions this year we focused on building trust with the public at large through social media and we talked a lot about how you look at the message you are sending to your audience spencer said it was a lot of work but i thought it went really well and it was good management training the win chapter at texas a&m is an organization dedicated to the service of others and to informing the public about nuclear energy the organization is not exclusive to women something the members feel is important in promoting good gender relations within the industry men and women have to learn how to work together and its a good overall experience for men to realize how many women are in the industry said senior nuclear engineering student holly parenica i think out of all the schools we had the largest student population were really devoted and active in win and were really working to push it further and help it grow more
855,dr ulisses braga-neto and dr edward dougherty professors in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university published a book titled error estimation for pattern recognition the book is the first book devoted entirely to the topic of classifier error estimation in pattern recognition error estimation is the process of predicting the error rate of a classifier applied to future unlabeled data and is critical for the validation of models developed in pattern recognition machine learning and data analytics applications their book contains the result of more than 10 years of joint research on this topic by the authors in addition to a survey of the classical results in the field most of the new results presented in the book were obtained with funding from braga-netos national science foundations (nsf) career award dougherty is considered a pioneer in the study of translational genomics via the use of engineering techniques such as signal processing pattern recognition and control theory he is the director of the genomic signal processing lab at texas a&m his honors include being named a distinguished lecturer and being named a texas engineering experiment station (tees) fellow he has authored 17 books and more than 325 journal publications braga-neto joined the biomedical imaging and genomic signal processing group of the department in 2007 prior to that he was an assistant researcher with fiocruz from 2004 to 2006 and from 2002 to 2004 he was a post-doctoral researcher with the section of clinical cancer genetics at the university of texas md anderson cancer center braga-neto received his phd in electrical and computer engineering from the johns hopkins university in 2002 and masters degrees in electrical and computer engineering and mathematical sciences also from the johns hopkins university in 1998 he received masters degree from the state university of campinas brazil in 1994 and his bachelors degree from the federal university of pernambuco brazil in 1992 his honors include receiving the nsf career award in 2009 braga-netos research interests include statistical signal processing and statistical pattern recognition with applications in the study of cancer and infectious diseases he is particularly interested in the design and analysis of statistical methods of small-sample classification and error estimation for genomics and proteomics applications
856,with a successful first year behind it the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university hosted its second group of high school students for campbuild a project-based summer camp full of science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) application and collaborative environments the weeklong camp aimed to equip each student with a newfound knowledge of the diversity of civil engineering as well as an appreciation for what it is to work as a team pursuing solutions innovation and creativity campers enjoyed seeing the variety of real-life problems that civil engineers aim to solve particularly when given a chance to participate in their own experiments project-based learning is a highly effective approach particularly for stem education said dr robin autenrieth department head you put students in the decision making position with a real-world challenge and encourage them to work out a solution with a realistic outcome added benefits are things we cant teach them like the value of collaboration critical thinking and confidence over the course of the week students participated in a variety of hands-on experiments tours and competitions they saw clean water dripping from a filter they built themselves a truck smash into a guard rail at a crash test one of the worlds best equipped labs to model coastal structures the intricacies of building a stadium for 100 000 football fans and huge testing machines that are able to verify that the steel beams in that stadium actually can support the weight of all those fans i really enjoyed learning about all the different areas of civil engineering and how they are applied to real world situations said timothy uzzell a homeschooled junior who recently moved to texas from the uae more than 75 students applied from all over texas as well as california colorado illinois and ohio campers were reviewed based on their academic achievement particularly those who have not had access to engineering in their schools it was very important to bring to campus a group of highly qualified campers from a wide variety of backgrounds the problems that civil engineers are currently solving and will solve in the future involve a diverse range of geographies social issues people economic questions historical precedents and environmental concerns said dr kelly brumbelow associate professor and faculty adviser to the camp with that in mind we need a civil engineering professional that has experienced and appreciates this richness and we selected a group of campers that spans these ranges im glad i came ive never met so many interesting people from all sorts of backgrounds its just an amazing opportunity said anthony glenn senior from carver high school in houston the 2014 campbuild has also resulted in recruiting some of the campers to the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m of the 20 rising seniors who attended the 2014 camp 13 will enter texas a&m this fall as freshmen with 11 students specifically entering the engineering college i really recommend you come to campbuild because you meet people you never thought youd be friends with and you learn so much beyond engineering said junior makysia goodwin of sachse high school
857,the zero robotics middle school summer program will hold its final competition on board the international space station (iss) at the johnson space center in houston on friday (aug 14) the zero robotics (zr) program is a programming competition where spheres satellites (robots) inside the iss are controlled by programs developed by students the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m the texas partnership for out of school time and nasas johnson space center are the statewide sponsors for this second year of participation in the state of texas dr greg chamitoff and dr david hyland from the aerospace department are co-directors of the statewide program and katharine leysath from the educational outreach programs office is the statewide program manager the zr middle school program is a five-week program with curriculum designed for students to participate approximately 15 hours per week the program is designed to engage students in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) through the zr game and to make clear connections between stem and space science zero robotics is a fantastic education program said benjamin morrell lead student mentor for the program over five weeks in summer the students not only learn a critical skill of how to program and get to program a space robot they learn about space science physics engineering teamwork collaboration and problem solving all while having a fun time this years competition is corona spheres conducting research on nearby asteroids (corona) utilizing the synchronized position hold engage reorient experimental satellites (spheres) the mission is to use a robotic satellite to take pictures of points of interest on an asteroid students have written code for the robotic satellite to collect and upload as many new pictures as possible while avoiding effects of solar flares the spheres robots are advanced research tools on board the international space station a beacon of human achievement and international collaboration that is an incredible one-of-a-kind facility and texas middle school students get to control these robots said morrell the mit space systems laboratory in conjunction with nasa darpa and aurora flight sciences developed and operates the spheres system to provide a safe and reusable zero gravity platform to test sensor control and autonomy technologies for use in satellites there are currently three spheres satellites onboard the iss capable of rotation and translation in all directions spheres is the only free floating experiment onboard the station and is used by a range of guest scientists and engineers including texas a&m for experiments that require three dimension unconstrained by gravity texas one of 11 states invited to join the program has seven teams participating from regions across the state: indian spring middle school (waco); ymca of greater san antonio; boys and girls club of edinburg; boys and girls club of mcallen; spillane math and science club (cypress-fairbanks); houston museum of african american culture; and bread of life inc (houston) over the course of the five weeks students have honed their programs and competed against each other to come up with a final winning team from texas from there all of the teams worked together to refine the final code that will be used during the competition at the event in johnson space center all the texas teams will be communicating live with the astronauts on the international space station and watching the combined texas code controlling the robots on the international space station in microgravity said morrell their code will be competing against other states to see who will be the national champion zero robotics seeks to inspire the next generation of great minds by allowing them unprecedented access to space at the high school and middle school level by making the benefits and resources of the space program tangible to students zero robotics aims to cultivate an appreciation of science technology engineering and math through healthy immersive collaborative competition
858,dr césar malavé professor and holder of the sugar and mike barnes department chair in the department industrial systems and engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to the texas higher education coordinating boards (thecb) general academic institutions formula advisory committee (gaifac) the gaifac provides recommendations to the texas legislature on the formulas that determine funding allocation to public higher education institutions in texas according to the thecb this funding supports faculty salaries departmental operating expenses and research enhancement among other university services in this six-year appointment malavé will be the sole faculty member on the committee other members of the committee include representatives often administrators from various texas public institutions it is important to have a faculty voice on the committee and we are pleased dr malavé was appointed to represent that voice said joe pettibon associate vice president for academic services at texas a&m and primary liaison with the thecb i am honored to be appointed to the committee said malavé as a faculty member i hope i can contribute a unique and valuable perspective
859,dr james kaihatu associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has been named a center for teaching excellence curriculum fellow kaihatu was selected in recognition of his exceptional leadership in the area of curricular redesign and in appreciation of the time and effort associated with his work on the process kaihatu joined the department in 2006 after 11 years as a research oceanographer at the naval research laboratory at stennis space center he also worked at the coastal engineering research center us army waterways experiment station in vicksburg mississippi he previously held an adjunct appointment in the department of marine science at the university of southern mississippi he received his doctorate from the university of delaware master of science from the university of california berkeley and bachelor of science from california state polytechnic university all in civil engineering he is an associate editor of two journals: the american society of civil engineers journal of waterway port coastal and ocean engineering; and the journal of ocean engineering and marine energy he has worked as a co-editor on two forthcoming books on coastal and ocean engineering he was awarded the truman c jones excellence in graduate teaching award in 2013 his research interests involve the theory and numerical modeling of ocean surface wave generation and propagation including continental shelf-scale wave transformation nonlinear wave-wave interaction wave breaking and nearshore circulation and the effects of cohesive bottom sediments and coastal vegetation on waves
860,the aggie drilling research group (adr) headed by dr jerome schubert has recently completed the construction of a new dual gradient drilling lab located in the university services building the equipment is currently set up to model a deepwater dual gradient riser/subsea pump/return line system utilized in ultra-deepwater drilling the deepwater drilling industry has been developing dual gradient drilling technology to mitigate many of the drilling problems that are common while drilling in water depths greater than 6 000 feet schubert (shown left) is an associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and has specialized in this research for many years he was involved with a groundbreaking 1995 dual gradient drilling study at texas a&m university and has several patents related to this process the problems are due to the need to maintain the pressures in the well within a very narrow pressure margin schubert said dual gradient drilling is designed to widen this pressure margin and to manage the pressure profile in the well within close tolerances the pressure gradient in land drilling begins at the top of the well where the pressure is equal to one atmosphere (the weight of the air on the earths surface) and rises as the drill bit travels down through the wellbore (and the rock surrounding it) to reach the bottom of the well which is sometimes thousands of feet below the surface heavy mud is circulated down the drill string and back up through the annulus area of the well to counter the high pressure at the bottom and prevent it from forcing the oil into the wellbore continued circulation is done to remove the drilled cuttings the pressure gradient begins at the surface of the water when drilling in the ocean but the area between the surface of the water where the rig is and the seafloor where the well actually begins adds complications the wellhead and blowout preventers are located at the seafloor and connected to the rig by the drilling riser since the riser is surrounded by water it is under different pressures dual gradient drilling solves this by adjusting the interior riser pressure usually with seawater (or a fluid of the same density) and then fills the well with the density of mud needed to give the proper balance just like in land drilling these pressures are regulated and maintained by special pumps blowout preventers and many checks and balances special difficulties are presented while drilling in ultra-deepwater bp encountered some of these while drilling the macondo well prior to the 2010 blowout which led to some of the decisions bp made that were highly criticized as with all new technology there are phenomena that are not fully understood our lab is designed to help the industry better understand what will happen in the junction between the marine drilling riser and the subsea pump said schubert who served as an expert adviser on the macondo situation aftermath the current work studies the behavior of natural gas entering the riser one of the difficulties bp had to deal with the source of the gas can be from the formation that is drilled up and circulated to the surface due to pressures in the formation gas contained in the pore spaces of the rock that is drilled up will expand as it is brought toward the surface this lab should help visualize the path this gas takes we hope to determine how much gas entering the riser is diverted to the subsea pump and how much continues upward and accumulates at the top of the riser and how we can maximize the gas that exits through the subsea pump schubert said gas can also enter the wellbore from kicks a kick occurs when formation fluids flow into the wellbore due to insufficient pressure being maintained within the wellbore kicks have to be handled differently than drilled gas since these can escalate into a blowout currently gas from kicks is kept out of the riser by closing the blowout preventers and circulating it to the surface via a small diameter choke line a high pressure choke at the surface is adjusted to impose back pressure to the well so that the kick can be killed properly newer risers are being designed with gas handling equipment installed in the top of the riser part of this study will develop procedures where the riser itself can be utilized in handling this gas from kicks this type of research will help future drilling operations recognize and avoid the dangerous pressure situations that led to the macondo blowout and possibly create safer equipment to further reduce risk the lab system consists of clear pvc pipe (six inches in diameter) to simulate the marine drilling riser small diameter clear pvc inner pipe to simulate the drillstring and a six-inch outlet approximately six feet from the bottom of the marine riser to act as the outlet of the riser (inlet of the subsea pump) there are two centrifugal pumps: one to act as the mud pump where they can pump straight up from the bottom of the riser or down the drillpipe and up the riser annulus and one connected to the riser outlet to act as the subsea pump (either for the enhanced drilling ec drill pump or the smd mudlift pump) finally there is an air compressor used to pump air into the bottom of the riser to simulate gas entering the system the clear pipe is mounted to a steel frame which can be lifted from horizontal to vertical by a winch attached to a beam in the building the lab can run experiments at any angle from horizontal to vertical videos from the experiments can be viewed here the steel frame was constructed from funds provided by the bureau of safety and environmental enforcement (formerly the minerals management service) for a project schubert and his students conducted to study if epoxy-like materials could be pumped into a well near the surface and drop up to 7 000 feet in an annulus accumulate on top of a packer and set in a vertical and deviated well funding for the current piping pumps and instrumentation has been provided through the marilyn and w f albers 47 faculty fellowship and funds received from directional drilling short courses conducted by halliburton for their employees using the petroleum departments drilling simulator the current configuration was constructed predominately by omer kaldirim a masters student in petroleum engineering (shown in second picture) and john maldonado the facilities manager for the department of petroleum engineering aaron mendonsa another graduate student also works on this project for more information on the lab and research please contact jerome schubert (jschubert@tamuedu)
861,john doucet 81 has been appointed as the chair of the advisory council for the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university while david zachry 85 will serve as co-chair doucet graduated from texas a&m with a bachelors in civil engineering and spent the early years of his career managing complex public and private projects with large engineering consulting firms in texas and california he developed a vision for creating an engineering firm that placed an emphasis on collaboration creativity and community among employees and clients in 1992 doucet founded doucet & associates over the years he has drawn top talent to the company and built an impressive client list as president and ceo doucet is responsible for all civil engineering engagements and overall direction of the firm he is a registered professional engineer in texas california louisiana south carolina oklahoma connecticut vermont rhode island new hampshire maine and massachusetts and is leed ap certified i know the quality of the texas a&m engineering program and continuously look for opportunities to work alongside and hire fellow aggies said doucet i am honored to continue on the advisory council to ensure the next generation continues to receive the highest level of educational training and resources possible many of the top engineering firms throughout texas were started by fellow aggies i want to do my part to ensure we continue graduating top talent and high achievers the mission of the council is to provide advice support and counsel to the department head in order to maintain the highest level of academic excellence ensuring the graduates of the department remain at the forefront of the civil engineering professional practice the council works with the department head to strengthen the depth and breadth of existing degree program specialty areas foster constructive interactions with leading civil engineering practitioners participate in the abet accreditation process and serve as a resource to the departments faculty and students the council also provides guidance on student recruitment and retention diversity initiatives faculty retention updating of equipment and facilities participates in requested fundraising activities and helps to promote significant achievements by the departments faculty and students
862,the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) hosted the first part of the 2015 nuclear security training series (nsts) for indian university faculty and students at texas a&m university june 20-30 the nsts is sponsored by the us department of state's partnership for nuclear security (pns) and is the fourth in its series the participants included 25 nuclear engineering students and five faculty members from nine universities across india: amity university (noida) delhi university delhi technological university the indian institute of technology in mumbai the indian institute of technology in kanpur jadhavpur university (kolkata) mody university (rajasthan) pandit deendayal petroleum university (gandhinagar) and the university of petroleum and energy studies (dehradun) half of the participants in this year's program were female dr costas georghiades associate agency director for strategic initiatives and centers for tees officially welcomed the group to texas a&m at the nsts inaugural event and priya sethi pns program manager gave the nsts opening remarks dr sunil chirayath nsspi interim director gave the keynote address on nuclear security and nuclear security culture
863,instructors for the nsts at texas a&m included nsspi faculty members chirayath dr craig marianno and claudio gariazzo former texas a&m nuclear engineering students dr james miller dr matthew sternat chris ryan and current phd student julia eigenbrodt gave presentations of their student research to the group as a means of generating ideas for future student research projects in the area of nuclear security and stimulating discussion on nuclear security research the aim of the nsts was to inculcate the tenets of nuclear security as a research best practice and to interweave discussions of nuclear security culture into the presentation discussions while at texas a&m the participants attended lectures on nuclear security and nuclear security culture attended nuclear security related thesis and dissertation presentations from former nuclear engineering students participants visited the nuclear science center took part in an outdoor radiation source recovery exercise at the texas a&m engineering extension service's disaster city facility and toured nasa and the george h w bush library and museum dr yassin hassan head of the department of nuclear engineering gave the concluding remarks and distributed the nsts participation certificates on the final day of the texas a&m portion of the nsts after their time at texas a&m the group continued their training series at oak ridge national laboratory and sandia national laboratories the nsts participants also attended the 56th annual meeting of institute of nuclear materials management held in indian wells california
864,three computer science and engineering reu students were recognized for their research posters at the 2015 summer institute on flooding hosted by the center for emergency informatics julia proft matt hegarty and abygail mcmilan were recognized for having the best research posters out of 10 participants as part of their award they will develop their research into mobile applications for emergency responders the students are participating in the computing for disasters research experience for undergraduates at texas a&m university the program is funded by a grant from the national science foundation through research on emergency informatics these students developed programs that allow emergency responders to shrink the amount of data that must be dissected by hand their research allows responders to assist those in need quicker and more effectively when there is a disaster unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) are used to take pictures of the landscape search for survivors and assess the situation the students programs analyzed thousands of images collected during the 2015 texas floods their goal was to reduce the amount of time responders spent searching for points of interest and to document where and when the images were taken proft a senior at connecticut college placed first in the poster competition she developed a program that looks at pictures of the landscape and searches for unnatural changes in color the program locates the points of interest to create hot spots where responders prioritize their search this research has changed my perspective on collaboration between academia and industry proft said im excited to do research that has a real and immediate use the second place winner hegarty is a senior at texas a&m his program eliminates the number of pictures that analysts must dissect by flagging pictures that have straight lines and square corners these features rarely occur in nature and are often man-made objects by flagging these pictures analysts save time by eliminating thousands of pictures this technology saves time and ultimately saves lives hegarty said mcmilan a senior at the university of north georgia received third place for her poster presentation mcmilan developed a program that organizes pictures into a map for responders the program is capable of organizing multiple picture sets from numerous responders and various time periods dr robin murphy the principle investigator for the computing for disasters grant is the research adviser of these students she has used the funding from the national science foundation to motivate students our site grant is unique in two ways murphy said it motivates students by giving them research projects that benefit society and requires them to work with real responders through the program we have attracted a large number of women and minorities and have educated them in human-center computing the poster presentation competition was a small section of the larger summer institute nineteen students from across the country participated in the summer institute to learn from 40 first responders industry professionals and academic researchers it was interesting to hear real responders talk about what they need from researchers mcmilan said it was eye opening to hear the reality versus what is portrayed on tv the 2015 summer institute had over 60 participants from 12 governmental agencies 11 universities and three texas a&m colleges
865,"two labs in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university will be awarded competitive microsoft surface hub research grants the sketch recognition lab and interface ecology lab are two of only 10 awardees selected in the worldwide competition both labs will receive $25 000 in unrestricted research funding and an 84-inch microsoft surface hub worth approximately $20 000 the microsoft surface hub is a touch-screen device used for collaboration the new technology allows multiple people to use the screen at the same time the resolution four times better than most televisions allows for interaction with high-resolution images and models the sketch recognition lab run by dr tracy hammond uses technology to identify understand and predict human behavior the lab will use the microsoft surface hub for collaboration while developing new sketch recognition technology sketch and gesture technologies have been shown to improve learning experiences hammond said the surface hub enhances the group learning environment and the student-teacher collaborative environment by allowing for a large design environment we look forward to developing new educational solutions for working in large collaborative environments"" the interface ecology lab run by dr andruid kerne investigates the future of human expression by focusing on creativity play participation and learning the lab will use the surface hub technology as a basis to develop new interaction techniques for creative design the technology allows for human interaction with the hub using a finger and pen at the same time after they are developed the techniques will be integrated into the ideamâché creative support program kerne will collaborate with dr galen newman and dr jun-hyun kim to investigate how surface hub supports design ideation in landscape architecture studios working together ideamâché and surface hub have the potential to transform human expression by making expression more physical and sensory kerne said we will provide powerful new tools to propel the imaginations of architecture students at texas a&m and beyond by working together computer science and engineering is spreading the impact of these grants across campus andrew webb a dissertation fellow at texas a&m sees the potential to improve education the integration of ideamâché with surface hub will transform architecture education at texas a&m webb said this will provide students and faculty with a digital medium to design and critique while this technology can transform the classroom setting it will soon transform industry graduate assistant paul taele thinks the microsoft surface hub will be used to improve teamwork across the world the surface hub is a technological advancement that will allow people to collaborate work together and achieve more throughout industry and academia taele said dr tracy hammond dr andruid kerne"
866,during my 87 years i have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions but none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think-- bernard mannes baruch (1870-1965) head of the us delegation to the united nations atomic energy commission after world war ii texas a&m university's dwight look college of engineering zachry leadership program is a product of the past the present and timeless principles in the near term its an enhanced response to the widely-discussed need in the united states for science technology engineering and math (stem) graduates ultimately it will serve an even higher purpose by helping students think more broadly about their potential to benefit themselves their employer and society understanding that their work can be a means to achieving goals that reach far beyond the scope of their daily work the program will augment the studies of a select group of engineering students chosen via a comprehensive review process at peak the program will have 96 participants 32 each sophomores juniors and seniors the programs premise is that technical knowledge alone is insufficient to provide high impact contributions by graduate engineers first entering the workplace to maximize their potential to contribute requires a broader and more sophisticated level of personal awareness enhanced leadership skills and a better understanding of how successful organizations operate the program focuses on helping students expand their perspectives and gain appreciation for the power of collaboration and diversity of thinking an additional and critical aspect of the program is designed to cultivate a degree of selflessness and a commitment to service the combination of coursework and exposure to recognized thought-leaders from a wide range of backgrounds will help students develop the capability and understanding necessary to build a strong foundation for successful and rewarding careers…and lives zachry group established the zachry leadership program through a $25 million gift to the look college of engineering in addition to the program zachry groups contribution will support construction of the engineering education complex and endow a professor of practice within the department of mechanical engineering a comprehensive approach students in the program will benefit from the depth of zachry groups 90-year history working on 5 continents with some of the largest and most sophisticated companies in the world and its concept of the role that businesses can and should play in improving society this concept encompasses the companys conviction that in addition to being a successful profit-making enterprise it has an obligation to make a positive difference everywhere it works it strives to have an enduring impact on people and in the communities where it operates this is accomplished through a framework the company calls corporate residentship students will be introduced to zachrys unique view of its own purpose and how it measures the impact on employees customers and communities in essence its a propriety and expanded approach to focusing on the triple bottom line the intent is to present multiple approaches not emphasizing a single best business model students will also learn about other approaches and hear from representatives of different organizations the zachry leadership program seeks to stimulate students thinking about the possibilities and full potential for any organization the first two semesters of the five-semester program will help students learn more about themselves and the range of things that engineers can do develop an understanding of business fundamentals and be exposed to various leadership concepts and models students will also have chances to support service projects and learn about non-profit leadership the middle two semesters will go into greater detail about leadership business and organizational concepts and the positive role that engineers and businesses can play in meeting societys greatest needs students will explore how the world is evolving and what the future will ask of them as well as read and discuss business case studies and participate in a business simulation game there will be various interdisciplinary learning experiences focused on improving their abilities to influence and work effectively in teams the final semester will allow students to apply what they have learned and begin thinking about how they will carry this knowledge forward into their careers and lives this course will involve structured dialogue journals and a personal leadership project during their participation in the program students will have opportunities to develop peer relationships as well as interact with accomplished professionals and other individuals with remarkable backgrounds they will be exposed to the arts as part of an approach to stimulate their creativity and open their minds they will emerge from the experience with a strong understanding of how businesses operate within a free enterprise system strengthened leadership capabilities and a sense of self-confidence in their ability to influence people and an appreciation for how individuals and organizations can make meaningful contributions to meeting societys needs starting down the path the 32 program participants each year will enroll in one leadership course during each of the programs five semesters beginning in the spring of their sophomore years to be considered for the program candidates must: be enrolled in the look college be in good academic standing at the time of entry go through an application process and remain in good academic standing throughout the program students who will begin the spring semester of their second year in january 2016 are eligible to apply applications for the first class of 32 students are being accepted through august 20 participants will be selected and notified by october 22 all students who are accepted receive a $1 000 scholarship each semester while enrolled in the program upon completion they earn a certificate in engineering leadership and 15 credit hours
867,dr diego donzis assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was the keynote speaker at the first annual rocky mountain fluid mechanics research symposium held recently in boulder colorado donzis spoke on extreme events in turbulence: scaling and direct numerical simulations the symposium brought together students faculty and professional researchers with a common interest in fluid mechanics the primary purpose of the symposium was to provide student researchers along the colorado front range the opportunity to present and discuss their work donzis has been with the department since 2009 and his research interests include large-scale high-performance computing fluid dynamics turbulence and turbulent mixing he received his bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from universidad tecnologica nacional argentina in 2001 his master's degree in aerospace engineering from georgia institute of technology in 2004 and phd in aerospace engineering from georgia institute of technology in 2007 he has received the francois frenkiel award the nsf career award two tees select young faculty awards two incite awards by doe and best graduates from argentina by the national academy of engineering of argentina
868,dr ramesh talreja professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been named the 2013 winner of the scala award by the executive council of the international committee on composite materials (iccm) with the award comes the privilege of using the title world fellow of iccm the council meets every two years during the iccm conference talreja was elected to receive the scala award during the 19th conference in 2013 and received the award at the 20th conference in copenhagen denmark july 19-24 2015 talreja was invited to deliver the opening plenary lecture (the scala award lecture) which was titled integration of manufacturing and failure analyses for sustainable design of composites more than 1 800 delegates from 55 countries attended the iccm conference the designation of world fellow is an award given by the iccm in recognition of one or more of the following: (1) an outstanding contribution to the field of composite materials through research and/or industrial development; (2) international recognition and contribution to the work of iccm; and (3) other contributions to the field eg through education contributions to other major conference series development of standards/design codes editorial work etc world fellows are designated as life members further at every iccm since 2005 the outstanding contribution of one individual to the field is recognized through the scala award which carries with it the designation of world fellow i am humbled by this honor i did not apply for it and had no inkling i was being considered said talreja he has been with the department for more than 14 years serving as department head from 2001-2003 his current interests are cost-effective manufacturing of composites through engineering of defects
869,halliburton has given a gift of $5 million to the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university to establish the halliburton engineering global program which will provide students with international experiences so that they are better prepared to work and succeed in a changing global economy the new program will include faculty-led study abroad programs industrial internship experiences overseas and research experiences at overseas academic institutions and laboratories the halliburton engineering global program provides students with unique opportunities to experience and learn engineering and business practices of different societies in the context of local culture and tradition students also have the opportunity to learn to collaborate and compete with the global talent with which they will interact over the next several decades of their careers programs such as these are very important in developing the engineer of the future said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering we live in a global marketplace and international experiences not only provide our students with a better understanding of our world but allow students to obtain a professional experience abroad while gaining the cultural sensitivity needed for success internationally the college of engineerings goal is to more than double the number of engineering students (from 700 to 2 000 per year) who participate in a global engineering experience this gift will help us reach this goal banks said halliburton has a long-standing relationship with texas a&m and has provided support for many educational initiatives for the college of engineering the college of science and the mays business school the company also has a long history of commitment and support to higher education engineers are critical to halliburtons success and we see our contribution to texas a&ms global engineering program as an investment in the next generation of potential employees said jeff miller president of halliburton we have been and remain committed to higher education in spite of the current difficult market conditions about halliburton founded in 1919 halliburton is one of the world's largest providers of products and services to the energy industry with more than 70 000 employees representing 140 nationalities in over 80 countries the company serves the upstream oil and gas industry throughout the lifecycle of the reservoir - from locating hydrocarbons and managing geological data to drilling and formation evaluation well construction and completion and optimizing production through the life of the field visit the companys website at wwwhalliburtoncom connect with halliburton on facebook twitter linkedin oilpro and youtube about texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering with more than 500 faculty members and more than 14 000 students texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering is one of the largest engineering schools in the country the college is ranked seventh in engineering graduate programs and eighth in undergraduate engineering programs among public institutions by us news and world report visit wwwengineeringtamuedu for more information
870,salar zabihi-siabil a graduate student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university won first place in the young professionals and students pavement challenge at the 9th international conference on managing pavement assets (icmpa9) held in washington dc may 18-21 the research detecting potential errors in pavement condition data was a collaboration between zabihi-siabil and siamak saliminejad a former phd student of dr nasir gharaibeh at texas a&m gharaibeh an associate professor in the civil engineering department served as faculty adviser saliminejad graduated with a phd in civil engineering in 2012 and now works as a consultant at agileassets controlling the quality of infrastructure condition and monitoring data is a real challenge faced by transportation agencies this is further complicated by the evolution of data collection and reporting methods over time and by the periodic replacement of equipment over time the challenge was to assess and improve the quality and continuity of pavement management data by applying new or existing techniques to a data set provided to meet the challenge applicants were encouraged to be innovative but needed to at least address the quality of the provided data set identify and impute missing data values errors and outliers demonstrate a quality control or data acceptance methodology assess consistency between pavement work history and historical performance and develop ways to visualize this data set in his phd research zabihi-siabil is developing computerized methods for detecting errors in large sets of infrastructure condition data his dissertation research focuses on infrastructure management and pavement management systems and improving the quality of pavement condition data he has worked with the texas a&m transportation institute as a graduate research assistant since 2011
871,scholars and graduate students from institutions across europe north africa the middle east and north america attended the fourth international institute on multifunctional materials for energy conversion (iimec) school on computational materials science across scales at texas a&m university in july iimec is a national science foundation-funded international material institute established at texas a&m in partnership with georgia institute of technology the university of houston and international research collaborators at universities in north africa the middle east and mediterranean countries the summer school served as part of iimecs mission to provide students and faculty from the united states and participating countries with global research and international leadership experience dr amine benzerga associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering and dr raymundo arróyave associate professor in the department of materials science jointly organized the summer school with the support of the dwight look college of engineering the college of science and the office of the associate vice chancellor for engineering research the school boasted instructors from texas a&m georgia tech national institutes for standards and technology los alamos national laboratories lawrence livermore national laboratory pierre and marie curie university (france) arts et métiers paristech (france) university of cambridge (england) and the university of duisburg-essen (germany) summer school participants included students from more than a dozen institutions including six of the top universities in the us as well as universities and research institutes in mexico france greece the united kingdom egypt and saudi arabia over a period of 10 days students were exposed to theory and practice sessions focused on different computational materials simulation tools ranging from continuum to the electronic structure level hands-on computational laboratory activities were part of the class structure students had access to linux cluster consisting of several hundred nodes/cores state-of-the-art computational codes such as vasp abaqus lammps paradis matcalc vpsc and matlab were used to illustrate the concepts covered in the school software and hardware infrastructure was facilitated by dr lisa perez manager of the laboratory of molecular simulation under dr michael b hall executive associate dean of the college of science and professor of chemistry
872,"the master of industrial distribution program at texas a&m university will host its annual residency week aug 3-7 in college station texas this year 140 students will be in attendance making this the largest class to date for the program residency week is filled with intensive learning focused on the latest trends in industrial distribution as well as with activities to help students build stronger relationships with others in the program in addition students have the opportunity to meet the faculty who are in regular contact with them throughout the year students in the master of industrial distribution program are required to participate in two residency weeks each year those attending included two sets of cohorts; this years attendees are the class of 2016 and class of 2017 while on campus students have to opportunity to discover texas a&ms rich heritage and traditions professors present lectures and discussions full of case studies and classroom activity for the class of 2016 this brings them one step closer toward graduation in the spring for those in the class of 2017 this is their debut into the department and program residency week for the newer students will offer them a chance to become familiar with the program and allow them to dive into the content they have been studying activities will range from classroom instruction to a diamond club dinner students will have the opportunity to order their aggie rings and a sigma delta ceremony will be held for awards to be given out to students with a gpa of 33 or higher residency week officially kicks off with a welcome breakfast with guest speakers dr karen butler-purry associate provost for graduate and professional studies; dr john criscone assistant dean of the dwight look college of engineering; and amber muenzenberger director for remote learning and outreach education the week concludes with closing remarks from dr daniel jennings founding and program director of the master of industrial distribution; and dr f barry lawrence program coordinator of the industrial distribution program ""the department is elated to have its executive distance education students on campus for this weeklong process said dr reza langari department head of engineering technology and industrial distribution for more information please contact acortiz@tamuedu"
873,dr milivoj belic professor in the science program at texas a&m university at qatar has been chosen as the first recipient of the prestigious al sraiya holding group professorship belics record at texas a&m at qatar has garnered him many well-deserved recognitions in the past such as receiving the research team of the year award in 2012 and 2014 from the qatar national research fund dr mark h weichold dean and ceo of texas a&m at qatar said it is my pleasure to announce dr belic as the first recipient of this prestigious professorship his record at texas a&m at qatar and throughout his career has garnered many well-deserved recognitions therefore it is most fitting that a person of his caliber be chosen to receive the first professorship provided by a private company in qatar the generous contribution by al-sraiya holding group will provide funds to support dr belics academic development and research activities for a period of three years professorships are crucial to an academic institution focused on excellence and represent truly exceptional teachers and scholars a selection committee comprising of five chaired faculty members from texas a&m universitys main campus received a number of very strong nominations from the texas a&m at qatar engineering and science program chairs the committee evaluated the nominees based on their records of excellence in research teaching and service with particular emphasis on involving students in research research productivity and impact and engagement with the local community in qatar it makes me proud to be the first recipient of the prestigious al sraiya holding professorship dr belic said this fund will benefit our research endeavors at texas a&m at qatar as well as qatar and its people sponsored by al sraiya holding group this professorship supports belics prestigious position and support teaching and student activities at texas a&m at qatar professorships help give universities a competitive edge by providing funds to attract top faculty which in turn helps attract other top-notch faculty and students
874,"faculty growth in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university grew by a factor of five in 2015; in the spirit of increase three assistant professors were promoted with tenure sept 1 introducing new faculty members: james harris - professor of practicephd the university of texas at austin 1981great to be at texas a&mi didn't go to school here but got here as soon as i could! he said sang-ii kwon - assistant professorphd university of california los angeles 2015it is with great delight that i begin my professional career at this highly ranked institution he said pushkar lele - assistant professorphd university of delaware 2010doing the research i love in a vibrant and supportive environment he said phanourios tamamis - assistant professorphd university of cyprus 2010to pursue great teaching and research–for this i am here he said homa khosravian - research assistant professorphd university of illinois at chicago 2013i am so excited to be a part of the chemical engineering family at texas a&m university it is truly an honor to start my academic career here she said celebrating faculty promotion: mustafa akbulut - associate professorphd university of california santa barbara 2007i would like to thank the department of chemical engineering for providing me with a friendly environment and top-notch resources during my tenure process he said jodie lutkenhaus - associate professorphd massachusetts institute of technology 2007""i am excited to begin this new phase of my career she said sreeram vaddiraju - associate professorphd university of louisville 2006he said the promotion is a small step in realizing my dream of becoming a successful academic but also [is] a testament to the support provided by the chemical engineering department and texas a&m university"
875,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has selected melanie bell as chair of the computer science and engineering advisory council im excited to lead the advisory council this year bell said giving back to texas a&m is something that has always been my goal this position provides one more avenue to achieve that goal bell is employed by chevron where she works as the strategy architecture and emerging technology manager she and her team of specialized architects develop and maintain the companys technology strategy bell has worked for chevron since 1991 and has represented chevron in the departments industrial affiliates program(iap) her corporate and iap experiences allow her to provide strategic vision and leadership to the advisory council as chair of the advisory council bell will lead the 25 members as they assist the department the advisory council provides guidance to the department on strategic planning fundraising and education they serve as the departments connection with industry engineering communities government agencies and former students the advisory council is composed of former students who have proven leadership in the fields of computer science and computer engineering their expertise contributes to the councils objectives and assists the department in remaining industry relevant bell graduated from texas a&m in 1990 with a degree in applied mathematics since then she has worked to give back to the university she and her sister recently created an endowed presidential scholarship for incoming freshmen in engineering or science majors we really enjoy giving back and getting to meet the students each year bell said in addition to her job and volunteering for computer science bell is an aerial arts instructor in houston where she teaches static trapeze and fabric in her spare time she enjoys reading cooking and traveling
876,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr ivan damnjanovic the jl corky frank/marathon ashland petroleum llc faculty fellow in the dwight look college of engineering in recognition of his accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship appointment was effective sept 1 damnjanovic is an associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2012 he received his phd in civil engineering from the university of texas at austin in 2006 damnjanovics research interests include management of project development; project finance; construction management; transportation infrastructure; and dynamics of reconstruction
877,juseok bae a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won the student challenge award at the 2015 european microwave week (eumw) the premier rf and microwave event in europe the student challenge is an opportunity for undergraduate graduate and phd students from all over the world with a variety of academic backgrounds to work together on a specific topic in the wide and challenging field of microwaves the aim is to promote innovative thinking teamwork and proactive behavior bae whose advisor is dr cam nguyen led a team that included three other graduate students from telecom paristech university paris france; chalmers university of technology gothenburg sweden; and petersburg electrotechnical university st petersburg russia their poster was titled phased array formation using drones for space applications in their presentation they proposed the visionary idea of using drones capable of short-range sensing for individual space explorations and then combining them using the rfic phased-array concept for directive and long-range communications with orbital satellites that could lead to better and multi-functional capability agility mobility adaptability and performance lower cost and lighter weight as compared to using conventional robot-based space explorations this is a concept bae has been working on in his research with nguyen bae received his bachelors and masters degrees in electrical and electronic engineering from soon chun hyang university in chungcheongnam-do south korea his research interests include cmos/bicmos integrated circuits and systems for rf microwave and millimeter-wave applications eumw a six-day event brings industry and academia together for three cutting edge conferences and an exciting trade and technology exhibition featuring leading players from across the globe eumw provides access to the very latest products research and initiatives in the microwave secto and offers the opportunity for face-to-face interaction with those driving the future of microwave technology for more on the conference visit the eumw website
878,the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has received the research for undergraduates (reu) grant from the national science foundation (nsf) over a period of three years the $365 000 grant will enable the department to offer research experiences in multiscale experiments and modeling of material systems to 10 undergraduate students enrolled in universities across texas dr terry creasy associate professor in materials science and engineering and dr ibrahim karaman materials science and engineering head and chevron professor i collaborated with dr dimitris lagoudas university distinguished professor and senior associate dean for research on texas a&ms program titled reu site: multifunctional materials the program is jointly funded by the department of defenses awards to stimulate and support undergraduate research experience (assure) program in partnership with the nsf reu program the materials science and engineering program has a long history of incorporating undergraduate research both through previous reu programs and through involvement in individual pi labs said dr patrick shamberger assistant professor and undergraduate degree program director in the materials science and engineering department this grant enables our department to scale up support for these activities and in the process develop a strong cadre of undergraduate researchers many of which we hope will chose to continue their graduate research here in this department texas a&ms program offers opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in materials science research early in their undergraduate careers despite having no access to materials science as a major in their home institutions it also promotes success of more senior students particularly underrepresented minority students who have already developed an interest in materials science but would benefit from a research experience undergraduate research is a phenomenal opportunity for students to integrate course material that they learn in the classroom with the practical process of materials discovery and engineering said shamberger it is also an ideal chance for students to discover the research process itself and plays a key role in many students decisions to follow the path of graduate studies during the 10-week program students will get hands-on experience in various materials synthesis and characterization techniques different types of multifunctional materials and materials modeling methods such as molecular dynamics to continuum scale constitutive modeling optimization advanced finite element-based micro-mechanics and macroscopic finite element modeling they will learn how research is conducted develop experimentation and modeling skills and learn how to conduct property characterization analysis testing and optimization of multifunctional materials and components the students will be mentored by materials science and engineering faculty and a trained graduate student at the end of the program students will present their research results in a poster symposium and participate in an reu students invent experience in collaboration with the aggies invent program
879,sayyeda marziya hasan graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has earned top honors at the 2015 biointerface workshop and symposium for her research poster detailing the development of radiopaque shape memory polymer (smp) nanocomposites for use in neurovascular embolic devices hasan who works in the biomedical device laboratory of professor duncan j maitland is joined by fellow texas a&m graduate students anthony boyle and landon nash who were named runners-up in the competition giving texas a&m – and maitlands laboratory – a clean sweep of the awards at this years conference headed by maitland the biomedical device laboratory develops a number of interventional devices including those based on smps research and development efforts include device fabrication characterization computational modeling biocompatibility and functional in vivo studies at the symposium hasan whose research focuses on fabrication and characterization of thermoset smp foams received top honors for her poster titled opacification of shape memory polymer foams using tungsten nanoparticles for neurovascular embolic applications boyle a runner-up in the competition has worked on the design development and translation to commercialization of a novel smp foam device for the treatment of intracranial saccular aneurysms his poster detailed the development of the device nash also a runner-up researches biomaterial surface modification using cold gas plasma he was recognized for his poster about using a surface modification technique to increase the delivery time and clinical feasibility of catheter-based devices used to treat brain aneurysms the biointerface workshop and symposium has been presented annually since 1991 by the surfaces in biomaterials foundation and brings together engineers scientists clinicians and regulatory experts from all aspects of the biomedical community to openly discuss and debate recent innovations and research topics the surfaces in biomaterials foundation is dedicated to exploring creative solutions to technical challenges at the biointerface by fostering education and multidisciplinary cooperation among industrial academic clinical and regulatory communities about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
880,"the professional association for industrial distribution (paid) recently hosted its annual career fair at texas a&m universitys memorial student center paid is one of the largest student-run organizations at texas a&m with more than 600 members paid was formed in 1983 to serve as a link between industrial distribution students and industry for more than 30 years paid has played a key role in providing internships and job opportunities for industrial distribution students industrial distribution is one of only two majors on campus to host major specific recruitment fairs the other being construction science paid has been hosting its fall career fair for more than 20 years and due to industry demand added a spring fair eight years ago the career fair attracted a record 70 companies from around the united states that were recruiting for full-time and internship positions each company in attendance recognizes the value of industrial distribution students said cory cobler president of paid there is no place in the country that you can find the caliber of students we produce here at texas a&m we are looking forward to our spring career fair in february and its success"" paid is a leading student organization added evan vestal an advisor to paid and a faculty member in industrial distribution it serves several purposes for most industrial distribution students including providing a platform for connections with industry an outlet to provide service to others and a mechanism to assimilate students into social interaction thereby leading to lifelong relationships with others paids career fairs are premier events on campus and the fall career fair was the largest and most successful yet many of our industry partners commented on the tremendous success of the event in addition to organizing the career fairs paid also hosts power lunches corporate spotlight the paid banquet intern-for-a-day and digital resume collection paid has also raised funds for charitable causes with events such as 5k runs and crawfish boils for more information on paid and the career fairs visit paids website"
881,"terry leeper a former student of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was selected to lead the new amazon corporate office in austin texas the office currently employs more than 165 full-time people with plans for expansion in the near future in addition to leading the new office leeper also serves as the chief technology officer for business-to-business at amazon im excited to be back in texas leading the austin office leeper said there is a great deal of potential for growth in the texas market through this office we are able to offer amazon services such as primenow and aws and create a development center in texas for full-time developers and interns"" leeper graduated from texas a&m in 1986 with degrees in computer science and electrical engineering prior to his current role he was in charge of amazons vendor facing software and business software for myhabitcom before moving to amazon leeper worked at microsoft for 12 years in visual studio while at microsoft leeper moved to england where he led developer tool sales and marketing in europe the middle east and africa leeper currently serves as a member of the computer science and engineering advisory council he and the other council members work with dr dilma da silva department head and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii terry brings our council extensive understanding of opportunities for our students in e-commerce da silva said its great to hear about the demand for our students and real-world challenges they can tackle through internships and software development jobs at amazon in 2014 leeper and his wife established the jana and terry leeper 86 scholarship for freshmen in the department of computer science and engineering establishing the scholarship was incredibly easy leeper said helping a student pay for school is our way to give back to the program that helped me so much its about aggies helping aggies for more information about the jana and terry leeper 86 scholarship or other gift information visit the giving page"
882,"dr daniel ragsdale professor of practice in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently inducted into the espn fan hall of fame as a retired colonel from the us army ragsdale was selected because of his notable passion and energy at army athletic events during his many years at the united states military academy at west point his antics earned him the nickname the crazy colonel to earn his place in the fan hall of fame ragsdale was chosen to be a finalist by an espn judging panel the 10 finalists were eligible to receive votes in an online poll ragsdale was one of the top three and selected for induction into the espn fan hall of fame i was very surprised to learn how much folks appreciated my well demonstrative support for army west point teams ragsdale said both during and after the online vote last fall i received messages from around the world without exception they expressed gratitude and told me that my upbeat never-say-die attitude made a positive difference in their lives"" prior to returning to texas a&m ragsdale was a program manager at the defense research project agency (darpa) where he managed cybersecurity and educational research programs ragsdale attended texas a&m for one year before moving to west point to finish his degree and be commissioned in 1981 during his three decades of service ragsdale spent 15 years at west point in a variety of research and educational leadership roles throughout that period his efforts were devoted to cybersecurity ragsdale completed three combat deployments in grenada afghanistan and iraq ragsdale returned to texas a&m to complete his phd in computer science in 2001 in 2007 he received the distinguished former student award from the department currently at texas a&m ragsdale teaches and conducts research on cybersecurity reverse engineering computer ethics and privacy additionally he is the director of texas a&m engineering experiment stations cybersecurity center"
883,"the industrial affiliates program (iap) in the department of computer science and engineering (cse) at texas a&m university recently held a career fair and poster competition at the fall recruiting event more than 300 cse students attended to learn about the 21 iap members and engage with the industry the event provided iap members exclusive access to students in the department the cse department headed by dr dilma da silva works to provide students with opportunities which they would not have elsewhere the cse-only career fair provides students and iap members with a unique opportunity to interact in a more private setting than a traditional career fair da silva said through generous gifts the iap program supports scholarships for many students"" prior to the career fair the department hosted a research poster competition for students presentations were judged by iap representatives through a mobile application developed by cse students the application collects feedback and then automatically calculates and reports winners trevor nelligan and his adviser dr tracy hammond placed first and received $500 for their poster titled ""mechanix: a sketch based educational interface"" tian lain and his adviser dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna received second place and $250 with their poster ""flappy voice: an interactive game for childhood apraxia of speech therapy"" jian wu and his adviser dr roozbeh jafari received third place and a $100 award for their poster ""real-time american sign language recognition using wrist-worn surface emg and inertial sensors"" iap provides opportunities for the industry to learn about activities in cse through recruiting events classroom talks and conversations with students faculty and researchers iaps goal is to develop relationships between the department and industry stakeholders"
884,dr nancy amato unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university served as the program committee chair for the 2015 international conference on robotics and automation (icra) held in seattle four additional computer science and engineering representatives served in leadership positions at the conference dr robin murphy raytheon professor served as the exhibitions committee chair; dr shawna thomas a postdoctoral researcher was the chair of the web committee; chinwe ekenna a graduate student served as the developing countries forum chair; and former student dr lydia tapia was chair of the student activities committee amato led a committee of 50 robotics professionals to organize the international conference to increase the representation of women this program committee was the first to be comprised solely of women we wanted the opportunity to emphasize and celebrate the diversity of roboticists in our research community amato said not just women but also students and researchers from developing countries amatos involvement in the conference began long before the main event the parasol laboratory and the department of computer science and engineering hosted the senior program committee (spc) and texas a&m robotics symposium in january to finalize the conference details and listen to robotics experts the main objective of the spc meeting is to select the papers and plan the conference program amato said however we had to take advantage of this unique opportunity to hear from such a remarkable cadre of robotics and automation researchers from around the world with more than 3 000 attendees the 2015 icra conference set an all-time record the three-day conference had 940 technical paper presentations from researchers representing over 40 countries icra is the flagship robotics conference of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers as an international conference it serves as a premier forum for robotics researchers to present their work the conference included plenary and mini-plenary sessions paper presentations workshops and robot challenges
885,"the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university is ranked no 2 in value colleges top 50 best value engineering programs of 2015 this report confirms what we already knew said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp not only is texas a&m a top 10 engineering program in the world its a great value that gives our graduates a leg up to a bright future value colleges is an independent online guide to the best values in undergraduate and graduate college education georgia tech was ranked first while purdue university was third other texas universities in the ranking include: the university of texas at austin (5th) and rice university (15th) the top 50 best value engineering list is designed to guide interested students to the colleges and universities that combine the value of affordable tuition rates with educational excellence ""we are proud to be ranked as the second best value engineering program in the nation and first in the state of texas "" said texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean m katherine banks we are committed to providing a high quality education at an affordable cost and this ranking reinforces what employers tell us: an engineering degree from texas a&m is a solid investment in the future the rankings are compiled using the average 20-year roi from payscalecom national rankings (us news & world report) and real tuition costs the 50 schools on the list prepare engineering students for graduate school and employment providing a reputable degree that will carry a strong reputation to the job market"
886,standing on the upper deck of reed arena during this years student engineers council (sec) career fair andrew west looked down at the thousands of students below each hoping to make a good impression on an industry representative as sec president this event was the culmination of months of work a senior petroleum engineering student at texas a&m university west understands the importance of networking and making a good impression job offers are slightly down for petroleum graduates he said but that hasnt deterred him regardless of what degree you get here at the [dwight] look college problem-solving is really what youre learning to do he said starting off with less than what you think you need to solve a problem and understanding that you have to make assumptions and think outside of the box to solve an issue west said it doesnt matter if a student chooses petroleum engineering or mechanical engineering or any other engineering field companies are always interested in hiring engineers knowing those problem-solving skills i think will help with anything in life he said west has been a problem solver since long before he ever applied to college and declared his major as a small boy growing up in san antonio he used to take apart the toys he would receive with his kids meal and then reassemble them to create something new thats when his parents realized their son would likely become an engineer one day knowing exactly what i wanted to do in engineering was a little further off he said once i started to apply to schools i started to think petroleum engineering would be a good option texas a&m petroleum engineering is world-renowned so that kind of solidified my decision to come to a&m wests father studied geology in college and though he eventually chose a different career path geology was always something that interested him he passed that interest on to his sons he took myself and my brother on field trips that he used to go on he said and when you mix geology and engineering you get petroleum engineering during his freshmen year west said he primarily focused on his grades choosing not to become involved in student organizations that changed at the beginning of his sophomore year when he attended a welcome social the sec holds before the career fair each year getting involved with the student engineers council was probably the best decision i made he said adding that in the beginning he never anticipated becoming president ive just been surrounded by really good people that have encouraged me to be where i am he said being in this position one of the most interesting parts is getting to present at department head meetings these experiences along with career fairs and other events provide sec members the opportunity to network and gain confidence he said as president west has also gained an appreciation for working in management and seeing all the pieces of the puzzle come together as a result his future career goals have changed when i was a freshman i just wanted to graduate and be an engineer he said but being in sec and being on the management side and seeing finances and all the ins and outs and the overall view of whats going on ideally i would like to be an engineer and then go into some sort of management roll west said he understands that will mean taking on more responsibility i think the biggest thing ive learned is that taking on more responsibility can seem more nerve-wracking at times but you find that once you take it youre better because of it he said west hopes to follow the lead of many sec presidents before him who have become very successful engineers after walking across the stage at texas a&m he is set to graduate in may the student engineers council is a student-run organization that is the representative body for all students in the dwight look college of engineering for more information on the organization visit the sec website
887,"dr sheng-jen (""tony"") hsieh professor and director of the rockwell automation laboratory in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university was named honorary international chair professor by national taipei university of technology (taipei tech) in taipei taiwan in 2015 hsieh also holds a joint-appointment in the department of mechanical engineering this is recognition of his overall contributions in the area of industrial automation and control especially in the area of remote control diagnosis and preventative maintenance of automated assembly systems the international chair professor is the institution's highest scientific recognition taipei tech was founded in 1912 and is a top-ranked public university in taiwan with a longstanding history in educating and cultivating top technical professionals a recent teaching excellence evaluation by taiwans ministry of education rated taipei tech first among all the other technological universities hsiehs research interests lie in the fields of automated system integration and cyber-enabled control/diagnosis of machines and systems; optical and infrared imaging for characterization and failure prediction; micro/nano device fabrication; and design of technology for engineering education currently he leads a $900 000 nsf project to develop innovative curricula and instructional technologies such as tele-labs and intelligent tutoring systems for industrial automation he served as chair of spie's thermosense xxxvii conference and asee's manufacturing division in 2014-15"
888,dr arum han associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a grant from the national institutes of health (nih) to develop brain-on-a-chip for drug development against neurological disorders organs-on-chips are microfluidic cellular systems that can accurately mimic the functions and responses of physiological systems of animals and humans these miniature tissues and organs also called microphysiological systems are expected to have a huge impact in broad ranges of applications as they can overcome the limitations of currently used biological assays and animal models having the capability to better predict human physiological responses without having to use animal or human models can lead to better understanding of disease mechanisms and accelerate drug development and toxicity screening through this new nih grant han and his collaborators jianrong li professor in veterinary integrative biosciences and yoonsuck choe professor in computer science will develop a brain-on-a-chip system that will be the first high-throughput myelination model system of the central nervous system this system will have physiologically relevant responses and will be amenable to high-throughput drug screening applications two technological innovations will drive the development of this system microfabrication and microfluidic technologies will enable the team to build multicellular architectures with accurate control of their surrounding microenvironments on small disposable chips that can be mass manufactured at a low cost lab-on-a-chip technologies while complex labor-intensive and time-consuming assays can be integrated on a chip format and will enable the team to fully automate the entire assay allowing rapid and efficient drug screening it is the teams hope that this development will lead to a new method in discovering novel small molecules that can stimulate remyelination laying a solid foundation for the next phase of translational investigation the teams effort is also part of the texas a&m one health initiative under the accessible & affordable quality health care grand challenge where han is leading the microphysiological system initiative miniature tissues and organs for detection and prevention of diseases which focuses on development of next-generation biologics through microphysiological systems han has made significant contributions to the field of microfluidic lab-on-a-chip systems for health and renewable bioenergy applications he is the recipient of the e d brocket professorship award the engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research the eugene webb faculty fellow and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) fellow
889,maura cadigan a third-year aerospace engineering honors student recently became the first aggie to participate in stanford universitys us- russia forum a program that aims to bring together the brightest students in the us and russia to collaborate on research the baton rouge louisiana native said she almost didnt apply when she looked at the accomplishments of past delegates it was pretty intimidating she said adding that many former delegates attended ivy league schools or elite technical institutions i just thought ‘oh thats not me i decided to apply anyway her decision paid off according to the programs website 40 students were selected from 550 applicants from 157 universities in 37 countries on sept 4 cadigan departed for russia where she met the other delegates in the program the students were split into 10 groups with four people on each team two americans and two russians the delegates spent half the week in moscow russias capital and half the week in tyumen siberia the purpose of the trip she said was to meet their mentors for cadigans group the mentors were representatives from boeing russia her group was tasked with researching efficient ways for russian aviation manufacturers to break into emerging markets they used to have a strong aviation industry but when the soviet union collapsed everything collapsed she said theres a lot of prestige that goes into having an international carrier one emerging market they are researching is china china has a rapidly developing middle class so their plan is to break into the chinese market she said over the next eight months cadigans group will be researching chinas needs based on their routes the airline specifications and technology needed on the planes they will be using skype and other messaging technologies to interact with their russian teammates in april all of the delegates will present their research at stanford university cadigan said the experience was rewarding its really exciting she said you get to meet a lot of really cool people and do really awesome work the delegates also met with government officials including the russian deputy director of department of north america alexey korzhlev along with us ambassadors and other officials cadigan said she also has the travel bug now moscow is absolutely gorgeous she said i wasnt expecting that moscow was built to impress this spring cadigan did a public policy internship program and worked at the us embassy in paris france before that she had never been abroad i think that was really key for me being able to work with the russian team she said adding that her experience boosted her likelihood of being selected it showed that im not just a one-trick person i can do it all during the summer months cadigan works in the propulsion department at united launch alliance in colorado she also has worked as a lab assistant and teaching assistant for engineering 111 at texas a&m cadigan said ultimately her career goal is to launch rockets into space i think that as far as careers go its a pretty important one she said space really is the final frontier
890,brandon sweeney and blake teipel phd students in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university were selected as winners at the 2015 southeastern conference (sec) symposiums inaugural student entrepreneurial pitch competition in atlanta a total of 14 teams participated from each of the secs 14 universities presenting their pioneering ideas to a panel of sec alumni judges sweeney and teipels entrepreneurial pitch was based on their research in nanotechnology and next generation materials for additive manufacturing (3-d printing) they have created an innovative solution to the problem of high-cost and unreliable high-mobility prosthetic devices the students applied a unique property of carbon nanotubes to overcome the difficulty of the weld strength of polymers increased weld strength can bring about stronger 3-d printed prosthetic devices at a fraction of the cost of currently available prosthesis additionally the 3-d printing technology can be applied to many other industries including aerospace automotive and military sweeneys research advisor dr micah green associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and affiliated faculty member in materials science and engineering guides their fundamental research it is great to see sweeney and teipel represent texas a&m so well in winning this competition said green their creativity and hard work shows that these young engineers have a great career ahead of them we are thrilled to see excitement among the students to take their research from the lab to the applications for the benefit of the society said dr ibrahim karaman materials science and engineering department head and chevron professor i our faculty continues to support and encourage students to participate in entrepreneurial programs sweeney and teipels entrepreneurial success is an inspiration for other materials science and engineering students in preparation for the competition sweeney and teipel participated in weekly coaching and mentioning sessions with faculty staff and other professionals at the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship and startup aggieland at texas a&m recently they presented their technology to hanger corporation the nations biggest prosthetic manufacturer they also visited the center for the intrepid (cfi) in san antonio one of only three trauma centers in the nation for wounded veterans sweeney and teipel were able to procure licensing opportunities from the hanger corporation in addition to encouragement and support from the director of cfi to explore implementing on a trial basis their technology for below the knee amputees said don lewis assistant director of startup aggieland and executive professor in the department of management in the mays business school we have been pleasantly surprised by the level of commitment discipline and overall professionalism they display as a two-time winner of the campus wide raymond ideas challenge they were naturals to represent our university in this competition sweeney and teipels other entrepreneurial achievements include first place two years in a row at the center for new ventures and entrepreneurships 14th annual raymond ideas challenge in may there is a whole ecosystem of incredibly bright and hardworking folks in the business arena with whom engineering students can and should engage to help transform ideas and inventions into new ventures said teipel my experience as a graduate student at texas a&m has brought a host of incredible opportunities that i never thought i would have every team at this sec symposium represented the best and the brightest students engendering the entrepreneurial spirit that is so essential for the future of america said sweeney there are many influential people in the aggie network who poured into us their time talents and funds to make us victorious photo credit: rd moore sec
891,friends and colleagues of james j cain 51 gathered to remember him as a great friend and mentor of texas a&m university during a memorial service held to honor the texas a&m graduate cains long-term commitment to the mechanical engineering department included over 30 years of gifts and contributions his estate gift to the mechanical engineering department will be transformative for mechanical engineering students and faculty cains gifts have also benefited the corps of cadets the biomedical engineering department and the presidents endowed scholarship program cain was the youngest of five children and was born and raised in sherman texas after completing high school cain attended texas a&m and received a degree in mechanical engineering during his long and distinguished career of more than 35 years at mobil oil cain was renowned for his desire to mentor students and faculty at texas a&m he took great pride in being a part of mobils college recruiting team often filling positions with aggie graduates not interested in seeking his own recognition cain generously gave the students and faculty of texas a&m his time knowledge expertise and financial support as a result throughout his 35 years as a mechanical engineer cain won almost every award texas a&m bestows on distinguished former students his longstanding commitment to texas a&m included his support of the association of former students for over 30 years his silver membership of the century club and his membership of the forsyth heritage society which recognizes friends and alumni of texas a&m for their generous support as students earn their mechanical engineering degrees at texas a&m they will spend hours in the study spaces laboratories and lecture facilities housed in the building which bears his name a fitting legacy and most appropriate honor the engineering physics laboratory building built in 1986 supports teaching and research activities associated with the departments of mechanical engineering and physics the building is home to 12 mechanical engineering and 11 physics laboratories; 17 classrooms for general university classes; and the asme student chapter office in 2011 the board of regents of the texas a&m university system approved the building's name change to the james j cain 51 building and held an official ceremony the same year in his passing james j cain left behind no immediate family however his dedication to this great university ensures his spirit will be forever mentioned in the roll call of aggie greats said dr andreas polycarpou head of the department of mechanical engineering james j cains legacy will be forever entombed on the building which houses this prestigious department many generations will owe a great debt of gratitude to a man who gave without expectation and simply wanted his philanthropic contributions to go to his beloved aggie family
892,a new lightweight energy-efficient tool for analyzing a materials chemical makeup could improve the detection abilities of various technologies ranging from bomb-detecting drones to space rovers searching for signs of life says a texas a&m university biomedical engineer who is part of the team developing the instrument the tool makes use of optical communications fiber to collect and transmit light as it interacts with the material being studied explains vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m compared with conventional technology the newly designed measurement system is 95 percent lighter requires 65 percent less energy and is only about a third of the cost he says the system is detailed in the latest issue of the scientific journal proceedings of the national academy of sciences perhaps just as important because of the way in which the system is constructed its significantly sturdier than current technology yakovlev notes this increased robustness coupled with a massive reduction in the systems overall weight and decreased energy requirements makes the technology a prime candidate for integration into lightweight unmanned aircraft vehicles used for remotely sensing explosives he says but yakovlevs technology is not limited to terrestrial applications; those same attributes make the system an ideal tool for use on space-based vehicles where mechanical shocks and excessive vibrations associated with the launchings and landings have often damaged analysis technologies yakovlev notes
893,[by using a simple optical fiber professor vladislav yakovlev is eliminating the need for bulky and costly spectrometers (shown on his left)] in essence yakovlevs system is a better mousetrap – a reinvention of a technology known as raman spectroscopy raman spectroscopy is a widely used nondestructive method for performing chemical analysis of a material it involves analyzing a spectrum of light as it interacts with the molecules of a material during this process researchers shine light – typically a laser – on a material as that light interacts with the molecules of that material it scatters and changes color in a unique way depending on the material itself because the resulting spectrum is unique to the material it serves as a sort of fingerprint by which researchers can identify the exact chemical composition of that material however the raman effect is too weak to see with the naked eye so researchers use a device known as a spectrometer to collect and analyze the scattered light although extremely effective spectrometers yakovlev explains are costly delicate and require large amounts of energy to power them – all characteristics that limit their use in extreme conditions with this in mind yakovlev and his team went about building a lightweight and energy-efficient raman measurement system that did not require a spectrometer the fiber-based setup they developed yakovlev explains is capable of highly sensitive signal detection by using optical fibers to collect and transmit light as opposed to allowing the light to pass through lenses as is the case in conventional raman spectroscopy the network of fibers he adds can be securely and rigidly attached to a small detector (a device known as a photomultiplier) enabling the entire apparatus to become resistant to mechanical shocks because there are no moving parts we looked at how you disperse light and how you then analyze light yakovlev said instead of using the traditional spectrometer we are using an optical communications fiber to collect and transmit the light then we use a standard detector that is commonly used in biomedical and military applications to analyze the arrival time of photons the detector has a short time response so its fast and there is no need for a spectrometer any application that involves using such a device for a long period of time with no access to an energy source would benefit from our technology joining yakovlev in this research effort are professor marlan o scully of texas a&m princeton university and baylor university; associate professor javier jo of texas a&m; professor kevin k lehmann of the university of virginia; texas a&m engineering experiment station research engineer georgi i petrov and shuna cheng and graduate student zhaokai meng of texas a&m about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences contact: professor vladislav yakovlev at (979) 458-2326 or via email at yakovlev@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 9798475833 or via email at ryangarcia99@tamuedu
894,the college of engineering at texas a&m university has announced the establishment of the department of ocean engineering a department that combines two existing programs within texas a&m university one on the campus in college station texas and one on the marine-oriented campus in galveston texas the merger brings together the world-class infrastructure of one of the largest engineering campuses college station and the strategic location on pelican island and unique resources at galveston texas a&ms college station campus has offered undergraduate ocean engineering degrees since 1972 through the zachry department of civil engineering and is one of only a few universities in the united states that offers degrees in ocean engineering it is a top-ranked and abet-accredited degree program the texas a&m galveston campus has been graduating students in maritime systems engineering for more than 40 years and its offshore and coastal engineering systems program is also an abet-accredited program the new department will offer bachelor of science master of science and master of engineering degrees as well as a phd in philosophy/engineering ocean and coastal engineering issues greatly impact our economy environment and national safety and security said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering we are uniquely configured to build a comprehensive program that leverages our strength in the field at texas a&ms college station campus with our marine campus in galveston to address global challenges related to our oceans and engineering texas a&m galveston is proud to be involved in this merger said radm robert smith iii usn (ret) texas a&m at galveston the houston/galveston region is a logical and strategically significant location for this program the campus proximity to galveston bay the ports of houston galveston texas city and freeport along with the largest petrochemical industry in the us provides an ideal learning environment for ocean engineering students dr sharath girimaji professor and holder of the general dynamics chair in the department of aerospace engineering has been appointed interim head of the new department this department is important because the field of ocean engineering is being rejuvenated with new areas of interest in off-shore/deep-water technology renewable energy air-sea interaction engineering coastal and ocean environmental protection and preservation said girimaji these new challenges call for creative solutions in classroom engineering instruction and fundamental research and we look forward to providing our students with these opportunities the department has access to several world-class technology centers at texas a&m college station including the aerospace technology research & operations center; the geochemical and environmental research group; the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems; and the center for geospatial sciences application and technology additionally the texas a&m at galveston campus will offer direct access to unique field-testing facilities such as a geotechnical lab naval architecture lab fluid mechanics lab materials lab and wave lab as well as access to the gulf of mexico through the use of its fleet of educational and research vessels this program offers a unique opportunity for students to learn and conduct research in the areas of ocean and costal engineering at both campuses said dr patrick louchouarn executive associate vice president for academic affairs at the galveston campus and associate provost at texas a&m university through this unique program students will be engaged in the large-school spirit and abundant education and student life options that the main campus has to offer while still taking advantage of the smaller classes one-on-one educational experiences with professors and coastal location of the galveston campus we look forward to working with our colleagues at the college station campus to provide an even greater experience for our students students interested in ocean engineering on either campus will be accepted to the new department beginning in spring 2016 new students interested in ocean engineering will have the option of either campus beginning in fall 2016
895,one hundred ninety two members of the sophomore class officially joined the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university this fall boasting the highest number of female undergraduates to date the students were welcomed at a reception hosted by dr m nazmul karim department head and t michael oconnor chair ii and the student chapters of the american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) and omega chi epsilon dr victor ugaz director of the undergraduate program and charles d holland 53 professor encouraged attendees to consider the vitality they collectively offer the academic environment a university cannot exist without students ugaz said the faculty are here because of students like you and thats what todays event is all about he further advised all to engage their professors during office hours and share their interests and professional goals senior alexis musso program chair for aiche said that she hoped the event would inspire students to join the extracurricular organizations available to them through the department we want them to feel welcome she said this is the first year in which undergraduate students were admitted to the program in their sophomore year part of the college-wide initiative to provide a foundational freshman year forty percent of the departments sophomore class is female over 600 undergraduate students sophomores juniors and seniors are presently enrolled in chemical engineering studies at texas a&m
896,peer teacher central (ptc) within the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been renovated and is ready for student use the renovation includes glass walls to enclose ptc as well as new computers and furnishings the open space design allows for collaboration between peer teachers and students computer science and engineering is grateful for generous gift from hp which made the renovation possible hp is a member of the departments industrial affiliate program and has been since the programs inception in 2004 as an iap member hps engagement with the department is extremely beneficial to students staff and faculty peer teacher central helps bridge the gap between students and instructors by providing extra support to students free of charge students who had success in computer science and engineering classes are chosen to serve as peer teachers dr teresa leyk coordinates the peer teachers and ensures they are prepared to help students ptc provides a comfortable atmosphere and space for students to ask other students questions about homework and lab assignments leyk said peer teachers are positively impacting the success of students in their major ptc was designed with current and future student success in mind computer science and engineering is committed to providing students with the skills and resources necessary to be successful as a college student and future professional ptc is located in the lobby of the bright building peer teachers are available to help students monday through thursday from 9 am to 8 pm friday from 9 am to 7 pm and sunday from 3 to 8 pm ptc is closed on saturday for more information about ptc visit the ptc website
897,a team of four graduate students and two advisers part of the hydraulic fracture conductivity and rock mechanics research group in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university traveled to williston north dakota to witness firsthand an in-field multi-stage fracturing job and related operations on the bakken formation this summer the field trip nicknamed rockin the bakken by advisers dr ding zhu and dr a daniel hill offered the team a huge opportunity to step out of the lab and into a real-time real-life field learning experience team members dante guerra jesse guerra ashley knorr and omar enriquez tenorio say their research focuses primarily on investigating parameters that affect hydraulic fracture conductivity in unconventional reservoirs including fluid interactions rock mechanics and mineralogical properties with the primary goal of contributing to a better understanding on the subject that ultimately can be applied in the design and optimization of hydraulic fracturing operations dr c mark pearson president of liberty resources llc coordinated all activities of the field trip for the team and the advisors allen penman district manager of liberty oilfield services provided a walkthrough of the williston facilities on the first day during the next two days pearson offered the group a chance to witness the hydraulic fracturing operations while on site the team experienced the raw feel of a hydraulic fracturing operation with its inherent complexity and protocols involved as the three main targets of most operator and service companies in unconventional plays were sought: improving completion time increasing hydraulic fracturing efficiency and maximizing production the pad they visited featured three adjacent horizontal wells on it all oriented in a north-south direction and all part of a grand design to centralize operations and surface facilities having adjacent wells on one pad optimizes both drilling operations and completion operations saving time and money key standard components on site were the data monitoring van fracturing pumps/semi tractors fracturing blenders chemical storage tanks hydration unit sand and fracturing fluid storage tanks and delivery units water tanks (for water piped from several miles away) and the manifold the fracturing operation employed is often referred to as zipper frac meaning hydraulically fracturing adjacent wells in an alternating fashion one stage per well at a time this results in running wire lines to plug and perforate in one well while another well is being hydraulically fractured by doing this substantial time is saved and a larger amount of stages can be achieved the zipper frac manifold was labeled with green red and yellow coloring to distinguish between wells during the operations operations were overseen within the data monitoring van ensuring all activities occurred as planned being able to see cutting edge technology and practices in the field allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of hydraulic fracturing beyond what i have acquired in the classroom or from textbooks said dante guerra this experience allowed me to have one-on-one discussions with experts in their field and gain further insight into the challenges currently faced by pioneers in the oil and gas industry challenges we hope to overcome with our research at texas a&m the bakken shale formation in the williston basin is estimated to contain the largest continuous unconventional oil resource in the lower 48 states the formation spans approximately 200 000 square miles of the subsurface of the williston basin in parts of montana north dakota saskatchewan and manitoba the north dakota area was first explored by oil companies in the 1950s but the technology of the time could only focus on conventional resources since the shale formation has low permeability and porosity enhanced recovery techniques such as hydraulic fracturing are required for this unconventional resource current technological developments and the amalgamation of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have enabled production in such unconventional reservoirs horizontal and directional drilling allows the wellbore greater exposure to the formation hydraulic fracturing provides a path for trapped oil and gas to flow from the formation to the wellbore by creating a network of connected fractures held open by proppants such as sand or man-made ceramic materials because of its size and potential as an oil and gas resource the bakken has been one of the formations contributing to the energy production resurgence in the us in the last few years many of the operational experiences and technical knowledge gained here are applied to other unconventional reservoirs such as the eagle ford shale formation in south texas such experiences and knowledge are of direct relevance to the hydraulic fracture conductivity and rock mechanics research group since their research scope is directly related to in-field operations sharing knowledge and experiences allows both academia and industry to enrich their understanding of unconventional reservoirs and how to best produce them said jesse guerra by balancing both classroom and hands-on field learning we as petroleum engineering graduate students will not only develop a concrete background in the subject but will also lead and innovate as new challenges present themselves in the future in the end the trip was not all work and no play omar ashley dr hill dante and jesse did find time to explore the unusual geological formations named cannon ball concretions at the theodore roosevelt national park while dr zhu took pictures
898,"texas a&m engineering students sheril loke wei kian yeap and alwin ng received a pair of awards at the 2015 fifth annual asee student design & manufacturing competition held recently the team's poster ""fuel from food (f3): the sustainable energy source "" earned third place overall as well as the award for most creative the team which is advised by dr wayne hung from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution developed a novel idea to recycle waste food by using it for energy harvesting the idea could potentially save billions of dollars each year the texas a&m student chapter of the society of manufacturing engineers sponsored the team more information can be found here"
899,six faculty members in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university have received a $15 million grant from the national science foundations (nsf) designing materials to revolutionize and engineer our future (dmref) program to speed up the development and application of high temperature shape memory alloys (htmas) the project dmref: accelerating the development of phase-transforming heterogeneous materials: application to high temperature shape memory alloys is led by dr raymundo arróyave associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering collaborators on the project include: dr ibrahim karaman head and chevron professor i in materials science and engineering; dr amine benzerga associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering; dr dimitris lagoudas john and bea slattery chair professor and senior associate dean for research in aerospace engineering; dr theocharis baxevanis tees assistant research professor in aerospace engineering and dr edward r dougherty robert m kennedy 26 chair and distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering the nsf in support of the multi-agency federal materials genome initiative (mgi) seeks to target one of the primary mgi goals to halve the current time and cost for transitioning breakthroughs from the laboratory to the marketplace a process that can take as long as two decades texas a&ms project attempts to accelerate the development of htsmas for compact and efficient solid-state actuation devices with applications in the aerospace and automotive industry it combines ideas from informatics and design with experimental and computational materials science the project aims to shorten the time necessary for the development of htsmas equipped with tailored properties it builds from the past and current research projects with nasa the air force office of scientific research and other leaders in the aerospace industry
900,dr nick duffield professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was elected to the board of directors of the association for computing machinerys (acm) sigmetrics sigmetrics is the special interest group of acm that is concerned with computer systems performance evaluation and duffield was one of four candidates elected to the position i feel honored to have been given the opportunity to contribute to the performance analysis community and help with the issues technical societies are facing such as developing their publication channels making conferences more affordable for junior researchers increasing the participation of women and minorities and increasing their membership and profile in an increasingly cross-disciplinary environment he said duffield received his bachelor's degree in natural sciences in 1982 and a masters in 1983 from the university of cambridge uk he received his phd in mathematical physics from the university of london uk in 1987 his research focuses on data and network science particularly applications of probability statistics algorithms and machine learning to the acquisition management and analysis of large datasets in communications networks and beyond before joining the department duffield was a research professor at the center for discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science at rutgers university prior to that he worked at at&t labs-research florham park new jersey where he held the position of distinguished member of technical staff and was an at&t fellow he previously held post-doctoral and faculty positions in dublin ireland and heidelberg germany duffield the author of numerous papers and holder of many patents is a co-inventor of the smart sampling technologies that lie at the heart of at&ts scalable traffic analysis service he recently was named specialty editor-in-chief of the newly created journal frontiers in ict and he was charter chair of the ietf working group on packet sampling duffield is an ieee fellow and was a co-recipient of the acm sigmetrics test of time award in both 2012 and 2013 for work in network tomography acm the worlds largest educational and scientific computing society delivers resources that advance computing as a science and a profession acm provides the computing field's premier digital library and serves its members and the computing profession with leading-edge publications conferences and career resources
901,the global phase change materials (pcm) market was estimated at $300 million in 2009 and is anticipated to grow to $15 billion by 2019 next generation vehicles and aircrafts will depend on pcms to absorb heat and regulate the temperature of high-power electronics operating in a discontinuous pulsed fashion dr patrick shamberger assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has found an analytical solution to heat transfer in pcms used in thermal energy storage and has identified the relative role of thermo-physical properties of different materials in his article cooling capacity of figure of merit for phase change materials which was recently published in the journal of heat transfer shamberger is a leading researcher in the area of high-energy storage density pcms and high thermal conductivity thermal energy storage composites its challenging to make a direct comparison between the relative cooling power of two different materials said shamberger its difficult to isolate the effects of materials properties and the effects of component geometry and boundary conditions here we defined a relatively simple problem and used it to investigate the relative role of different material parameters on the rate of heat absorption materials scientists and engineers have been working towards developing different thermal energy storage materials with high-energy storage density designing materials for high-power electronics is a challenge as heat needs to be absorbed quickly the results of shambergers research will be helpful in designing the next generation of high-cooling power thermal storage materials especially for electronics thermal management applications
902,plastic is not just pliable and recyclable; research is proving that polymers can be incredibly powerful dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor and william and ruth neely faculty fellow in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering was recently awarded over $300 000 by the department of energy to study electrochemical energy storage in organic radical polymers in addition to researching energy storage in purely plastic materials lutkenhaus creates hybrid polymer-based electrodes that could be used in battery technology for me plastic power means augmenting conventional batteries with polymers to produce something special you didnt have before to create unique properties said lutkenhaus mechanical and electrochemical properties within the battery itself are often enhanced by the presence and processing of polymers polymer material selection is closely considered with respect to chemistry and the effects of integration with various forms of battery material equally essential to development is the processing that must take place the two materials must come together so they can work synergistically with each other said lutkenhaus polymers can be added to energy storage devices to create bendable batteries and structures that endure her group's recent publication in scientific reports details a highly flexible battery cathode material our polymer essentially acts like a mechanical glue so it wont crack said lutkenhaus it will last longer its flexible and it helps the electrochemical reaction take place lutkenhaus said the expected outcome of the organic radical polymer research is new fundamental knowledge of these incredibly kinetic polymers which are currently produced in-house but could be scaled up for industrial purposes inherently safe batteries are the ultimate goal in the years to come were also incorporating high-strength nanofibers to make very tough electrodes ones that might be load-bearing or explosion proof said lutkenhaus illustration above: a color-tinted illustration of polyaniline nanofibers
903,engineering students from texas a&m universitys mechanical engineering industrial assessment center (iac) recently analyzed the facility that houses the lufkin daily news to assess its current energy usage from the preliminary electric bill analysis the team found an estimated $5 600 in yearly savings in the papers operational cost management from the paper immediately began taking some of the steps needed to implement the savings during the evaluation in addition four additional energy saving recommendations are being studied by the students and will be included in a final report to the newspaper iac assistant director james eggebrecht supervised the students as they searched through the facility to detect compressor leaks and other energy saving opportunities during the newspaper facilitys inspection students crystal torres amy li and geoffrey garner discovered the paper had been missing out on a state sales tax exemption the exemption is provided to a manufacturer if more than 50 percent of its electrical usage or natural gas usage is used in actual manufacturing of its product the intention of the program is to provide engineering students real world applications for looking at energy usage as part of the design process for what is done in the manufacturing of products eggebrecht said for more information about the iac contact dr bryan rasmussen the iac director or visit the centers website
904,dr christodoulos floudas erle nye 59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and director of the texas a&m energy institute was named a thomson reuters highly cited researcher for the second year in a row i am pleased to see that thomson reuters recognized our work in both 2014 and 2015 said floudas this reflects well for the quality of research work in the multi-scale systems engineering laboratory (msel) the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and the texas a&m energy institute highly cited researchers 2015 represents some of worlds most influential scientific minds about 3 000 researchers earned this distinction by writing the greatest number of reports officially designated by essential science indicators as highly cited papers ranking among the top 1 percent most cited for their subject field and year of publication earning them the mark of exceptional impact floudas is a world-renowned authority in mathematical modeling and optimization of complex systems he is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for teaching and research including election to the national academy of engineering in 2011 a siam fellow in 2013 a tias fellow and eminent scholar for 2013-14 an aiche fellow in 2013 a corresponding member of the academy of athens in 2015 and recipient of the constantin caratheodory prize also in 2015
905,jonathan ponniah and dr p r kumar from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and co-author yih-chun hu have published a monograph on designing secure protocols with provable security guarantees for wireless ad-hoc networks infiltrated with adversarial nodes the monograph is titled a clean slate approach to secure wireless networking the authors note that the current process of designing secure protocols is tantamount to an arms race between attacks and patches that does not provide any security guarantees motivated by this they introduce a system theoretic approach to the design of secure protocols with provable security as well as optimality guarantees ponniah is a post-doc who completed his phd under the advisement of kumar who is a university distinguished professor and holder of the college of engineering chair in computer engineering
906,dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was invited to serve on the review panel of the physical measurement laboratory at the national institute of standards and technology (nist) kezunovic director of the power system control and protection laboratory in the department and the texas a&m engineering experiment station smart grid center will serve on the panel which is charged with assessing the scientific and technical work performed by the nist physical measurement laboratory the assessment will be based on reviewing technical reports and technical program descriptions prepared by nist staff and visiting the facilities at the physical measurement laboratory visits will include technical presentations by nist staff demonstrations of nist projects tours of nist facilities and discussions with nist staff the panel will prepare a report summarizing its assessment findings the panelists for this review were appointed by the national research council from academia industry medicine and other scientific and engineering organizations the national research council is the working arm of the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine non-profit private institutions that provide expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and the world more on the national research council can be found at http://wwwnationalacademiesorg/ and on the nist physical measurement laboratory at http://wwwnistgov/pml/indexcfm
907,"dr william c schneider zachry professor of engineering practice and dr ozden o ochoa tees research professor received a patent for their tri-hull dirigible airship both schneider and ochoa are professors in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university the dirigible is designed to lift 175 tons of oil field equipment with the ability to place it in an isolated region such as a swamp or isolated forest negating the need to build a number of roads it is designed with a capacity to fly 60 miles per hour this patent is my 14th patent involving a company coming to me with a problem and asking for a seemingly impossible solution "" said schneider ""working with dr ochoa we quickly realized the resolution would involve a three part system as opposed to the proposed individual design the company had originally proposed"" schneider has been a part of the mechanical engineering department since 2000 after retiring from a 38-year career at nasa as the johnson space centers senior engineer more information on the patent can be found here"
908,the mechanical engineering leadership council (melc) at texas a&m university recently held its 2015 fall kick-off event the annual event is an opportunity for students to network with company representatives and meet with faculty members including dr andreas polycarpou mechanical engineering department head this years event was sponsored by companies such as exxon mobil chevron british petroleum and national instruments the melc was organized in 2014 by student organizations seeking to provide a seamless interface between student organizations and department leadership the melc is intended to ensure a positive and collegial student experience the annual fall kick-off event is the departments welcome back event for the academic year each year a poster competition is held where students have the opportunity to highlight their current research projects this years top prize of $150 was awarded to christopher bay more photos of the event can be found here
909,the state of texas has appropriated billions of dollars over the next biennium to address the states aging transportation infrastructure recognizing the need for better solutions to meet this challenge the texas legislature appropriated $5 million for debt service for a joint venture between two state agencies the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) for the construction of the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) the world-class facility will house researchers who are developing advanced and sustainable materials and structural systems that will reduce cost and extend infrastructure life safety resiliency and durability roadways and bridges are aging at a faster rate than they can be repaired the us power grid is more than 130 years old and vulnerable to natural disasters and terror attacks there is also a concern regarding the integrity of the nations oil gas water and wastewater pipeline systems modernizing these infrastructures will require interdisciplinary research teams 21st century technologies and innovative solutions for the demands from a growing population the potential for this facility is immense in terms of both innovative research opportunities and cost savings for the state of texas said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system we need viable solutions for solving our infrastructure needs without putting more burden on the taxpayers of texas by investing in new technology development now we could save hundreds of millions of dollars in construction expenses over the long term the $5 million from the state is the first year of debt service to allow $65 million to be used for the construction of the cir another $35 million is being raised from the private sector for equipment and program enhancements our legislators are to be commended for their support of the center for infrastructure renewal the research and training to be conducted in this facility will address infrastructure challenges resulting in unprecedented savings to the state of texas said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university and director of tees we expect cir research to address issues such as developing new methods to repair and replace infrastructure at a lower cost in less time and with new materials that will have a longer lifespan the research testing and training facility will be located in research park on the campus of texas a&m researchers in the facility which will be shared between tees and tti will also look to develop partnerships with industry to help address texas infrastructure needs the 200 000-square-foot testing facility will be one of the largest in the world connecting researchers and experts from the field so that they can work together to find solutions to challenging infrastructure needs in our mission to train the next generation workforce that will plan develop and maintain our roads bridges pipelines and electrical infrastructure into the future this facility offers a living laboratory said dennis l christiansen tti agency director researchers faculty students and industry partners will collaborate to find best practices and approaches to rehabilitate our present infrastructure and define the future state-of-the-practice a nationwide search is underway for a director of the cir chaired by dr robin autenrieth department head of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university the facility is expected to be completed in 2018
910,the international space station (iss) will soon be printing a 3-d design created by stellarponics a student team that placed first in the most recent aggies invent competition the winning team created an innovative hydroponic system to allow fruits and vegetables to be grown more efficiently and sustainably in space aggies invent is a unique and innovative competition that allows students the opportunity to produce and sell a creative solution to a proposed problem within 48 hours this intensive hands-on experience is held in the engineering innovation center (eic) within the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university the competition is organized into four main stages: team formation design conceptualizing prototyping and fabrication and presentations the goal of this format is to help students become successful innovators communicators and entrepreneurs in their fields this aggies invent competition focused on 3-d printing in space using 3-d printers in space is revolutionizing how engineers are thinking about prototypes manufacturing and preparing for space missions teams were tasked with solving problems for iss crews and long-term space missions needs statements for tool development biomedical applications crew enhancement and space station components were given to each team sabre astronautics nasa the department of aerospace engineering and others provided the needs statements during the event teams generated more than 150 3-d print jobs representing over 500 individual parts during the almost 30 hour prototype phase industry mentors and judges were present to guide the students in their design and share real world experience three former astronauts dr joe kerwin ken bowersox and dr greg chamitoff were among the mentors the feedback from mentors pushes students toward success and expands their knowledge base the opportunity to talk with heroes in our field and hear stories from space made this event special said katie schneider a sophomore in mechanical engineering other students echoed that sentiment saying that the presence of astronauts and leaders in the aerospace industry stood out as the highlight of this aggies invent the first place team stellarponics consisted of cade capps sneha chawla wesley kuehn jc park joseph valencia and reynaldo villarreal team direct to mars gilberto arizpe iskander el amri carlos mejia milan pandya mack ragland and fuhna song came in second place and spacesip bryan carlat julio gonzalez evan gonzalez alex jennings nathaniel peirson and victor trujillo jr came in third place the top three teams received awards of $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively fifty-eight students making up 10 multidisciplinary teams participated in the competition the students ranged from freshman to graduate students and came from 14 different majors aggies invent will be hosting six more events throughout the school year the next event conflict development and social entrepreneurship will be oct 23-25 registration opens on sept 14 more information on aggies invent can be found at https://aggiesinventtamuedu/
911,texas a&m engineering ranked eighth among engineering schools at public institutions offering a doctorate according to the latest us news & world report rankings of the countrys undergraduate universities and programs the dwight look college of engineering maintained its ranking of 15th overall in engineering programs at public and private national universities tied with johns hopkins and virginia tech the department of biological and agricultural engineering had the highest ranking at second overall and among public institutions in the nation the department which was third in both rankings last year is part of both the look college and the college of agricultural and life sciences at texas a&m the department of electrical and computer engineering moved up two spots in each category coming in at eighth overall and 14th among programs at public and private universities other specialties ranked among public institutions were: aerospace 8th; civil 8th; industrial 8th mechanical tied for 8th with virginia tech; and chemical 14th us news & world report does not rank nuclear engineering and petroleum programs every year the last time the magazine surveyed these areas texas a&ms nuclear engineering program was third (second public) and petroleum engineering was first
912,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university delivered a ted talk to the 2015 tedwomen conference murphys talk focused around her research in robotics and disaster informatics as the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for robot assisted search and rescue (crasar) murphy uses air water and ground robots to help responders in disaster situations her goal is to provide responders with the information they need to reduce response and recovery time if you can reduce the initial response by one day you can reduce the overall recovery by 1000 days murphy said thats the equivalent of three years murphy uses robots to collect information for responders her robots fly dive and climb in places that a human could not as they do this they collect images and data about their surroundings to assist responders much of murphys research focuses on disaster informatics the processing of this data and ensuring it gets to the appropriate decision maker robots dont replace responders they assist them and make their jobs easier murphy said murphy and her team at crasar have been to disasters throughout the country and across the world with every disaster there is a greater need to acquire and process information the next time you see a disaster scenario look for the robots because theyre coming to the rescue murphy said to see the video of the ted talk please follow this link for more information about crasar please visit crasarorg
913,andrew c weems graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the nasa minority university research education project (murep) advanced stem training and research (astar) fellowship weems who works in the laboratory of professor duncan j maitland is one of only 10 students in the nation selected for the highly prestigious fellowship which will allow him to work in a nasa research facility this summer in addition to providing weems the opportunity to work at nasa the fellowship includes up to three years of funding and covers fees and tuition with an additional stipend and allocation for research to maitland nasa office of education is looking forward in working collaboratively with your institution to advance stem education and the nations workforce by supporting the growth of this future researcher wrote brenda collins of the nasa ames research center in a congratulatory letter weems was selected for the honor based on his research development of multifunctional smart coatings for corrosion detection and control he applied to the corrosion technology laboratory (ctl) at kennedy space center at cape canaveral fla with the intent to work on polymer degradation prevention and control researchers at the ctl weems said are interested in smart multifunctional coatings for prevention of corrosion and degradation in metals and polymers at the lab researchers test corrosion of aerospace materials under specific environmental factors because shape memory polymers (smps) have potential in aerospace applications as well as biomedical devices weems intends to use the smps being developed in maitlands lab as the base materials in testing coatings for degradation prevention he plans to combine the degradation studies performed on smps with testing on aerospace materials to better understand how smps can be applied in aerospace applications murep engages underrepresented populations through a wide variety of initiatives multiyear grants are awarded to assist minority institution faculty and students in research of pertinent missions the program focuses on recruiting underrepresented and underserved students in stem disciplines through completion of undergraduate or graduate degrees in support of their entry into the scientific and technical workforce
914,eda aydogan phd student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university received the 2015 distinguished student award from los alamos national laboratory (lanl) she is currently a graduate student intern at lanl and will pursue her phd research at lanl until the end of summer 2016 aydogan is completing her doctoral degree under the supervision of dr lin shao associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering and affiliated faculty member in materials science and engineering i am very happy to receive this award as a texas a&m student aydogan said i have been fortunate to get an opportunity to participate in such exciting materials research at both texas a&m university and los alamos national laboratory at lanl aydogan is working on the development of radiation tolerant fuel cladding materials for next generation fast reactors under the supervision of dr osman anderoglu and dr stuart maloy of the materials science in radiation and dynamics (mst-8) group her research focuses on the effect of tube processing methods on the microstructure and mechanical properties of oxide dispersion strengthened (ods) ferritic steels and their irradiation responses aydogan is a part of a large effort that includes los alamos national laboratory texas a&m the university of california santa barbara oak ridge national laboratory and case western reserve university that is working on developing ods cladding tubes and understanding the effect of microstructure on their irradiation responses in addition to this award aydogan also won the best poster award at 2015 tms (the minerals metals & materials society) meeting she has published five journal papers with more currently under review her work shows the promise to use composition engineering and nanostructures to improve alloys self-repair capabilities in reactors due to very unique challenges in nuclear engineering materials designs for harsh reactor environments have reached nanometer scales and materials research is multi-disciplinary in its nature shao said eda has very solid backgrounds in materials science nuclear engineering and physics she is a great team player but never loses the excellence as an individual researcher she works very hard and greatly impresses everyone with her passion and love for materials research
915,dr timothy jacobs and dr victor ugaz professors in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university were both honored with university professorships for undergraduate teaching excellence (upute) jacobs is the steve brauer jr 02 faculty fellow and undergraduate program director in the department of mechanical engineering ugaz is the holder of the charles d holland 53 professorship associate department head and director of the undergraduate program in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering the professors were recognized during the universitys undergraduate convocation on aug 30 the award is conferred only upon the universitys most distinguished teachers of undergraduates faculty who have exhibited uncommon excellence and devotion to the education of undergraduate students texas a&m university strives to meet our unique mission for texas by supporting and recognizing our facultys outstanding efforts in teaching research and service said karan watson provost and executive vice president these university professorships acknowledge the particular expertise these faculty hold in working with our undergraduate students as they become the future productive residents of texas and beyond the professorships are made possible through generous endowments by george and irma eppright melburn g glasscock and arthur and wilhelmina doré thaman jacobs earned his phd in mechanical engineering from the university of michigan his teaching interests include thermodynamics internal combustion engines and experimental methods he is currently involved in a major redesign of the content and structure for the first course on thermodynamics that will improve students understanding of entropy and available energy jacobs has received numerous teaching and research awards including the montague/cte scholars award the john weese award for excellence in teaching from the texas a&m chapter of pi tau sigma the peggy l and charles l brittan teaching award for outstanding teaching and the ralph r teetor educational award from sae international and the texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award for teaching ugaz earned his phd in chemical engineering from northwestern university his teaching efforts have been recognized by a number of award including the camille dreyfus teacher-scholar award the tenneco meritorious teaching award the celanese teaching excellence award and the departmental professor of the year award from the student chapter of the american institute for chemical engineers and a texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award for teaching ugazs passion for teaching and mentoring is a reflection of his ability to communicate with students he is known for incorporating innovative educational experiences in the classroom and is always working to introduce new examples from current scientific research including his own
916,dr jn reddy professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was recently honored by friends family and colleagues for life-time professional achievements and induction into national academy of engineering (nae) reddy who is a distinguished professor regents professor and oscar s wyatt endowed chair was recognized by the nae for his contributions to composite structures and engineering education election to the academy is one of the highest professional honors accorded to an engineer members have distinguished themselves in business and academic management in technical positions as university faculty and as leaders in government and private organizations reddy has published 19 books 530 journal papers and has received professional awards including the mindlin medal and distinguished visiting professor recognitions from universities in finland brazil spain new zealand hong kong and china reddy believes learning is a self-driven process and a teachers role involves more than just imparting knowledge to the students a teacher should provide motivation to the students to learn and help in organizing their thought process to understand and develop skills necessary to be successful in professional and personal life dwight look college of engineering executive associate dean dr nk anand commended reddy for his dedication to education he is an educator par excellence anand said those of us who have interacted with jn know that his passion for education is unparalleled during reddys teaching career he has advised over 60 doctoral students and taught 155 post-doctoral fellows and graduate students he firmly believes the hallmarks of a successful engineer are a strong grasp of fundamental concepts and a creative-thinking capability to apply the fundamental concepts of the profession or discipline to solve real-life problems dr reddy has shown dedication to the profession like no one else i have seen and he is still going very strong said dr andreas polycarpou head of mechanical engineering more importantly i find him to be a great colleague that is very generous with his time and i enjoy my interactions with him
917,dr john niedzwecki cain '13 senior chair in offshore technology and regents professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was named an associate editor of marine structures a journal published by elsevier in association with the international ship and offshore structures congress this journal aims to provide a medium for presentation and discussion of the latest developments in research design fabrication and in-service experience relating to marine structures all structures of steel concrete light alloy or composite construction having an interface with the sea including ships fixed and mobile offshore platforms submarine and submersibles pipelines subsea systems for shallow and deep ocean operations and coastal structures such as piers niedzwecki came to texas a&m more than 30 years ago as an assistant professor in 1998 he was named head of the civil engineering department a position he held until 2003 during his tenure niedzwecki was instrumental in leading the department to rank among the nation's top 10 programs he then served as executive associate dean for the dwight look college of engineering and associate agency director for the texas engineering experiment station (tees) in june 2010 he returned to the civil engineering department where he again served as department head until april 2013 whereupon he returned to teaching and research he specializes in offshore civil engineering and was instrumental in securing the national science foundation offshore technology research center for tees and the texas a&m university system a fellow in the american society of civil engineers (asce) niedzwecki was elected diplomate in the specialty of ocean engineering by asces academy of coastal ocean port and navigation engineers he remains actively engaged with faculty at the norwegian institute of science and technology and the university of stavanger and holds visiting appointments at shanghai jiao tong university and woods hole oceanographic institute
918,the undergraduate advising office in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has launched a new initiative aimed at student outreach and engagement the student ambassador program was created last year and is managed by the mechanical engineering leadership council (melc) in conjunction with the undergraduate advising office the ambassadors are hired as student employees and are upper-level undergraduate students who are passionate about promoting the field of mechanical engineering and sharing their experiences at texas a&m the ambassador program consists of several elements that are supervised by the advising office each ambassador holds walk-in hours that have been set up to accommodate prospective students and their families seeking information about the department the intention of the program is to provide a more personable experience to individuals who may otherwise feel lost or overwhelmed with information said rachal thomassie undergraduate advisor ambassadors must be mechanical engineering students who have completed their sophomore level coursework and they must maintain a 30 gpa or higher the program allows ambassadors to speak from an experienced perspective on the departments expectations for students ambassadors answer a multitude of questions prospective students or freshman may have including: what jobs can a mechanical engineer do; is a study-abroad/co-op/internship worth the time; and does mechanical engineering get easier by having students available to answer questions the program reduces the load on the mechanical engineering advisors said former student ambassador katherine letourneau we sought to answer questions from the perspective that many students are looking for and ambassadors share their passion and advice with mechanical engineering students
919,dr ying li professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the pioneer natural resources faculty fellow iii professorship is the principal investigator for a $100 000 research grant funded by the national science foundation li and his colleague received the grant for their research photo-thermo-chemical co2 reforming of ch4 by concentrated sunlight which studies the combined heat-and light-driven reaction of two greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen that can be used to generate fuels or chemicals while decreasing levels of greenhouse gases this work could be considered especially high risk-high payoff in the sense that it involves radically different approaches applies new expertise or engages novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives said li robert mccabe of the division of chemical bioengineering environmental and transport systems (eng/cbet) in the program manager for the study the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) is the sponsor on the grant for more information about lis research click here
920,ahmad abdullah a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was the winner in the engineering category of the first society for underwater technology (sut)-tamu chapter student paper contest abdullahs paper was titled a cost effective and environmentally attractive approach for cable protection in off-shore wind farms in his paper abdullah explains how an offshore wind farm consists of groups of wind turbines and each group consists of a certain number of these turbines connected to the same cable all cables terminate on one node called point of common coupling that connects to the low voltage side of the offshore wind farms main transformer he shows that by processing the oscillating frequency components generated by fault currents in the node it allows the detecting of faults on different cables this effectively corresponds to installing one protective relay to detect faults on all offshore wind farm cables which drastically minimizes the cost and simplifies the wiring abdullah received his bachelors and masters degrees from the department of electrical power and machines in the faculty of engineering cairo university in 2009 and 2012 respectively he is currently a research and teaching assistant seeking his phd in the department his research interests include: power system protection; power system stability and control; digital signal processing; and facts and hvdc the sut is a multidisciplinary learned society that brings together organizations and individuals with a common interest in underwater technology ocean science and offshore engineering
921,dr steven wright professor and associate department head in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was elected vice president for member and student activities of the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) engineering in medicine and biology society (embs) wright who holds the royce e wisenbaker professorship ii in engineering has joint appointments in the department of biomedical engineering and the department of radiology in the texas a&m health science center his research interests are in the areas of magnetic resonance imaging (mri) and antenna theory he established the magnetic resonance systems lab which aims to develop instrumentation and techniques to improve magnetic resonance imaging and to train students in mri radio frequency applied electromagnetics and image and signal processing prior to joining the department wright was a research engineer for mri at saint francis medical center in peoria illinois and an adjunct assistant professor of electrical engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign wright is also a fellow of the international society of magnetic resonance in medicine ieee and the american institute for medical and biological engineeringembs is the worlds largest international society of biomedical engineers the organizations 11 000 members reside in some 97 countries around the world embs provides its members with access to the people practices information ideas and opinions that are shaping one of the fastest growing fields in science
922,the texas a&m university institute for industrial engineers (iie) student chapter will hold a career fair on sept 8 from 5 to 8 pm in the emerging technologies building lobby the career fair will give students the opportunity to network within the industrial and systems engineering field and meet recruiters currently 15 companies are expected to attend including pepsico lockheed martin dow chemical and walmart students may also receive a dinner ticket from a recruiter allowing them to continue speaking with the recruiter after the career fair attendees can also attend the bray international speaker meeting directly before the career fair which will also serve as a résumé workshop the career fair is an event that helps you to grow your network and builds your know-how of the different fields of industrial engineering said travis wilcox iie president the career fair is business formal and attendees are encouraged bring copies of their résumé for more information contact wilcox at traviswilcox@tamuedu
923,students both across the nation and abroad were given the opportunity to participate in ongoing research with the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university through the dwight look college of engineerings undergraduate summer research grant program the program selects students from a pool of candidates who have completed their sophomore year are academically qualified and have a desire to pursue research initiatives those selected receive a stipend and are awarded credit hours for their research contributions international student mariana guerra from brazil is a senior energy engineering major and saw an opportunity to do research at texas a&m while in denton texas via an exchange program with her university to study the english language i chose to come here to texas a&m and it was my first choice guerra said we talk a lot about texas a&m in brazil because of the nuclear department and because of how it relates to my field of study so i know all the resources and research that texas a&m provides and so that was why it was my wish to come here guerras research was focused on information technology and efforts to produce emerging energy solutions energy and water are very connected guerra said the most important part of my research was how we can use information systems to produce potable water and how we can use this to help create energy i know about energy and i know that nuclear is a good source of energy we have a lot of renewable sources but i see that i can help replace our energies with renewable energies to crate something more sustainable guerra was paired with dr pavel tsvetkov as her faculty advisor during her 10-week research opportunity tsvetkov also worked with grant varnau an undergraduate physics major at san diego state university who participated in research on possible advances in radiation therapy the opportunity was beneficial for varnau who has an interest in pursuing graduate studies in nuclear engineering but lacked a nuclear engineering program at san diego state university i had wanted to apply to this school as a undergraduate and to be here was really neat varnau said its been a fun experience for me to be here and see what the school is like and to be able to focus my research where i wanted to varnaus research focused on radiation therapies specifically on the distribution of particles known as alphameters within biological material such as bone skin and other tissue using a specialized computer program known as stopping in range of ions and matter varnau looked at their distribution through the tissue to get a measure of radiation damage per the amount of radiation emitted in theoretical treatments the research still requires experimental verification but varnau believes it could be a good tool to help estimate radiation damage during chemotherapy treatments and hopes to further his research and pursue graduate studies in nuclear engineering we can use this program to get conservative estimates on radiation damage and biological materials so if you give this program to anyone in the field they can use it to better understand the radiation damage varnau said
924,dr yue kuo dow professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and electrochemical society (ecs) fellow was featured in an ecs podcast for his work in solid state science kuo was interviewed on his personal and professional journeys in education and industry including his early days in a battery factory where he first came across the ecs journal of solid state science and technology in the podcast kuo credits his professional success as a fusion of experiences in science and academia he emphasizes the importance of using multidisciplinary approaches in solving problems in may kuo received the gordon e moore medal from the society and was elected ecs vice president
925,jack e brown '46 tread war-torn hiroshima on foot as a us army soldier a fortnight after the drop of the atomic bomb and 60 years before a lifestyle of philanthropy would earn him the sterling c evans medal in 2011 the highest honor bestowed on a former student by the texas a&m foundation the retired engineer passed away at the age of 90 in midland texas on aug 24 and is remembered as a most generous and accomplished man following his four years of military service brown graduated from texas a&m university with bachelors degrees in mechanical and petroleum engineering a decade after he entered industry brown founded oil and gas company wagner & brown ltd with colleague cyril cy wagner jr he also held extensive business interests in financial investments real estate and manufacturing services according to ed davis texas a&m foundation president jack brown was a pioneer in the exploration and exploitation of energy he was a long-time advocate for compressed natural gas more importantly mr brown was a deeply committed philanthropist whose investments at texas a&m were as wisely planned as his vision for engineering was carried out on april 22 2005 the jack e brown engineering building at texas a&m in college station texas was formally dedicated he and his wife frances were lead donors on the project the architecturally distinct building was designed with state of the art research spaces classrooms computer laboratories departmental offices and more the browns endowed the jack e and frances brown chair in engineering a title held by dr kenneth hall former chemical engineering department head the browns contributed major gifts to the bush school of government and public service and were members of the a&m legacy society the association of former students endowed century club and the 12th man foundation other gifts include the endowment of the whiting technology fund in the department of petroleum engineering and six scholarships for the texas a&m corps of cadets survivors regale him as a man who had everything friend bruce edwards shared a 30-year friendship with jack brown describing him as a solid texan with a sneak-up-on-you sense of humor in addition to having a tremendously intelligent analytical mind [with] a heart kinder than can be put into words jack brown served on the boards of midland college midland community theatre and the petroleum museum married 64 years the browns have three children and 12 grandchildren a memorial service was held aug 29 in midland online condolences may be made at wwwnpwelchcom photo: jack e brown received the sterling c evans medal in 2011 from the texas a&m foundation (credit: texas a&m foundation)
926,new research done by texas a&m university nuclear engineering phd student ryan clanton has found a way to turn one of the most common progenitors of disease microbes into an ally in the fight against cancer clantons research focuses on using certain microbes as radio-protectants of normal tissues and to help amplify the effects of radiation on malignant tissues during cancer treatment the microbes would potentially be used to target tumors and combat the cancerous cells within the body without damaging normal tissues or having other detrimental effects the idea came to clanton when he was doing background research on chemotherapy and radiation treatments clanton saw a way to use the bacteria to hone in on cancerous regions by looking at the way bacteria travel from the gut to the blood stream after exposure to radiation and other biological factors the initial scheme of the paper was to look at what causes radio-resistance and why there could potentially be beneficial effects from the exposure of these microbes clanton said we wanted to see how this influences radiation risk specifically looking at why current survival curves used for radiation therapy have such wide variances that prevent the effective treatment of patients according to clanton the bacteria infiltrate the tumor through the bloodstream after leaving the gut allowing the immune system to lock onto the bacteria as a marker the specific immunological responses to those bacteria could be the difference between more effective treatments or a more malignant tumor once i saw how it gets to the tumor i saw the idea kind of bloom clanton said the more papers i read on the subject the more i got the feeling we were looking at the topic completely wrong we were ignoring factors that vary from person to person factors that could change how we respond to any type of stress according to clanton the bacteria are able to enter into the blood stream due to enhanced intestinal permeability which is routinely enhanced after exposure to radiation or chemo they then circulate in the blood until they find an immune-suppressed environment which is characteristic of tumors while bacteria elsewhere in the body are eliminated by the immune system once there the microbes can undergo lipid peroxidation which produces an organic compound known as aldehydes that can work to cause dna damage to the tumor as radio-protectants the bacteria could also help reduce inflammation and other negative radiation side effects because of the substances they produce in their biofilms according to clanton beneficial outcomes from the microbes are not guaranteed whether the outcome will be positive or hazardous for patients will be dependent on what bacteria are present in the tumor or lesion what influences they have on the lesion or tumor and how the immune system responds to those bacteria that are present however clanton says ignoring the role of microbes in chemo or radiation therapies out of fear of these risks would be a mistake some of the survival curves in radiation therapy have variances of 50 percent he said without taking into consideration the microbial populations of that tumor you are basically limiting the patients chances of survival or giving them more side effects because you dont know if you are underdosing or overdosing them if we dont look at microbes now we are completely ignoring the fact that there is such large variance in the calculations we use clanton sees the targeting effects of bacteria to the tumor to be where his research has the greatest potential through genetic engineering tumor-infiltrating microbes can be modified to produce natural chemotherapeutics within the tumor making it a highly targeted treatment the microbes would also spread with and treat any metastasizing tumors and once the tumor had been eradicated the microbes would be naturally eliminated from the body within a period of 24 to 48 hours clanton sees microbes as the future of nanotechnology especially in their applicability to medicine i believe that bacteria viruses and fungi are the preliminary nanobots that we have been looking for clanton said i have not seen any nanomachine capable of storing the information required to target and perform a plethora of tasks like rna and dna are capable of doing to me using microbes and genetically engineering them to do a specific task is key to opening the door to a biotechnology revolution
927,graduate students mani zandifar and alireza majidi and professors nancy amato and lawrence rauchwerger were recognized for their research paper at the 2015 international conference on supercomputing their paper composing algorithmic skeletons to express high-performance scientific applications received the best paper award at the conference in newport beach california the paper was chosen from over 160 submissions selection was based on input from the conference program committee and conference attendees zandifar majidi amato and rauchwerger are researchers in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university amato and rauchwerger serve as co-directors of the parasol laboratory where the research was completed the parasol lab researches new computing languages and systems researchers develop algorithms and applications that solve computation and data intensive problems their research simplifies the task of writing parallel programs using their approach programmers can compose complex programs from a pre-existing library of short programming blocks called skeletons in their paper they used skeletons to construct several large programs that performed well on supercomputers this framework can simplify scientific application development in many fields zandifar said it allows researchers to solve complex problems in less time mustafa abduljabbar and dr david keyes assisted the group abduljabbar a student at king abdullah university of science and technology (kaust) was a visiting researcher at texas a&m keyes a professor at kaust is the director of the extreme computing research center in saudi arabia
928,tamuhack student organization in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university held its second annual hackathon on campus in october the student organization began in 2014 with the mission to put on the largest programming and hardware event on campus during the 24-hour event participants are able to connect with peers and network with the top tech recruiters from around the country while tinkering on a project of their choice the hackathon is made possible by officers rafa moreno bob timm eleni mijalis and chris nolan around 300 students attended the event which was held in the zone at kyle field for many tamuhack was their first hackathon experience which we believe to be extremely important in driving a culture of innovators and creators here at a&m president moreno said vice president timm said that the second annual tamuhack was an entirely different experience than the first what remains different from the first year is the overall experience timm said we as officers and fellow hackers have been working to make every aspect better with each iteration of tamuhack its just great to see everyone attend and enjoy it tamuhack is continually thinking of ways to make each year a captivating and unique experience for those who participate co-founders moreno and timm have been instrumental in creating an excitement and interest here at texas a&m university in the growing popularity of hackathon events at the 2016 computer science spring banquet and awards ceremony cesar received the undergraduate leadership award for his role in promoting and expanding the reach of tamuhack and timm received the mentoring excellence award because of his dedication to helping students involved with the hackathon
929,cassandra bub undergraduate student in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university created a guitar tuner and metronome that was developed by microsoft bub and her fellow interns developed the two programs while interning for microsoft after her freshman year at texas a&m microsoft has added widgets to bing its search engine so the public can access the programs as a flutist bubs interest in music began long before her internship with microsoft her musical skills allowed her to provide a unique perspective to her student team i wanted to create a product that could be used by my friends bub said now whenever my friends forget their tuner or need to stay on beat they can have access to the tools they need for free the tuner which can be accessed by searching guitar tuner on bings website includes the most popular guitar settings and replay of notes that allow the user to tune their guitar by ear the metronome can be accessed by searching metronome on bings website it allows the user to hear a selected beat while also allowing the user to change the speed of the beat the use of this widget allows musicians to stay on beat during practice bub is a sophomore in the department she is in the engineering honors program with a computer science and engineering track this internship allowed me to take my passion for music and for computing and combine the two bub said i hope to be of service to many musicians through this project
930,dr nancy amato unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was named to robohubs list of 25 women in robotics you need to know about now in its third year robohub publishes the list annually to recognize women in robotics amato was selected because of the impact she has made on robotics and computer science for numerous years among those contributions her paper on probabilistic roadmap methods is seen as one of the most important papers in the field for these contributions she has been named a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) and institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) amato serves as a member of the board of directors for the computing research association where she is also the chair of the committee on the status of women in computing research most recently amato served as the program committee co-chair of the ieee international conference on robotics and automation in seattle this year to recognize the numerous women in robotics both the senior program committee and organizing committee were comprised solely of women we always take the opportunity to emphasize and celebrate the diversity of roboticists in our research community amato said not just women but also students and researchers in developing countries at texas a&m amato serves as the co-director of the parasol laboratory and is noted for her research on the algorithmic foundations of motion planning computational biology computational geometry and parallel computing
931,­­distance education students who are seeking a masters degree from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university have the opportunity to save up to $4 500 a year on tuition with a new scholarship opportunity the competitive scholarship is awarded by the university and can help offset the cost of distance education amber muenzenberger director of remote learning and outreach education said the scholarship rewards students who are excelling in their online graduate studies this fall 49 students in distance education programs were offered the scholarship the majority of distance education students have already begun their careers and are working toward career and educational advancement muenzenberger said while many students are sponsored by their employers some are not trey steinmann who is pursuing a masters degree in industrial distribution works as a territory manager for a baring manufacturer i started my masters fall of this year he said i hope to achieve an upper management role with my degree steinmann lives in houston and travels for his job making remote learning the best option for him with industrial distribution texas a&m is the best in the nation he said adding that he was pleasantly surprised to learn that the college offers a scholarship for remote learning it helped me out thats less loans i have to take to get my graduate degree for industrial distribution steinmanns employer reimburses him for a portion of his tuition he said but the scholarship will assist him by lowering the amount of student loans he has to pay back once he graduates bharani nagarathnam associate director of engineering technology and industrial distribution graduate programs said a significant number of remote learning students pay their own way any scholarships greatly help them pay for the cost of higher education he said to qualify students must complete the free application for federal student aid (fafsa) by july 15 2016 for the fall 2016 semester those who completed the fafsa by oct 15 this year may qualify for the spring 2016 semester there are no essays or separate applications aside from the fafsa the scholarships are awarded by the office of student financial aid and scholarships and are based on unmet need the maximum one student can receive in a year is $4 500 $1 500 per semester students must maintain a 30 gpa and take six credit hours each semester the look college currently has nine masters degrees offered via remote learning which are approved by the texas higher education coordinating board for more information on these scholarships and distance education programs contact amber muenzenberger at atmberger@tamuedu
932,dr walter c daugherity senior lecturer in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university will be honored as the mathematics and computer science alumnus of the year by oklahoma christian university daugherity was selected by oklahoma christians department of mathematics and computer science for his numerous contributions to computing computer science education and global cyberethics the award will be presented by dr don leftwich chair of oklahoma christians department of mathematics and computer science on friday (nov 6) at the universitys annual homecoming daugherity will also give a seminar titled [my] 53 years of computing history this award is long overdue and recognizes his noteworthy contributions to computing leftwich said in fact he helped develop the standard for all our computer keyboards daugherity graduated from oklahoma christian in 1966 and attended harvard university for his masters and doctorate degrees while working on his undergraduate degree daugherity made a name for himself among his peers dr ralph deboard a former classmate and professor at oklahoma christian has stayed in contact with daugherity since graduation since walter was always the top in class he made it hard for the rest of us to ask for a curve deboard said it was no surprise when he went to harvard for graduate school and qualified for mensa during his 28 years at texas a&m daugherity received the undergraduate faculty award from computer science and the outstanding graduate faculty award from texas a&ms graduate student council additionally he received the bowdoin prize from harvard university and outstanding regional intercollegiate programming contest director award from the association for computing machinery i am honored and humbled to be chosen daugherity said its hard to believe that it was 53 years ago i programmed my first computer its been great to be part of the development of the field and to share that with my students at texas a&m
933,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was named an agent of change by time time honors those who are the inventors builders experimenters and imaginers of future technology as agents of change researchers who use their skills and talents to help others are given this distinction murphys efforts in disaster robotics for the past 20 years have solidified her place as an agent of change as the pioneer in disaster robotics she saw the need for her research in the mid-1990s after the oklahoma city bombing at the time most roboticists were focused on space exploration i realized that the world did not need another person trying to send robots into space murphy said what the world could use was someone deploying that technology to help people murphys first disaster response was at the world trade center after the attacks on sept 11 2001 her robots were used to collect information and search in places that were too small or too hot for rescuers to enter they provided vital information for the responders it was a life changing experience murphy said more than ever i realized how important it was to spend my time as an advocate for the use of disaster robots murphy was contacted by time shortly after her ted talk on disaster robotics went public on the 10-year anniversary of hurrican katrina hurricane katrina was the first use of small unmanned aerial vehicles for a disaster being in time has brought more attention to texas a&m and our department as a whole murphy said i have already seen an increase in industry contacts and interest from potential students i couldnt do this work anywhere but here at texas a&m at texas a&m murphy serves as the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for emergency informatics her research focuses on providing disaster responders with the information they need to make the best decisions murphy is the founder of the roboticists without borders program which provides worldwide disaster response and assistance at no cost to responders and agencies the programs mission is to help those in need while educating responders about the value and usefulness of robots in disaster situations the end goal is for responders world-wide to own and be able to deploy disaster robots by 2021
934,dr mark h weichold has been named executive director for the halliburton global engineering program within the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university weichold who currently serves as the dean and ceo of texas a&m university at qatar and is a regents professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering will begin his new position on jan 4 2016 we are excited to welcome dr weichold back to the main campus and with his international leadership experience and perspective he is ideally suited to lead our new and expanded initiatives in global programs said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering we believe the value of a global perspective is critical for our students and we are confident that dr weichold will help us achieve our ambitious goals to ensure our graduates have access to global experiences in the role of executive director weichold will oversee all aspects of education research related activities overseas for the look college this includes but is not limited to identifying and developing opportunities for international experiential education study abroad international internships and collaborative capstone design projects weichold joined the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m in 1982 and became dean and ceo of the qatar campus in 2007 weichold has also served as the dean of undergraduate programs and associate provost for academic services on texas a&ms main campus in 2009 he was recognized as a regents professor for his outstanding work and exemplary contribution to texas a&m in 2013 he was awarded the abdullah bin hamad al attiyah international energy award for lifetime achievement for the advancement of education weichold is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers a member of the american physical society and a registered professional engineer in in the state of texas
935,three faculty members from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university were honored during the society of petroleum engineers (spe) annual technical conference and exhibition in houston dr thomas blasingame dr akhil datta-gupta and dr rashid hasan each received an spe international award that recognized and acknowledged their significant contributions to the industry through service education and research the department is very proud of these three faculty members who are continuing a long tradition of recognition of our faculty by spe international said department head dan hill blasingame the robert l whiting professor was awarded honorary membership which is conferred on individuals for outstanding service to spe and in recognition of distinguished scientific or engineering achievement in fields encompassed in spes technical scope honorary membership is the highest honor spe confers on an individual and is limited to just 01 percent of spes total membership blasingame specializes in the teaching and research of topics related to the analysis of reservoir performance his research efforts with his students have led to the development of many reservoir engineering products; their work is referenced widely with several of their developments incorporated in industry-standard software and analysis methodologies blasingame is devoted to professional service both at texas a&m and externally his greatest passion is teaching and mentoring students and early-career engineers and he has been extremely effective in shaping the education of petroleum engineers and students throughout the world blasingame has received numerous awards from spe and is a member of the spe board of directors i just want to thank the department and the students for giving me the environment and opportunity to serve the discipline as i have been able to do so for the entirety of my adult life said blasingame shown above we need to say to ourselves and the generations that follow that we will not accept anything less than an outstanding effort striving for excellence must be our standard datta-gupta regents professor and the lf peterson 36 endowed chair received the distinguished achievement award for petroleum engineering faculty the award recognizes superior teaching excellence in research significant contributions to the petroleum engineering profession and special effectiveness in advising and guiding students datta-gupta shown above on left with spe president helge hove haldorsen teaches undergraduate classes on reservoir modeling and graduate classes on data integration and streamline simulation he leads the research consortium on model calibration and efficient reservoir imaging (mceri) which is funded by multiple oil and service companies worldwide he co-authored the textbook streamline simulation: theory and practice which presents a systematic exposition of modern streamline simulation technology from foundations to applications his second book subsurface fluid flow and imaging is being published by the cambridge university press in early 2016 datta-gupta is also an international consultant in the oil and gas industry and was elected to the national academy of engineering in 2012 hasan the larry a cress 76 faculty fellow received the distinguished member award established in 1983 the award recognizes spe members who achieve distinction deemed worthy of special recognition and is restricted to not more than 1 percent of spe membership it is equivalent to fellow status in other professional societies hasan who is the author of the spe textbook fluid flow and heat transfer in wellbores won the spe production and operations award in 2011 for his contributions to the science of petroleum production operations he currently teaches transport processes in petroleum production to undergraduate students and guides graduate students to improve on production practices through optimization of artificial-lift mechanisms and analysis of production logs his research interests include wellbore heat transfer transient transport processes and wellbore and reservoir fluid flows in pushing the frontiers of knowledge and understanding of science of transport processes hasan always remains solidly rooted in engineering practices and practical limitations i am truly blessed to be at the petroleum engineering department at texas a&m said hasan shown above on left this department has some of the brightest young minds of the nation it is a privilege to act as their mentor and guide the wonderful and brilliant colleagues i have here fuel my passion for excellence in engineering practices
936,dr zachary grasley associate professor and peter c forster faculty fellow i in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university recently spoke at the 10th annual concreep-10 conference held in vienna austria concreep a three-day conference attended by roughly 200 people from around the world is held every other year grasley was asked to speak about his research in the shrinkage and creep caused by dissolution he was invited to share his research in shrinkage of concrete that focuses on the interplay between chemistry mechanics and microstructure my research here focuses on developing novel materials experimental methods and material models to help modernize multi-functionalize and improve the sustainability of civil infrastructure said grasley generally speaking im looking at generating longer lasting material utilized daily by nearly everyone concrete research to preserve our infrastructure in transportation and buildings is an important topic right now grasley has received several awards from texas a&m engineering recognizing his research and teaching accomplishments including the zachry teaching award and the tees select young faculty award he also received the national science foundation career award which is given to outstanding junior faculty members to help them advance their research and teaching activities in 2009 he currently teaches a mixed class of undergraduate and graduate students on concrete and material properties co-author credit to chase shelton for this article
937,dr aakash tyagi has been awarded an instructional grant to develop a one-of-a-kind course in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university tyagi a professor of practice was awarded $5 000 to complete his project bringing chip design verification to academia the goal is to establish a foundational course in chip design verification at texas a&m the funding is being used to host experts from the industry for a weeklong engagement the expert-in-residence engagements are occurring throughout the fall 2015 semester additional funding will be used to attend a flagship verification conference to facilitate building the course and curriculum dr flemming anderson principal engineer at intel corporation was the first engineer-in-residence during his weeklong visit at the end of september anderson gave three lectures collaborated with researchers and provided insight to students and faculty about course development and emerging technologies in computer science the completion of this project reaffirms texas a&ms position as a leader in computer science and engineering once the full vision for this course is complete it will be the first of its kind in the nation since its first offering in spring 2015 this course has attracted talented and committed students tyagi said industry leaders-cadence mentor graphics intel and qualcomm-have expressed excitement and continued assistance in the development of this course tyagi joined the department of computer science and engineering in 2015 after 20 years of service at intel while working at intel he was the senior director of the server development group he worked on eight generations of cpus most recently managing the design and execution of knights landing a second generation xeon phi product as a professor of practice his academic track position focuses on educating undergraduate students in the department his research interests center around high performance computing architectures and applications in his short time in the department dr tyagi has already improved the material for several of our course offerings said computer science and engineering department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii dr dilma da silva i am very impressed with his novel approaches to refining the content of our courses besides this grant to involve key technical leaders from industry he has also acquired funding to involve the students who took his courses in the process of improving project and assignments
938,"dr zixiang xiong professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won a top 10 percent paper award at the 17th annual institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) multimedia signal processing (mmsp) workshop in xiamen china xiong and his former visiting student zengqiang yan along with yans phd advisor in china li yu won for their paper ""texture-free large-area depth recovery for planar surfaces"" their paper describes a texture-free depth enhancement method for large areas of missing depth information the method has wide applications in 3-d tv gaming objection segmentation and pattern recognition xiong an ieee fellow joined the department in 1999 his research focuses on information signal processing over networks other honors he has received include the tees fellow award; the tees select young faculty award; the young investigator awards from the office of naval research and the us army research office; and the career award from the national science foundation he received his phd from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 1996 mmsp 2015 is the 17th international workshop on multimedia signal processing the workshop is organized by the multimedia signal processing technical committee of the ieee signal processing society this years event had a heterogeneous big data analytics in multimedia theme the workshop brings together researchers and developers in multimedia signal processing and applications to share their latest achievements and explore future directions and synergies in these exciting areas"
939,texas a&m university has established two new interdisciplinary graduate programs in energy: the master of science in energy and the certificate in energy the master of science in energy and the certificate in energy are designed to introduce students and professionals to a broad spectrum of important energy issues ranging from energy technologies based on fossil and non-fossil resources to sustainable energy technologies as well as their interactions with energy economics entrepreneurship law and policy programs like this simply do not exist outside texas a&m said texas a&m president michael k young by bringing together partners from a broad spectrumincluding industry government and public policy arenasand providing intensive interactions with these graduate students we are helping create cutting-edge solutions to some of todays most pressing global challenges related to economic stability national security and other critical areas in just 10 months students and professionals can earn a master of science in energy on campus or online in either a thesis or non-thesis track through modules taught by energy experts from eight colleges and schools at texas a&m these programs will offer a holistic view of the entire energy research landscape said dr christodoulos a floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute and the erle nye '59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering students and professionals will come together to discuss important energy challenges and opportunities and interact with energy leaders from academia industry and government our students will be the new generation of energy-educated students and professionals broadly educated on all components of energy in ways that have never been done before the professional master of science in energy degree will be offered in two tracks track 1 will require a research thesis and track 2 will require only coursework track 1 requires 16 modules thesis and seminars and results in 32 student credit hours track 2 requires 23 modules and seminars and results in 365 student credit hours this track is offered to researchers or professionals who may be in residence or complete the training online via distance learning the certificate in energy will be offered by taking 10 modules of the professional master of science in energy degree program either in residence or online the in-residence programs are slated to begin in fall 2016; both programs are accepting applications and more information is available at energytamuedu/education about the texas a&m energy institute the texas a&m energy institute pursues and supports new approaches for multi-disciplinary energy research education and external partnerships these approaches cross departmental and college boundaries and address all facets of the energy landscape that naturally connect engineering sciences technologies economics law and policy decisions more than 225 world-class faculty members and researchers from texas a&m university system member institutions are texas a&m energy institute faculty affiliates texas a&m university affiliates represent nine colleges and schools including the following: college of agriculture and life sciences dwight look college of engineering college of architecture college of geosciences college of liberal arts college of science bush school of government and public service mays business school and the school of law
940,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr berna hascakir the stephen a holditch faculty fellow in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering in recognition of her accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship is effective nov 1 hascakir is an assistant professor in petroleum engineering she joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in april 2012 hascakir received her bachelors and masters degrees both in environmental technology and both from dokuz eylul university in turkey she received her phd in petroleum and natural gas engineering from middle east technical university in turkey hascakirs research interests include heavy oil and oil shale recovery with enhanced oil recovery methods; in-situ combustion; hot fluid injection; chemical/thermal eor applications; thermal stimulation; diagnostic studies on reservoir rock and fluids; x-ray computed tomography; x-ray diffraction; fourier transform infrared; scanning electron microscopy; x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; and produced water management
941,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr w john lee the chevron faculty fellow in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering in recognition of his accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship is effective nov 1 lee is a professor in petroleum engineering he received his phd masters and bachelors degrees all in chemical engineering and all from the georgia institute of technology
942,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr eyad masad the zachry professor in design and construction integration ii in recognition of his accomplishments and future potential the endowed professorship is effective nov 1 masad is a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering and is the vice dean at texas a&m university at qatar he received his bachelors degree from university of jordan in 1993 and his masters (1995) and phd (1998) from washington state university all in civil engineering masads research interests include constitutive modeling of asphalt mixtures; asphalt pavements performance; transport in porous media; granular mechanics; microstructure characterization of materials; and image analysis techniques
943,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr joseph morgan the charlotte and walter buchanan faculty fellow in engineering technology and industrial distribution in recognition of his accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship appointment is effective nov 1 morgan is a professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in august 1989 he received his bachelors degree from california state university sacramento in electrical engineering and his masters and doctor of engineering degrees both in industrial engineering from texas a&m morgans research interests include microprocessor-based data acquisition and control systems; airspace management systems; radar performance; and analysis systems
944,guatemalan farmers could soon have a solution to deshelling their pigeon pea crops thanks to a mechanical device from team peas-makers which was awarded first prize and $1 000 at the most recent aggies invent competition held at texas a&m university aggies invent promotes an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m it gathers interested students provides them with the potential needs statements allows them to self-select teams gives them access to and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) and industry mentors to create prototypes in 48 hours the focus for this aggies invent was conflict development and social entrepreneurship and was sponsored by the center on conflict and development at texas a&m (condev) issues presented included inefficiencies in shea nut and pigeon pea processing human-elephant conflicts millet processing elephant darting systems and refugee survival packs all the issues are those faced by people in ghana botswana the democratic republic of congo (drc) and guatemala i love the use of interdisciplinary problem solving and i think thats when you come up with exceptionally novel concepts said dr leslie ruyle from condev i think the combination of everyones skillsets and thought processes is when you come up with the greatest solutions team peas-makers met the needs of its guatemalan community by improving the deshelling process of pigeon peas its mechanical crank is affordable user-friendly and is less labor intensive the pigeon peas are an excellent source of nutrition and also a very profitable crop for many families the team was comprised of four engineering students mauricio coen sujoy saha daniel schwartz and mumtaz syed and two business students grace evans and vatsal gupta second place and a $750 prize went to sheaping the future for its innovation on shortening the shea nut dehusking process the shea sheller is a hand cranked pressure roller that gently cracks the shea nut shells to shorten the time women in ghana spend cracking and dehusking shea nuts the shea nuts can then be used or sold the team was comprised of james bunsen miguel hoffmann connor lyons danthi vo amelia min-venditti and gerardo vasquez the butter solution team took third place and received $500 for its shea butter roaster the team made modifications to the existing roaster to prevent shea butter from sticking to the roaster and to reduce the manual labor required in cranking the roaster selling shea butter is a good source of income for many women but issues with the current roaster can lead to product waste the team members included lindsay yankam kontchou samantha tachibana alec ito and jake yturri the judging panel was so impressed by all the teams it added an honorable mention award with $250 to team seismic for its early warning system for elephants approaching the area the team members were ricci seguban erika elizondo and ashley kirsch this event allows students to tackle a challenge thats relevant and faced by people on the ground in different countries said michelle larcheveque jones from the us agency for international development (usaid) events like this recognize that students are a really important part to this equation the panel of judges included andrew natsios bush school professor and former usaid administrator michelle larcheveque jones usaid program manager dr paul schwab professor in the department of soil and crop sciences dr jorge vanegas college of architecture dean and dr catharina laporte department of anthropology instructional professor this aggies invent brought more than 50 students together and included the highest rate of female students at 35 percent students commented on how this event was not just about the competition it was about teamwork learning new skills and learning about themselves freshmen engineering students said it was helping them decide which major they wanted to enter next year all teams were encouraged by the judges and by event organizers to keep working on their projects and develop them further the students are encouraged to work in the eic and with mentor rodney boehm associate professor of practice and industry mentor they also have the opportunity to work with startup aggieland for additional assistance i really hope that students participating will not just leave their prototype on the shelf but will continue to work on them; i hope well see them being field tested in the future said michelle larcheveque jones at usaid we understand that good ideas can come from anywhere
945,texas a&m university at qatars bachelors degree programs in chemical engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering have been accredited by the engineering accreditation commission of abet the global accreditor of college and university programs in applied science computing engineering and engineering technology abet accreditation assures that programs meet standards to produce graduates ready to enter critical technical fields that are leading the way in innovation and emerging technologies and anticipating the welfare and safety needs of the public dr mark h weichold dean and ceo of texas a&m at qatar said texas a&m university at qatar is most pleased with the reaccreditation of its four engineering programs it is yet one more affirmation that our students have met the highest standards in engineering education and graduate prepared to become the next generation of engineering leaders sought worldwide abets voluntary peer-review process is highly respected because it adds critical value to academic programs in the technical disciplines where quality precision and safety are of the utmost importance developed by technical professionals from abets member societies abet criteria focus on what students experience and learn abet accreditation reviews look at program curricula faculty facilities and institutional support and are conducted by teams of highly skilled professionals from industry academia and government with expertise in the abet disciplines abet is a nonprofit non-governmental organization recognized by the council for higher education accreditation (chea) it currently accredits almost 3 500 programs at nearly 700 colleges and universities in 28 countries more information about abet its member societies and the accreditation criteria used to evaluate programs can be found at wwwabetorg
946,"texas a&m university at qatar in collaboration with founding supporter oryx gtl has launched the oryx gtl – gas-to-liquid excellence program to prepare the highly skilled engineers and technical staff needed to lead and operate qatars world-class industrial facilities oryx gtl will fund the program for five years beginning in 2015 with the option to continue its support beyond 2020 oryx gtl has supported several initiatives at texas a&m university at qatar in its efforts to support the mission of preparing highly skilled engineers and technical staff to lead and operate qatars world-class industrial facilities abdulhadi barqan chief administration officer at oryx gtl said and we are very proud to become the founding supporter of a gas-to-liquid excellence program at texas a&m university at qatar which shall be known as the oryx gtl excellence program valuing people is a core business principle of oryx gtl it is a principle which governs our actions both internally and externally whilst interacting with the wider community we believe empowering people to make the most of their abilities enables them to take ownership of their individual destiny education is a central theme of qatars national vision 2030 to which the company is wholeheartedly committed globally this is the first specialized university-industry program in gas-to-liquid (gtl) technology and is supported by the tees gas and fuels research center both in qatar and the united states this is also the first texas a&m at qatar initiative to address all three pillars of the academic institution in one program combining elements of teaching research and community outreach the new program will educate the public in qatar starting from school students to college students to working engineers and technical staff about the role of gtl in qatars economy and in the future of global energy for the production of ultra-clean fuels and value-added chemicals it will also support oryx gtl outreach activities and public programs besides supporting the recruitments of highly qualified qatari and others students to join the company the program has been developed by texas a&m at qatar in consultation with oryx gtl and has been signed by dr mark h weichold dean and ceo of the branch campus; dr karan watson provost and executive vice president at texas a&m universitys main campus in college station texas; and abdulrahman m al-suwaidi oryx gtl ceo ""we are proud to partner with oryx gtl to pursue human development that will provide valuable expertise for qatars growth and prosperity and contribute to qatars goal of being a knowledge-based economy "" weichold said ""we are grateful to our partner oryx gtl and for the vision oryx gtls leadership has shown in supporting qatars industry and its workforce the countrys future and achieving the goals set forth in qatar national vision 2030"" dr nimir elbashir will chair and coordinate the oryx gtl – gas-to-liquid excellence program elbashir is associate professor of chemical engineering and petroleum engineering and the director of the tees gas and fuels research center his research group of 25 researchers (including postdoctoral researchers research associates phd and masters students and undergraduate students) has a research fund that has exceeded $12 million in the past six years elbashir's team handles many projects of critical interest to qatar's natural gas-processing technologies and his team collaborates with both national and international energy corporations the fuel characterization lab and the applied catalysis lab of texas a&m qatar will support this program both labs are equipped with multimillion-dollar equipment run by highly skilled researchers and technical staff elbashir said i have witnessed many major accomplishments in the establishment of strong relations between academia and industry but this step is unique in the form of its academic research service and community outreach programs oryx gtl have been a strong supporter of our branch campus this collaboration goes further to partner with us to build knowledge in a field of critical interest to qatars economy and the future of global energy objectives of the oryx gtl – gas-to-liquid excellence program are to advance qatars leading role in the gas-to-liquid (gtl) field and build teaching training and research excellence in natural gas processing for value-added chemicals and fuels; enhance collaboration between oryx gtl and texas a&m at qatar in terms of service research training and recruitment programs; facilitate the training of highly skilled engineers and technical staff to lead the gtl field within qatar; provide professional services and training courses within qatar in areas relevant to gtl; develop courses and programs for training highly skilled engineers technicians and other staff in the area of gtl as well as synthetic fuels characterization and processing; and support qatar national vision 2030 in building human and research capital in the clean energy field main pillars of the program include service and research teaching and training and community service about texas a&m university at qatar texas a&m university recognized as having one of the premier engineering programs in the world has offered undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering electrical and computer engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering at qatar foundations education city campus since 2003 and graduate degrees in chemical engineering since fall 2011 more than 600 engineers have graduated from texas a&m at qatar since 2007 in addition to engineering courses texas a&m at qatar provides classes in science mathematics liberal arts and the humanities all four of the engineering programs offered at texas a&m at qatar are accredited by the engineering accreditation commission of abet the curricula offered at texas a&m at qatar are materially the same as those offered at the main campus in college station texas and the courses in doha are taught in english in a co-educational setting the reputation for excellence is the same as is the commitment to equip engineers to lead the next generation of engineering advancement faculty from around the world are attracted to texas a&m at qatar to provide this educational experience and to participate in research activities now valued at more than $196 million and that address issues important to the state of qatar visit wwwqatartamuedu"
947,amy bolon doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university is a leading example of women pushing the boundaries in engineering research and leadership for the second year in a row she represented texas a&m at the materials science & technology (ms&t) conference in columbus ohio bolon talked to an audience from universities and industries from across the globe at the advances in ceramics glasses and composites by women their mentors and their mentees symposium her presentation included her experience as an undergraduate and graduate engineering student at texas a&m she talked about the results of the research she and peipei gao doctoral student in mechanical engineering are conducting on mechanical behavior of oxide ceramics for solid oxide fuel cells we also discussed how women can help each other and how the ceramics community as a whole can work to increase the number of women in science and engineering said bolon bolon is completing her research under the supervision of dr miladin radovic associate professor and associate department head in materials science and engineering she has published two peer-reviewed articles with more currently under review bolon is doing pioneering work on understanding why some of solid state ionic conductors dissipates large portion of mechanical energy when exposed to external loading said radovic this phenomena is very unusual for elastically stiff ceramics and its understanding paves the road to new sensing applications of this class of ceramic bolon is also the president of the texas a&m material advantage chapter the founder and president of women in materials science and she recently stepped down as the recruitment chair of the american ceramic societys presidents council of student advisers (acers pcsa) after serving in the position for two years it was great to be part of this new symposium that celebrates the contributions of women in ceramics said bolon the whole day was a very rewarding experience ms&t is a leading forum addressing structure properties processing and performance across the materials community organized by the american ceramic society association for iron and steel technology asm international and the minerals metals and materials society
948,dr nick duffield a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and professor by courtesy in the department of computer science and engineering is part of a group that was awarded a multi-million dollar contract from the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) to help develop new networking and security technologies at the wide area network (wan) edge the awards fall under darpas edge-directed cyber technologies for reliable mission or edge-ct program that the agency says will combine real- time network analytics holistic decision systems and dynamically configurable protocol stacks to mitigate wan failures and attacks on the fly its objective is to bolster the resilience of communication over internet protocol networks solely by instantiating new capabilities in computing devices within user enclaves at the wan edge the project is led by applied communication sciences with partnership from apogee research the massachusetts institute of technology the university of pennsylvania and texas a&m university where duffield is principal investigator the partners propose to develop distributed enclave defense using configurable edges (deduce) deduce is a new architectural approach to edge-directed network adaptation that incorporates novel approaches to sensing actuation and control creating a robust and scalable system that exceeds edge-ct goals and evolves in response to changes in the network duffields involvement in the project stems from his research in network tomography in which end–to-end performance measurements between network edges can be correlated to identify common origins of performance degradation in deduce this information will be used to inform strategies for alternate routing on an overlay network between enclaves duffield was a co-recipient of the acm sigmetrcis test of time award in both 2012 and 2013 for work in network tomography duffield received his bachelor's degree in natural sciences in 1982 and a masters in 1983 from the university of cambridge uk he received his phd in mathematical physics from the university of london uk in 1987 his research focuses on data and network science particularly applications of probability statistics algorithms and machine learning to the acquisition management and analysis of large datasets in communications networks and beyond before joining the department duffield worked at at&t labs-research florham park new jersey where he held the position of distinguished member of technical staff and was an at&t fellow he previously held post-doctoral and faculty positions in dublin ireland and heidelberg germany duffield the author of numerous papers and holder of many patents is co-inventor of the smart sampling technologies that lie at the heart of at&ts scalable traffic analysis service he is specialty editor-in-chief of journal frontiers in ict and he was charter chair of the ietf working group on packet sampling duffield is an ieee fellow and serves on the board of directors of acm sigmetrics he is an associate member of the oxford-man institute of quantitative finance
949,melissa grunlan associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the royal academy of engineering distinguished visiting fellowship this fellowship enables an academic engineering department in a united kingdom university to host a distinguished visiting fellow from an overseas academic center of excellence this fall grunlan will visit imperial college london to collaborate with professor julian jones towards the development of a new material to heal bone defects such as those caused by injury birth defects and tumor removal early work on this research was published in the scientific journal acta biomaterialia grunlan who completed her undergraduate career and earned her masters degree at north dakota state university earned her phd at the university of southern california los angeles in 2004 she joined the biomedical engineering faculty at texas a&m in 2005 after a postdoctoral appointment in the universitys department of chemistry her laboratory focuses on developing new polymeric biomaterials for medical devices and regenerative therapies she has produced coatings hydrogels elastomers and porous foams from hybrid systems based on combining inorganic and organic polymers he projects include the development of self-cleaning membranes for implanted biosensors clot-resistant coatings for blood-contacting devices and scaffolds for bone repair and for the regeneration of osteochondral interfaces about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
950,dr jean-louis briaud distinguished professor and holder of the spencer j buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was selected to be the 2015-2016 cross-usa lecturer for the geo-institute (gi) of the american society of civil engineers (asce) selection criteria include prestige in the geoprofessional community professional achievements and lecture abilities normally a lecturer presents at five different us locations at least however briaud received a higher than average number of requests to honor these he has decided to visit 20 locations in 2008 when i was gi president along with the board of governors we created this lecture series based on a model i saw in canada i thought it was a really great way to serve those in our field said briaud when i was told i had 20 requests i immediately felt it was worthwhile to visit all locations this type of service benefits the gi and texas a&m it creates value on these students degrees and their education briauds topics range from geotechnical risk factors to foundation design and bridge scour his lecture locations include the university of california at berkeley fugro consultants inc in houston florida institute of technology virginia tech the university of alaska the university of illinois urbana-champaign and the university of mines in russia a distinguished member and technical regional director in asce and a registered professional engineer briaud received his bachelors degree from the ecole speciale des travaux publics in france in 1972 and his doctorate from the university of ottawa in canada in 1979 his expertise is in foundation engineering and more generally geotechnical engineering he is currently president of the federation of international geoengineering societies he has served as president of the association of geotechnical engineering professors in the us the geo-institute of the american society of civil engineers and the international society for soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering among other awards he has received the asce ralph b peck award the canadian geotechnical society geoffrey meyerhof foundation engineering award the american society for testing and materials hogentogler award the asce huber research prize and the asce martin kapp award over the last 35 years briaud has conducted about 10 million of research most of which was on foundations and retaining walls he has supervised 50 doctoral students and more than 90 masters students he is author of the books geotechnical engineering: unsaturated and saturated soils and the pressuremeter and has published about 300 articles and reports in geotechnical engineering asce represents more than 150 000 members of the civil engineering profession in 174 countries founded in 1852 asce is the nations oldest engineering society through the expertise of its active membership asce is a leading provider of technical and professional conferences and continuing education the worlds largest publisher of civil engineering content and an authoritative source for codes and standards that protect the public the society advances civil engineering technical specialties through nine dynamic institutes and leads with its many professional- and public-focused programs
951,the society of asian scientists (sase) a student-run organization at texas a&m university has tripled its membership in the last year making it a runner up for most improved chapter during the sase national conference held recently yuki oji a junior mechanical engineering major and president of sase attributes much of the clubs success to its ability to offer professional interaction with industry representatives balanced with a comfortable close-knit social environment the group has more than 100 members with more than 80 students playing an active role getting involved sase was established at texas a&m in 2013 ojis freshman year he and vice president rong xu met at the organizations inaugural event and neither knew they would one day become so involved in the club my freshman year i was not very involved xu a mechanical engineering major said now as a senior i look back and think i could have been involved more its the best way to make friends and meet people oji said he was very reserved when he first came to texas a&m but becoming a part of sase helped him come out of his shell i found that sase provided me the best opportunity to comfortably develop my professional skills oji said looking back i really realize how much ive grown as a person i am more confident opportunities abound xu said the majority of the organizations funding comes from corporate sponsors contacting them and setting up workshops is one of his main duties as vice president in the past the group mostly hosted oil and gas companies this year xu reached out to microsoft google general motors construction companies and consulting companies bringing in a diverse range of workshops that can appeal to students in any science and engineering discipline at national conferences sase members have the opportunity to attend more workshops and a career fair this year about 40 members attended the national conference in houston many receiving offers for internships and co-op opportunities xu is preparing for a second interview with a major consumer goods company for a full-time job and oji has received offers for internships and co-ops as well on-the-spot interviews at sase conferences and sometimes job offers are not uncommon they said an organization for everyone though the organizations name may sound like it is only for those from asian backgrounds oji said they have many members of different ethnicities and cultures if you have a passion to develop your professional skills and make friends this is the type of organization it is oji said at meetings oji said they often eat different kinds of asian food and share interesting facts about different asian and american cultures mentor program emily banditrat a sophomore general engineering student joined sase because of the comfortable atmosphere it provided sase has a mentor/mentee program she said i actually got to know some people and thats why i stayed chemical engineering student frederica shih agreed she and banditrat were both mentees last year and this year they are mentors they said the mentor program is mutually beneficial allowing students to give advice and share experiences i can honestly say that my old mentor is one of my best friends shih said most of my friends come from sase xu has established a study group where he can meet with other sase members and do homework play some games and socialize i want to get to know them on a personal level he said as president oji said the mentor program is something hed really like to see continue if it werent for the support i received from upper classmen i probably would be a little behind in terms of getting an internship or even pursuing a higher (officer) position he said as president thats what i strive to do i really want to maintain this tradition
952,three-dimensional printing continues to grow in popularity and have varying applications across many industries; prosthetics for children is one of them twenty children will be receiving new 3-d printed prosthetic hands thanks to a course in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university this semester freshman students in engineering projects in community service (epics) had the opportunity to partner with e-nable a global volunteer network focused on creating and delivering 3-d printed prosthetic hands for those in need epics (engr 270/470) is an interdisciplinary course in which engineering students complete projects in collaboration with non-profit community partners the students provide their service through the conception development and delivery of their engineering-based solutions to solve problems traditional prosthetic hands which can cost thousands of dollars are too costly for children who will outgrow them in a matter of months e-nable designs and shares 3-d printed prostheses blueprints for reproduction a 3-d prosthesis can be made for as little as $30 so the hand can be easily and cost-effectively replaced as the child grows the prosthetic hand connects to a childs active muscles via elastic straps ibukunoluwa oni a graduate student in biomedical engineering came to magda lagoudas who is the epics course leader after he participated in an e-nable project onis excitement to spread the word about e-nable and to provide more 3-d printed hands provided a great opportunity for students in lagoudas class using e-nables prosthetic designs blueprints students worked in teams of four to import designs in their solids modeling software scale them up for appropriate size orient them for left and right hand orientation print assemble and test their 3-d printed hands the students used the raptor reloaded hand which is the most advanced model from e-nable its about the teamwork too said matthew curtis a student in the epics course were given this kit and have to work through the project as a team together 80 students made 20 hands that will be sent to e-nable for testing and distribution some of the hands will go to kids in the united states but many of them will be sent internationally the engineering students will include a picture of the teammates and a note to accompany each hand; e-nable said the children receiving a hand often respond with a thank you note its inspiring you cant compare anything else to helping someone and fulfilling this need said student myles rosenbaum you dont see this every day engaging freshmen engineering students in such a project provides them with an opportunity to see first-hand the impact of engineering on society these students can now think about all the possible ways they can improve the engineering design of the raptor reloaded hand to improve efficiency in 3-d printing and assembly durability and to further enhance the functionality of the device
953,air pollution remains a major health hazard for our nation despite significant improvement in the united states' air quality since the passage of the clean air act and formation of the environmental protection agency (epa) in 1970 globally air pollution is the largest environmental risk to human health it rivals known risk factors including smoking alcohol use and malnutrition technological improvements such as catalytic converters and particulate filters have yielded immense health benefits but many challenges remain dr andrea strzelec assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is the director of the combustion and reaction characterization laboratory (crcl) where she and her graduate students are focused on further reducing the pollution from automotive exhaust via their research on exhaust aftertreatment devices catalytic convertor is the generic name associated with exhaust aftertreatment devices found on vehicles these devices convert engine out emissions into safer and cleaner gasses to meet federal emissions standards auto manufactures control diesel emissions through the use of five major types of after treatment devices: the diesel oxidation catalyst (doc); diesel particulate filter (dpf); lean nox trap (lnt); selective catalytic reduction (scr) catalyst which are used for diesel engines; and the three-way catalyst (twc) for gasoline engines strzelecs lab has projects related to several of these devices her team is working to develop new formulations that work over a larger range of conditions and use lower amounts of expensive precious metals strzelec is particularly interested in particulates because they have been shown to be a hazard to both human health and the environment the team is investigating particulate matter from both diesel and gasoline direct injection engines in anticipation of gasoline particulate filters (gpfs) being required on vehicles in the future for the doc or the twc oxidation catalysts to work properly turning toxic species such as carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons into the innocuous products of water and co2 they must first reach their light-off temperature when a vehicle is first started (the cold-start condition) the electronic control unit (ecu) instructs the engine to run fuel-rich for a few seconds to heat the catalyst to the required activation temperature as quickly as possible it is the ecu often referred to as the vehicles on-board computer which controls the fueling rate; engine performance and the emissions control devices as the vehicle is being run the ecu keeps track of the catalyst temperature and adjusts it to keep it hot enough to be active by regulating fueling the fuel that goes to keeping the catalyst from experiencing light-out (getting too cold to be effective) then does not go to the motive power and is often referred to as a fuel penalty and is seen as a reduction in fuel economy or miles per gallon rating to the driver improved catalyst materials like the ones strzelecs group is working on can reduce this fuel penalty when manufactures test a vehicle to ensure it will meet the epa standards they place the vehicle on a chassis dynamometer a set of power-absorbing rollers that allows the vehicle to be run through simulated real-world driving scenarios without moving in fact the vehicle is locked in place for this testing recently it has come to light that some ecus were programmed to recognize when they were on a dynamometer (the ecu recognized the hallmarks: only two of four wheels turning no motion in the steering wheel) and only make sure that the emissions were being met during that time leveraging her joint appointment with the texas a&m transportation institute strzelecs team uses a chassis dynamometer as well as the more relevant portable emission measurement system (pems) when evaluating the viability of their materials pems units are small portable devices that fit in the trunk of a car and attach to the tailpipe to measure emissions in real time as the vehicle is driven on the road in this case the vehicle cannot tell it is being evaluated and is experiencing the same conditions that it might for the consumer making pems a better method to evaluate the vehicles emissions strzelec believes her research will lead to the improvements upon the current emissions devices installed on vehicles and perhaps the implementation of new highly-efficient and lower cost catalytic materials for a closer look at emissions research being led by strzelec and discussion of the epa testing issues currently in the mainstream news visit the laboratorys website
954,"this past summer drs ivan damnjanovic and luca quadrifoglio of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university led the first study abroad italy trip for the civil engineering department students benefitted from their faculty leaders backgrounds as quadrifoglio is a native of trieste and damnjanovic spent much of his childhood summers in the istria peninsula we want students to know you dont need to speak the language in order to work abroad said damnjanovic we see a huge industry need for engineers willing to work abroad once they become comfortable with this and see it as an opportunity they are groomed to be mentors to the new generation of engineers thats globalization guilty of passing up an opportunity to do undergraduate research abroad quadrifoglio has a personal motive for wanting to help give students a push in the right direction and open more chances for exciting jobs there is a fear to step out of your own environment and culture said quadrifoglio the shock students receive is a pleasant one because our trip goes beyond civil engineering we have classes and a technical visit but its really about a barrier that needs to be broken down so they can embrace cultural differences and see working abroad as a possibility for them the number of students traveling with the two faculty members was 20 students remarked that the smaller group really added something more to the trip after a month with each other deep bonds were made between the students as well as with the faculty ""our trip was by far the best experience of my life given the opportunity to do this again there is no doubt i would return for round two "" said katarina bertlshofer a junior civil engineering major ""getting to see firsthand other cultures and lifestyles was very eye opening and definitely a life changing experience through this program i formed relationships unlike any other without the professors the trip definitely would not have been as spectacular as it was they did so much with us and were constantly giving us suggestions for how to spend our free time"" included in the program were cultural visits to trieste venice and rovinj in croatia and a technical visit to de eccher a large international civil engineering firm students were also encouraged to utilize the free weekend as a personal excursion to destinations nearby like austria or rome you definitely gain confidence to travel abroad and see the possibility of working abroad as an option said andrew creighton a junior civil engineering major with the free weekend we had the opportunity to put together our own trip our group went to austria and we planned it all the four-week program was based in trieste not far from venice a typical class day was three to four hours of class and two to three hours of directed study homework time the dipartimento di ingegneria e architettura of the university of trieste and specifically dr raffaela cefalo associate professor and coordinator of the erasmus program provided essential help with the arrangements for classroom labs technical tours and excursions some of their students were invited to attend our classes to facilitate cultural exchange and interaction studying abroad in trieste was a fun way to get those classes and helped me gain a better understanding of how foreign students may feel coming to study here said rachael king a junior civil engineering major at first the language difference was very difficult for me to handle but after a few days i got the hang of it and was able to get my point across when i needed to i now realize how challenging it may be for foreign students to be so far from home ill now try harder to help them and make them feel welcome"
955,the 2015 buchanan lecturer is dr william f marcuson iii director emeritus from the geotechnical laboratory of the us army engineers research and development center for the us army corps of engineers marcusons lecture will be katrina in your rearview mirror the buchanan lecture is held in honor of dr spencer j buchanans life and legacy at texas a&m university buchanan dedicated his life to the service and education of others he was a founder of the bryan boys club a texas a&m distinguished professor and a world leader in geotechnical engineering every year the buchanan lecture is held in his honor aiming to educate and motivate present-day geotechnical engineers the lecture is organized by dr jean-louis briaud distinguished professor and holder of the spencer j buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university this year the lecture is sponsored by fugro consultants inc also on the agenda will be dr carlos santamarina of king abdullah university of science and technology giving his 2014 terzaghi lecture energy geotechnology: enabling new insights into soil behavior the terzaghi lecture was established by the geo-institute of the american society of civil engineers in 1960 this lectureship is an annual award coupled with a lecture that addresses modern research in the field of geotechnical engineering lecturers are recognized for their outstanding and sustainable contributions to geotechnical engineering that can be utilized in the united states the lectures will take place in the brazos amphitheater at the college station hilton starting at 2 pm on nov 20 at 5:30 pm on nov 19 marcuson will be speaking to dwight look college of engineering students on the topic of leadership and the traits of successful engineers this event will be held in the richardson petroleum engineering building room 106 all engineering students are encouraged to attend
956,"dr jodie lutkenhaus william and ruth neely faculty fellow and associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is a finalist in the energy category of the 2015 world technology network awards i am honored to be a finalist said lutkenhaus it is exciting to stand among such groundbreaking individuals"" lutkenhaus research interests include the design of organic thin films and nanostructures to enable the development of novel organic energy systems and smart coatings areas of investigation include the behavior of polymer thin films and coatings thermal analysis polyelectrolytes and electroactive polymers for energy storage her group has made new strides in the area of bendable batteries the 2015 world technology summit & awards exists to celebrate innovative accomplishments; to explore what is imminent possible and important in and around emerging technologies; and to create the kinds of serendipitous relationships that build the future awards will be announced nov 19-20 in new york city at the time & life building"
957,"dr sp bhattacharyya professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named a foreign member of the academia nacional de engenharia (ane) brazil at the academy's annual meeting in rio de janeiroprofessor pedro mg ferreira chairman of the nominating committee at the academy commended bhattacharyya for his research career and relationship with brazilian universities ""bhattacharyya is recognized for his outstanding contributions to control theory and for his establishment of the first graduate program in control systems in brazil in the 1970's ferreira said some of his former students and graduates of this program are members of the academy he is also being recognized for his current ongoing research work in collaboration with researchers at the best brazilian universities and for promoting brazil in the united states through study abroad programs based at texas a&m university and conducted in brazil over the last 10 years the academy is honored to welcome bhattacharyya as one of two foreign members elected this year"" dr bhattacharya is internationally known for his contributions to the field of control theory and i am proud that he is our colleague said dr nk anand executive associate dean and associate director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station ""i am grateful for this spontaneous recognition from the ane in brazil for work i did there 40 years ago bhattacharyya said it further strengthens my relationship with this country which i love"" bhattacharyya obtained his btech degree from iit bombay in 1967 and his phd from rice university in 1971 he joined texas a&m in 1980 and currently holds the robert m kennedy professorship i he has coauthored eight books and nearly 300 papers in the field of control systems was elected ieee fellow in 1989 an ifac fellow in 2011 and was named a foreign member of the brazilian academy of sciences in 2012"
958,texas a&m university predoctoral research fellow gleb kuzmin and scientists at the national institutes of health (nih) are conducting research to understand the negative effects proton therapy cancer treatments can have on normal human tissue they are seeking to find not only the best way to accurately estimate unintended radiation dose to normal tissue in the short term but also to provide efficient and targeted treatment while minimizing unintended negative effects kuzmin has been given the opportunity to work at nih through the institutes graduate partnership program individual track distinction (for students of universities that do not have a direct partnership with nih) kuzmin works with dr choonsik lee a principal investigator for the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics under the nihs national cancer institute the pair is currently assessing the effects the radiation dose can have on normal tissues from proton therapy treatment on cancer patients a treatment that uses an external beam of protons to target a specific tumor area while clinicians and researchers understand the effectiveness of proton therapy on a targeted cancer area lasting secondary effects to the surrounding tissue are not well documented lee and kuzmin seek to develop a dose calculation system for normal tissues outside the treatment area allowing healthcare professionals to apply precise radiation treatment doses to the targeted areas without inadvertently affecting the surrounding tissue or other body systems in a negative way any dosage beyond the precise necessary amount or outside the intended location needed for treatment has the potential to have negative effects the human body works in much the same way as a naturally contained ecosystem in the same way that any impact to an ecosystem can have unintended changes to the way it functions an unintended amount of radiation to a specific body area can have effects on the surrounding tissues and body systems creating unforeseen consequences such as secondary cancers and other serious health outcomes the current system that is used to calculate radiation dosages is a series of fast-based algorithms that only focus on the possible effects on the tumor and its immediate surrounding areas rather than the body as a whole part of what i am doing will be geared for usage by epidemiologists kuzmin said they will be able to use the system i develop to calculate and quantify the doses patients receive and do studies to see if there were any later affects or correlations between doses on outside organs once those studies have been done we may begin to see more clinical applications what we are doing right now is not something that has an immediate effect on patients kuzmin said we are rather interested in any secondary effects the treatment may have and whether there will be any effects later in life kuzmin and lee are working to develop this dose calculation system for tissues outside the intended treatment area through three-dimensional computer models of the human anatomy these models will allow the researchers to focus on the portions of the body not covered by ct scans by using both computational phantom techniques in conjunction with controlled experiments using a physical human-sized phantom the physical phantom is made of material that is equivalent to human tissue allowing any radiation applied to the dummy to affect it in the same way it would a human body the human phantom will also be equipped with radiation detectors inside its body to measure the dosage of the treatments it receives allowing kuzmin to take radiation measurements from the specific tissues or organs outside the direct tissue that is being treated both the computational and physical phantoms will experience the same procedures as a patient would get a ct go through the treatment planning procedure and become irradiated with a proton beam kuzmin said we will first run our simulations and calculate how much dose the phantoms organs receive then we will validate our simulations and calculations by comparing our results to the output from the detectors inside the phantom kuzmins background is in radiation physics and he is a student in the texas a&m nuclear engineering department health physics phd program under his adviser dr gamal akabani once he finishes his research he is considering pursuing a medical physics residency to become a board certified medical physicist however he also enjoys research and may seek a postdoctoral position i was always drawn to the field of physics but i still wanted to do something medically related that is beneficial for society kuzmin said ive been at nci for a couple of months doing modeling work and i will also do experimental work im getting both sides of the research its a very collaborative research environment
959,vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected fellow of the american physical society (aps) yakovlev who was elected upon the recommendation of the aps division of atomic molecular and optical physics is being recognized for outstanding contributions to the development of ultrafast lasers optical instrumentation and the resulting spectroscopic advances that have important applications in physics chemistry biology engineering and medicine election to fellowship in aps is limited to no more than one half of 1 percent of society membership yakovlev who joined texas a&m in 2012 has made many significant contributions to the field of optical instrumentation for biomedical sensing and imaging including advancing the technology of ultrafast solid-state lasers making it an indispensable tool for multiphoton microscopy imaging and sensing yakovlev holds the rank of fellow in the optical society of america the american institute of medical and biological engineering and the international society for optics and photonics he has published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals given 50 invited public presentations and more than 100 presentations at different conferences he also has edited one book on the biochemical applications of nonlinear optical spectroscopy and contributed to several books as co-author aps is a non-profit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals scientific meetings and education outreach advocacy and international activities aps represents more than 51 000 members including physicists in academia national laboratories and industry in the united states and throughout the world about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
960,yunyun chen doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university won the neville b smith student poster award third prize at advanced light sources (als) annual user meeting held at the lawrence berkeley national laboratory in berkeley california chen is completing her thesis research under the supervision of dr hong liang professor in the department of mechanical engineering and affiliated faculty member in the materials science and engineering department understanding the interactions between inorganic nanomaterials and biological and ecological environments is important for health science and the society the challenge lies in direct detecting the small particles this project is a team effort with our collaborators in entomology (dr jorge gonzalez at california state university) and in tomography (dr dula parkinson at als) said liang chen has been focused and persistent in making and probing the particles and has learned a great deal in nano-bio interactions her study not only enables her to understand the particle pathways but also helps her to develop novel nanoparticles two other doctoral students collaborated with chen on the research carlos sanchez in the department of mechanical engineering and yuan yue in materials science and engineering chens poster observation of nanoparticles in insects by using micro-tomography showcased the teams recent discovery in understanding the effects of nanomaterials on biological environments chen highlighted her analysis of size and shape specific nanoparticles their uptake and transport pathways in small species her research studies toxicity of nanoparticles in ants to potentially develop a prevention method for fire ants chen has published three journal articles and currently has more under review it was a privilege to work with top scientists and the most advanced instruments at als chen said we ran into several problems in detecting small particles but we have succeeded this award is an inspiration for me and my teammates we are confident that we will overcome obstacles down the road and make more discoveries
961,the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has opened a new student collaboration space on the second floor of the james j cain ‘51 building (enph) the space offers students resources such as multiple electrical outlets installed near couches and chairs dry erase white boards and bluetooth enabled monitors these resources can be used for student projects where student groups may want to bring their own device and would need a power source or large display capabilities during an open house ceremony dr andreas polycarpou head of the department praised the hard work of all who had a part in making the project become a reality this is the first time we have had a designated student collaboration flex space he said this project was three years in the making and we are excited to offer such an open concept space for all of our students that will undoubtedly enhance their learning experience currently the collaborative student space has enough seating for 90 individuals the adjoining classroom is rated for 71 individuals and when completed the project presentation space will have enough room for students to present industry sponsored projects for classes such as mechanical engineering 401 402 and 404 so far ive really enjoyed the student spaces white boards more than anything else they really help group collaboration and we can interact and learn from each other said walker wiggins a junior mechanical engineering major
962,faculty and staff from the texas a&m engineering experiment station's nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) at texas a&m university organized the second nuclear facilities experience (nfe) for american students and young professionals through a grant from the national nuclear security administration's next generation safeguards initiative this experience which took place in the united kingdom from sept 13-18 included students from five us universities (texas a&m the university of michigan the university of new mexico the university of tennessee and penn state university) faculty from texas a&m and the university of utah and young professionals from three national laboratories (argonne savannah river and pacific northwest national laboratories) the five-day tour of the uk included visits to the urenco uranium enrichment plant in capenhurst the thermal oxide reprocessing plant at sellafield the world's first commercial nuclear power plant at calder hall (consisting of four magnox reactors) and the heysham nuclear power plant (consisting of four advanced gas-cooled reactors) the nfe also included a stop at king's college london where participants interacted with faculty and students from the centre for science and security studies in the department of war studies at king's college both host faculty and visitors presented lectures on nuclear security topics over the course of the nfe the participants traveled more than 900 miles by rail and had the opportunity to see some of the best examples of operational nuclear science security and safeguards the world has to offer this year's international nfe is the latest in a series of similar experiences organized by nsspi since 2006 past nfes took students and faculty to facilities in france the uk and japan
963,a research team from texas a&m university that includes two professors from the department of materials science and engineering has received an early concept grant for exploratory research (eager) from the national science foundation (nsf) to research and test a transformative building system that engages interdisciplinary teams from the college of architecture and the dwight look college of engineering the project interaction of smart materials for transparent self-regulating building skins is led by dr zofia rybkowski assistant professor in the construction science collaborators on the project include: dr negar kalantar assistant professor in the department of architecture dr tahir cagin professor in the department of materials science and engineering dr ergun akleman professor in the department of visualization and dr terry creasy associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering the project aims to harness the inherent properties of smart materials such as shape memory alloys bi-metallic strips piezoelectric materials and stimuli-responsive polymers and explore their interaction in transparent building skinthus replacing resource- energy- and labor-intensive forms of traditional building infrastructure such as mechanical electrical and plumbing systems imagine cutting the traditional umbilical cords of a building and harvesting air water and energy through a buildings skin instead rybkowski said naturally this is a pretty futuristic proposition but that is what makes an exploratory project like this so exciting the newest generation of smart materials that can interact with the environment is starting to make this kind of vision actually feasible we were inspired by stomata of plant leaves that open and close in response to humidity in the air we can mimic this in building skins using new types of materials that can respond to environmental cues without sensors if successful the skins would help make buildings self-regulating reducing the need for complicated software and making facility management more efficient eager is the nsfs mechanism to fund high risk/high reward projects that are not likely to make it through the regular peer review process during the exploratory 24-month eager project interdisciplinary teams comprised of students from architecture and materials science and engineering will investigate the interaction of smart materials within innovative building skins and fabricate and test these interactions during two semester-long workshops we formed organically around an idea that excited us all rybkowski said we have a faculty team of five and a host of graduate students from architecture materials science and engineering construction science and visualization this type of representation is quite unusual the group gets larger and larger with each meeting as students and faculty hear about the project some are invited and others just show up to the weekly discussions with a flash drive they wish to share there is a spirit of free sharing of knowledge and ideas its wonderful
964,dr christodoulos a floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute and the erle nye 59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university presented the 2015 pv danckwerts memorial lecture at the 10th european congress of chemical engineering (ecce10) in nice france on sept 28 ecce10 was held in conjunction with the 3rd european congress of applied biotechnology (ecab3) and the 5th european process intensification conference (epic5) his presentation carbon capture utilization and sequestration: a multi-scale grand challenge introduced a multi-scale energy systems engineering framework for addressing the grand challenge of co2 capture utilization and sequestration (ccus) at an individual process level and at the supply chain network level floudas outlined how ccus could potentially cut carbon emissions in half at an affordable price in his delivery of the prestigious lecture floudas said that we need to take a multi-scale systems viewpoint in order to develop an optimal solution for ccus both on a nationwide and regional basis the danckwerts lecture was established in 1985 to honor professor peter v danckwerts as a leading scholar in the field of chemical engineering floudas is a world-renowned authority in mathematical modeling and optimization of complex systems he is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for teaching and research including election to the national academy of engineering in 2011 a siam fellow in 2013 a tias fellow and eminent scholar for 2013-14 an aiche fellow in 2013 a corresponding member of the academy of athens in 2015 and recipient of the constantin caratheodory prize also in 2015 he has been repeatedly named a thomson reuters highly cited researcher
965,the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university honored seven students with its craig c brown outstanding senior engineering award during a banquet oct 1 at the memorial student center on the texas a&m campus seniors tyler buffington j hunter drozd tyler a romero peter rozanski kevin von storch katie walker and connie xavier received the annual award because of their academic achievement character and leadership abilities tyler buffington a senior mechanical engineering major is from keller texas and he is constantly looking for ways that engineering solutions can improve the lives of others he has participated in engineers without borders and has founded engineers serving the community this service organization has pursued several projects to promote engineering in the local community teaching children about engineers as inventors providing musical instruments in public parks and repairing equipment at a local food bank at no cost buffington is a member of both the engineering scholars program and the university honors program he conducted undergraduate research with the phate research group and has worked with dow chemical and prime controls tyler plans to pursue an advanced degree with a focus on clean energy j hunter drozd is a senior petroleum engineering major from midland texas under the guidance of beloved mentors drozd has embraced the philosophy that achievement provides the opportunity to influence and serve others with integrity and humility to that end hunter has been an active member of campus organizations such as the american association of drilling engineers and the society of petroleum engineers and worked for corporations such as bp exploration alaska inc eog resources inc and rsp permian inc he has been awarded numerous scholarships and academic honors including membership in pi epsilon tau petroleum engineering honor society and selection as only one of eight star scholars in the united states by the society of petroleum engineers international tyler a romero is a senior computer science and engineering major from chesterfield missouri although romero arrived at texas a&m focused solely on academic excellence his experience over the last three years has taught him the value of meeting new people and encouraging others to succeed he has served as an active member and recruiter for various service organizations and programs including the big event fish camp and leaders in freshmen engineering tyler is also co-founder of freshmen reaching excellence in engineering an organization that helps incoming engineering students to find their passion he has completed summer internships with the microsoft corporation bloomberg lp and washington university in st louis romero has also been the recipient of several scholarships and awards for academic merit and leadership peter rozanski is a senior civil engineering major from san antonio roznaskis college experiences have shaped him into a well-rounded young man who has developed skills across a wide range of fields he completed internships with engineering firms investment fund organizations and government agencies rozanski has received awards for academic excellence as well as community service and student involvement he has volunteered for numerous charitable and community outreach organizations and has served in a variety of on-campus organizations such as msc bethancourt titans of investing and the aggie muster committee he credits his engineering education with providing him foundational skills of problem-solving and methodical thinking which he has applied to his various extracurricular activities kevin von storch is a senior civil engineering major from colleyville texas von storch gained valuable insight on the importance of developing leadership skills while completing an engineering internship before his junior year in order to gain the skills to be not only a competent engineer but also an effective leader he has actively pursued a variety of opportunities such as the mays business fellows program the texas a&m foundation maroon coats and the ey emerging leaders summit notably participation in the mays business fellows program is traditionally reserved for business students but von storch requested special permission to apply and was accepted as an engineering student he has received numerous scholarships and awards for academic performance and leadership and has interned with kimley-horn & associates and us p&e global katie walker is a senior mechanical engineering major from cedar park texas texas a&ms core values are the foundation of walkers commitment to teamwork and servant leadership she has participated in numerous community service activities including several associated with her membership in the society of women engineers walker has been the recipient of a variety of academic awards and honor designations she has completed internships with albemarle eastman and bp she was also selected to participate in the summer 2013 bp women in energy leadership program in chicago katie believes being a leader doesnt necessarily require an official title instead she says a leader can emerge by earning the respect of the team and valuing each member connie xavier is a senior civil engineering major from arlington texas xaviers passion to serve others has driven her to seek out leadership positions in both her academic career and personal life she has been an active member of the society of women engineers and the student engineers council served overseas as an esl tutor and volunteered for numerous charitable organizations xavier has been awarded several scholarships and membership into honor societies tau beta pi engineering honor society chi epsilon civil engineering honor society and both the engineering scholars program and university honors program she has gained engineering experience by working with the texas a&m transportation institute and kimley-horn & associates her goal as an engineer is to be open to alternative solutions and make a long-term impact on society the craig c brown outstanding senior engineering award is the most prestigious honor bestowed upon a graduating senior in the look college the award is based on outstanding scholastic achievement leadership and character the award was first presented in 1947 as the engineering faculty senior award in 1996 the award was renamed to recognize craig c brown for his vision to expand and enhance the program through a permanent endowment this years recipients received a $5 000 education grant and an award their names will be added to the programs recognition plaque brown is a 1975 civil engineering graduate and past recipient of the engineering faculty senior award he also received a master of business administration from texas a&m and is the president owner and chief operating officer of bray international inc
966,dr sara abedi assistant professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university was one of two recipients of this years prestigious spe new faculty research grant this recognition draws attention to her excellence in commitment to academic research and student supervision and is a way for the society of petroleum engineers (spe) to highlight the important role that young faculty members of such high caliber play in enhancing the educational environment of petroleum engineering departments and programs she was given the grant during the spe annual reception and banquet in houston on sept 27 it comes with a monetary award of $50 000 per year for two years which funds innovative research and the training and supervising of graduate students abedi joined the department in january she obtained her phd in civil engineering from the university of southern california in 2012 and was a postdoctoral research associate for the department of civil and environmental engineering at the massachusetts institute of technology she currently teaches reservoir petrophysics to sophomore petroleum engineering majors the course involves the theoretical and laboratory study of physical properties of petroleum reservoir rocks her research interests include experimental and theoretical microporomechanics nano-chemomechanical characterization of porous materials geomechanics and granular material failure and flow abedis research aims to identify the fundamental chemo-mechanical properties of geomaterials at the nano and microscale as a basis for upscaling these properties to the macroscale level of engineering applications to address these challenges she has launched the geomaterials for energy use and environmental sustainability laboratory using advanced experimentation and theoretical investigation she develops scientific understanding technological knowledge and a novel toolset to improve the sustainable engineering of geological materials and energy resources
967,students from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university have out-earned students from other universities for national action council for minorities in engineering (nacme) scholarships twenty-seven students were named new recipients of the scholarship the students were honored during a reception on sept 3 nacme aims to increase the proportion of african-american american indian and latino graduates in science technology engineering and math (stem) education and careers nacmes vision is to help shape the united states engineering workforce the look college currently has 41 nacme scholars the 27 new recipients and 14 existing students the program was initially funded through a five-year nacme grant which the 14 current existing nacme students are still receiving and benefiting from until they graduate however the 27 new recipients and incoming freshmen students received their nacme scholarship through their high school partnerships with the nacme national organization extra-curricular activities gpa and financial merit are taken into consideration for the scholarship the nacme scholarship is focused on more than just financial benefit for the students scholars are required to participate in community service development workshops networking events career acumen and professional development the nacme scholarship program serves as another great resource for involving historically underrepresented students said dr sonia garcia they have a community of scholars and an expanded network that supports them and helps them to strive in their chosen engineering field garcia who is the senior director for access & inclusion strives to work with all scholars beyond their first year by having extra-curricular involvements the nacme events have helped me [become] more involved with leadership organizations such as becoming a camp counselor and engineering ambassador said corinne martinez a nacme member and a senior biomedical engineering student current nacme scholars serve as volunteers for the engineering aggies gaining experience (engage) fall invitationals where they serve as host tour guides and speakers/panelists for high school students who are historically underrepresent in engineering and who attend a high school in texas that has become an engage partner school with the look college look college faculty members provide guidance to nacme members through career workshops nacme scholars have access to the nationwide nacme network and have the opportunity to serve as an ambassador to nacme for the university current nacme ambassador anthony ramirez serves as the liaison between national and campus scholars and helps to plan all events on campus nacme has given me a voice to represent the underrepresented minority students in engineering at texas a&m said ramirez it has helped me learn to network and to expand my network on campus and with industry professionals my hope is for the program to grow and continue to be a resource for students said garcia
968,its not every day undergraduate students are surrounded by world-renowned leaders in engineering fields but three texas a&m university engineering students had that opportunity at the global grand challenges summit in beijing china jointly sponsored by the us national academy of engineering (nae) the chinese academy of engineering and the uk royal academy of engineering the summit brought together global experts and leaders to explore pathways for solving global themes from the nae grand challenges report the summit was held sept 15-16 m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering attended the event with the three texas a&m students allison badgett senior in computer science and engineering ian de vlaming senior in mechanical engineering and nian wei tan junior in petroleum engineering the summit focused on the themes from the nae grand challenges report: sustainability infrastructure energy health joy of living education and security/resilience leaders in the field were present to hold lectures and discussions the event also included a student design competition the texas a&m students served as ambassadors for the university in beijing and will continue to help the effort by providing reports and analysis of the summit on campus and through engineering honors as the aggie_challenge program is modeled after the nae grand challenges the student ambassadors hope to direct aggie_challenge to be more inline with what the nae is doing for its grand challenges many of the summits speakers and sessions revolved around climate change the impact of it and what part engineers play in the topic de vlaming was struck by this topic and said hes planning to redirect his research interests to be related to climate change as engineers we need to better anticipate tomorrows problems and not only solving todays problems de vlaming the morality of climate change and engineering was noted as well the student ambassadors related to speakers saying engineers have to think beyond the technical details to the ethics of the issues too engineering can help us handle problems the human population is facing right now said tan overall the student ambassadors were able to engage with the best thinkers and doers in the field and gain a greater understanding of the issues facing the future of engineering badgett said she didnt grow up thinking shed become an engineer but her plans changed attending the summit has been one of her first opportunities to interact with a group like the summit provided im new to the scientific community so for me its fun to become part of this community said badgett to apply for this trip students were required to be part of engineering honors and aggie_challenge the students were selected as texas a&m ambassadors for the summit based on a personal essay detailing their qualifications they will be speaking at the engineering honors town hall meeting on oct 8 from 6:30–8 pm the aggie_challenge program was established in fall 2012 to engage undergraduates in multidisciplinary and vertically integrated teams to pursue solutions for some of the grand challenges in engineering student teams work closely with faculty and graduate students and receive course credit more than 500 engineering undergraduates have participated in the program since its inception
969,the texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) announced its faculty fellows for the 2015-16 academic year and dr kumares sinha will be joining the zachry department of civil engineering sinha is an expert on highway infrastructure systems engineering and he will be involved with the departments transportation group his research also overlaps with the construction engineering and management group sinha will collaborate with dr mark burris in the area of transportation economics specifically exploring some of the economic issues surrounding connected and automated vehicles and how changes in the cost of travel along with other attributes will impact their market penetration and driver behavior sinha will provide additional coordination between the department and the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) to expand research opportunities tti and the texas a&m engineering experiment station recently announced funding for the center for infrastructure renewal and sinhas focus is on infrastructure investment the edgar b and hedwig m olson distinguished professor of civil engineering at purdue university sinha is recognized for his development of an integrated approach to managing highway systems and groundbreaking research on pavement and bridge performance life cycle costing and road safety sinha is a member of the national academy of engineering and an honorary member of the american society of civil engineers tias is a mechanism for attracting world-class talent to texas a&m and is driven by nominations of national academy and nobel-prize caliber researchers that align with existing strengths and ambitions of the university the goal is to provide a stellar environment for research and scholarship with the faculty fellows having freedom to pursue their own research interests as well as collaborate in disciplinary and multidisciplinary research
970,david s zachry 85 former student and advisory council co-chair of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has been elected 2015-2016 chairman by the members of the american road & transportation builders association (artba) zachry chief executive officer of zachry corporation has had a career in the transportation construction industry spanning nearly 30 years he is the third generation zachry in the company founded by his grandfather hb pat zachry in 1924 today the san antonio-based firm builds unique large-scale projects around the world with high integrity and innovation highways bridges waterways museums music halls hotels and hospitals are among the companys many projects that provide noteworthy infrastructure solutions zachry outlined several goals for the year ahead as artba chairman to start he pledged to build the number of firms and organizations supporting the transportation makes america work lobbying and advocacy communications program to help ensure the industry has the financial muscle to achieve its legislative goals most importantly he said artba will remain laser-focused on its mission of ensuring a long-term highway trust fund fix and congressional approval of a multi-year bill that boosts federal surface transportation investment the association will also advocate for increased federal investment in airport construction as part of the reauthorization of the nations aviation programs with the coming year the association would be expanding the scope of its training initiatives with development of new accredited national road and bridge safety certification programs artba would continue ongoing efforts to increase membership overall as well as support the professional development of women in the industry and to recruit more women and students to consider transportation construction careers zachry holds a bachelors degree in civil engineering from texas a&m and an mba from the university of texas at austin he served three years active duty in the united states army including domestic and international assignments and airborne school he and his wife and three children live in san antonio where he has served on several local boards and mayors committees and is actively involved in numerous charitable organizations
971,texas a&m universitys marine technology society (mts) and society of naval architects and marine engineers (sname) a joint chapter of student organizations in the department of ocean engineering recently adopted and cleaned a mile of beach in galveston texas through the texas general land offices adopt-a-beach program twenty texas a&m students joined more than 10 000 volunteers to pick up trash left behind by beachgoers corporations such as shell oil company schlumberger murphy oil company noaa gulf of mexico marine debris program apache corporation trusted senior specialists corona del mar properties and the ocean conservancy also participated in the event according to the texas general lands office volunteers have collected an average of 500 tons of trash annually from texas beaches we picked up a lot of small pieces of plastic called ‘micro plastics which are especially harmful because of how easy it is for marine life to ingest said amanda massingill vice president of mts we also picked up a lot of tangled fishing line turtles and birds get killed by fishing line all the time the officers of mts/sname want to increase the organizations involvement in philanthropic activities closely related to and impacting their field of study we are hoping to combine efforts with the texas a&m galveston campus to bring the members of the two locations of the ocean engineering department together said austin grieger president of mts/sname the marine technology societys goal is to disseminate marine science and technical knowledge; to promote and support education for marine scientists engineers and technicians; to advance the development of tools required to explore study and exploit the oceans; and to provide services that create a broader understanding of the relevance of the marine sciences to other technologies arts and human affairs the goal of the society of naval architects and marine engineers is to advance the state of the art; to afford the opportunity for the exchange of information and ideas; to disseminate results of research experience and information among its members; to encourage and sponsor such research to cooperate and educational institutions; and to promote the professional integrity and status of the members more information about mts/sname can be found on the organizations website
972,a device intended to more effectively treat abdominal aortic aneurysms as well as uncontrolled internal bleeding after serious injuries is a step closer to reality thanks to a national institutes of health (nih) grant received by todd landsman graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university the small business innovative research (sbir) grant awarded by the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering of nih is intended to help commercialize the medical technology being developed by landsman in conjunction with shape memory therapeutics inc a local medical device company at which landsman is engineering manager joining landsman in the development of the device are co-investigator and professor duncan maitland and clinical consultants ruth bush vice dean of the texas a&m health science center college of medicine and alan glowczwski director of imaging at the texas a&m institute for preclinical studies with the grant landsman and his team will continue to conduct research on the device further testing its feasibility before advancing to clinical trials in preparation for fda approval which is expected early 2017 the embolization device landsman explains can be used to treat uncontrolled internal bleeding after blunt trauma to the liver spleen or kidneys – the types of injuries resulting from car accidents or explosions; bulging veins that don't function properly which cause significant abdominal pain in women and infertility in men; and potentially fatal abdominal aortic aneurysms that are at risk of rupture unlike current embolization technology that requires multiple devices for each application the technology being developed by landsman and his team requires only a single device and results in reduced radiation exposure; reduced risk of device migration; and improved healing that prevents the vessel from rebleeding after treatment which happens in up to 30 percent of cases he notes the nih sbir program is one of the largest sources of early-stage capital for innovative small companies in the united states the program funds early-stage small businesses that are seeking to commercialize innovative biomedical technologies this competitive program helps small businesses participate in federal research and development develop life-saving technologies and create jobs shape memory therapeutics inc is a medical device company founded by maitland to commercialize innovative medical devices based on shape memory polymer (smp) materials that were developed at texas a&m and lawrence livermore national laboratory the company leverages the unique properties of smps – high expansion capability and a low expansion force – for minimally invasive endovascular applications such as the treatment of aneurysms this research is supported by the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering of the national institutes of health under award number r43eb022016 about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
973,andrea locke graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2015-2016 outstanding engineering doctoral graduate student award the award recognizes exceptional achievement and overall performance by a doctoral student awardees must be in good academic standing with a minimum cumulative and degree gpa of at least 375 as a recipient of the award locke was formally honored at this years dwight look college of engineering student awards banquet where she received a commemorative memento and a one-time scholarship of $5 000 locke who is advised by charles h and bettye barclay professor gerard coté has maintained a 388 gpa while working in cotés optical bio-sensing laboratory her research which she has conducted with coté and associate professor melissa grunlan has focused on the development of an implantable optical glucose biosensor for noninvasive detection of glucose for diabetics specifically she is combining a novel fluorescent glucose sensing chemistry within a polymer cylinder about the size of a grain of rice that can be implanted just below the skin and once implanted can be probed noninvasively using a watch type device that will measure glucose in addition locke helps lead a team of students including one junior phd and two undergraduate students through the various aspects of the project while at texas a&m locke has published in two high-impact refereed journal papers with a third publication in submission she also has invented a new patent-pending technique for encapsulating the sensing chemistry in a cylinder used in her research the impact of lockes work coté says has huge implications for people suffering from diabetes once this platform is optimized and implanted the glucose-monitoring biosensor locke is helping to develop could remove the need for finger pricks throughout the day in addition to her research activities locke has engaged with the department through a number of service-oriented activities including serving as a student ambassador and participating in the universitys student chapter of engineering world health through which she assisted in the assembly of low-cost ecg simulators that were donated to clinics in developing countries locke is treasurer of the texas a&m student chapter of the international society for optics and photonics (spie) and through that organization has participated in outreach programs at local middle and high schools that educate students about optics and the impact biomedical engineers have in the medical field about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
974,faculty members in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university work diligently to prepare students for the engineering profession the department strives to ensure students are afforded world-class learning opportunities in the classroom and research laboratories professors use funded opportunities to provide students real world experiences that will prepare them to answer the challenges of the future dr andrea strzelec assistant professor in the department is the principle investigator for a national science foundation-funded innovation corps (i-corps™) activity which included a seven week business boot camp i-corps is a program designed to challenge scientist engineers and students to extend their focus beyond the laboratory in an effort to broaden the potential impact of their research projects research being conducted in the combustion and reaction characterization laboratory which is directed by strzelec seeks to develop an innovative after treatment approach for engine exhaust the emissions from engines are known to be detrimental to both the environment and human health strzelec said because of this the environmental protection agency has implemented regulations on emissions from vehicles such as cars and trucks to meet the regulations the industry has developed five major types of aftertreatment devices these devices are installed in the exhaust system and serve the purpose of lowering greenhouse gas emissions associated with the burning of petroleum products strzelecs team identified its research problem in that there are many companies who do not have the infrastructure or budget to create the laboratory environment necessary for evaluating aftertreatment devices the team developed a versatile microreactor system capable of investigating and characterizing catalytic and non-catalytic heterogeneous reactions the portable characterization microreactor was designed such that fundamental catalytic activity and selectivity can be examined the results could provide key knowledge required to develop new materials and processes for emissions catalysts once the microreactor was built and validated the team had to prove the products usability to industry professionals we leaned heavily on the 33 years of experience our industry mentor dr rj blint provided us for this aspect of the project said mechanical engineering student carleton vangsness dr blint worked for gm facilitating relationships between the oem and suppliers so he gave us an inside perspective on how to structure our proposal language so that automotive manufactures could envision our product in the way we did in order to accomplish the goals of the i-corps program strzelecs team conducted over 120 interviews with industry professionals and traveled nearly 13 000 miles the team gained invaluable experience and hopes to continue the research project to develop a more comprehensive functional apparatus for mass production we still feel we have many hurdles to overcome before we are ready to launch a company vangsness said however the experience i have gained being a part of this project has no comparison
975,the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m university will hold its centennial celebration on oct 9-10 to celebrate the departments past present and future on july 6 1915 the agricultural engineering department was established as an autonomous department within the agricultural and mechanical college of texas agricultural engineering related courses had been taught under the agronomy and civil engineering departments for several years but in 1915 the discipline was recognized as distinct and worthy to be a separate department agricultural engineering began with just one faculty member elmer gee today 100 years later the department has 37 faculty members 310 undergraduate and 100 graduate students extensive research projects and contributes to a variety of fields including water resources renewable energy food processing and food safety environmental quality and precision agriculture in 2001 the name was changed to biological and agricultural engineering to more fully recognize the changing curriculum taught within one of texas a&ms oldest educational departments degrees are offered in biological and agricultural engineering and agricultural systems management for more information on the event visit the departments centennial website
976,dr jn reddy professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was inducted into the national academy of engineering (nae) during a ceremony sunday (oct 4) in washington dc reddy who is a distinguished professor regents professor and holder of the oscar s wyatt endowed chair was recognized for his contributions to composite structures and engineering education reddy came to texas a&m as an endowed chaired professor in 1992 bringing his passion for education and research to enrich the department of mechanical engineering he is the author of nearly 500 journal papers and 18 books (several with second and third editions) on energy principles variational methods plates and shells composite materials mechanics of solids and the finite element method and its applications he has delivered more than 120 plenary keynote or general invited lectures at international conferences and institutions taught over 90 short courses and advised 32 postdoctoral fellows and research visitors and over 100 graduate theses reddy believes that learning is a self-driven process and a teachers role involves more than just imparting knowledge to the students a teacher should provide motivation to the students to learn and help in organizing their thought process to understand and develop skills necessary to be successful in professional and personal life he firmly believes that the hallmark of a successful engineer is to have a strong grasp of fundamental concepts and a creative-thinking capability to apply the fundamental concepts of the profession or discipline to solve real-life problems a close look at the textbooks written by reddy show that his teaching philosophy is based on motivating students to fully understand fundamental concepts and mathematical tools necessary to formulate the problems of engineering and developing creative and critical thinking in students so as to build solutions to real-life engineering problems he reminds his students time and again that engineering is a problem-solving discipline that requires an understanding of the fundamental principles/axioms of nature and their role in formulating the underlying mathematical models he does not compromise as judged from his books on mathematical rigor and physical understanding required to address the problem to be solved this is the part that most students even though initially a bit scared of the mathematical tools he uses to explain the physics appreciate the most reddy's research centers on theoretical formulations and numerical simulations of problems in solid and structural mechanics composite materials computational fluid dynamics numerical heat transfer geology and geophysics and computational biology reddy's most significant contribution is the development of refined third-order and layer-wise plate and shell theories that bear his name in the literature his plate and shell theories which account for transverse shear deformation and interlaminar stresses in laminated composite materials are well-received by the composite materials and structures community all over the world and they are highly cited the defense evaluation and research agency dera ministry of defense of the united kingdom contracted abaqus (hks inc) and reddy as a consultant to incorporate his ideas on higher-order and layerwise theories into the software which is used by universities as well as most structural analysis companies around the world reddy was the principal architect of a 3-d fluid flow finite element program based on the penalty function method in nisa finite element software which is one of the most comprehensive engineering analysis suites available to address the automotive aerospace energy and power civil and electronics industries his work on non-newtonian flows was the basis of the code hyperform (reddy's phd student was hired by altair which owns the software) throughout his career reddy has earned numerous national and international awards including: the worcester reed warner medal (1992) the charles russ richards memorial award (1995) and the honorary member (2011) award from the american society of mechanical engineers the raymond d mindlin medal (2014) the nathan m newmark medal (1998) and the walter l huber civil engineering research prize (1983) from the american society of civil engineers; award for excellence in the field of composites (2000) and distinguished research award (2004) from the american society for composites; and the computational solid mechanics (2003) award from us association for computational mechanics and the iacm award from the international association for computational mechanics he also won the afs award for distinguished achievement in research and distinguished research award of the sigma xi in 2011 reddy was recognized by the american society of mechanical engineers as one of its honorary members and life fellow an honor only a few members of asme have received dr reddy is a fellow of all major professional societies of his subject area: the american academy of mechanics the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics the american society of civil engineers the american society of mechanical engineers the american society for composites international association of computational mechanics and the us association of computational mechanics institution of structural engineers and aeronautical society of india
977,dr malini natarajarathinam associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university first became interested in first lego league (fll) while attending the american society for engineering education conference in june dr woodie c flowers professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at the massachusetts institute of technology was being honored for his work with the for inspiration and recognition of science and technology (first) program natarajarathinam had never heard of the program and decided to do a little more research fll (for ages 9 through 13) and jr fll (for ages 6 through 9) allows children to use their imaginations to explore the wonders of science and technology the program uses real-world scientific concepts that teams must explore through research teamwork construction and imagination natarajarathinam a mother of two small children was surprised to learn there were no fll teams established in the bryan-college station area and she wanted to see the program blossom in the brazos valley to see if there would be any interest in the community she hosted an informational meeting in a room that would hold 40 people more than 200 people showed up to the august event it was chaos but it was good chaos she said we found out that there are people interested in doing this just a few months later the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m is preparing to host its first jr fll expo on dec 9 there will be nine teams participating in this event at the fll level 17 teams have been established and they will be competing in the central texas fll qualifiers on dec 5 and dec 12 in austin texas the women in engineering program in the look college has been instrumental in planning the expo by recruiting volunteers and recruiters natarajarathinam would like to eventually see fll become a part of the curriculum at local schools the program was not solely designed for classrooms however and teams can be established outside of a classroom setting fll teams can have from two to 10 students jr fll can have two to six students and one adult coach the teams can be associated with any pre-existing club or organization homeschool group or just be a group of friends who want to have fun with robots technology or science natarajarathinam praised the programs abilities to teach children how to communicate and work as a team participation in jr fll and fll provides kids an opportunity to learn many critical skills (creating designing researching collaborating) without even knowing natarajarathinam said the jr fll expo will be from 5:30 to 7:30 pm dec 9 in room 112 thompson hall parking is available at the northside parking garage of lot 51 pay-by-space
978,dr wei zhan associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university recently completed the book lean six sigma and statistical tools for engineers and engineering managers this book is co-authored with dr xuru ding who is a six sigma master black belt at general motors the book is intended to be a textbook for advanced undergraduate students graduate students in engineering and mid-career engineering professionals it can also be a reference book or be used to prepare for the six sigma green belt and black belt certifications by organizations such as the american society for quality the book focuses on the introduction of the basic concepts processes and tools used in lean six sigma a unique feature of this book is the detailed discussion on design for six sigma aided by computer modeling and simulation the authors present several sample projects in which lean six sigma and design for six sigma were used to solve engineering problems or improve processes based on their own research and development experiences in engineering design and analysis the book is currently in production and will be available for purchase in december more information may be found here zhan is the program coordinator for the electronic system engineering technology program he has taught classes and led research focused in the areas of lean six sigma controls and optimization at texas a&m since 2006 he also offers a continued education workshop in lean six sigma
979,the master of science in safety engineering degree conferred by the texas a&m engineering experiment stations mary kay oconnor process safety center (mkopsc) has been recognized by the institution of chemical engineers (icheme) as satisfying the requirements to register as a professional process safety engineer it is considered a preferred pathway to obtaining the qualification icheme presented the program certification to dr m sam mannan director of mkopsc and regents professor at the 2015 mkopsc international symposium we are excited to have our degree program certified mannan said this provides a new and recommended avenue for engineers to become recognized as process safety experts in addition to the program certification icheme conferred the title of professional process safety engineer on mannan at the event he joins a pool of less than 100 engineers who have achieved this qualification im honored to be the first professional process safety engineer from mkopsc mannan said im looking forward to working with many students as they go through our program professional process safety engineers are globally recognized the title holds the same level of status as chartered engineer and professional engineer icheme established the program to distinguish practitioners as professionals in process safety mkopsc has worked with icheme the leading professional engineering organization in europe since 2014 they have collaborated on process safety education chemical product design and strategic leadership and direction for more information about the mary kay oconnor process safety center please visit the website
980,the crisman institute for petroleum research a well-established research program within the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university is partnering with another research center at texas a&m to further new research directions needed by the petroleum industry the crisman institute for reservoir management was established in 1984 by a private donor endowment from wayne and ruby crisman to further research efforts within the department of petroleum engineering the original purpose of the crisman institute was to get oil and gas companies to bring problems and data to the faculty and students so industry and academia could work together to build better reservoir management plans the institute functioned in this capacity for 20 years in 2004 dr stephen a holditch became the director and decided to invigorate the program at his request schlumberger halliburton and chevron each agreed to give a $1 million endowment to the institute which was renamed the crisman institute for petroleum research in addition industry membership was offered to other companies who joined crisman to help the faculty focus on current important problems and to provide both data and mentoring to the graduate students holditch left the institute when he retired as department head in january 2012 holditch back with texas a&m as a professor is once more a part of the institute this time serving as associate director and the crisman institute is again on the verge of another leap forward the institute is merging efforts with the berg-hughes center (bhc) for petroleum and sedimentary systems a part of the department of geology and geophysics within the college of geosciences at texas a&m this new crisman-bhc effort will concentrate on a comprehensive analysis of shale reservoirs in order to further develop predictive geologic hydraulic fracturing and reservoir models though large in size the remaining oil reserves in the united states are located in increasingly challenging reservoirs necessitating the use of innovative techniques and creative thinking to manage them it is not possible to optimize field development without combining geology geophysics and petroleum engineering to analyze data and predict production reserves and economics so management can make intelligent and informed decisions on how to proceed with field development said holditch by combining crisman and the bhc faculty and graduate students we have the integrated team we need for solving the complex problems associated with developing shale reservoirs in the petroleum industry most problems are solved in multidisciplinary teams in the crisman-bhc 2016 research proposal graduate students in the geosciences and graduate students in petroleum engineering will work together on academic teams using comprehensive data sets from shale reservoirs to develop new solutions better understand basic mechanisms and use the knowledge to build predictive models some university research is typically one faculty member with a group of graduate students working on problems of interest to the faculty member with little input from other faculty said holditch i believe we will generate better solutions and train better graduates by having our faculty work together solving problems of interest to industry the department of petroleum engineering currently has a number of joint industry projects (jips) that bring together faculty with different expertise to solve problems of interest to the jips industry members the crisman-bhc partnership is like a grand jip with goals that will benefit industry once the objectives are achieved said holditch there is no shortage of problems to be solved especially in shale reservoirs successful research projects such as the ones in the crisman institute will generate as many opportunities as they do answers benefitting everyone involved especially students industry will gain solutions to their problems faculty will have challenging research for their students and the partnership will turn out experienced graduates for hire by the industry current students working on the cutting edge research of shale reservoirs will provide valuable papers in the form of theses dissertations peer-reviewed articles and hundreds of conference papers it is possible that several patents could result from the work however a key asset produced by the students work will be the development of new software the main goal of the 2016-2018 research plan is to develop predictive models for use by industry said holditch we need to improve the fundamental science in our geologic hydraulic fracturing and reservoir models so they can be used to both match the production history and predict the future production performance more accurately than we can now most oil and gas companies developing shale reservoirs do not have a research center some do but even these larger companies see the benefit of working with faculty and students in fact most companies belong to several university research consortiums or jips the competition to attract industry attention and funding usually comes down to a hard-earned reputation to deliver the best answers the crisman-bhc has to provide value to each company involved if they are going to continue to support our effort said holditch the merged effort between the crisman institute and the berg-hughes center should prove invaluable and has already drawn interest currently over 50 research proposals submitted by faculty are being reviewed to formulate the 2016 plan once the best proposals have been identified and the plan formulated it will go before the crisman-bhc member companies for approval and the research will begin when asked what other plans were in the works for the future of the crisman institute holditch was open to the possibilities of other joint efforts industry will help us define the problems they see as important said holditch it is very possible that other engineering departments chemistry physics mathematics or even business departments such as economics could be involved in the crisman-bhc activity
981,dehydration is the second leading cause of death in infants but what if a simple pacifier could prevent it student team dehydratect has developed a dehydration-detecting pacifier for just this cause through aggies invent: pediatric medical applications aggies invent promotes an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m university it gathers invited students provides them with the needs statements submitted by sponsors allows them to self-select teams gives them access to industry mentors and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours the focus of the most recent aggies invent was pediatric medical applications texas childrens hospital texas a&m health science center (tamhsc) and accenture sponsored the weekends event partnering with doctors and researchers from each of the sponsors needs statement related to medical equipment patient comfort and diagnosing and correcting health problems were created teams were tasked with enhancing the effectiveness of care and comfort for infant and child patients more than 130 students applied for aggies invent: pediatric medical applications and 62 were selected to participate the students ranged from freshmen to doctoral candidates most participants are engineering students but the group included medical students and a variety of other majors engaging different disciplines fosters development of solutions that are truly innovative and creative the winning team dehydratect was comprised of scott herting magy avedissian jose wippold grace fletcher and nga tang the pacifier they created contains a saliva analysis channel using biometric sensors to detect dehydration through detection of the variation in salinity the pacifier relays data to a mobile or computer application for parents and doctors to analyze second place went to the team of tessa bronez clayton kruger robert hunt and sima amin for its product icare a screening device to better detect retinopathy of prematurity in infants retinopathy of prematurity is an abnormal blood vessel that can lead to detached retinas and blindness the teams product captures images of the eye to aid in the diagnosis and improve patient comfort during the process litealert came in third place with an infant movement detector sensors are placed on infants in the nicu and integrated with an alarm system algorithm the detector will prevent false alarms from infant movement; therefore allowing caretakers to respond more efficiently when real health alarms are sounded team members included jessica brezicha jessica hanson kristen calhoun and maximiliano ortiz this aggies invent was judged by kristen banks managing director for accenture; dr balakrishna haridas professor of practice and head of entrepreneurship programs for the texas a&m engineering experiment station; dr jon mogford vice chancellor for research at texas a&m; dr mark sicilio interim department chair and assistant professor of pediatrics for tamhsc and dr neal spears pediatrics specialist for st joseph health system having students come out of the university and be able to apply this innovation experience immediately is an important skill said banks it makes them so valuable to any organization the judging panel was so impressed with the results of the competition that mogford decided to award each team a $250 prize the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively for their awards the innovation does not stop at the awards all teams are invited to continue working on their project and will have access to the eic and mentors to help them improve their idea and create more advanced prototypes rodney boehm event organizer director of aggies invent and associate professor of practice continues to provide guidance to each team throughout this process they also have the opportunity to work with startup aggieland for additional assistance sicilio said he hopes these ideas will be presented at the tamhsc grand rounds and at medical conferences im amazed and honored to help with the collaboration between engineering and medicine sicilio stated this was amazing
982,the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university hosted 33 high school counselors at the fall engineering high school counselors retreat on nov 18 and 19 dr sonia garcia senior director of access and inclusion program in engineering academic and student affairs (easa) organized a retreat for engineering aggies gaining experience programs (engage) partner high schools access and inclusions objective is to work with counselors under engage with the end goal of increasing the enrollment numbers of underrepresented minority students in the college of engineering the purpose of the retreat was to have counselors learn about the myriad of programs offered culture and future plans of the college to help the college administrators faculty and staff learn how to improve the outreach and recruitment of underrepresented minority students and to build partnerships between the look college and various high schools in texas this retreat provided high school counselors a better understanding of how the look college prepares and will be preparing the next generation of engineers said garcia a partnership between high schools and the look college is critical engineering aggies gaining experience programs is a new program under access & inclusion that aims to increase the number of underrepresented ethnic groups in the look college it works to expose high school students to engineering programs and create a direct pathway for students at texas high schools to texas a&m students are asking about engineering and i didnt have much information to share said fonshall watts a counselor from the brennan isd im learning about the programs so i can better inform my students during the retreat counselors learned about the look colleges 25 by 25 initiative from dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for easa and how the college of engineering is transforming engineering education the initiative aims to increase enrollment to 25 000 students by the year 2025 they also attended presentations on initiatives from access and inclusion women in engineering prek-12 outreach and halliburton global engineering programs the counselors visited with each of the engineering departments and toured several of the engineering buildings on campus during the two-day retreat they met with program directors deans and advisers counselors had an opportunity to hear and discuss admissions policies the admissions process and the importance of meeting the application deadline as well as financial aid and scholarships offered at the college and university level angella ford a counselor from victory early college in the aldine isd which is a recent new engage partner school has already found success with the engage programs two of her students have been accepted into the college of engineering and she credits the engage programs with helping them reach this achievement ford said the information she learns at the counselors retreat has helped her in her advising of students and the application process this has made the process click for me ford said as a counselor i help students start the process but now i can help them understand that once theyre accepted there are programs to help them finish
983,gordon england former secretary of the navy spoke to students in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university on the importance of ethics in engineering and business england spoke to dr ben zoghis engineering leadership – emotional intelligence class on nov 19 he has done a remarkable job from an engineering perspective zoghi stated he brings a wealth of knowledge from a technology standpoint with a local national and global perspective we are honored to have him with us after retiring from his prolific career in industry and government england now spends his time advising small businesses and lecturing to university students he works with students to help develop the next generation of leaders and to help them understand the legacy each will leave behind in their lives during the lecture england stressed the importance of engineering students having soft skills to advance in their careers he said the technical skills are taught in college and those will continue to be developed during the course of a career but the soft skills will make the difference he described the soft skills as interpersonal communications and having a strong moral and ethical stance england wove stories from his childhood and his career into his lecture to emphasize and demonstrate how his ethical compass helped him through difficult situations and in building respect in industry he talked on being honest with his employees and treating everyone with dignity england provided guidance to students on how to maintain their ethical stance with his personal ethics test would you be proud to tell your mom/spouse/boss about it jobs and careers will change 20 times in your lifetime; the landscape will change england stated but the principles and core values are constant england served as the 29th deputy secretary of defense from january 2006 to february 2009 prior to that he was the 72nd and 73rd secretary of the navy and the first deputy secretary of the department of homeland security england served as executive vice president of general dynamics corporation from 1997 until 2001 and prior to that he served as executive vice president of the combat systems group president of general dynamics fort worth aircraft company (later lockheed) president of general dynamics land systems company and as the principal of a mergers and acquisition consulting company england graduated from the university of maryland with a bachelors degree in electrical engineering and earned a masters degree in business administration from the mj neeley school of business at texas christian university
984,shown above are mid students during their two on-campus residency weeks a graduate level distance education course in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university has achieved a quality matters certification becoming the first engineering course at texas a&m to receive this recognition quality matters is a nationally recognized faculty-centered peer review process designed to certify the quality of online and blended courses the course that was certified idis 624 or strategic relationships for industrial distribution is one of 10 courses that make up the master of industrial distribution (mid) degree aside from the two on-campus residency weeks the entire masters degree is completed online creating a more accessible pathway for professionals who wish to further their education and careers bharani nagarathnam associate director of the mid program said one other mid course is entering the quality matters certification process now and three other courses are under informal review our goal is to get all of our 10 courses certified by fall 2016 and be the first and only degree program at texas a&m to be quality matters certified nagarathnam said idis 624 is the first graduate course to be certified at texas a&m and the fifth course overall across the university dr malini natarajarathinam associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution teaches idis 624 theres a very big focus in our department to make sure our courses are effective and engaging to professional students she said our students are already rearranging their entire lives their work and professional lives to go to school we dont want them to be doing anything thats not going to be valuable to them the texas a&m instructional technology service was instrumental in helping with the informal review suggesting course improvements and managing the formal quality matters review process the course was reviewed by peers who graded the overall course design on eight quality assurance standards the course scored 95 out of 99 points amber muenzenberger director for remote learning and outreach education said the informal and formal review process is rigorous this process not only provides professional development for faculty and course improvements but it also supports the universitys commitment to excellence in teaching regardless of modality muenzenberger said natarajarathinam said the certification process taught her new ways to engage her students in distance education courses using message boards she created an informal fun environment for the students to get to know each other furthering their communication and involvement with the class ive always been a firm believer that it should be distance education not distant education natarajarathinam said the certification helps us to demonstrate that our courses are designed specifically for online education and delivered effectively nagarathnam said it also helps to reinforce our commitment to quality of education
985,extreme weather conditions increased demand and changing technologies are fueling researchers to search for near-term solutions to modernize and secure the united states aging power grid dr mladen kezunovic eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center and his co-authors have released a report on the outcome of the executive forum and workshop on physical and cyber infrastructure to support the future grid held in may the event which focused on the 10-year horizon for improvements to the power grid was organized by the power systems engineering research center (pserc) with support from the national science foundation attendees included thought leaders from the utility and manufacturing industries as well as government non-profits and academia the diverse group of researchers engaged in discussions on emerging research issues and how to resolve them in the next decade this forum was an excellent opportunity for researchers from a variety of backgrounds to bring their perspectives to the table and brainstorm ideas for upgrading the power grid said kezunovic who is also the texas a&m university site director for pserc by working together we can better meet the challenge of providing research deliverables within the next 10 years that will improve the functionality and security of the power grid (photo right: kezunovic leads discussion during forum) the final report includes input and viewpoints from more than 100 participants key takeaways included the need for the future power grid to move toward incorporating real-time technologies in order to address resiliency challenges as well as the need for resilience metrics with weighted indicators based on economical electrical and social factors report authors were kezunovic coordinator; jay caspary southwest power pool (vice chair pserc industry advisory board); flora flygt american transmission co (chair pserc industry advisory board); george gross university of illinois at urbana-champaign; ward jewell wichita state university; mirrasoul j mousavi abb; and dennis ray pserc a full copy of the report is available online top photo from left: panel moderator flora flygt strategic planning and policy advisor american transmission co; a wade smith president and chief operating officer aep texas; tony montoya executive vice president and chief operating officer western area power administration; bob mitchell ceo atlantic wind connection and trans-elect development co; and h b trip doggett president and ceo ercot
986,dr jyhwen wang professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university was one of seven elected into the 2015 sme college of fellows sme elects fellows once a year from among the highest achievers of industry academia and government only honorary fellow life or professional members of sme may nominate individuals for the honor of fellow those selected as fellows offer 20 years or more of manufacturing experience and expertise they have contributed notably to the social technological and educational benefit of manufacturing and the engineering profession wangs research interests are in the area of manufacturing science and engineering with a focus in material deformation processes he has conducted extensive research on high-strength steel applications in metal packaging and plastic deformation of layered materials sme is a nonprofit organization that has served practitioners companies educators government and communities across the manufacturing spectrum for more than 80 years sme is dedicated to the advancement of manufacturing by addressing knowledge and skills needed for the industry
987,dr luca quadrifoglio associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the 2015-16 fulbright us scholar grant in order to receive the grant quadrifoglio had to develop a very intensive proposal the aim of this award is to promote a better knowledge of the south of italy and promote knowledge exchange and research in south-related issues at universities in the south of italy quadrifoglio received his undergraduate degree at politecnico di milano in 1996 he then moved to the united states to work toward becoming an academic professional after obtaining his masters and phd at the university of southern california his research focuses on the design optimization and operations of demand responsive services such as transit feeders paratransit services and ride-sharing service as well as the logistics within port container terminals he recently was appointed the graduate coordinator and advisor for the transportation division within the civil engineering department this award for teaching and research is a wonderful opportunity for scholars like me to give back and to increase mutual understanding between the people of the united states and the people of southern italy at the university of cagliari he said he plans to deliver a graduate student course specializing in transportation engineering and conduct research to improve local transit services beginning his six months at university of cagliari in january 2016
988,dr m sam mannan and researchers in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university were featured on the cover of the american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) journal mannan director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations mary kay oconnor process safety center and regents professor was assisted by olga reyes-valdes a graduate student in the department and drs sonny sachdeva hao chen yi liu and delphine laboureur all former postdoctoral researchers with the center the research article titled trends and challenges in process safety was featured in the november issue of the peer-reviewed aiche journal in addition to the publication of the article and being chosen as the cover story their research was highlighted in a summary article in the november 2015 issue of the chemical engineering progress which highlights the importance of this article chemicals play a key role in todays high-tech world mannan wrote the chemical industry is linked to every technologically advanced industry; only a handful of the goods and services we enjoy on a daily basis would exist without essential chemical products the focus of the research process safety is a concept that is applicable across various industries it introduces base knowledge of chemical interactions into everyday engineering procedures this understanding assists experts working with complex and dynamic chemical interactions the research brings together the science of material characteristics and behaviors human-machine interfaces and management systems to assist with equipment design sustainability reliability engineering and organizational science the researchers suggest a systematic approach to process safety is needed to ensure safety of the public researchers and the environment such an approach would ensure safety not only during normal production but also during abnormal and disaster situations an engineer must function as a member of the global community mannan wrote this means not only competing in a global marketplace but also acting as a professional who shares global responsibilities for more information about the mary kay oconnor process safety center and process safety please visit the centers website
989,elon musk the ceo and cto of spacex first challenged the engineering community with his 2013 white paper to develop hyperloop a way to safely move people from los angeles to san francisco in 30 minutes at speeds of up to 760 mph in june of this year spacex initiated a pod design competition to spur the interest in and development of a prototype for the hyperloop texas a&m university has been chosen to host the spacex hyperloop pod design weekend scheduled for jan 29-30 soon after this competition was initiated engineering students at texas a&m university learned that texas a&m would be offering a hyperloop-themed interdisciplinary senior capstone design course at texas a&m senior design projects are designed to challenge students by simulating real world engineering challenges they will face in their careers the hyperloop a complex engineering challenge with a simple end result fits well into this curriculum previous capstone design classes taught by dr william schneider zachry professor of engineering practice in the department of mechanical engineering have typically been nasa specific challenges and required some level of insight that a typical google search doesnt provide schneider retired as the senior engineer from nasa after a 38-year career that included leading the team tasked with investigating the space shuttle columbia accident as well as designing equipment currently on the moon as part of schneiders class students must learn to write a needs statement generate a function analysis from the needs statement and then combine the two to produce a design that proves they have solved the original problem the popularity of the hyperloop pod competition project at texas a&m allowed for multiple design studio classes to be dedicated to the competition mechanical engineering students along with students from multiple disciplines are participating in the class and have been split into two studios one led by schneider and the other by dr andrea strzelec assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering within these studio sections the students were originally divided into four groups that must generate unique designs to compete against the other teams in their section and develop a large idea pool to be drawn from for the selection to a single design from each studio students attend a lecture led by schneider and during a design studio session the professors take on a consultant role allowing students to receive input on their various pod designs by facilitating an environment of competition the professors teach students how to identify multiple solutions to engineering problems such as friction safety and cost and determine the most effective processes in order to compete with their peers students must select and present their best ideas to the other three groups and their section's professor the two studio sections have just completed their final selections to form a single unified team with a strong design at the conclusion of the semester the students will join 100 teams from universities around the world as well as six other texas a&m sponsored teams to present the best overall design during the spacex hyperloop pod design weekend engineers from around the world will converge upon the texas a&m campus to have their pod designs evaluated for an opportunity to compete in the final competition scheduled for june 2016 in hawthorne california
990,trudging through trails carrying buckets laden with something so vital you dare not spill a drop this is a situation many are not familiar with but it is a daily reality for those regions where water would never be wasted on green lawns and potted flowers dedicated to providing self-sustainable water solutions to developing communities just4water (j4w) is a student organization tied to j4w inc a national nonprofit since official recognition as a student organization in february 2014 the group has completed three successful summer trips abroad directly impacting over 100 families the communities continue building wells after the students leave using equipment and technology left behind for this purpose making the indirect impact much larger one project was for a hospital that sees roughly 200 patients each month so the lives impacted are countless the group has traveled to nicaragua guatemala and el salvador j4w has raised over $45 000 which is used directly to pay for equipment and travel the students instruct the locals on how to build wells leaving the equipment behind for more wells to be developed one location has already built four more wells since j4w has left founders guillermo gomez-salas 13 a water resources graduate student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and mark membreño 14 a former student of the civil engineering department wanted to utilize their majors beyond the normal means they sought to apply their knowledge to a problem that was very personal for themselves and many others lack of access to clean safe drinking water with family in regions lacking access to clean water and seeking a way to use their degree in a sustainable way that would help others they worked tirelessly to get the successful organization to where it is today the great thing is you dont have to be an engineer to make a difference here said gomez-salas for our organization to truly be successful many types must lend a hand we need more students with a business legal or marketing background to help us operate most efficiently on thursday (nov 19) from 11 am to 4 pm the organization is hosting walk4water a chance to raise funds and awareness for water inequality by walking so those in need dont have to j4w hopes for 250 participants to walk a collective 150 miles and raise $5 000 for upcoming projects one of the things that makes just4water so unique is how involved they make the community said laura mendez who was present at an appreciation banquet held on behalf of her parents the students approached my parents as central americans who personally know what it is like to need water they relate so much to this cause and support it in any way possible maria and concepción mendez local business owners of raspas el payasito assisted j4w through profit sharing assisting in events and even providing their taco truck for local j4w fundraising events where the students made and sold tacos and empanadas for donations recently the student organization established the national nonprofit foundation j4w inc the group reached out to mary schweitzer program manager and rabi mohtar tees endowed professor both of the biological and agricultural engineering department regarding research of resources relating to water energy and food (wef nexus research) our organization on campus is a joint-venture that touches on many issues faced in developing countries said schweitzer just4water is focusing on water resources which is a facet of our organization so it is natural to want to reach out and help them they are doing wonderful work and have achieved much in such a short time two more student chapters are in formation one at massachusetts institute of technology (mit) headed by one of the original founders membreño who is attending mit for his graduate degree and one at the university of texas–el paso we all deserve something as crucial as clean water marco heras current j4w president and a senior industrial engineering student told the attendees of the appreciation banquet with your support and knowledge we can continue to touch the lives of so many we will keep going for more information visit: http://wwwjustforwaterorg/ follow j4w: https://twittercom/just4watertamu https://wwwfacebookcom/just4water/fref=nf email j4w: tamuj4w@gmailcom
991,ernesto valbuena a graduate of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university won first place in the society of petroleum engineers (spe) international student paper contest doctoral division at the 2015 spe annual technical conference and exhibition in houston the feat was achieved after a lengthy three-level competition and represents a great deal of work both in communications and research the purpose of the paper contest is to encourage petroleum engineering majors to conduct research analyze it and present their findings in an oral report in front of panels of judges the contest involves three successive competitions: local regional and international the local competition held at texas a&m in january 2015 had valbuena competing against doctoral students in his own school in the regionals he faced the first and second place winners of all the universities in the gulf coast region and won first place the first place winners of each region around the world then competed in the international competition this is the second year in a row that a phd student from texas a&m has won first place valbuenas research topic forecasting production performance in reservoir-network coupled systems with asphaltene modeling concerned the development and implementation of a new integrated reservoir-network compositional simulator for the analysis of asphaltene deposits within tubing and production pipelines asphaltenes are complex molecular structures present in most petroleum materials including crude oil these structures can precipitate and adhere to the insides of the pipes in a production system this precipitation then solidifies and clogs the pipe hampering efforts to produce oil from a reservoir since the increased thickness of asphaltene deposits could block up to 50 percent of a pipes diameter after only a few months of production it is critical to predict the likelihood and extent of these deposits quickly and accurately his proposed combination of tight coupling with fully-implicit formulation for oil gas and water flow in the reservoir and the pipe network combined with his sequential approach for solid precipitation and deposition in the pipeline system provides a better and more flexible methodology for analyzing additional types of solid deposits too such as hydrates and waxes his approach also enables the evaluation of inhibitor injections and artificial gas lift installations to combat asphaltene deposits and how that would affect production performance such integrated network modeling provides better reservoir performance forecasts than conventional stand-alone methods as it allows the simulation of complex interactions between the reservoir and the surface facilities solids precipitation and deposition in networks have a negative impact on production rates pressure management and field operations flow assurance techniques based on adequate estimates of potentially blocking phases are crucial to achieve good production performance the modeling approach developed in valbuenas research allows for the forecasting of asphaltene precipitation and accumulation in pipelines under multiple types of production conditions including pressure and temperature gradients fluid composition production rates gas lift and inhibitor injection valbuena currently works for chevron and provides support to business units for their offshore deepwater projects executes testing of reservoir simulation models and designs and implements best practices for field development simulation models it was while he was a graduate student at texas a&m that he was able to hone his skills programming fully-implicit reservoir-network coupled compositional simulations and attacking the problem of asphaltene precipitations in pipelines his advisors were dr maria barrufet and dr john killough while a student at texas a&m valbuena was also an active spe student chapter officer he continues to serve the society by chairing a section in the upcoming spe latin american and caribbean petroleum engineering conference (lacpec) to be held in quito ecuador
992,"payman dehghanian phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was the recipient of the 2016 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) industry applications society (ias) electrical safety prevention through design student engineering education initiative award the ieee ias student program awards talented and promising students who have a passion for electrical safety by subsidizing travel lodging and registration for participation in the ieee ias electrical safety workshop being accepted as a recipient is an honor and provides an opportunity to uniquely participate in the workings that shape the future of the electrical safety culture dehghanian who is a research assistant for dr mladen kezunovic will present ""weather-driven predictive risk assessment of power system operation for electric safety "" at the electric safety workshop in march dehghanian received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications the electrical safety workshop is dedicated to changing the electrical safety culture its mission is to accelerate application of breakthrough improvements in human factors technology and managing systems that reduce risk of electrical injuries; stimulate innovation in overcoming barriers and change; and advance the electrical safety culture to enable sustainable improvements in prevention of electrical accidents and injuries"
993,a new synthetic material thats strong enough to fill gaps in bone while stimulating new bone growth could advance the grafting treatments needed by people suffering from bone cancer and other bone defects says a biomedical engineer at texas a&m university who is developing the technology the material serves as a biodegradable scaffold that can be surgically implanted within the body to promote healing by triggering bone regeneration at the cellular level says akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor of biomedical engineering at texas a&m his research is detailed in the scientific journal acta biomaterialia with more than two million bone-grafting operations occurring worldwide each year bone is the second-most transplanted organ following blood gaharwar notes but existing procedures can be limited by the amount of viable bone a patient can surrender some synthetic replacements are available he adds but they can cause side effects be outright rejected by the body or become brittle and break under the loads they experience in addition they can be difficult to cut and shape to fit a bone defect particularly in instances where pieces of bone are removed to facilitate the extraction of a bone tumor he says looking to overcome these obstacles gaharwar who was named a 2015 young innovator of cellular and molecular bioengineering by the biomedical engineering society created a biomaterial that is strong yet flexible – think tire rubber – and that has the ability to boost the healing process by essentially telling pre-osteoblast cells (those cells in the body responsible for forming bone) to begin the regeneration process for gaharwar the work is an extension of his previous research developing an injectable material aimed at inducing bone formation for hard-to-heal bone fractures this new material however is significantly harder and can absorb a greater load he says noting that it is intended for surgical implantation rather than injection gaharwars material is made from embedding incredibly small particles of minerals called nanosilicates into a substance known as polyglycerol sebacate (pgs) because pgs contains components already present in the body it is rarely rejected and doesnt cause side effects when it degrades gaharwar notes those properties he says make pgs a widely used material for a number of biomedical applications but for bone engineering pgs needed to be stronger and interactive – in terms of talking to bone cells to initiate bone formation thats where the tiny particles make a big difference so small that they are actually referred to as two-dimensional materials these ultrathin nanosilicates have a high surface area but a thickness of a few nanometers or less think of a sheet of paper but on a much smaller scale for example a sheet of paper is 100 000 nanometers thick; gaharwars nanosilicates are one nanometer thick and they contain orthosilicic acid magnesium and lithium – minerals that induce bone formation by embedding these nanosilicates in pgs gaharwar was able to enhance the mechanical stiffness of the material by four times without affecting its elasticity this allows the material the strength to sustain force while not breaking he explains in addition the nanosilicates once in place signal bone cells to increase production of bone tissue early tests have demonstrated a 300 percent increase in alkaline phosphatase activity a marker for early bone formation and a six-fold increase in the presence of calcium phosphate a main component of bone gaharwar notes this is achieved he says without the use of proteins known as growth factors which are used in conventional bone therapy treatments but can lead to serious side effects due to the large amounts required to stimulate cells
994,whats more gaharwar can control the rate of degradation for his material so that it works like a true scaffold giving support when necessary and removing itself through natural degradation at the same rate as bone tissue is formed other commercial technology often fails when it degrades leaving behind gaps breaks and unsupported bone gaharwar notes given these properties gaharwar believes his material can significantly help in bone regeneration for patients suffering from trauma infection congenital anomalies and oncologic resection the addition of nanosilicates to pgs matrix significantly enhances the mechanical stiffness without affecting the elastomeric properties gaharwar says the increase in mechanical stiffness and in vitro stability is mainly attributed to enhanced interactions between nanosilicates and pgs about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences -30- contact: akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university at (979) 458-5540 or via email: gaharwar@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 847-5833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
995,dr sarbajit banerjee an affiliated faculty member in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the rosenhain medal and prize by the institute of materials minerals and mining (iom3) for his research in new materials design the award was instituted in 1951 to honor the memory of the german-born australian metallurgist walter rosenhain banerjee who is a professor in the department of chemistry at texas a&m received the honor in recognition of distinguished achievement in any branch of materials science by a researcher under the age of 40 it is the highest young researcher award presented by the organization the award recognizes the accomplishments of banerjees research group related to phase transformations in complex oxides powder metallurgy of light metals and the ability to bring together theory measurement and applications banerjee received his undergraduate education at st stephens college delhi and his doctorate at stony brook university before coming to texas a&m he was an assistant and associate professor at the university at buffalo and the state university of new york his research specialties include solid-state and materials chemistry nanoscale materials electronic structure chemical imaging and x-ray spectroscopy thin films and coatings light metals and nanocomposites photo: college of science
996,dr lewis ntaimo associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was a member of the team that won the informs computing society (ics) annual award for the best group of related papers dealing with the operations research/computer science interface others sharing in the prize were suvrajeet sen dinakar gade julia higle simge küçükyavuz and hanif sherali the collaborators were recognized for their seminal work on stochastic mixed integer programming captured in five research papers ntaimo was lead author for two of those papers this award was really a huge surprise for me since it has been 10 years now since my first publication along this line of work ntaimo said in fact the fourth publication listed on the award is based on my phd dissertation work therefore it is fulfilling to see that the optimization community has actually recognized the contributions we have made in advancing solution methods in stochastic mixed-integer programming the award was presented at this years annual conference in philadelphia the occasion brought together all six collaborators this is a great accomplishment for dr ntaimo because it is peer recognition said dr césar malavé head of the department also there were 10 nominations and his team was chosen as number one
997,"the georgia institute of technology and the university of north carolinas renaissance computing institute (renci) will co-direct a new national effort to develop a big data regional innovation hub serving 16 southern states and the district of columbia texas a&m university is a partner supporting the development of the south hub academic institutions across the world are addressing grand challenges facing society in every case there is an extraordinary amount of digital data that must be stored analyzed and shared said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering we are pleased to be a partner in this initiative because collectively we can leverage our strengths and achieve big data solutions faster which accelerates discovery in the labs and transfer of those solutions to the field ""texas a&m university is well positioned to contribute to the success of the south big data hub due to its strength in areas of science and engineering in which applications of big data are crucial"" said dr nick duffield director of the texas a&m engineering big data initiative professor of electrical and computer engineering and the texas a&m senior personnel in the hub partnership through its academic departments research institutes and regional network of connections to the industry and government sectors texas a&m aims to promote interdisciplinary and cross-sector partnerships that can bring exciting advances in big data systems and methods to applications that will benefit people throughout the region the south bd hub will serve the states of alabama arkansas delaware the district of columbia florida georgia kentucky louisiana maryland mississippi north carolina oklahoma south carolina tennessee texas virginia and west virginia it will be developed in three phases: an initial bootstrap phase that will establish the basic governance structure; a transitional phase that will move toward an operational structure; and a final operational phase it will have dual locations in atlanta and the research triangle park area of north carolina with co-executive directors who will be accountable to hub partners initial nsf funding for the south bd hub will be $125 million over three years in addition to the south bd hub the nsf has funded hubs in the northeast midwest and western us which are managed by universities in those regions each of the nsf bd hubs will engage businesses and research organizations in their region to develop common big data goals that would be impossible for individual members to achieve alone the hubs will develop community-driven governance structures as well as spoke projects based on regional priorities and partnerships initial spokes of the south bd hub will aim to apply big data analysis to scientific and social issues in five areas: health care including disparities in health access to health care and health outcomes precision medicine and health analytics coastal hazards including understanding and mitigating the consequences of natural and manmade disasters industrial big data including cyber-physical systems the internet of things data-driven management of physical infrastructure and power generation transmission and distribution from a variety of sources materials and manufacturing including data-driven contributions to the materials genome initiative and bridging the gap between materials science and manufacturing practice habitat planning including urban infrastructure smart cities efforts transportation rural-urban infrastructure and wildlife habitat and conservation the bd hubs program represents a unique approach to improving the impact of data science by establishing partnerships among likeminded stakeholders said jim kurose nsfs head of computer and information science and engineering in doing so it enables teams of data science researchers to come together with domain experts with cities and municipalities and with anchor institutions to establish and grow collaborations that will accelerate progress in a wide range of science and education domains with the potential for great societal benefit for more information on the big data regional hubs initiative see the nsf news release and http://wwwsouthbdhuborg/"
998,saurav agarwal phd candidate in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2015 roberto padovani scholarship from qualcomm in recognition of his exemplary contributions toward qualcomms research efforts in robotics while participating as an intern eight recipients of this years scholarship each receive a $5 000 academic scholarship the roberto padovani scholarship was created in 2008 to recognize qualcomms corporate research and development interns who demonstrate technical superiority during summer internships the scholarship is named for roberto padovani who was qualcomms chief technical officer for almost a decade and who was a leading innovator of the company candidates for the scholarship are nominated by their mentors or managers at the end of the internship sauravas research at qualcomm was in the area of simultaneous mapping and planning for aerial robots using vision based sensing his efforts focused on developing algorithms and implementing them on real hardware using qualcomm technology to create the next generation of autonomous uavs during his internship saurav and his mentor dr ali-akbar agha-mohammadi a computer science graduate from texas a&m filed six inventions for the new technology they created they hope to demonstrate the results of their research in the coming months
999,robyn woollands phd student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university received the john v breakwell award for travel to the 2015 aas/aiaa astrodynamics specialist conference in vail colorado woollands was one of four students to receive the award the award of $1 000 was in support of her travel to present her paper parallel generation of extremal field maps for optimal multi-revolution continuous thrust orbit transfers which she co-authored with julie read brent macomber austin probe ahmad younes who are all graduate students in aerospace engineering woollands graduate work involves numerical integration using modified chebyshev picard iteration to solve initial and boundary value problems in celestial mechanics she is advised by dr john junkins and has spent the last two summers interning at jpl prior to attending texas a&m she completed a masters degree in aerospace engineering at the university of minnesota and a masters in astronomy and a bachelors in physics and mathematics at the university of canterbury in new zealand
1000,a group of undergraduate students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won the consortium for the advancement of shape memory alloy research and technology (casmart) student design challenge cullen eckhert kelli pickett hannah stroud kanika gakhar and tyler fink were under the direction of graduate mentors robert wheeler and robert saunders as well as faculty advisors dr dimitris lagoudas and dr james boyd the challenge was intended for undergraduate and graduate students working with casmart faculty advisors to consider innovative approaches to developing design tools and hardware using shape memory alloy (sma) technology students had the opportunity to showcase their creativity by applying engineering theories and methods theyve learned using engineering design principles and leveraging casmart members experience to address sma design challenges in the automotive aeronautics and space industry the goals for this group were to design a lightweight and efficient deployment device for a solar array and to fabricate a proof of concept or prototype each of the undergraduates worked on solving a specific engineering problem ranging from a thermal analysis of a satellite in a given orbit to vibrational analysis during launch conditions to the design and operation of a solid state actuator each reported on their progress every week during a group meeting every two weeks the students worked on a different facet of the overall design and developed the necessary tools overall the students performed very well and quickly developed their problem solving capabilities by tackling real problems on a weekly basis said wheeler as the semester progressed they also learned how the different requirements or operating conditions can lead to unexpected design implications as the design of each part affected the system as a whole the design was completed during the spring 2015 semester during the summer 2015 semester one of the students eckhert funded through the nsf reu program worked with wheeler to build the proof of concept or prototype wheeler presented the completed project at the smart materials adaptive structures and intelligent systems (smasis) conference in september the group also published a conference paper design of a reconfigurable sma-based solar array deployment mechanism the judges for the competition included senior researchers from boeing nasa glenn nasa langley sandia national labs and general motors wheeler will be taking the work and developing a set of design tools with the casmart group to allow for future designs of sma-based actuation systems casmart was established to promote the growth and adoption of sma actuation technologies by achieving new understanding of the materials fostering dissemination of technical knowledge and facilitating application of that knowledge the consortium was initiated in 2007 by boeing nasa glenn nasa langley and texas a&m more than 16 other organizations have joined to advance the state of the art for sma technology through a synergy of academic industry and government expertise
1001,dr karan watson provost and executive vice president of texas a&m university has been appointed an abet fellow for her significant contributions to the organization the accreditation board for engineering and technology (abet) accredits college and university programs in the disciplines of applied science computing engineering and engineering technology at the associate bachelor and master degree levels the abet fellow award was established in 1988 to recognize individuals who have given sustained meaningful service to applied science computing engineering or engineering technology education and to their respective professions through their work in accreditation the fact that only two fellows were named for 2015 is a testament to dr watsons numerous and diverse contributions to the field and the high esteem in which she is held by her peers around the nation said texas a&m president michael k young we are fortunate to have her as provost at texas a&m during this time of unprecedented growth and development in engineering and so many other areas karan watson is most deserving of this honor as her insightful contributions and leadership have made significant impacts on the abet organization and its accreditation programs said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering dr watsons engagement at the national level and recognition by this prestigious organization brings texas a&m great visibility among our peers watson who is also a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering joined abet as a program evaluator more than 20 years ago and was abets 2012-13 president according to the organization one of watsons most significant contributions was the recent restructure of abet governance realizing that having more than 50 members was not an efficient enough structure to lead the organization into the future the board of directors created a governance structure task force with watson as the chair watsons leadership was instrumental in successfully restructuring the board of directors and she has been commended by her peers on the board as being vitally integral to the formation of the new more nimble and responsive board structure watson earned her bachelors masters and phd in electrical engineering all from texas tech university she is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) and the american society for engineering education
1002,the first cohort of students admitted into the zachry leadership program was honored with a reception nov 9 at kyle field all 32 students were in attendance along with m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering john zachry zachry group chairman & ceo as well as other senior representatives from zachry group the zachry leadership program is a joint effort between the dwight look college of engineering and zachry group its purpose is to develop the participants understanding of leadership and enhance their own capabilities; expand their understanding of the free-enterprise system and the role businesses play in meeting societys needs; and ultimately equip the participants with skills that will allow them to perform at a high level upon entering the workforce the five-semester leadership program which commences in the spring of the students sophomore year is designed to provide a cohort of 32 students a broader perspective of the world in which they will live and work our zachry leadership program is unique said dr tanya dugat wickliff program director and professor of practice we have created a distinct program structure with five pre-semester retreats we have customized content that integrates leadership engineering business and service throughout each semester and we have incorporated remarkable professional leaders in special coaching roles as part of the curriculum the first cohort includes the following students: thuria abdelaziz chemical engineering; cameron amos computer science; camille ayala chemical engineering; willie caraway mechanical engineering; tania carlin civil engineering; amanda cheek mechanical engineering; joseph clegg industrial engineering; meredith davis biomedical engineering; dominic di biaggio petroleum engineering; melanie enriquez electrical engineering; terrica green electrical engineering; eliot guerin civil engineering; brett jackson mechanical engineering; brandon kocurek chemical engineering; ravi lad petroleum engineering; vy le petroleum engineering; william lipzcomb chemical engineering; samuel mcdonald aerospace engineering; luis moreno industrial engineering; donald okoye electrical engineering; zara parkar industrial distribution; andrew reyes chemical engineering; alexandra rodriguez general engineering; roger simon aerospace engineering; harrison sladic petroleum engineering; emily tasker mechanical engineering; holly turman mechanical engineering; joseph valencia mechanical engineering; carolynn van zandt biomedical engineering; samuel wade industrial distribution; michael weidman civil engineering; victoria withrow industrial distribution each student is awarded a $1 000 scholarship each semester while enrolled in the program for more information on the program visit the zlp website
1003,dr jun zou associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been elected senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and the international society for optics and photonics (spie) zous election to senior member of both leading technical societies was based on his significant and unique contributions in the interdisciplinary research of microelectromechanical systems (mems) and their applications in bio-optical and acoustic sensing and imaging he pioneered the development of a number of new mems devices including micro optical probes for in-vivo optical spectroscopy micromachined silicon delay-line circuits for direct acoustic signal processing and liquid-immersion micro scanning mirrors for optical and acoustic beam co-steering these devices are expected to bring fundamental breakthroughs in the performance and miniaturization of existing optical/acoustic sensing and imaging systems and also in their translation into clinical practice zou joined the department in 2004 after the completion of his phd and two-year postdoctoral research at the university of illinois urbana-champaign he is affiliated with the device sciences and nanotechnology group within the department his current interests lie in the research and development of micro optical and acoustic devices and systems for sensing and imaging applications which are supported by the national science foundation national institutes of health and the march of dimes foundation ieee is the worlds largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence it is the largest professional association in electrical and computer engineering and spie is the worlds largest professional association in optics photonics and imaging engineering
1004,dr francisco olivera associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was appointed fellow of the american society of civil engineers (asce) a prestigious honor held by fewer than 35 percent of asce members asce fellows are identified as having made celebrated contributions and developed creative solutions that change lives around the world since 2007 olivera has been associate editor of asce's journal of water resources planning and management and journal of hydrologic engineering he has been published a number of times in asce journals been a member of asce task committees and has actively participated in asce's environmental and water resources institute annual congresses olivera teaches water resources engineering and geographic information systems (gis) courses his area of expertise is in the application of gis to water resources engineering he has developed tools for delineating streams and drainage divides based on digital elevation models (dem) as well as gis pre- and post-processors for hydrologic water quality and ocean hydrodynamic models he is nationally and internationally recognized for his work on gis and water resources and as a result has been invited to give seminars teach short courses on specific topics in master programs or conduct training workshops in the united states argentina brazil chile finland korea morocco peru portugal and spain
1005,"the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university recently recognized the 2015 recipients of its distinguished graduate award the award was established to recognize and honor former students who have excelled in the civil engineering profession highlighting their significant contributions and achievements this years recipients were robert lanham 81 stephen lucy 82 and leslie pittman 74 lanham currently serves as president of williams brothers construction lanhams career with williams brothers began as a project engineer for a single construction project after leaving active duty in 1985 over the next few years he served a similar role over multiple concurrent projects by his fourth year lanham was made a project manager in 1990 he had an opportunity to move to the corporate office to become an estimator five years later he was named vice president after serving as executive vice president for three years lanham was named president in january of 2013 throughout his career he has worked in virtually every aspect of the business co-founder of the dallas branch in 1994 lucy is managing partner at jaster-quintilla with a significant portfolio of structural projects with varying project delivery methods over nearly three decades lucys role includes recruiting and retention starting by attracting great engineers and molding them as creative problem solvers into engineers who excel he is also a professional fellow for the center for heritage conservation in the texas a&m college of architecture associate professor of practice in the civil engineering department and former director of sustainability with klotz associates pittman dedicated his profession to his greatest passion education at the firm he directed the internal and external sustainable development and sustainable engineering efforts he worked to educate the staff on low impact development practices and he supported the modification of standards to sustainable alternatives with numerous agencies pittman encouraged the development of civil engineers as key contributors to society by reminding his students to increase effort in non-technical skills the department also took this time to recognize those who recently established an endowment and to award $689 375 in the form of 276 scholarships and fellowships recognized for their recent gifts were jacquelyn 98 & chuck wolf 98 cynthia 82 & fred balda 82 alison & bob farrow 79 genie and ed farrow 47 yvonne gerbig mason judy gerbig curnutte 00 gary lenard gerbig 80 rachel hayden 89 pat kunz 79 sandy & calvin ladner 80 jamie 86 & dennis mudd 85 mary sorenson and suzanne scott we couldnt ask for a better testament than the shining examples of our former students and we are delighted that they come back to share their experiences with our current students "" said dr robin autenrieth head of the department our department is genuinely humbled by their achievements"
1006,four texas a&m university engineering students have been named university innovation fellows by the national center for engineering pathways to innovation (epicenter) a program to empower students to help their peers gain an entrepreneurial mindset and creative confidence brendan cooper jean-claude faa carson muscat and jeffrey zhao are among 150 students from 52 institutions in the newly selected group the fellows goal is to increase engagement with innovation entrepreneurship creativity and design thinking as student leaders and change agents on campus the dwight look college of engineering is empowering undergraduate engineering students to lead innovation and entrepreneurship on our campus and enhance our eco-system said magdalini lagoudas executive director for industry and nonprofit partnership each of the four students invested time developing a landscape of current programs and courses on entrepreneurship and then developed a plan to either launch new programs or enhance existing ones the epicenter training provided resources and access to a network of highly innovative undergraduates across the country cooper a sophomore mechanical engineering major is developing a new program to help students who have developed ideas and rough prototypes through programs such as aggies invent and u-ignite to pursue them further i believe that as a student i can offer a unique perspective on the existing entrepreneurial and innovative program structures on campus said cooper with the proper work ethic and determination and help from faculty i can bring a new experience to the texas a&m campus faa a junior mechanical engineering major will lead the student effort to promote the look colleges u-ignite video competition and engage freshman engineering students in generating innovative ideas assisting students in bringing their idea past the ideation stage to development muscat a senior petroleum engineering major plans on assisting with the promotion and student engagement of the spacex hyperloop pod design competition in january he also plans to support the u-ignite effort zhao a senior mechanical engineering major will also be working with his fellow uif scholars to improve and run the u-ignite video competition i wish to one day become an entrepreneur this is one of the steps along that path said zhao i have met and networked with many of a&m's top engineering faculty and i know these connections will help me in the future epicenter is funded by the national science foundation and directed by stanford university and venturewell the program has trained more than 450 students from 130 universities
1007,the 100 fastest-growing aggie-owned or aggie-led businesses in the world were recognized recently at the 11th annual aggie 100 program and several businesses owned by graduates of the dwight look college of engineering were among the winners sponsored by the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship in the mays business school at texas a&m university the aggie 100 focuses on growth as an indicator of job creation product acceptance and entrepreneurial vision for a complete list of winners visit: https://aggie100com/class-of-2015/
1008,"sydney williams an undergraduate student in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university will be the first student to receive a minor degree in materials science and engineering williams will graduate with a bachelors degree this fall the department of materials science and engineering launched the minor degree in spring 2015 it is designed to provide a strong materials science educational program for undergraduate engineering and science students currently the department only has a graduate degree program with more than 110 phd students and 20 master of science students i wanted to integrate a materials focus in my undergraduate training said williams i learned the fundamentals of materials science and engineering and had flexibility to customize the program to best suit my major the minor program spans two semesters and is composed of five materials science courses the faculty are excited to offer this new opportunity to undergraduates in engineering and the sciences said dr patrick shamberger assistant professor and undergraduate degree program director in the materials science and engineering department the program has existed for less than a year and we are already getting a lot of interest from undergraduates"" the dwight look college of engineerings 25 by 25 has ensured that high quality students enroll and graduate to become well-prepared engineers who address global issues there is a strong competition among undergraduates said williams industry professionals want to know what else i did in addition to my major the minor program enhanced my chances of getting full-time job opportunities after graduation williams will be joining the oil and gas industry as a full-time engineer materials science is a broad multidisciplinary field that traditionally draws strongly from chemistry and physics among other disciplines nearly all engineering disciplines interact with materials in some form any engineering field that works with designing manipulating or manufacturing physical objects will face the question of how to optimize these materials for a specific function and how to meet specified levels of performance materials science and engineering embraces these challenges and works to design materials to solve a wide range of important challenges"
1009,steven parks a graduate student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was recently promoted to lieutenant commander in the united states navy parks graduated from the university of texas at arlington in 2004 with a bachelors in electrical engineering parks joined the navy in 2002 through the nuclear propulsion officer candidate program where he was a full-time employee while completing the last two years of his undergraduate degree he began working as a submarine warfare officer and later transferred to the civil engineer corps (cec) in 2010 parks is currently working on his masters in construction and engineering management within the civil engineering department as the cec requires a masters level of education for senior officers i chose to seek an engineering education because i grew up around construction and engineering and i chose a&m as a native texan who wanted to move back to the greatest state parks said i also wanted my children to be able to spend more time with their family through his career with the navy parks has had the opportunity to oversee the completion of sea trials as the military test engineer on the uss rhode island he successfully led 150 seabees through a seven-month deployment to rota spain parks was pinned by his parents steven and trina parks
1010,graduate students from the master of industrial distribution (mid) program at texas a&m university recently visited singapore and malaysia the 70 students are working professionals from various channels each with an average of 13 years of work experience the visit was part of the global distribution course that involves experiential learning with live projects with brenntag tti asia rockwell automation and flowserve this is the largest class the mid program has taken abroad in the last 10 years the class worked on 12 projects with the four companies the students visited the project companies toured operations and participated in a panel discussion with executives from multiple companies more than 30 managers and executives from the companies met with the students to answer questions the students also visited the operations of baker hughes in singapore and baker hughes 4r in johor bahru malaysia the 12 teams are working to provide solutions for various projects for the four companies and will present their recommendations to the companies at the end of november
1011,exosent engineering was ranked 17th in the 2015 aggie 100 which identifies recognizes and celebrates the 100 fastest growing aggie-owned or aggie-led businesses in the world exosent which had a compound annual growth of 87 percent from 2012 through 2014 is led by dr andrew duggleby ‘02 former assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering and yuval doron ‘09 lecturer in the department duggleby and doron paired their engineering knowledge and fabricating experience in 2010 to start exosent the company designs and manufactures transport trailers for hauling hazardous materials and liquids on the highway exosent uses cutting edge computer software that allows them to account for every aspect of the design process down to the final weld when running a business one should first ensure the company holds paramount the quality of its products doron said profitability will soon follow the aggie 100 program was created by the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship (cnve) in texas a&ms mays business school honors graduates from across disciplines for their entrepreneurial endeavors and success as business leaders the award winners were recognized during a luncheon held recently on the texas a&m campus as we enter our second decade honoring business excellence with the 11th annual aggie 100 we reflect on all the aggie businesses that came before and look forward to the future success of aggie entrepreneurs to come said dr richard h lester executive director of the cnve from agriculture to technology and everything in between this years list signifies that no matter your background the aggie entrepreneurial spirit is alive and thriving our sense of entrepreneurial pride swells each year as we recognize how successful businesses can become by keeping the aggie code of honor at the heart of everything they do the aggie 100 list in its entirety may be viewed here for more information on exosent engineering visit its website
1012,dr hae-kwon jeong associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and his teams research was spotlighted in the october issue of the journal of the american chemical society jeongs article heteroepitaxially-grown zeolitic imidazolate framework membranes with unprecedented propylene/propane separation performances discussed the teams focus on high-quality nanoporous molecular sieve membranes that distinguish molecules based on the size difference between propylene and propane the membranes exhibited unprecedented propylene/propane separation performances which can potentially lead to the significant savings in energy light olefins such as ethylene and propylene are the most highly demanded and consumed chemical feedstocks due to the fact that these olefins are starting materials for many consumer products jeong said however once formed for example propylene must be separated from propane which is one of the most energy-intensive separations due to their close physical/chemical properties
1013,"this past summer students from the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university journeyed to spain marking the 10th consecutive year the department has been involved in the study abroad trip dr luciana barroso and dr francisco olivera led the trip on the civil engineering side while dr harry hogan was the trip leader on the mechanical engineering side olivera an associate professor in the department has participated in eight of the 10 years the spain study abroad program has run and has spent most of his professional and personal life abroad i have been to 33 countries and five continents over my career and have been exposed to an international professional environment all of my life said olivera i love leading this trip and feel it is important because it addresses globalization in engineering and technology"" it is important to appreciate the limitations of globalization when it comes to understanding the differences between business and culture every year i visit my family in peru for the holidays and see my nieces watching mtv although the international tv channel is there the content is purely local globalization has not erased cultural differences the trip was six weeks total with a week excursion to toledo the rest of the time was headquartered in ciudad real while taking short exploratory visits around students had the option to stay in host homes or a hotel a typical day involved attending class during the day where they were able to interact with peers from the university of castilla-la mancha the host institution and doing homework and exploration during the afternoon and evening during their stay students had three weekend visits to barcelona and malaga in spain and lisbon in portugal during these visits students are requested to participate in one planned excursion but get the freedom to explore and experience cities and spanish life by themselves during the rest of the visit there is a great deal of flexibility for the students to discover spain their way and some of them have even traveled to other countries in europe as well as morocco my friends and i enjoyed the beach and we ended up playing soccer and volleyball with locals or other tourists said annie catherine clark a junior in the department of civil engineering i found the course work really interesting and applicable and it was fun to be able to interact with the spanish students in our classes one weekend my host family invited me to go with them to valencia where they showed me around the city and we had a big sunday lunch with their extended family which included a huge pan of paella this past year a record 50 students took part in the trip in the upcoming year dr joseph bracci will be switching out with barroso as the structures civil engineering track faculty member (co-author credit to chase shelton for this article)"
1014,dr jerald a caton gulf oil/thomas a dietz professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university recently completed the book an introduction to thermodynamic cycle simulations for internal combustion engines the book provides an introduction to basic thermodynamic engine cycle simulations and provides a substantial set of results key features include comprehensive and detailed documentation of the mathematical foundations and solutions required for thermodynamic engine cycle simulations the book includes a thorough presentation of results based on the second law of thermodynamics as well as results for advanced high efficiency engines caton has taught classes and led research focused in the areas of internal combustion engines thermodynamics emission reduction technologies alternative fuels and cogeneration at texas a&m since 1979 he has served as the interim department head for the department and division head for the mechanical engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the book is currently in production and will be available for purchase in december 2015 more information may be found here
1015,dr pushkar lele assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering had his paper in the area of biofluid dynamics published in the 11th volume of nature physics his research shows that although the flagellated bacterium caulobacter crescentus exhibits identical forward and backward swimming speeds paradoxically the flagellar motor generates a higher torque in the puller mode than in the pusher mode implications extend to other fields such as biophysics and bionanotechnology to read the full paper visit nature physics
1016,dr james monroe at mesam lab a new study by researchers in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university and los alamos national laboratory has led to a new principle to control macroscopic thermal expansion response of bulk materials including obtaining zero thermal expansion metals currently researchers rely on manipulation of either the materials composition and/or complex fabrication of composites to reduce thermal expansion to obtain tailored thermal expansion change in temperature can cause almost any material to change shape area and/or volume this can be a problem when dimensional stability of structures and devices is desired in applications that undergo a temperature fluctuation a possible solution is an alloy with controlled thermal expansion or zero-thermal expansion the research teams manuscript tailored thermal expansion alloys was published in acta materialia a peer reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of the structure and material properties the study demonstrates the possibility of tailoring thermal expansion response of a single material without manipulating its composition researchers include dr james monroe entrepreneur in training at texas a&m engineering experiment stations office of commercialization and entrepreneurship; dominic gehring phd student in materials science and engineering dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor i and head of the department of materials science and engineering; and dr raymundo arroyave associate professor in materials science and engineering collaborators from los alamos national laboratory include dr donald brown and dr bjorn clausen the thermal expansion characteristics for these new tailored thermal expansion alloys can match those of polymers ceramics and other metals and even be made perfectly zero which means the alloys do not change shape with temperature the key to obtaining a tailored thermal expansion coefficient is the alignment of the alloys atoms to harness the natural thermal expansion and contraction at the atomic level this new approach can provide a means to control a metals thermal expansion response without the tradeoffs associated with changing materials composition or complex composite fabrication the study was supported by the national science foundations division of materials research metals and metallic nanostructures program the us air force office of scientific research and the international materials for multi-function materials for energy conversion (iimec) at texas a&m
1017,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won prizes at two institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) events dehghanian who is a research assistant for dr mladen kezunovic received the 2nd best poster award at the ieee industry application society (ias) annual meeting and was awarded the best poster and presentation award at the ieee metrocon 2015 conference both awards were given for his poster flexible implementation of power system topology control in smart electricity grids dehghanian received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications the ias annual meeting has a long tradition of providing an international forum for experts to present and discuss the latest developments in the application of electrical technology to industry this conference is specifically designed for the practicing engineer interested in this field and emphasizes professional development learning from experts sharing of experiences and networking with peers metrocon 2015 is an annual engineering conference hosted by ieee-fort worth the conferences aim is to educate engineers on the latest developments in science engineering and technology related to all aspects of electrical engineering ranging from communications electronics control power and energy lockheed martin aeronautics and oncor electric delivery llc jointly sponsor the ieee metrocon student poster competition the purpose of the competition is to encourage professional and technical development among engineering students the competition included an oral presentation and a poster detailing the work being considered in the competition
1018,a noninvasive device that enables doctors to quickly and accurately identify cancerous tissue in a persons mouth could result in more effective diagnosis and treatment of the disease says a biomedical engineer at texas a&m university who is developing the instrument the potentially life-saving clinical tool makes use of technology known as fluorescence lifetime imaging (flim) to measure and visualize the biochemical changes that occur in oral epithelial tissue as it turns cancerous says javier jo associate professor in the universitys department of biomedical engineering measuring these specific changes the technology jo says can assist physicians in differentiating precancerous cancerous and benign lesions in patients mouth jo and another colleague in the department associate professor kristen maitland are collaborating on the research which is supported by the national institutes of health (nih) their work was presented at the world molecular imaging congress a venue where scientists and clinicians discuss cutting-edge advances in molecular imaging
1019,this clinical tool could potentially be used to assist at every step involved on the clinical management of oral cancer patients from early screening and diagnosis to treatment and monitoring of recurrence which happens in 30 percent of patients who survive a first incidence jo says with the number of oral cancer cases reportedly on the rise in recent years jos advance in oral cancer detection technology couldnt come at a better time nih estimates more than 8 000 people in the united states will die from the disease and another 37 000 new patients will be diagnosed this year alone the prognosis overseas isnt any better in the middle east specifically qatar oral cancer could soon form up to a third of all cancer cases as estimated by the qatar national cancer strategy recognizing this threat the qatar national research fund (qnrf) this year awarded jo an $800 000 grant that will enable development and deployment of a handheld device for detecting oral cancer that utilizes certain aspects of his research with maitland the device is slated for testing at rumailah hospital hamad medical corporation (hmc) in qatar jo is lead researcher on that project working with beena ahmed from texas a&m at qatar and other colleagues from qatar university and hmc when combatting oral cancer early detection jo notes is key if oral cancer is diagnosed before it spreads the five-year survival rate is about 80 percent but only about 30 percent of patients are diagnosed at this early stage he says thats partially due to the fact that diagnosing oral cancer is not always easy doctors typically rely on the naked eye to look for problematic areas in a patients mouth that warrant a biopsy but identifying these areas can be difficult because a patients mouth can manifest lesions that may be both benign and precancerous/ cancerous these different types of lesions are indistinguishable to the naked eye and even some imaging tools experience difficulty distinguishing between them resulting in false positives and triggering unnecessary and painful biopsies jo says furthermore tissue from a biopsy may register as benign but the surrounding tissue that was not biopsied can be cancerous and remain undiagnosed in short diagnosing oral cancer is somewhat of an educated guessing game that jo is hoping to improve upon through the use of optical imaging technology jos device which is essentially a small handheld microscope employs the flim technique to noninvasively evaluate tissue for the structural and molecular changes that serve as key indicators in determining if tissue is precancerous or cancerous with the tool jo can observe distinct fluorescence signatures – fingerprints of a sort – that are specific to benign precancerous and cancerous tissue using flim jo explains the fluorescence spectrum (the color content of the fluorescence light) and the fluorescence lifetime (related to the time a molecule emits fluorescence light after being excited) can be detected previous implementations of flim imaging have been too cumbersome and slow to be used for clinical applications but jos lab has developed some of the fastest flim systems that are being adapted for different clinical diagnosis applications including oral cancer detection another advantage jo says is that there is no need to use any external contrast agent as only the natural fluorescence of the tissue is being measured specifically jo is examining the fluorescent emissions generated from three molecules present in tissue: collagen nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (nadh) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (fad) collagen jo explains has a stronger signal in normal and benign tissue but in cancerous or precancerous tissue collagen signals weaken and nadh and fad signals increase this is because nadh and fad are related to the energy cells use and malignant cells use more energy as they rapidly multiply he explains most standard imaging technology jo notes measures the fluorescence intensity of the tissue and is able to detect oral lesions based on the loss of fluorescence intensity relative to healthy tissue this loss in fluorescence intensity however is not specific to precancerous and cancerous conditions jo explains as a result such tools cant distinguish benign precancerous or cancerous tissue using flim we can see a reduction in the fluorescence lifetime in precancerous tissue and changes in the fluorescence spectrum in malignant tissue that are not apparent in benign tissue jo says we then feed this information into a computer where it is processed by an algorithm that essentially color codes the images of the oral cavity; if the tissue is benign it shows up green if it is cancerous or precancerous it shows up red preliminary results from almost 30 patients jo notes already suggest the potential of his flim technology for distinguishing a variety of benign lesions from dysplasia and squamous cell carcinoma in the human oral cavity in the coming year jo plans to continue testing his device in medical centers in dallas qatar brazil and peru in order to collect more data before moving to in-depth clinical trials and licensing of the technology also joining jo and maitland in this research are lisa cheng associate professor of oral pathology at texas a&m baylor college of dentistry; john wright chair of the department of diagnostic sciences at texas a&m baylor college of dentistry; and former and current students postdoctoral researchers and research staff: shuna cheng rodrigo cuenca elvis duran taylor hinsdale dae yon hwang joey jabbour lee jordan bilal malik cory olsovsky and michael serafino about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences contact: javier jo associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m at 9794583335 or via email: javierjo@tamuedu or ryan a garcia communications manager at 9798475833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
1020,the competition included 54 teams made up of family members independent racers and a group from georgia tech university the texas a&m team worked on its car honey badger ii for more than a year the team is comprised of a group of students who met through the society of automotive engineers (sae) a student organization group in the mechanical engineering department the objective of the race is to build a high-performance vehicle that will competitively race in several different events for less than the dollar amount of the racing year this year the grassroots team built and perfected a mazda miata for $2 015 the honey badger ii is fueled by ethanol and dominated the autocross portion of the event finishing 1323 seconds faster than the second place team in this category the team began racing in the grassroots motorsports challenge in 2009 and has been back to race every year except for 2014 ryan monheim a senior in the department who was the team manager and driver led this years team leading this team has really taught me valuable lessons in business and management monheim said operating on a tight budget and motivating the other volunteer team members on this project has helped develop me in to a professional team manager the purpose of sae is to provide mechanical engineering underclassmen an opportunity to experience a process similar to the formula sae (fsae) build they will have the opportunity to work on as seniors
1021,dr jn reddy professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a foreign fellow of the indian national academy of engineering reddy is being recognized for his lifetime contributions to research and education in engineering and his profound impact on indian engineers and scientists as well as students of engineering and applied mathematics the indian national academy of engineering established in 1987 is a peer body of distinguished engineers and technologists that aims to promote and advance the practice of engineering and technology related sciences and disciplines and their applications to problems of national importance reddy has organized and participated in professional workshops conferences short courses and advanced study institutes that have benefited indian engineers and scientists over the years in addition to this prestigious award reddy was recently inducted into oklahoma state universitys college of engineering architecture and technology (ceat) hall of fame reddy received his masters degree from oklahoma state university in 1970 and was awarded the lohmann medal from ceat in 1997 for his research contributions only 05 percent of the alumni who are distinguished graduates of oklahoma state university are elected into the hall of fame
1022,the society of women engineers (swe) at texas a&m university was recently recognized with three awards at the national conference in nashville tennessee the chapter won the gold level outstanding collegiate section award for its ability to recruit and retain members offer diverse programs and for overall excellence it also received the second place award for communications and the outreach award for its high school conferences president jayci blake a senior chemical engineering major said she was thrilled with their success
1023,swe at texas a&m swe currently has more than 700 members on campus with more than 230 playing an active roll blake has been involved with swe since her freshman year and she can personally attest to the benefits of being a part of the organization the goal with swe is to be a professional development student-run organization for females in the college of engineering she said we also want to help develop this community of female engineering students for blake swe is about finding mentors the organizations swelites program pairs freshmen with upperclassmen there are currently about 35 mentees in the program when blake joined the organization she found a mentor in an upperclassman who is now working as a chemical engineer she was a junior at the time and i was able to ask her about classes and professors study habits how to balance having fun and having a social life and doing well (in school) she said as ive gone through my four years i still talk to her swe members also have opportunities to meet women who are working in industry thats something that has kept me striving in school to see how theyve been through school and exceled and now they have awesome jobs she said blake became heavily involved with swe her sophomore year when she became an officer for the high school conference program during these conferences about 100 high school students from around the state stay on campus for two days tour engineering labs compete in design competitions and learn about all of the departments in the dwight look college of engineering we really just encourage them to consider engineering and of course we want them to come to a&m she said the conferences also host a scholarship and admissions session to prepare the students to apply long-term goals blake said the organization is comprised of a really amazing group of women and men were all in really challenging classes but we all want to develop lifelong friendships she said we all want to make connections that will help us get through school and help us succeed in industry blake said its important for men to be a part of the group too i think we do have different questions about what life looks like when we enter industry she said so maybe it can help them understand some of the questions and thoughts and perspectives we have in the end blake would like to see a cultural shift in the way female engineers are perceived one day i would love to see in the lifetime of my career that youre an engineer youre not a female engineer she said to find out more about swe visit the swe website
1024,bryson keal first stepped foot on the texas a&m university campus the summer before his junior year when he attended an engage summer camp with carver high school an engage partner school in houston a video game enthusiast with a knack for taking things apart and putting them back together keal had already made up his mind that he wanted to some day pursue an engineering degree the dwight look college of engineering made that dream become a reality the engage summer camp is a six-day residential summer camp program designed for underrepresented students who show an interest in science mathematics and engineering through tours tutorials project design laboratory work and competitions engage summer camp students get a glimpse of what their life could be like as an engineering student at texas a&m honestly before engage i had no idea where i wanted to go to college keal said i understood the fact that they [access and inclusion] were working with us to give us an opportunity to visit the school because they were working so hard to show us what a&m was all about teaching us how things are here and making sure we had fun i felt it would be against my better judgment not to go here getting to texas a&m originally keal thought he might pursue a degree in music an accomplished violinist he enjoys playing everything from classical to popular music in his free time there arent very many opportunities today for good paying jobs in music he said with engineering there are a lot of opportunities out there however its not about money he said i plan to enjoy life he said if im going to enjoy life id rather do something that i can get paid for that i can live off keals father is an electrical engineer and he said his family is very proud of him for pursuing his dreams many of his family members havent had the opportunity to go to college i came here because not only was it the first college to take an interest in me but it also has one of the most well-respected engineering programs in the united states he said inspiring the next generation its only been a few months since keal left his home in houston and became a college student but that hasnt stopped him from stepping up to inspire the next generation access and inclusion the engineering program that hosts the engage summer camp also hosts fall and spring invitationals the engage invitationals are one-day on-campus events for texas high school students from underrepresented populations the students tour campus and engineering labs meet with faculty and students and participate in hands-on engineering activities keal has begun helping with these invitationals by participating as a student panelist hosting parents and students and soon after training he will be teaching activities he hopes more students like him will decide to follow their dreams and as a result create a more diverse engineering field to keal increasing diversity isnt just about changing the ethnic fabric of a particular field its about transforming the collective experience of engineers to create a better future its not the ethnicity that matters he said its that persons life experience you can bring something different to the table and it could be the next greatest thing to learn more about engage programs contact dr sonia garcia senior director of access and inclusion at accessengineering@tamuedu or visit the program's website
1025,the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university hosted dr joseph j beaman the earnest f gloyna regents chair at the university of texas at austin for its 2015 fowler distinguished lecture series beaman adds to the list of nationally recognized engineers and scientists who have been invited to lecture as part of the graduate program seminar class beaman pioneered solid freeform fabrication (sff) also called 3-d printing in the mid-1980s and has made continuing contributions to the field he was the first academic researcher in the field and he led a group of students and colleagues at the university of texas that developed selective laser sintering (sls) which is now the most successful 3-d printing process for direct production of high-value functional parts during the lecture beaman discussed 3-d printing solid freeform fabrication additive manufacturing and the history of the process control for the technologies these technologies are for the most part additive processes that build up parts layer by layer the fowler distinguished lecture series was endowed by mr donald fowler ‘66 and dr joe fowler ‘68 in 1999 don fowler is the owner of fowler energy company which provides energy cost reduction services to users of electricity natural gas and wastewater he is is currently a member of the presidents council of advisors at texas a&m university joe fowler is president and co-founder of stress engineering services inc an engineering consulting firm that provides design analysis and testing services to a variety of industries he is also the chair of the dwight look college of engineering advisory council
1026,a team of undergraduate students from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university was selected as the winners of the 2015 american nuclear society design competition a national competition that allows students to identify and solve a specific need within the nuclear engineering community the students entered the competition in conjunction with their senior design course under the guidance of course instructor dr karen vierow and the teams technical advisor dr gamal akabani by collaborating with akabani who currently conducts research on radioisotope production the team developed a regional solution for the production and distribution of an important medical isotope used in nuclear medicine imaging technetium-99m (tc-99m) the design team was composed of team leader matthew schaper eden marroquin talal harahsheh miltiadis kennas and yousif almaazmi they usually want to design something new but they are over optimistic in what they can do vierow said of the students in their first semester in her design course the best teams i think dont design something new they tackle a problem that has been identified to them and as a result the projects are usually more practical and realistic the medical isotope tc-99m is important because of its usage for nuclear medicine imaging but it remains in high demand because it has a rapid decay rate with a half-life of only six hours the isotope is unable to be shipped this causes a problem for medical facilities which must cope with the limited supply and are unable to produce the material locally without a reactor nearby as more reactors are scheduled to be decommissioned in the united states demand for the isotope will continue to rise with the shrinking means of production having ascertained the need for a solution the team sought to find a process through which the material could be developed locally without the use of a reactor and in a manner that allows for faster transfer to medical facilities the team decided to use accelerator technology to create the isotope which would have a diminished impact in comparison to a reactor because it would leave no radioactive waste there are several advantages to the applications of an accelerator over a reactor in this particular venture akabani said the initial capital investments and maintenance costs for an accelerator are much lower than a reactor-based counterpart also an accelerator is not as large as a reactor will have little to no cost of decommissioning in comparison to a reactor and will give regional facilities the ability to produce the material locally and distribute it quickly part of the solution the students had to determine was how to produce the tc-99m without the use of a reactor as tc-99m is traditionally produced from the decay of a parent isotope molybdenum-99m with the use of an accelerator the students were able to achieve the same result by means of a gamma photo-neutron reaction through chemical separation and concentration techniques in this case they were trying to produce this technetium-99m and you have a target material that you bombard with neutrons vierow said some of the atoms undergo a reaction where they go from one isotope to the desirable isotope their design was to design this target material that gets bombarded and then to extract the tc-99m isotopes and design a delivery system that gets the isotopes to the medical facility before they decay away in a couple of days while the design competition and the technical work that went into the project were separate from the students coursework vierows design course served to prepare the students for the competition by instructing them on design fundamentals the course is a two semester class where the projects are decided upon and planned in the fall and then executed in the spring in time for the competition vierow explains that the goal of the course is to teach the students about design and give them design experience but the competition is secondary to that objective there are many teams within the class but each university is only allowed one team as a representative a choice that is made by the faculty vierow also structures the requirements of the course project so that they are in line with the ans competition requirements making it easier for the teams to compete we have a strong design component that we have incorporated into our curriculum vierow said the caliber of the students here allows us to do some really original work that is technically accepted by the nuclear technical community we want to prepare them to be successful engineers in the real world and i think this design course makes some good contributions to making them functional engineers akabani and the other members of the team are now looking at ways to take the project into its next steps the team has been collaborating with accelerator technology company mevex corporation from the start of the project and plans to continue working with it to develop further advancements for the projects accelerator technology its really been a great experience kennas said its nice to work on something that you know is both profitable and realistic our project is very feasible and i think that is the main reason that weve seen it go so far and develop the way it has
1027,dr hong liang professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to serve on the executive editorial board as the north american regional editor for the institute of physics (iop) surface topography: metrology and properties journal (stmp) as the north american editor for the journal liang will provide leadership to the north american regional editorial board members for stmp as well as encourage scientists from the united states and canada to submit papers to the journal iop stmp is a hybrid open access journal that began in 2013 and has published three volumes the executive editorial board is comprised of eight international members from england germany japan australia and the united states stmp is an international forum for academics industrialists and engineers to publish the latest research in surface topography measurement and characterization instrumentation development and the properties of surfaces
1028,during the fall 2015 semester multiple courses in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university enhanced industry focused experiential learning by inviting industry representatives to speak to students topics discussed included trends challenges and opportunities in the industrial channels in addition to bringing industry speakers to classes students are provided opportunities to participate in industry conferences and competitions these events enhance exposure to the latest trends in the industry as well as provide an opportunity for students to meet industry professionals some of the events students participated in were: 2015 houston electric league (hel) cross fire more than 50 students participated in a discussion panel consisting of six industry representatives students learned about internship and scholarship opportunities from one of the largest providers of these for industrial distribution students hel is an industry association devoted to supporting the electrical industry within the houston and southeast texas area as well as to steward and support education and scholarship through the houston electrical league scholarship fund (helsf) a non-profit affiliate organization 2015 material handling equipment distributors association (mheda) convention and exhibitors showcase nearly 40 students participated in this industry interaction experience students toured the convention floor participated in speeches and sessions with nationally known speakers and learned more about distribution techniques and growth the interaction for texas a&m students with students from other distribution and supply chain programs (especially purdue university and the university of nebraska-kearney) was also beneficial mheda is the premier trade association dedicated to serving the material handling business community 2015 rockwell automation fair four students attended this event and interacted with automation and automation related equipment manufacturers and distributors students attended experiential learning sessions as well as represented the industrial distribution program by providing information about their experiences at a booth rockwell automation is the world's largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information and sponsors an automation lab for industrial distribution students at texas a&m 2015 electronic components industry association (ecia) project host at eds eds is the leadership summit for the movers shakers and brightest minds that electronic component manufacturers distributors and representatives have to offer ecia represents companies to develop business strategies and build and renew business relationships three students participated in real world meetings and manufacturers used this time to meet with as many of their distributors and manufacturer representatives as possible
1029,a group of close to 80 students from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university visited purvis industries in houston as a part of their distributor informational management (idis 344) class purvis is one of the nations largest independent wholesale distributors the trip gave the students an opportunity to see first-hand all the various functions performed by a distributor including the use of its enterprise resource planning system (erp) the students had the opportunity to tour purvis facilities ask questions and be briefed on how purvis does business after lunch the students finished their tour and had another opportunity to ask questions the trip contributed to the overall learning objectives of the class
1030,more than 125 students from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university visited womack machine supply co in dallas in october as part of their manufacturer distributor relations (idis 340) class this class includes an industry project which culminates with student presentations of their findings to an executive panel of the sponsoring company the students gained real-world experience in touring the distribution facility and listening to talks by different executives and managers which influenced the direction of their projects on a variety of proposed topics students worked on relationship issues between manufacturers and distributors and how they can interact to maximize efficiencies within distribution channels they also analyzed challenges faced by womack within the distribution channel and formulated alternative resolutions to these challenges the final class presentations were presented to the management team from womack students made recommendations for improvement outlined a strategy for best practices and explored benefits of the projects to womack and their suppliers
1031,"the dwight look college of engineerings engineering honors program has selected 18 engineering honors students for its inaugural executive committee the engineering honors program provides students the opportunity to interact with other high achieving students and with honors faculty creating a community of scholars that combines the benefits of a small college with the resources of a major research institution honors students have access to priority registration undergraduate research honors courses specialized advising and other benefits currently more than 800 students throughout the college are part of the program the engineering honors program was recently redesigned to be more engaging and to provide discipline-specific programming and advising this is accomplished by having students follow major-specific tracks each led by a department coordinator who is a top researcher and teacher that have been designed by the departments to include discipline-specific activities and requirements that are most suitable for their students ""i am very much looking forward to working with the executive committee said dr nancy m amato sr director of engineering honors programs and unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering although they have only been in place for just over a month they have already had significant impact i can't wait to see what they will accomplish next during their first full semester on the job'' the executive committee will provide the student perspective on strengthening the engineering honors program and act as representatives throughout the college the committee members will serve a public relations role with students stakeholders and the engineering community within the program the committee provides insight on ways to develop the honors community and to enrich the program an example of this would be additional professional development opportunities the committee will also assist with additional engineering honors programming and events engineering honors has already given me opportunity for undergraduate research in a subject of my dreams: ion propulsion for interstellar space exploration said bryton praslicka i hope to share with future aggies and future engineering honors students my experience so as to bring more to an enriching educational experience the students selected for the executive committee are: elvin bonilla (general engineering) jonathan carpency (chemical engineering) sahil dhanju (computer engineering) david franklin (mechanical engineering) kevin kmetz (general engineering) edward leber (aerospace engineering) austin lu (biomedical engineering) gabriel lugo (general engineering) vishal modi (general engineering) edgar oviedo (electrical engineering) bryton praslicka (general engineering) andrew salazar (general engineering) christian sifuentes (general engineering) nian wei tan (petroleum engineering) philip vanesky general engineering) victoria wei (general engineering) luke weissler (petroleum engineering) and sean whitney (aerospace engineering) students went through a nomination and application process to be selected for the inaugural committee the committee will be charged with developing bylaws that will describe the roles and responsibilities of the executive committee determining how future committee members will be selected and what the terms of their service will be engineering honors students represent some of the best texas a&m has to offer said sean whitney our duty is to [help them] develop especially in the face of a growing engineering student population pictured: top row left to right:christian sifuentes (engr) craig brown chairman & chief executive officer bray controls inc philip vanesky (engr) andrew salazar (engr) kevin kmetz (engr) david franklin (meen) dr jack rodden vice president & treasurer tribune media company chris curran principal and chief technologist pwc llp bottom row left to right:dr sumana datta assistant provost undergraduate studies; executive director launch; professor of biochemistry and biophysics dr jennifer welch regents professor chevron professor ii; eh department coordinator computer science and engineering stephanie hertzog vp & production equipment product line director exterran stephen horn managing partner ronin partners llc austin lu (bmen) sahil dhanju (csce) dennis m wittry senior principal walter p moore and associates dr nancy m amato unocal professor co-director parasol lab department of computer science and engineering; senior director engineering honors program; eh department coordinator computer science and engineering pauline wade eh program coordinator executive committee members not pictured:elvin bonilla jonathan carpency edward leber gabriel lugo vishal modi edgar oviedo nian wei tan victoria wei luke weissler sean whitney"
1032,payman dehghanian phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the 2015 aggies commit fellowship from the texas a&m graduate and professional student council of the 10 recipients of the award dehghanian was the only engineering student selected the fellowship aims to support the high impact learning experiences of graduate and professional students who go beyond required degree program activities and to further graduate and professional education dehghanian received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications recent honors he has received include being selected as one of the top 20 young scholars for next generation of researchers in power systems a research grant scholarship award from the golden key international honor society and a love of learning award from the phi kappa phi honor society the aggies commit to graduate and professional student educational experiences fellowship is administered by the graduate and professional student council and office of graduate and professional studies and is sponsored by the office of the provost and executive vice president
1033,the aerospace vehicle systems institute (avsi) a center in the department of aerospace engineering successfully achieved a worldwide radio frequency spectrum allocation for wireless avionics at the 2015 world radiocommunication conference (wrc-15) held in geneva switzerland seven years of effort by members of the avsi wireless avionics intra-communications (waic) project team culminated in the decision by the conference that will positively impact future aircraft systems design by allowing sensors actuators and other critical aircraft functions to be integrated wirelessly the complexity of aircraft is growing exponentially due in large part to the increasing use of software-intensive systems to add functionality that improves performance and safety said dr david redman director of avsi integrating these systems currently relies on miles of redundant wiring that adds significant weight and increases the complexity of manufacturing these aircraft wireless interconnection is an alternative that addresses the complexity of aircraft wiring until now the use of wireless communications for onboard safety-related aircraft functions was impossible because international regulations did not permit this use a group of aerospace industry stakeholders determined in 2007 that these international regulations needed to be changed to achieve the benefits of wireless interconnectivity they recognized this was an eight-year process through the international telecommunications union (itu) the united nations specialized agency coordinating the global shared use of the radio frequency spectrum since it hosted the wrc once every four years the group further recognized that avsi was uniquely positioned to quickly organize a cooperative effort between international industry government and academic stakeholders to support promotion of waic through the itu process the avsi waic team included researchers from airbus boeing embraer honeywell and united technologies aerospace systems with support from bae systems bombardier ge aviation gulfstream and texas a&m university team members performed the necessary studies and provided input contributions to the relevant regulatory bodies to support the preparatory efforts for wrc-15 the combined efforts led to strong global support for the waic proposal by itu member administrations the waic proposal was one of the first issues approved by the conference demonstrating the excellent preparation by the avsi team to achieve technical consensus while protecting and optimizing existing aviation radio frequency spectrum usage the decision by wrc-15 clears the way for developing the necessary aeronautical standards to support the airworthiness certification process for the first waic-enabled aircraft systems the avsi waic team continues its work to support the development of such standards and to define technical details in order to accelerate the development of waic systems and the availability of the benefits of onboard wireless communications the decision also opens opportunities for researchers at texas a&m to pioneer new waic technologies and applications proposals for waic applications in propulsion and flight control are being considered in the aerospace engineering department and for waic protocol development and testing in the electrical and computer engineering department this project really illustrates how avsi can achieve global impact by delivering our mission of addressing issues that impact the aerospace community through international cooperative research and collaboration it also positions texas a&m to become a leader in wireless avionics said redman for more information about waic or avsi contact redman via email at dredman@tamuedu or visit http://avsiaero/
1034,because the petroleum industry is international in scope and serves a worldwide need for energy it is vital to expose students in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university to other cultures one way is through texas a&m sponsored study abroad programs led by department faculty and designed around specific petroleum courses in the past three years this has included trips to china (2014 and 2015) brazil (2013 and 2014) and germany (2015) the study abroad programs at texas a&m are usually geared to either two or three week courses after spring semesters or during winter breaks or more lengthy summer term sessions since the courses are instructed by texas a&m faculty the hours taken are not transferred but directly credited the department of petroleum engineering requires its students to work a six-week summer internship prior to graduation so great care is taken to offer study abroad courses at times that do not interfere with this requirement dr eduardo gildin led the first petroleum engineering study abroad program in brazil during the second summer session of 2013 it was a joint effort including other faculty from the mechanical electrical and chemical engineering departments within the dwight look college of engineering all course material was identical to on-campus instruction but a bit more challenging to learn due to experiencing another country at the same time the catholic university in rio de janeiro provided accommodations and the students had the opportunity to augment classroom time with field trips to subsea equipment and electrical grid industries long weekends were devoted to visiting cultural attractions in rio students visited the city of ouro preto known for its gold gems and mining and the historical city of petropolis which is known as the imperial city and served as the summer residence of the brazilian emperors and aristocrats in the 19th century gildin also led a study abroad trip in 2014 which visited recife brazil dr sam noynaert from petroleum engineering and dr ulisses braga neto from electrical engineering joined him classes were hosted by the state university of pernambuco (upe) like the first program the students were afforded both classroom instruction and field trips they managed to visit the largest refinery in brazil which was under construction at that time and chesf the central electrical power generation company the students also experienced the various cultural influences in brazil such as the city of olinda (unesco world heritage site) street food and markets tapioca made to order churrascarias and the nightlife they visited the world-famous baia do sancho beach in fernando de noronha and dove with sea turtles and dolphins brazil is a very large and diverse country and i was glad to have students visiting my home country and learning a little bit about the history of brazil its cultural influences and the great potential of the industry especially related to the petroleum and energy sector said gildin the most recent trip to germany in the summer of 2015 was entirely a petroleum venture taught by gildin and noynaert who divided the instruction times and locations in order to save the students money and get the program off to a good start academically the first week of the semester was held at texas a&m this allowed the students time to adjust to the material the pace of the courses the instructors and each other without the additional stress of travel in addition faculty members were able to front load the teaching schedule allowing the students fridays off while abroad to pursue cultural and sight-seeing amenities the next four weeks were completed at clausthal technical university a small public institution located in clausthal-zellerfeld lower saxony germany in the harz mountain region the university has a highly regarded petroleum engineering program for graduate studies and the aggies were treated to views of the world-class oilfield tubular testing facility and other labs there they also benefitted from interactions with dr gioia falcone head of the petroleum engineering department at clausthal; one of her faculty members dr javier holzmann; and the very kind clausthal staff the students walked by history every day and learned more about germany with every step the harz region essentially paid for much of the holy roman and saxon empires operations through hundreds of years of silver mining martin luther was born and died in the harz the brothers grimm created their fairy tales based on the area and much of goethes faust was set in these mountains the mines are now closed and forestry restricted making tourism the prime industry yet the region is not known for speaking english with help from members of the tu clausthal society of petroleum engineers student chapter the aggies quickly adapted to the language food and customs they even ventured out to visit amsterdam prague hamburg munich berlin stuttgart nuremberg and austria the students also traveled to scotland for one weekend where a tour of the core lab in aberdeen introduced the students to a wide variety of lab equipment used to analyze cores and reservoir fluids they were also able to see the geological reservoir and operational planning processes for an upcoming high complexity geosteered well at the bp offices and used a live feed to an offshore installation to ask the personnel question about rig operations in spite of the challenging academic component of the program the students for both programs (germany 2015 and brazil 2014) found plenty of time for fun outside the classroom said noynaert whether it was interacting with the local students or spending weekends traveling through europe together they were able to form new friendships experience things they never had before and make many wonderful memories unlike brazil and germany the trip to china in 2014 involved a two-week time frame known as a maymester the course pete 325-petroleum production systems was held in china just after spring semester classes ended in may dr ding zhu dr rashid hasan and dr jiajing lin a former professor in the department taught the course which gave students an introduction to production operations and oil field equipment using facilities available in the china university of petroleum beijing the course was taught over a period of nine days with three hours of lecture each day tests were arranged at the end of the first week and at the end of the course the host university featured a modern production teaching lab where the students were able to perform the lab-required sections of the course students were then taken on a field trip to dagang oilfield to see related facilities production operations and equipment the value of taking study abroad courses is not measurable by the courses themselves said zhu the students have the opportunity to see the world to know the applications of the technology internationally – that is more important for petroleum engineers than most other industries that is so much more beneficial to their future career the students were also given the opportunity to visit three places in the beijing area: the great wall the forbidden city and the olympic village while staying in housing at the university the texas a&m students had the opportunity for cross-cultural exchanges and made new friendships when several chinese students attended the class most of our students have spent much of their lives in small towns said hasan for them to visit a major city in a far-away land speaking with the locals using a few words half-learned hugely aided by sign language is a priceless learning experience one might consider teaching and learning under such circumstances to be less than optimal yet my personal experience is that the demanding situation makes the students become very focused and active learners encouraged by the previous successes of the petroleum engineering abroad courses gildin will lead a three-week maymester program in aberdeen scotland in 2016 aberdeen a historically rooted city with modern and international elements is called the oil capital of europe holding class there offers students the opportunity to visit several giants in the oil business while allowing them the chance to explore many popular cities in the united kingdom and possibly europe zhu noynaert and hasan are also planning to teach future study abroad courses recognizing how critical it is for petroleum engineering students to experience the world petroleum is a commodity produced by countries that are as diverse as can be and is needed by people all over the world said hasan experiencing even a fraction of that diversity gives our students not just a leg up in their career but allows them to appreciate and enjoy more of what this profession has to offer for more information on the study abroad programs please visit the study abroad programs office at http://studyabroadtamuedu
1035,"yashwant prakash vyas a senior in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has received numerous awards and honors for his academic and leadership roles vyas participated in the 9th annual brazos valley world fest where he won the culture display booth competition for the second year in a row the festival promotes international diversity and heritage by connecting international students faculty and staff with the community vyas booth world cultures part iii: a kaleidoscope of cultures is based on the study of world cultures arts religions and cultural articles from around the world vyas said the most important learning outcome from his booth is that humans have more in common than they do differences vyas also offers diversity training called ""world cultures what we have in common "" to student organizations schools and community centers vyas was also inducted into the national society of leadership and success the society is the nations largest leadership honor society with 491 chapters and 537 370 members nationwide students are selected by their college for membership based on either academic standing or leadership potential candidacy is a nationally recognized achievement of honorable distinction in addition to induction vyas was also awarded the national engaged leader award from the society this award is given to inducted members who go above and beyond membership requirements vyas participated in community service and completed the training required for the award during his time at texas a&m vyas has belonged to numerous student organizations such as the international student association the student government association diversity commission the india association aggie replant the texas a&m unicef chapter the aggie orientation leaders program and many more he also works as an ask us aggie worker in the library and offers diversity training to student organizations schools and community centers"
1036,"mahdi imani phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a finalist paper award at the 49th asilomar conference on signals systems and computers 2015 imani whose advisor and co-author is dr ulisses braga-neto won the award for his paper ""optimal gene regulatory network inference using the boolean kalman filter and multiple model adaptive estimation"" in his paper a method is presented for the inference of boolean gene regulatory networks observed through noise the method is based on multiple model adaptive estimation using the optimal mmse state estimator for boolean dynamical systems known as the boolean kalman filter (bkf) imani received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and his master's degree in electrical engineering both from university of tehran in 2012 and 2014 respectively in 2014 imani began working towards toward his phd in the genomic signal processing laboratory his current research interests include state and parameter estimation of boolean dynamical systems and stochastic control with application in genomic signal processing honors include being selected the best phd student among the first two-year phd students in the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m in 2015"
1037,the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university recently held a former student outreach event at aggie park in san antonio current members of the departments industry advisory council (iac) hosted the event m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of the dwight look college of engineering as well as current members of the formula sae team were on hand for the event the formula sae team showcased this years car that it designed and built during the event iac members interacted with former students and sought to find new ways to encourage engagement between the department and its graduates this outreach event is a base for us to build upon said iac member brenda hightower the iac understands how important it is to engage former students for their perspectives on different industry needs it allows us to give timely feedback to the department on the current industry trends graduates of the department face in their various careers engagement activities will continue to be a fundamental aspect of the departments contribution to the 25 by 25 initiative which began in 2011 the initiative seeks to increase access for qualified students to pursue engineering education at texas a&m university this initiative presents the challenge of continuing to provide quality education while growing the enrollment to 25 000 students by 2025 former students in attendance ranged from the class of 47 to the class of 12 the event was a success and i look forward to many more opportunities of its kind said dr andreas polycarpou head of the department if you would like to sponsor an activity in your area please contact: jeremy quast director of development 9798621517 jquast@txamfoundationcom or annette forst assistant director of development 9798627837 aforst@txamfoundationcom for more information on the 25 by 25 initiative click here for more photos click here
1038,dr christodoulos a floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute and the erle nye 59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been named a fellow of the national academy of inventors (nai) election to nai fellow status is a high professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life economic development and the welfare of society the nai fellows will be inducted on april 15 as part of the fifth annual conference of the national academy of inventors at the united states patent and trademark office (uspto) in alexandria virginia uspto deputy commissioner for patents andrew hirshfeld will provide the keynote address for the induction ceremony fellows will be presented with a special trophy medal and rosette pin in honor of their outstanding accomplishments floudas is a world-renowned authority in mathematical modeling and optimization of complex systems he has received numerous awards and honors for teaching and research including election to the national academy of engineering in 2011 being named a siam fellow in 2013 a tias fellow and eminent scholar for 2013-14 and aiche fellow in 2013 a thomson reuters highly cited researcher and recipient of the constantin caratheodory prize in 2015 floudas earned his doctorate in chemical engineering from carnegie mellon university in 1986 and joined the faculty at princeton university as an assistant professor later that year prior to coming to texas a&m floudas was a professor of chemical and biological engineering at princeton and served as the stephen c macaleer 63 professor in engineering and applied science a total of 168 individuals were named nai fellows bringing the total number of fellows to 582 representing more than 190 prestigious research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutions the 2015 fellows account for more than 5 300 issued us patents bringing the collective patents held by all nai fellows to more than 20 000 these academic luminaries have made a significant impact to the economy through innovative discoveries creating startup companies and enhancing the culture of academic inventions included among all nai fellows are more than 80 presidents and senior leaders of research universities and non-profit research institutes 310 members of the other national academies (nas nae nam) 27 inductees of the national inventors hall of fame 32 recipients of the us national medal of technology and innovation and us national medal of science 27 nobel laureates 14 lemelson-mit prize recipients 170 aaas fellows and 98 ieee fellows about nai: the national academy of inventors® is a 501(c)(3) non profit member organization comprised of us and international universities and governmental and non-profit research institutions with over 3 000 individual inventor members and fellows spanning more than 200 institutions and growing rapidly it was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the us patent and trademark office enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation encourage the disclosure of intellectual property educate and mentor innovative students and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society the nai edits the multidisciplinary journal technology and innovation published by cognizant communication corporation (ny) wwwacademyofinventorsorg
1039,karl hedrick a member of the national academy of engineering (nae) and a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) will join the faculty of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university hedrick who will begin his tenure in july will serve as a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor and as the lead in establishing a center for safe autonomous road vehicle systems hedricks research focuses on the application of advanced control theory to a wide variety of vehicle dynamic systems including automotive aircraft and ocean vehicles hedrick has served as the chair of the mechanical engineering department at the university of california berkeley and is currently the director of the vehicle dynamics laboratory at uc berkeley before joining the faculty at uc berkeley hedrick was a professor of mechanical engineering at the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) where he served as director of the vehicle dynamics laboratory dr hedrick is an authority on autonomous and semi-autonomous ground vehicles said dr andreas polycarpou head of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m were looking forward to him implementing his vision at texas a&m hedrick earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanics from the university of michigan ann arbor he obtained both his master of science and phd in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from stanford university he has published 142 archival journals refereed 261 conference and symposium proceedings and has supervised more than 65 phd students hedricks book dynamic surface control of uncertain nonlinear systems: an lmi approach provides a theoretically rigorous and practical introduction to nonlinear control design the convex optimization approach applied to good effect in linear systems is extended to the nonlinear case using the new dynamic surface control (dsc) algorithm developed by hedrick and his co-author dr bongsob song a variety of problems including dsc design output feedback input saturation and fault tolerant control are considered the inclusion of applications material demonstrates the real significance of the dsc algorithm which is robust and easy to use for nonlinear systems with uncertainty in automotive and robotic applications hedrick has been awarded a number of honors including the asme journal of dynamic systems measurement and control best paper award in 1983 and 2001 the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) transactions on control systems technology's outstanding paper award (1998) and the american automatic control councils o hugo schuck best paper award (2003) he was awarded asmes 2006 rufus oldenburger medal which recognizes significant contributions and outstanding achievements in the field of automatic control in 2009 hedrick presented the asme nyquist lecture hedrick has presented lectures for the mechanical engineering departments fowler distinguished lecture series as well as the texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) eminent scholar lecture series texas a&m is a very exciting place to be right now said hedrick the chancellors research initiative in autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicle systems is bringing together a multi-disciplinary team to conduct research in these areas i am very happy to be part of this team and i look forward to working with the faculty and students of texas a&m
1040,dr nancy m amato was named a recipient of the texas a&m university systems regents professor award amato is the unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering senior director of engineering honors programs co-coordinator of the computer science and engineering track of engineering honors and co-director of the parasol lab amato joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1995 as an assistant professor in computer science she became a full professor in 2004 and was appointed the unocal professor in 2011 she received undergraduate degrees in mathematical sciences and economics from stanford university and her master of science and phd in computer science from the university of california berkeley and the university of illinois at urbana-champaign
1041,the writing was on the wall for alexandria howard whether she knew it or not as a small child with a keen interest in astronomy solving puzzles and building things with her hands the texas a&m university senior was destined to become an aerospace engineer the newly appointed chief coordinator of aggie aerospace women in engineering is 18 months from graduating and making that dream become a reality an early interest in space since howard was a little girl all she wanted was to go to rice university and one day become an astronomer but one night at the beginning of her junior year in high school she had a conversation with her father and sister that would change the course of her life it was a life-changing night she said we were planning my visit to rice and it was during the planning of that visit that my father said astronomy might not really be my thing then howards sister a texas a&m former student told her about the corps of cadets at texas a&m she told her a career in the military would suit her personality a couple weeks later my sister took me to rice and i was completely bored howard said my life dream was crushed the next day howard visited texas a&m as soon as she walked into the aerospace engineering advisors office she knew she wanted to be an aggie there was an airplane hanging over the advisors desk and a rocket in the corner of the office she said as a part of a senior design project you get to build test and launch these things howard said her decision was made howard was bound for aggieland joining the corps of cadets howard always knew she wanted to serve her country but she didnt think she would be joining the military it wasnt until she visited texas a&m and participated in the spend the night with the corps program that the idea of a career in the military really began to blossom now a cadet major and the only senior female drummer in the band howard is looking forward to a future in the united states air force i think id wanted to join the military all along because i wanted to serve my country but i wasnt satisfied truly with all of the other options she said i realized i could be an engineer and join the military i could be an officer and help lead and truly make a difference howard serves as infantry band recruiting officer and director of staff for air force rotc aggie aerospace women engineers as a female engineering major and a member of the largely male corps of cadets howard wanted to be part of a group that allowed females and males to share conversations and experiences on a more level playing field aggie aerospace women in engineering (aawe) provided that i feel like its broadened my view of engineering she said its truly interactive and i dont think id have as good of an insight into the industry if i hadnt joined being a part of aawe has provided howard with confidence too its given me assurance knowing that as a woman i can succeed because people have done it before me and there are people doing it beside me she said as the newly elected leader of the student organization howard plans to continue hosting diverse meetings focusing on everything from resumé writing to public speaking i just want people to be more comfortable going into industry both with knowledge and with skills she said howard has a busy year ahead of her while studying and serving in all of her leadership roles shes also planning a wedding howard is engaged to senior aerospace engineering major and fellow corps of cadets member matthew connelly
1042,dr haiyan wang professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering was one of three texas a&m university professors named fellows of the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) election as an aaas fellow is an honor bestowed upon aaas members by their peers their selections were announced in the current issue of science the aaas journal and they will be formally honored feb 13 at the annual meeting of the association in washington dc wang received her aaas honor for innovative research at the frontiers of materials science and technology and for exceptional potential to shape the future through intellectual leadership and inspired teaching the other professors from texas a&m were peter kuchment a university distinguished professor of mathematics in the college of science and samba reddy professor of neuroscience and experimental therapeutics in the texas a&m health science center i am proud to join the aaas in recognizing these faculty and their outstanding accomplishments said dr karan l watson provost and executive vice president at texas a&m earlier this year wang was named a fellow of the american ceramic society (acers) wang joined the faculty at texas a&m in 2006 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor and full professor in 2010 and 2014 respectively she received a phd in materials science and engineering from north carolina state university in 2002 wangs research expertise is on nanostructured ceramic thin films for various applications including nitride-based materials for microelectronic and optoelectronics high temperature superconductor coated conductors ferromagnetic and ferroelectric oxide thin films perovskite oxides for thin film solid oxide fuel cells in situ tem work and others she has published more than 300 journal articles with a total citation over 6 500 times with an h-index of 39 she has organized nine symposiums at international conferences and is an active committee member in the american society of metals (asm) acers and the metals minerals and materials society (tms) wang is a fellow of asm international (class of 2014) her major awards include the tamest odonnell award 2015 asm silver medal award in 2011 an nsf career award in 2009 a presidential early career award (pecase) in 2008 an office of naval research-young investigator award in 2008 and an air force of scientific research-young investigator award in 2007 the tradition of aaas fellows began in 1874 currently members can be considered for the rank of fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the associations 24 sections or by any three fellows who are current aaas members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominees institution) or by the aaas chief executive officer fellows must have been continuous members of aaas for four years by the end of the calendar year in which they are elected aaas is the worlds largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal science as well as science translational medicine and science signaling aaas was founded in 1848 and includes 254 affiliated societies and academies of science serving 10 million individuals science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world with an estimated total readership of 1 million the non-profit aaas(wwwaaasorg) is open to all and fulfills its mission to advance science and serve society through initiatives in science policy international programs science education and more
1043,laughter and excited chatter could be heard throughout the hallways of thompson hall recently as the first howdy jr first lego league (fll) expo kicked off more than 200 children parents faculty staff and volunteers attended the event jr fll (for ages 6 through 9) allows children to use their imaginations to explore the wonders of science and technology the program uses real-world scientific concepts that teams must explore through research teamwork construction and imagination weeks of preparation culminated in the howdy expo where lego models and poster designs were on display for reviewers to judge it was a humbling experience to be a part of the community to provide something so enriching to the kids said dr malini natarajarathinam expo organizer whose two children participated in the event this years theme waste wise taught team members the importance of recycling its a lesson that really resonated with bonham elementary school third-grader jase cotton his mother betty cotton said her son thoroughly enjoyed the experience they went out to brazos valley recycling center and they also had keep brazos beautiful come and speak with them betty cotton said they donated some recycling bins for the school and the boys really learned a lot cotton who along with another mother organized the team her son participated on said her son and his teammates will likely participate in fll when they are older fll is for children ages 9 through 13 dr michael johnson associate professor in the engineering technology and industrial distribution department coached the robot kids team from south knoll elementary school his son a second-grader was on the team its been very exciting he said i learned a lot interacting with the kids going through the design process building doing research as an engineer johnson said it was rewarding to see his son get excited about the engineering process sparking that interest is what its all about said shawna fletcher director of the women in engineering program at texas a&m there is such an interest for this here and people have been waiting for something like this its for the community natarajarathinam recruited fletcher to help with the howdy expo because she has been involved with first (for inspiration and recognition of science and technology) for about 15 years i love the organization fletcher said its not just about what the teams do its the culture first has this mantra of gracious professionalism and coopertition® teams are not just interacting with themselves but they interact with other teams thats why the howdy expo is important the event ended with a high-five ceremony which natarajarathinam said was her favorite part medals and trophies were handed out to beaming children proud of their accomplishments i know it takes a village to raise a child natarajarathinam said i want to thank the community for allowing us to be a part of their village
1044,several graduate students in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a best project poster award at the power system engineering research center (pserc) industry advisory board meeting tamara becejac payman dehghanian ahad esmaeilian cheng qian and their advisor dr mladen kezunovic along with meng wu whose advisor is dr le xie won the award for their poster management of mission-critical systems through certification commissioning in-service maintenance remote testing and risk assessment the primary focus of the semi-annual pserc industry advisory board meeting is to hear proposal presentations discuss new research projects and promote collaboration among researchers industry members and students in the electric power industry as the largest national science foundation industry-university cooperative research center pserc draws on university capabilities to creatively address the challenges facing the electric power industry its core purpose is to empower minds to engineer the future electric energy system
1045,"students and faculty from texas a&m university will be well represented at the spacex hyperloop pod design weekend at texas a&m all seven hyperloop design teams have been invited to the weekend competition hosted by texas a&m jan 29-30 the spacex hyperloop pod design weekend will provide student teams an opportunity to present their designs and compete for technical awards and corporate sponsorships toward the development of prototypes selected teams will be able to test their prototypes summer 2016 at the spacex headquarters in hawthorne california the teams and faculty advisors from texas a&m include: jet stream (dr bill schneider and dr andrea strzelec); tamu aerospace hyperloop (dr mobile benedict and dr adonios karpetis); hyperwhoop (dr charles culp); texas a&m rb3 designs (dr tracy fullerton); texas a&m society of flight test engineers (dr diego donzis); texas a&m university hyperloop alliance (dr mark holtzapple and matt whiteacre); and aggieloop (david kanipe) in my hyperloop capstone students are forced to integrate many different disciplines into a system said schneider a professor in the department of mechanical engineering the project is open ended; there are no right or wrong answers but there are worst better and best design solutions this closely simulates the real world the world they will be thrown into upon graduation"" the formation of each team was slightly different some teams like jet stream were formed as part of a class and consist of engineering seniors from several majors enrolled in a capstone design class tamu aerospace hyperloop is comprised of aero 417 and 489 students other teams like hyperwhoop and hyperloop alliance were formed solely from having an interested group of students and faculty advisors the hyperloop project provides an amazing opportunity for students to apply themselves to a technologically demanding problem said kanipe aerospace engineering professor of practice they could develop solutions that will not only be incorporated into the ultimate spacex hyperloop but change the future of high speed travel forever the competition has also attracted teams from around the globe student teams from 10 countries have already requested invitation letters to travel to texas a&m and attend the design weekend while the final number of invitations to the design weekend has not been announced approximately 125 student preliminary designs were submitted in june spacex initiated the pod design competition to find the perfect pod design a hyperloop is a pioneering mode of transportation consisting of passenger pods sent through a tube at more than 500 mph more information on the spacex hyperloop pod design weekend at texas a&m can be found on the competition website"
1046,students from texas a&m university and the university of sydney in australia participated in the aerial international robotic racing of unmanned systems (airus) where teams were able to successfully demonstrate remote piloting of an unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) more than 8 000 miles away pilots in texas used a joystick to control a uav (also known as a quadrotor or drone) in australia while at the same time pilots in sydney controlled a uav in texas a camera mounted on the front of the uav captured video which was sent over the internet to the pilot on the other side of the world the top pilots achieved an international landing they controlled the sideways movement to land the uav on a small target additionally everyone in attendance at the event had the opportunity to pilot the uav by controlling the spinning motion (yaw) of the uav they also gained an appreciation for the difficulty of dealing with the half-second delay through the international communications despite this delay it is believed to be the lowest latency (delay) achieved for controlling an aircraft internationally having successfully demonstrated the international piloting airus members have applied for a world record for the longest distance remote piloting of a uav which is now pending assessment at the texas event there was also a showcase of uavs with students in attendance given the opportunity to test their skills in a race of small uavs this first successful event is a stepping stone to the full plans for airus to involve many more universities around the world each having local pilots controlling and racing uavs at the different international locations the immediate plans for the coming year are to further develop the control systems to grant the international pilot a higher level of control and to build towards being able to race the uav around an obstacle course on the other side of the world this work also will lead to research on enhancing long distance remote control of aircraft and robotics at both universities the texas a&m team is comprised of aerospace engineering students who are members of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics the competition was funded in part by the texas a&m engineering experiment stations aerospace technology research and operations center (astro) and center for autonomous vehicles & sensor systems (canvass)
1047,"aditya konduri phd candidate in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university received second place in the student poster competition at the 52nd annual technical meeting of the society of engineering science the award was in recognition of his work ""asynchronous computing of fluid flow phenomena at extreme scales "" which was done under the supervision of his advisor dr diego a donzis associate professor in the department konduri works in the turbulence and advanced computations laboratory and does research on highly scalable asynchronous computing methods to solve partial differential equations on massively parallel supercomputers in 2016 he will join sandia national laboratories to continue his work on massively parallel simulations of turbulent flows before coming to texas a&m he completed a master's degree in aerospace engineering at the georgia institute of technology a master's in engineering mechanics at jncasr india and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at the osmania university india"
1048,dr nancy m amato and carol a huff were named recipients of the texas a&m university systems regents professor award and regents fellow service award respectively amato is the unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering senior director of engineering honors programs co-coordinator of the computer science and engineering track of engineering honors and co-director of the parasol lab amato joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1995 as an assistant professor in computer science she became a full professor in 2004 and was appointed the unocal professor in 2011 she received undergraduate degrees in mathematical sciences and economics from stanford university and her master of science and phd in computer science from the university of california berkeley and the university of illinois at urbana-champaign huff is the assistant agency director of financial operations for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) over the past 26 years she has held several fiscal positions within tees and the texas a&m system with 23 of those years being with tees huff joined the texas a&m system in 1981 as an accounting systems analyst she quickly moved up to the coordinator of systems policies and procedures where she was responsible for the preparation of the systems annual financial report her most notable roles at tees were serving as the assistant vice chancellor for finance for six years and serving as the controller for 16 years the regents professor award honors individuals at the rank of professor or equivalent whose distinguished performance in teaching research and service have been exemplary the award is the highest honor bestowed by the a&m system on faculty members the performance of those selected is considered meritorious and worthy of recognition of their achievements that had an impact on not only their institution or agency but also the community the state of texas and/or at the national and international levels the regents fellow service award honors and recognizes extension research and service professionals within the agricultural and engineering agencies health science center and veterinary medical diagnostic laboratory these professionals must have demonstrated a significant commitment and contributions to their respective agency by providing exceptional leadership in educational or program delivery/scholarship research or service that have resulted in significant impact and lasting benefits to the state of texas and beyond
1049,"two students from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university are among the top winners at the 5th annual student research poster competition sponsored by the university chapter of material advantage rachel unruh a graduate student advised by professor michael mcshane and jonathan griffin an undergraduate student working in the laboratory of assistant professor akhilesh gaharwar each were recognized for posters detailing their research unruh placed second in the graduate category and griffin was recognized in the undergraduate category of the competition material advantage is a student program specifically created for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in materials science engineering and other technical engineering programs at universities around the world the program provides students access to four materials science and engineering professional societies – the american ceramic society association for iron & steel technology asm international and the minerals metals and materials society unruhs research focuses on the development of optical glucose sensors for diabetes management these hydrogel-based sensors are designed for subcutaneous implantation providing a minimally invasive way to measure biomolecules through a single injection versus standard fingerprick methods her poster ""evaluation of luminescent copolymer hydrogels as fully-implantable sensors "" addressed her efforts in exploring the performance of these glucose sensors on the benchtop and in preclinical studies griffin is investigating the use of nanoparticles for control cell adhesion in regenerative medicine controlling cell adhesion on a biomaterial surface is associated with the long-term efficacy of an implanted material gaharwar notes griffins poster hydrogels from poly (ethylene glycol) reinforced with aluminium oxide nanoparticles detailed how low concentrations of aluminium oxide nanoparticles interact with polymeric hydrogels and can modulate cell adhesion characteristics his study suggests that the ability to regulate cellular attachment to the biomaterial surfaces can be tailored toward the specific requirements of a biomedical application about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences"
1050,dr jorge l alvarado associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university recently gave an invited lecture on droplet impingement dynamics and surface cooling at rice university during the lecture alvarado revealed his recent findings in the physics of droplet impingement on heated surfaces he and his team recently published a paper in the international journal of heat and fluid flow in which they postulated a revised theoretical crown propagation model capable of predicting droplet impingement dynamics for a range of conditions his current research efforts are part of a project funded by the qatar national research foundation (qnrf) in which he and his collaborators at texas a&m university at qatar dr reza sadr and dr anoop kanjirakat are uncovering the fundamental physical processes taking place when microscale droplets impinge heated surfaces at high speed one of the long-term objectives of the study is to formulate efficient cooling strategies for microreactor cooling applications alvarado and his team have been able to develop a state-of-the-art facility for droplet impingement studies and are also conducting numerical studies to understand transient heat transfer phenomena in droplet impingement cases
1051,­­­ricci seguban has her hands full and thats putting it lightly the freshman general engineering student from washington is involved in numerous student organizations and extracurricular activities she said getting involved in engineering programs and university organizations has enriched her experience at texas a&m university and has given her a broader perspective on what shed like to accomplish in her career i like trying new things and learning from them she said it comes down to time management and figuring out a balance between your studies and extracurriculars segubans extracurricular activities when seguban isnt in class studying or taking pop-up classes at the engineering innovation center she might be found working with her fellow vex u teammates developing a robot design for their upcoming competition at rice university the team sponsored and mentored by the women in engineering (we) program has allowed seguban the opportunity to learn about computer programming i tried to self-teach myself computer languages coming into my freshman year but this is better because i c­­an get a solid understanding she said i wanted to learn more about coding here i can actually apply it while seguban plans to major in chemical or industrial engineering her interest in engineering is very broad her end goal she said is to find a job that allows her to design devices that will benefit people in developing countries ive always thought about that because my parents are from the philippines and thats a developing country she said in high school seguban participated in a summer project developing hypothetical solutions for people without access to clean water that is what initially sparked her interest i always felt like i wanted to do that to impact other countries that are less fortunate than we are she said a career like that goes beyond engineering and seguban would like to enroll in business classes and work with interdisciplinary teams to learn how to take an idea and turn it into a product in october seguban got a small taste of that she participated in aggies invent: conflict development and social entrepreneurship where her team was awarded an honorable mention for its elephant warning system through research the group learned that elephants create seismic waves in the ground when they walk by designing a device that could detect those waves and pinpoint the elephants location the lives of people and elephants could be saved the challenge focused specifically on botswana where elephants frequently trample people and as a result are frequently killed to eliminate danger segubans team came up with an idea to design a device that could detect those seismic waves in the ground and warn people that danger is near the team is now taking its invention to the next level and recruiting more students to develop a prototype that will eventually go to market seguban who once considered a career in journalism serves on the marketing team for the university honors community council giving her the opportunity to use communications skills she learned in her high school yearbook class then there is the philippine student association which allows her to mingle with other filipino students while she is away from her family in washington seguban is also a member of engineering honors and the society of women engineers (swe) and attends workshops provided by women in engineering she recently traveled to sugar land texas to volunteer with other swe members at the bel inizio 5k to benefit disadvantaged women when asked if shes involved in other groups seguban pauses for several seconds to think i think thats it she says laughing the benefits juggling so many activities isnt easy but seguban said it can be done next semester she plans to increase her course load shell probably cut back a little on some of her extracurricular activities and focus more on her studies then she said in the meantime seguban is enjoying the ride and making the most of her freshman year
1052,katie schneider was born on the same day that nasas shuttle sts-75 launched looking back on that it only seems fitting that her passion for aerospace engineering coincided with a nasa launch schneider continued her fascination with space and had a strong desire to work in the nasa mission control room when she grew up however in her teen years schneider switched tracks and planned to study business in college as a junior in high school schneider read about a new company spacex and how the private company was changing the aerospace industry reading the article reminded her that space wasnt dead and that private companies like spacex were revitalizing the industry during a time when nasa was cutting programs schneider refocused her goals and entered texas a&m university with the goal of becoming an aerospace engineer the projects most high school students are advised to be well-rounded and participate in a variety of activities to help prepare for college once in college students are taught to look to what future employers want in graduates engineering 111 taught schneider to do something in engineering that would take her degree to the next level schneider has been actively involved in entrepreneurship and innovation projects since then quadcopters gadgets and exciting potential projects drew schneider to her first semester of an engineering projects in communication service (epics) course she didnt get to work on the quadcopter project; instead she was on the aggie mini-power stations (amps) team for solar-based power stations on campus the amps project wasnt why she joined the course but it taught her something valuable; she was passionate about engineering outside of the space industry as well as teaching her how to work on teams and with industry sponsors the amps project has continued and the team hopes to have prototypes (solar-powered bus timetables) around the texas a&m campus before the end of the year schneider has moved to a different epics team but is proud of being a former amps team member this year schneider was placed on the boeing quadcopter project an experience she is grateful for the twist on this project is that her team is working with another team in the texas a&ms mays business school which is responsible for the economic and financial aspect of the quadcopter design together the two teams will be giving the final report to boeing on quadcopter use for package delivery services this is realistic after college we all have to work together and work with multiple industries said schneider its a great experience as a self-described space nut schneider jumped on the opportunity to be a part of aggies invent: 3-d printing in space her team clean sweep didnt win but she loved the experience aggies invent is a 48-hour intensive design experience where students get to interact get advice and present their ideas to leaders in industry providing a unique and beneficial experience for students solving a real-world problem schneider got to hear stories from astronauts and interact with some of her aerospace heroes the next venture schneider dove into was the spacex hyperloop pod competition schneider is the captain of a team designing a solution to the hyperloop transportation theory shes particularly excited for this event because the sponsor spacex is the company that revitalized her interest in space the design weekend of the competition is in january and being held on the texas a&m campus her teams proposal made the cut and will advance to the design weekend katie has done a great job in programs such as aggies invent and epics and it is exciting to see her engage in a variety of programs which provide her the knowledge and skills to support her career goals said magdalini lagoudas executive director for industry and nonprofit partnership the balancing act the real challenge for schneider is balancing all her activities and her schoolwork each of these projects takes hours per week in addition to the heavy course load typical of an aerospace engineering student schneider balances her achievements by breaking them into her primary and secondary goals first and foremost schneider works to maintain her scholarship and aerospace engineering honors-level gpa and then she allows herself to be immersed in engineering projects and activities schneider described herself as working hard to become a t-shaped engineer which is one of the colleges goals for students to have skills of both depth and breadth she serves as an aspire freshman mentor and is working toward an engineering project management certificate to continue developing her t-shaped engineering skills she keeps her busy schedule and still manages to be part of university honors schneider pushes herself and stays motivated in her engineering path because of her dream to someday be part of a space mission she knows that shes in a tough field thats why her advice to other students and future students is to stick with it and push through the tough times because of a passion for engineering the impact schneider knows that shes been offered a great opportunity by the university as a sophomore shes had the ability to be part of projects with other students and has even had the opportunity to lead project teams she said each project confirms her passion and love for engineering texas a&m has offered me this great opportunity she said youve never built anything thats ok; go build something anyway youve never used a 3-d printer go print something who would have thought that id actually get to do these things its so cool
1053,"ahad esmaeilian phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is the recipient of the 2016 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) industry applications society (ias) electrical safety prevention through design student engineering education initiative award the ieee ias student program awards talented and promising students who have a passion for electrical safety by subsidizing travel lodging and registration for participation in the ieee ias electrical safety workshop being accepted as a recipient is an honor and provides an opportunity to uniquely participate in the workings that shape the future of the electrical safety culture esmaeilian who is a research assistant for dr mladen kezunovic will present ""impact of major power grid blackouts prevention on electrical safety "" at the electric safety workshop in march esmaeilian received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the university of tehran in 2009 and 2011 respectively both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection smart-grid applications wide area monitoring and control he also received the conocophillips graduate fellowship earlier this year the electrical safety workshop is dedicated to changing the electrical safety culture its mission is to accelerate application of breakthrough improvements in human factors technology and managing systems that reduce risk of electrical injuries; stimulate innovation in overcoming barriers and change; and advance the electrical safety culture to enable sustainable improvements in prevention of electrical accidents and injuries"
1054,payman dehghanian phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently received several honors for his scholarly activities dehghanian was selected as one of the top 20 young scholars for next generation of researchers in power systems received a research grant scholarship award from the golden key international honor society and also received a love of learning award from the phi kappa phi honor society as a top 20 young power systems scholar dehghanian who is a research assistant for dr mladen kezunovic is considered one of the best young researchers of research groups and electrical engineering departments from universities around the globe who are in the final year of their phd or who have completed this degree within the last two years the research grant scholarship award allows recipients to conduct thesis research and/or present their research at professional conferences or student research symposia the love of learning award recognizes excellence in post-baccalaureate studies and/or career development dehghanian received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications as a top 20 young scholars for next generation of researchers in power systems recipient dehghanian will attend the 10th anniversary seminar for next generation of researchers in power systems in may at the university of manchester where he will present his research and be placed under creativity trainings to solve the major challenges of the future electricity grids golden key is the worlds largest collegiate honor society it includes the top 15 percent of college and university sophomores juniors and seniors as well as top-performing graduate students in all fields of study based solely on their academic achievements with more than two million members including honoraries like desmond tutu elie wiesel and bill clinton golden key carries an esteemed legacy of achievement the phi kappa phi honor society the nations oldest and most selective multidisciplinary collegiate honor society initiates more than 30 000 members a year on 300 campuses in the united states phi kappa phi recognizes and promotes academic excellence in all fields of higher education and engages the community of scholars in service to others
1055,safely packed in a custom foam box on board the cygnus spacecraft for the oa-4 international space station cargo resupply mission the aggiesat4 (ags4) a satellite constructed by students from texas a&m universitys aggiesat laboratory lifted off on december 6 to the international space station (iss) with the bevo-2 cubsat tucked safely inside oa-4 launched from space launch complex 41 at the cape canaveral air force station in florida once aboard the iss it will be stowed by the crew until the tentative deployment date of feb 22 prior to deployment the satellite will be attached to the nasa jsc space station integrated kinetic launcher for orbital payload systems (ssiklops) ejection system developed for use on the jem-ef robotic arm the satellite will be launched from the japanese airlock into outer space where once in an independent orbital trajectory bevo-2 a satellite constructed by students from the university of texas at austin will be released from ags4 the two satellites will then interact with each other transmitting information to a ground station at texas a&ms riverside campus the constructing of ags4 a 50-kilogram satellite was started in 2010 as the second mission of the low earth orbiting navigation experiment for spacecraft testing autonomous rendezvous and docking (lonestar) campaign sponsored by the aeroscience and flight mechanics division (afmd) at johnson space center (jsc) lonestar is a multi-year multi-mission collaborative program between texas a&ms aggiesat lab and the university of texas with the purpose of developing autonomous rendezvous and docking (ard) technologies ard will be utilized in future exploration programs for unmanned cargo vehicles and in assembly of future space structures data from lonestar will have a direct impact on the development of that capability for successful travel beyond low earth orbit to the moon mars and beyond the ability for two spacecraft to autonomously rendezvous and dock in space must be demonstrated the use of small satellites such as ags4 for research has become very popular because of tighter federal budgets and the availability of launch vehicles to transport them into space multiple satellites can be placed on one rocket and delivered into orbit this allows new technologies to be tested without putting them on larger much more expensive spacecraft were using these small satellites to demonstrate that they can go up they can maneuver around each other they can dock and undock and they can pass information back and forth and with the ground said dr helen reed director of the aggiesat lab and professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m lonestar is a low-cost low-risk project designed to prove that ard procedures can be performed successfully in space and it provides nasa with actual flight data that is directly linked to the space technology roadmap ta05 communication and navigation: position navigation and timing it will provide invaluable flight data for the global positioning system (gps) receiver designed strictly for space applications to demonstrate precision relative navigation and precision real-time navigation as well as orbit determination after bevo-2 is released from ags4 the two satellites will track and videotape each other passing information back and forth to calculate where they are the focus of the experiment is to demonstrate three-axis attitude determination and control (within two degrees) collect dragon carrier phase gps data capture video of bevo-2 release compute and crosslink relative navigation solutions and track bevo-2 texas a&m students will be tracking and collecting this information at the riverside ground station the experiment will test the detachment and cross-linked communication protocols between the two satellites and the ground stations additionally the flight serves as a technology demonstration platform for the relative navigation positioning and attitude control and translation systems there will be some long nights where were out there as the satellite passes overhead collecting data down from our satellite said reed the ags4 project is entirely student staffed and run with daily oversight from reed who serves as the primary contact with nasa graduate students lead manage and participate in all decisions and activities while a mix of undergraduate and graduate students from freshmen to phd candidates makes up the complete team we invite anybody on campus who has an interest in space to join us independent of what their major is said reed they dont have to be engineers the only requirement is that they be us residents per federal law a small satellite from concept to launch can be done in the order of three to four years so it fits very neatly into the average students timeline while they are at the university each incremental stage in the lonestar project benefits nasa by increasing the agencys knowledge of a currently emerging field where rapid development and cost-effective projects are a major focus for future projects they will take the technologies they have demonstrated in the past projects and build on their complexities for the next satellite to send into orbit the goal of getting small satellites to mate with larger objects in space opens all sorts of possibilities among them: on-orbit servicing of dead satellites in space objects coming together to make larger habitats in space as well as affixing to a piece of space junk and de-orbiting it out of harms way doing things autonomously with small missions is going to be especially important as we venture as humans out into the solar system and do these same kinds of tasks: building larger structures building habitats collecting information transmitting it back to earth things like this said reed these small satellites are really going to be game changers in our space mission about aggiesat lab aggiesat lab founded by dr helen reed is a student satellite program housed within the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university the goal of the lab is to develop and demonstrate modern technologies by using a small satellite platform while educating students and enriching the undergraduate experience the lab takes an integrated approach to small spacecraft research design-build-fly and education for multidisciplinary teams of freshmen through graduate students along with industry and government affiliates students are responsible for the design process from concept to end-of-mission students simultaneously pursue degrees and participate in a business environment with real-world deliverables quality-assurance checks documentation design and safety reviews and organization the goal is for students to gain hands-on mastery in current tools systems engineering and industry practices related to specification design analysis fabrication and testing of space vehicle systems while actively applying and extending complementary concepts taught in classes and making critical decisions the context for this program is in advancing small real satellites yet the skill set learned is applicable to a wide variety of disciplines and industries
1056,landon nash graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the best student paper award at the 9th ieee international conference on nano/molecular medicine and engineering (ieee-nanomed) nash who conducts research as part of the biomedical device laboratory headed by professor duncan maitland was recognized for his research focusing on a surface modification technique that increases the delivery time and clinical feasibility of catheter-based devices used to treat brain aneurysms nashs presentation detailed information from his research article characterization of plasma deposited hydrocarbon diffusion barriers for embolic foam devices which is in press with the scientific journal ieee transactions on nanobioscience nashs surface modification approach makes use of plasma-deposited hydrocarbon diffusion barriers that delay the moisture absorption rate of shape memory polymer foams (smps) without altering their thermo-mechanical properties this allows physicians a greater degree of control over the foams rate of expansion so that the foams can be delivered to targeted areas via a microcatheter and healing of the aneurysm can begin nash explains the biomedical device laboratory maitland notes develops a number of interventional devices including those based on smps research and development efforts include device fabrication characterization computational modeling biocompatibility and functional in vivo studies he says ieee-nanomed is one of the premier annual events organized by the ieee nanotechnology council to bring together physicians scientists and engineers from all over the world and every sector of academy and industry working at advancement of basic and clinical research in medical and biological sciences using nano/molecular and engineering methods ieee-nanomed enables practitioners to see nano/molecular medicine and engineering at work in both their own and related fields from essential and advanced scientific and engineering research and theory to translational and clinical research about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1057,the walls of dr william schneiders office are covered with awards highlighting his venerable career at nasa where he worked for 38 years before becoming a professor at texas a&m university schneider has been a faculty member in the department of mechanical engineering for the past 15 years his route to texas a&m started with a phone call from the former head of the nasa space program aaron cohen cohen had retired from nasa and was teaching the senior design capstone course in mechanical engineering at texas a&m at the time schneider was the senior engineer at nasa cohen thought that he would be well suited for the role and asked if he would be interested in the position ive always thought you would be an excellent teacher because you always taught the young people around you at nasa and they all learned well schneider recalls cohen saying during their conversation schneider interviewed and took the job and started teaching the senior design capstone project course schneider also teaches a number of engineering mechanics courses including statics and dynamics in the mechanical engineering department from humble beginnings schneider grew up in new orleans there was a time in his youth when his life trajectory was slated for a career in the national guard rather than in engineering his father thought that he needed 2 years of maturity that the guard would provide when i was in high school i was a poor student schneider said i wasnt very motivated but schneider was always fascinated with space i always knew since i was 10 that i wanted to be part of the space program of course they didnt have a space program then everything changed after schneider switched high schools to thibodaux college schneider became more motivated played on the football team and started excelling academically when louisiana state university (lsu) opened an engineering program in new orleans schneider saw it as an opportunity rather than joining the national guard he decided to give college a try and attended the university to study mechanical engineering one of the professors who inspired schneider at lsu was from germany he taught statics and dynamics schneider remembers the first day in the professors class will mr schneider stand up schneider recalls the teacher saying when schneider stood up the professor continued you will be the first in the class you will be the best in the class sit down this moment helped turn things around for schneider i was first in the class and it turns out that one of the courses i teach here is statics and dynamics schneider said i teach it like him because he was funny and joking but he taught the class very well when schneider was a senior in college he was introduced to dr maxine faget the director of engineering and development at nasa faget would eventually become schneiders boss and mentor at nasa the nasa days at nasa schneider rose to become the senior engineer and was one of the six individuals at nasa who could sign off on mission flight readiness he was also known as the go-to guy for design challenges others found impossible in one memorable instance his team designed in six weeks an inflatable spacecraft for habitat on mars this prototype was completed faster than the previous design team and was half the weight the inflatable spacecraft went from prototype to reality in 2000 when a billionaire from las vegas robert bigelow wanted to be the first to create hotels in space working with schneider bigelow aerospace successfully launched the first inflatable habitat genesis i that inflatable spacecraft the genesis 1 is still up there now schneider says genesis ii spacecraft was launched in the same year both have been in orbit around earth for the past 10 years weathering micro-meteors and solar flares they continue to maintain internal pressure raising the possibility that someday people might live in space a new technology frontier with hyperloop the hyperloop design competition by spacex is a national and international design challenge which combines advanced aerospace and propulsion technologies if successful it could provide an alternative mass transportation mode in addition to airplanes automobiles and trains texas a&m university was selected to host the 2016 spacex hyperloop pod competition design weekend on january 29 – 30 2016 teams from around the country and world will get a chance to present their design concepts in the memorial student center at texas a&m university conceptually the design requirement is simple but not necessarily easy: design a vehicle a pod that can carry 28 passengers at 760 mph just below the speed of sound at this speed a trip from los angeles to san francisco would take just 30 minutes this new mode of transportation would be faster than the two-hour flight or the six-hour drive it could also be less expensive the pod travels in a tube with pressure about one hundredth of the pressure outside the window in a commercial airplane flight this reduces resistance letting the pod travel faster design teams can comprise of students engineering professionals scientists and other interested individuals texas a&m also has a formal design course engr 401 interdisciplinary design where students can compete in the hyperloop competition while fulfilling the requirements for the required senior design capstone course when texas a&m university was selected to host the 2016 hyperloop design competition schneider was a natural fit to lead the senior design class of interdisciplinary engineering students schneider teaches the course with dr andrea strzelec also a professor in mechanical engineering if i had three weeks me and two other guys could do the whole thing but our goal is to teach the students schneider said they all volunteered to be in this class so im teaching them how to do the needs statement and function structure now we are at the point where we are coming with various concepts preparing aggies schneiders goal has long been to impart knowledge to engineering students the hyperloop competition is a vehicle to impart this knowledge my main goal is to teach the students secondary is the design competition he said with 14 patents schneider is well qualified to do so schneider is very familiar with the design process when he was at nasa 20 years ago charged with the re-design of the mars inflatable spacecraft the previous team had designed it out of aluminum so it was very heavy although several material choices including graphite-epoxy were suggested to schneider and his team he started the design process by asking the question what do you want it to do based on the answer to that first question his team was able to design a successful inflatable spacecraft prototype both of which are still in orbit around the earth today this design perspective is shared with students in the engr 401 interdisciplinary design course the design process for the hyperloop pod follows the development of a needs statement that guides designers to better understand the problem it is about asking the right questions schneider said which allows you to define a needs statement that is a summary of the problem that can easily be explained in a few sentences for giang do a senior electrical engineering student in engr 401 the design approach is her biggest takeaway from the class dr schneider says that we will tackle all sorts of designs in our career do said the design process allows you to clear out the murky ideas but it doesnt limit your creativity at the spacex hyperloop design weekend which took place in january two engr 401 design teams will be presented their design concepts along with other teams teams which were selected will advance and build their pods and test their design at the spacex hyperloop test track in hawthorne california during summer 2016 i would want them to see that what we perceive as unattainable is possible we just limit ourselves based on the little knowledge that we have or even based on others peoples perception do said classmates justin benden a senior mechanical engineering major and kenneth mcdole a senior electrical engineering major believe they were able to represent texas a&m well and show that the proof of concept is feasible i want a&m to be separated from the other teams to show that we went above and beyond their expectations benden said we didnt just do what they asked but rather we came up with our own concepts mcdole added i want [the concept] to be more of an inspiration for kids in high school and for a&m to be proof that this can happen on schneiders wall hangs a picture of him underneath the space shuttle columbia which he worked on for 7 years at nasa the picture was taken by dr faget who recruited him to nasa it reminds him of the values instilled in him as a young engineer at nasa these values and the spirit of innovation have not been forgotten by schneider and through him they will be passed on to the next generation of engineers
1058,nearly 6 000 students packed texas a&m universitys reed arena on tuesday and wednesday (jan 26 and 27) hoping to secure jobs and internships that will put their engineering careers on the right track after graduation the annual student engineers council (sec) spring career fair brought in 288 companies and more than 1 000 recruiters all hoping to hire talented aggies according to sec co-chair and chemical engineering student paige stubbings more than 50 percent of seniors find fulltime jobs as a result of the student-run career fair in the end thats what makes all the hard work worth it she said as an aggie getting to give back to the other students getting to see people find their jobs find where their lives really start­ is really great she said getting to see them succeed and to show companies the a&m spirit what our core values are really about thats really why i do it sec president andrew west said he received positive feedback from recruiters and students alike i think regardless of whether youre a freshman or a senior the career fair is just as important he said freshmen will sometimes have the idea that theyre not going to get an internship or that companies might not be interested in them because theyre just a freshman and they dont necessarily have a degree attached to them but its just as important to come to promote yourself and learn to market yourself co-chair claire fiorenzi a sophomore completed an internship last summer as a result of the career fair shell be an intern at another company this summer too i really feel this is my way to give back to the other students to really help them get the kind of experiences i got she said i always encourage every freshman i meet to come to the career fair because even if the company may not be considering freshmen its still a great way to network west said many of the recruiters return year after year creating an opportunity for students to demonstrate their individual growth and success your ultimate goal when you graduate is to have a job he said this is of the utmost importance its about interacting with companies its about those skills that you get having face-to-face interactions with recruiters will help you in interviews those skills will also help students once they enter the workforce too he said thats what youre going to be doing is interacting with professionals he said the preparation for the spring career fair one of the largest student-run engineering career fairs in the nation began the day after the fall career fair ended last september the sec encourages students to use resources available at the texas a&m career center including resumé writing workshops mock interviews dress code advice and more for more information visit the sec website
1059,the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university recently hosted dredging engineering and cutter suction dredge simulator short courses fifty-seven participants from across the united states and as far as canada and brazil attended the weeklong dredging engineering short course representing consulting firms the corps of engineers dredging contractors ports and state agencies six dredge operators and project engineers from weeks marine newt marine and dredge central attended the cutter suction dredge simulator course the dredging course familiarized participants with the fundamentals of dredging technical aspects of dredging projects dredged material placement beneficial use cost estimating advance survey environment laws contaminated sediment dredging and capping and various case studies the cutter suction dredge simulator course provided the opportunity for dredge operators to operate a computerized dredge simulator that demonstrates the fundamental limitations of a cutter suction dredge dr robert randall bauer professor and director of the center for dredging studies led the dredging course twenty lecturers from academia consultants the corps of engineers and dredge contractors assisted him peter s dejong president of digital automation & control systems inc and randall co-directed the cutter suction dredge simulator course a geotechnical and dredging laboratory was part of the short course experience in the early years the dredging course only addressed dredging fundamentals and dredged material placement options environmental laws management and surveying said randall in the 1990s dredging and handling contaminated sediments began to be addressed modeling of dredged material placement with computer simulations to demonstrate conformance to environmental regulations were added we discuss the treatment and separation of dredged material dr john b hubrich established the center for dredging studies in 1968 in addition to research and industrial testing the center's activities include teaching university courses and providing annual seminars and short courses concerning advances in dredging engineering technology more than 2 000 dredge professionals have participated in the dredging course and approximately 150 have been trained on the dredge simulators
1060,dr stratos pistikopoulos associate director of the texas a&m energy institute and tees distinguished research professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been named editor-in-chief of the journal computers & chemical engineering computers & chemical engineering is primarily a journal of record for new developments in process systems engineering and the application of computing and systems technology to chemical engineering problems serving as an editor of the journal since 2010 pistikopoulos has handled manuscripts in the areas of modeling control and optimization of process and energy and systems engineering applications he earned a phd in chemical engineering from carnegie mellon university under the supervision of professor ignacio e grossmann in 1988 and he worked for shell chemicals in amsterdam until 1991 for the next 24 years (1991-2015) he was at imperial college london where he was a professor of chemical engineering and the director of its centre for process systems engineering between 2002 and 2009 he has authored or co-authored more than 350 major research publications in the areas of modeling control and optimization of process energy and systems engineering applications and he has co-edited 10 books and holds two patents he is co-founder of process systems enterprise (pse) limited and a founder of parametric optimization solutions (paros) limited pistikopoulos research interests lie in the field of process and multi-scale systems engineering with particular emphasis on the developments of model-based optimization theory and computational tools for multi-parametric programming and explicit model predictive control and an integrated framework for design control and scheduling of complex multi-scale networks with applications in sustainable energy systems smart manufacturing and personalized healthcare systems engineering he is a fellow of the royal academy of engineering uk he is a fellow of the institution of chemical engineers co-editor of the book series in computer aided chemical engineering (elsevier) and process systems engineering (wiley-vch) and he is on the editorial boards of the journal of global optimization energy systems and the journal of computational management science
1061,roland gordon alumnus of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has been promoted to president of winsupply inc roland has a strong financial background and brings a broad array of experiences and success in leadership said jack johnston ceo of winsupply gordon has served as chief financial officer for winsupply since 2011 the company is a supplier of residential and commercial construction and industrial supplies and materials to a diversified customer base gordon received a master of industrial distribution degree in 2013 from texas a&m
1062,tamara becejac and payman dehghanian graduate students in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university each received an international student services scholarship from texas a&m for scholastic accomplishments and academic excellence becejac and dehghanian students of dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department received the international education fee scholarship (iefs) for the spring 2016 semester the purpose of this scholarship is to assist texas a&m students with the cost of an international educational experience becejac received her bachelor's degree from the university of novi sad in 2011 and her master's degree from the university of novi sad in 2014 both in electrical engineering her research interests include power system protection and control smart electricity grid solutions synchrophasor technology and applications in power system as well as big data analytics her honors include receiving the best project poster award at the power system engineering research center (pserc) industry advisory board meeting dehghanian received his bachelors degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his masters degree from sharif university in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications dehghanians recent honors include being selected as one of the top 20 young scholars for next generation of researchers in power systems a research grant scholarship award from the golden key international honor society and the 2015 aggies commit fellowship from the texas a&m graduate and professional student council the iefs scholarship was first awarded in the fall semester of 1991 awards are based on merit such factors as academic achievement leadership extracurricular activities awards and honors employment and community service applicants must be enrolled at texas a&m and must be a full time student in order to be considered for the scholarship
1063,the aggiesat4 (ags4) satellite carrying bevo-2 was unpacked and assembled aboard the international space station (iss) on wednesday (jan 27) and will be released into outer space on friday (jan 29) aggiesat4 launched from cape canaveral air force station in florida for the iss on last month once unpacked two astronauts will install the cyclops deployment mechanism on the jem slide table and then install ags4 onto cyclops the cyclops experiment attachment fixture (eaf) is attached to the large cylindrical cyclops standoff on the bottom of ags4 the eaf will be used to lock ags4 onto the deployment table which will release the satellite from the iss nasa-jsc engineers designed the cyclops mechanism and the eaf as a means of expanding the number of satellites that could be deployed from the iss cyclops can accommodate satellites of about 50 kilograms and to date has successfully deployed one other micro-satellite known as spinsat the deployment activities scheduled for friday include capturing cyclops with the jem remote manipulator system maneuvering cyclops to the deployment location and final deployment of ags4 from cyclops an example of the deployment mechanism can be seen at https://wwwyoutubecom/watchv=ygvme7rocaw there are four switches embedded on the cyclops eaf that inhibit ags4 from turning the first event that will occur after deployment will be the release of these inhibits once these inhibits are removed the electronic power system (eps) starts and initiates a 10 minute timer after the timer ends the command and data handling system starts and initiates a checkout of every system on ags4 when complete ags4 will begin sending a signal to earth with its low data rate (ldr) radio indicating that it is alive and well the team expects to start receiving signals from ags4 on friday evening several days after the release of ags4 and upon verification that all systems are running correctly the satellite will power on its torque coils and detumble itself the torque coils generate a strong magnetic field that will orient ags4 along the magnetic field of the earth there are three torque coils on board giving full 3-axis motion the detumble process will negate any rotation imparted on ags4 by the cyclops deployment mechanism and orient ags4 for optimal data downlinking once this is done data from the satellite can be downloaded faster and all necessary software patches can be uplinked to ags4 thirty-one days after the deployment of aggiesat4 a timer will end preventing the bevo-2 operations phase from initiating once this timer has ended and the team has concurrence with the nasa payload operations and integration console (poic) ags4 will deploy the texas spacecraft laboratory bevo-2 satellite as soon as the deployment occurs aggiesat4 will begin capturing images of the separation of the two spacecraft the two satellites will then begin sending each other their relative positions in space after several hours the spacecraft will be too far apart to continue operations and this phase of the mission will end this is ultimately the entire point of sending lonestar-2 into orbit; it is a test of the systems that would go on a future fully autonomous rendezvous and docking (ard) mission which is the goal of the lonestar campaign the aggiesat4 team has been busy preparing for the deployment setting up the aggiesat ground station at texas a&m universitys riverside campus three antennas have been installed that will be used to communicate with ags4 while it orbits earth and collects valuable mission data one of the ldr antennas has been tested and was able to receive a signal from the same type of handheld radio that is on board the satellite this antenna will be the main receiver of data transmitted from ags4 while in orbit the team is working to ensure the other two antennas transmit and receive properly and then will raise them to the top of the truss structure they are currently mounted on dr helen reed professor in the department of aerospace engineering and the aggiesat team members will be at nasa johnson space center in houston for the installation and deployment activities team members dexter becklund and andrew tucker will be in mission evaluation room at iss mission control to assist the astronauts with unpacking assembly procedures and any queries aggiesat team members include adelin destain david alfano dexter becklund ryan campbell jake cooper daniel ghan michelle gilbert hyder hasan andy holm alex hutson mitchel mcdonald sig salinas robert singletary and andrew tucker
1064,more than 120 teams including seven from texas a&m university will take part in the spacex hyperloop pod competition design weekend on friday and saturday (jan 29 and 30) on the campus of texas a&m more than 1 000 students representing more than 100 universities and three high schools will present their hyperloop pod design concepts to judges vying for a chance to build and test their design prototype the hyperloop is a high-speed ground transport concept that was first proposed by spacex and tesla motors co-founder elon musk in 2013 with the hyperloop passengers could travel from los angeles to san francisco in under 30 minutes radically transforming the speed and safety of passenger mass transit the design weekend teams were selected by spacex from hundreds of entries to present their concepts to a panel of spacex tesla and university judges for a chance to build and test their design prototype the final phase of the hyperloop competition will be held in the summer of 2016 im nervous said nick hemstreet a computer engineering major and part of texas a&ms hyperwhoop team i dont like waiting and now that weve submitted it i just want to know but im mostly excited about talking to industry people about how to improve our design and walking around and talking to other teams about what theyve done we really havent gotten much public feedback yet so finally letting everyone see what weve been working on is going to be great us secretary of transportation anthony foxx will discuss the future of transportation during a private event for student teams held during the weekend in conjunction with the competition texas a&m will also host a futuristic transportation display and demo for the students in the hall of champions at kyle field with a hendo hoverboard oculus rift technology and an f22 cockpit im excited to see what everyone else does said katie schneider an aerospace engineering major and member of team hyperwhoop the fact that this is going to have stuff for the public to catch peoples attention i think thats going to be awesome
1065,"dr jeff huang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has received a five-year national science foundation (nsf) faculty early career development (career) award for his research in debugging concurrency related software defects the nsf awards the prestigious career grants to outstanding junior faculty members to help them advance their research and teaching activities huangs project scalable and maximal concurrency debugging will continue through january 2021 concurrency related software defects or bugs are among the most expensive and dangerous in practice and have become a major threat to the reliability and security of safety-critical systems and the nations critical infrastructure said huang ""however detecting and fixing these defects are very challenging i aim to develop new theoretical and algorithmic advances and build practical automated tools to help developers detect and understand concurrency bugs earlier and fix them safer and faster huangs career research will investigate solutions to four major research questions on concurrency debugging: how to reproduce failures in long running concurrent programs with minimal runtime perturbation and overhead; how to detect concurrency bugs at the maximum ability and with no false alarms even under limited observation; how to accurately identify the failures root cause and how to effectively simplify concurrency bugs and speed up their reproduction; and how to fix concurrency bugs without introducing deadlocks or unnecessary performance degradation and how to effectively validate the correctness of fixes the broader significance and importance of this project is to help produce more reliable secure and economical software systems and infrastructure remove concurrency related vulnerabilities and strengthen science technology education and mathematics (stem) education on software debugging which is a critical but lacking aspect of todays software engineering education huang joined the faculty at texas a&m in fall 2014 he was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign after completing his phd in computer science from hong kong university of science and technology in 2012 and his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from national university of defense technology china in 2008 among huang's many honors are a 2015 google faculty research award a 2013 distinguished paper award from acm sigplan conference on programming language design and implementation (pldi) which was selected as one of the nine acm sigplan research highlights papers in 2013 and the 2013 acm sigsoft outstanding dissertation award which recognizes the author of one outstanding doctoral dissertation in the area of software engineering annually the nsf established the career program to support junior faculty within the context of their overall career development combining in a single program the support of research and education of the highest quality in the broadest sense through this program the nsf emphasizes the importance of the early development of academic careers dedicated to simulating the discovery process in which the excitement of research is enhanced by inspired teaching and enthusiastic learning for more on the nsf and the career program visit the nsf website"
1066,texas a&m university at qatar hosted experts from around the world for the annual qafco – texas a&m university at qatar conference 2016 the 2016 conference was the eighth presented in cooperation with texas a&m at qatars longtime industry collaborator the qatar fertiliser co (qafco) this important conference highlights the pressing need for industry and academia to work together to develop new knowledge and create scientific solutions that have direct impact on the world around us said dr ann kenimer texas a&m at qatar interim dean qafco has been a steadfast and dynamic partner to texas a&m at qatar through the years and i thank qafco for its unwavering belief in the strength of our academic and research programs our faculty and our current and former students this years conference focused on managing co2 and renewable energies conference co-chair and texas a&m at qatar chemical engineering professor dr konstantinos kakosimos said that developing technology industry and commercial applications have led to an increase in overall energy consumption which has in turn led to two important problems: energy resources and environmental pollution with fossil fuels such as oil and gas diminishing renewable energy is more important than ever but renewables energy such as wind and solar are limited by daylight hours or windy conditions at the same time pollution caused by the consumption of fossil fuels mainly due to the high emission of greenhouse gases such as co2 results in a series of problems such as global warming and poor air quality conference organizers said that given this dilemma it is imperative to find new ways of managing co2 to make emissions friendlier to the environment and our health qafco ceo khalifa al-sowaidi said the qafco – texas a&m conference 2016 is a confluence of ideas i believe conferences such as these can help give better insights into issues wherein institutional learnings of industry and academia can mutually benefit i hope the conference becomes the platform for sharing ideas to find solutions for short and long-term issues facing us the conference featured an impressive technical program and sessions showcased opinions and research from some of the worlds most respected names in managing co2 and energy it also provided a forum for the exchange of ideas and opportunities for future collaborations konstantinos said we are proud to have had prof michael graetzel director of the laboratory of photonics and interfaces in the institute of chemical science and engineering at the ecole polytechique féderale de lausanne (switzerland) as keynote speaker this year and were pleased to welcome our 14 distinguished invited speakers from the united states europe asia and middle east we hope this conference has been an outlet for exchanging scientific knowledge sharing ideas discussing future collaborations and building new projects this annual conference reaffirms our pursuits of cutting-edge chemistry and chemical engineering research in qatar and the region
1067,ooredoo qatar university and texas a&m university at qatar have signed a major new research agreement to support innovation and development in qatar and across the wider region the agreement will support research in key areas including fast deployable wireless communication systems for disaster and emergency response; innovations of green radio access technologies in wireless communications; tele-health and applications; wireless communications for next-generation power grids; and stadium communications in particular the studies will examine areas that will have a positive social economic and educational impact on the wider community data generated by the initiative will make an important contribution to wider efforts to make qatar one of the best-connected countries in the world and a hub for smart solutions dr ann kenimer texas a&m at qatar interim dean and coo said: we are committed to enabling students to lead the next generation of engineering discovery and collaborations such as this give us the platform to inspire our students in todays world next-generation wireless networks are providing the foundation for a new range of smart solutions that transform homes communities and even nations this research partnership will make a significant contribution to global understanding of network technology as qatar continues to build its position as a worldwide communication hub during the press conference announcing the agreement kenimer also thanked texas a&m at qatars dr khalid qaraqe for his work with the branch campus long-term partners ooredoo and qatar university in establishing this important initiative qaraqe is professor in the electrical and computer engineering program and managing director of the tees center for remote healthcare technology extension in qatar waleed al-sayed ceo of ooredoo qatar said our commitment to research development and supporting the education sector is one of the ways that ooredoo supports innovation and the growth of the knowledge-based economy by partnering with these globally respected institutions we are helping place qatari students at the cutting edge of research and development in the field of wireless communication ooredoos supernet has been designed to expand and grow into one of the best in the world and we will share the lessons from its implementation with our academic partners ooredoos sponsorship will provide the opportunity for qu and texas a&m at qatar students to be exposed to the telecom industry and be engaged in real-world experiences during their academic studies in preparation for their future careers the sponsorship was also designed to foster research and development in qatar and contribute towards the countrys development and technological advancement by inviting students to participate ooredoo said it hopes to produce the countrys future leaders who are equipped with hands-on knowledge of next-generation technology such as 5g and even faster networks dr hassan al-derham qatar university president said partnering with ooredoo and texas a&m at qatar will once again support our students in producing pioneering research qatar university is committed to enabling young people to give back to the country while developing their skillsets and knowledge we look forward to working with these two partners as we expand the boundaries of what next generation networks can deliver for qatar the agreement is the latest in a long history of collaborations between the three institutions the most notable being the 2005 and 2008 agreement for collaborative research into third-generation (3g) and fourth-generation (4g) networks and hspa-lte (high speed packet access-long term evolution) for next-generation networks technologies and services and research and development which was the first of its kind in the middle east
1068,"dr sp bhattacharyya professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was invited to give several lectures at two leading universities in taiwan the ministry of science and technology in taiwan invited bhattacharyya the robert m kennedy '26 professor i in the department to give five lectures on his latest results on multivariable control as well as a short course on ""measurement based model free engineering design "" at national cheng kung university and national chião tung university during his trip bhattacharyya also visited a control engineering industry designing motor drives and the advanced rocket research center group in taiwan bhattacharyya was elected a foreign member of the national academy of engineering in brazil in 2015 he obtained his btech degree from iit bombay in 1967 and his phd from rice university in 1971 he joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1980 he has co-authored eight books and nearly 300 papers in the field of control systems was elected ieee fellow in 1989 ifac fellow in 2011 and was named a foreign member of the brazilian academy of sciences in 2012"
1069,the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university currently has 13 full-time professors at the texas a&m university at qatar campus each year dr andreas polycarpou head of texas a&ms department of mechanical engineering works with the program chair for the qatar program to select one faculty member to travel to the college station texas campus to conduct research and teach current mechanical engineering students through this exchange professors from both campuses have the opportunity to work in world class facilities work with students from around the world and continue to add to the engineering knowledge base for the 2015 academic year dr bilal mansoor an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at qatar was selected to come to college station and conduct his research on multifunctional materials there is great interest in designing new light-weight structural materials that not only have high strength and stiffness attributes but also possess other unique properties that can be tailored precisely to their intended use nature offers many examples of structural materials that adequately perform multiple important functions an example of this is the human bone with a complex mix of compact and porous internal architecture not only does it provide the structural stability necessary to keep humans standing upright it also helps in blood cell production mineral storage and more essential life functions mansoor is the director of the multifunctional materials and manufacturing laboratory (m3l) the laboratorys research is seeking to understand the interplay between structural characteristics and behavior of novel multifunctional materials under different loads and extreme environments the m3l team is currently utilizing funds from multiple qatar national research fund grants to develop new multifunctional materials and related manufacturing technologies which seek to emulate the intricate designs found in nature the research team is currently working on hybrid metallic foams with potential applications in transportation medicine and energy storage and conversion industries metallic foams are extremely expensive and are only used in some niche commercial applications the research on metallic foams is heavily focused on the foaming process to create metallic foams with nature inspired controlled porous architectures in addition the m3l researchers are working to develop a novel manufacturing process to create intricate geometry metallic foam parts at high volumes and low cost for practical applications once established this novel manufacturing method will promote the use of metallic foams in a range of important applications such as energy absorbing crash structures heat exchangers vibration dampers filters catalysts thermal insulation and biomedical implants for bone and tissue ingrowth mansoor believes materials with multi-functional properties are the building blocks of the future and will have significant future economic and societal relevance use of these materials will allow engineers to develop cheaper more efficient designs that will significantly reduce our carbon footprint
1070,according to the united states department of labor the average expected salary of a mechanical engineer is $80 580 per year in fiscal year 2014 the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university issued 349 degrees to students who completed the rigorous curriculum the mechanical engineering department works diligently to ensure its students understand the fundamentals and principles of engineering they will be tasked with knowing as they transition into their professional careers to foster idea exchanges between academia and the industries in which its students work department leadership and key faculty members meet bi-annually with the mechanical engineering departments industry advisory council (iac) which is comprised of graduates who have proven track records with various industries the iac consist of 30 to 35 former students who volunteer their time to keep the department informed of the challenges they face each day in their respective fields members of the iac are selected for their leadership accomplishments and willingness to support the mission of the council which is to support the department and mechanical engineering students quentin baker industry advisory council chair said the iac is a valuable asset for the department as our mission is to provide a real world connection to the challenges the engineering profession is facing the iac proactively supports the department in research networking and resource development during our meetings we enjoy interacting with mechanical engineering students and we work diligently to provide support to student engineering organizations that desire industry sponsorship during the event the council breaks out into four sub-committees to discuss subjects such as current student development faculty and industry partnerships current goals of the department and former student engagement brenda hightower iac member said we do a really good job of reaching out to our former students and alumni and keeping them engaged through the foundation its our goal in the iac to improve on the relationship with all of our mechanical engineering graduates regardless of if they graduated in 2015 or 1915 as part of the iacs bi-annual meetings dr andreas polycarpou head of the department of mechanical engineering outlines the departments current goals and interacts with the members throughout the day interacting with the iac allows me to ensure our department is truly preparing students for the challenges they will face in their engineering professions said polycarpou its also a time for us to highlight the achievements and successes of our faculty staff and students as we strive to be a preeminent mechanical engineering department the iac meeting concluded with a tour of the new collaboration space recently opened in the james j cain 51 building the space offers students resources such as multiple electrical outlets installed near couches and chairs dry erase white boards and bluetooth enabled monitors when the space is completed the project presentation space will have enough room for students to present industry-sponsored projects for classes such as mechanical engineering 401 402 or 404 it was imperative we show the iac members this space polycarpou said this a phenomenal example of the department understanding students must have adequate space to present their engineering projects to their industry sponsors
1071,for more information on the iac contact: jeremy quast director of development 9798621517 jquast@txamfoundationcom or annette forst assistant director of development 9798627837 aforst@txamfoundationcom
1072,when treating cancer time is the most important variable available for both the patient and the doctor time allows doctors to increase the knowledge of the specific cancer plaguing a patient time allows for improvements in medications and technologies used as part of a prescribed treatment plan for the individual battling the cancer every second spent post-diagnosis is counted as if it could be the last according to the american cancer societys (acs) 2015 facts and figures there will be an estimated 1 658 370 new cancer cases diagnosed in 2015 and 589 430 cancer deaths in the united states the acs also estimates that in the next 15 years cancer will surpass heart disease as the most common cause of death the increase of new diagnoses will demand that researchers develop new treatments to administer to patients fighting for more time between diagnoses and treatments dr yong joe-kim director of the acoustics & signal processing laboratory at texas a&m university and his students are conducting research that seeks to develop a method of cancer detection that identifies the mechanical properties of cancer cells kim who is an associate professor and pioneer natural resources faculty fellow ii in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m and his team are utilizing a national science foundation (nsf) grant kims team worked with students from the nanobio systems laboratory which is directed by dr arum han associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m to develop an acoustic manipulation device the device has the potential to decrease the amount of time needed to determine the effectiveness of a treatment the acoustophoretic microfluidics device the team built allows it to utilize the pressure generated in the small device to manipulate small fluid samples such as blood drawn during an examination the device introduces an acoustic vibration to the sample causing the unique mechanical properties of each cell to react differently since mechanical properties such as compressibility size density and the response to sound waves are unique for each cell in the human body the cells reactions to the device can be viewed under a microscope allowing for clearer identification of cancerous cells this is different from the current cancer detection methods as we are identifying how a cancer cell is behaving based on its mechanical properties in response to a specific treatment said kim for generations the fight against cancer saw little changes in the standard treatment plans after diagnosis patients are subjected to hours of surgeries chemotherapy and radiation all of which have the potential to do harm to healthy tissue and cells in the human body the mechanical properties of the cancer cells when shaken using acoustic wave excitations in the sub-millimeter acoustophoretic microfluidic device causes them to act uniquely different from healthy cells in the blood sample said kim based on the reactions to the vibration a patients treatment plan could be adjusted in response to a medication given days prior the team is interested in continuing the research and developing a commercially viable acoustophoretic microfluidics device if successful the researchers will potentially develop a viable label-free separation technique with a lower operation cost than current methods most importantly the device will significantly decrease the time spent on ineffective treatments and buy more time for the patient in its current state the device has not been approved for human trials however kim is optimistic that the team is on a path to develop a device that would drastically change the current landscape of cancer detection kims research has provided mechanical engineering students an interdisciplinary research opportunity combining acoustics microfluidics lab-on-a-chip biology and computational physics we have proven the viability for analyzing the biophysical properties of cancer cells said kim as we continue the research we anticipate developing modeling methods that will significantly advance the design of acoustophoretic microfluidic systems
1073,five undergraduate students in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded the george bush presidential library foundation undergraduate student travel grant by the george bush foundation in recognition of their exemplary academic records as recipients mikayla barry alexandra easley kendall ezell jacob gunnar livingston and lauren whitney each will receive grants in support of travel to conferences research projects study or internships in the united states and abroad the george bush foundation undergraduate student travel grant program is designed to provide educational opportunities to full-time undergraduate students from each of the academic colleges at texas a&m for various educational opportunities through their participation in undergraduate research global initiatives and our ‘passion with compassion outreach program our biomedical engineering undergraduates are broadening their co-curriculum activities beyond the confines of the campus said anthony guiseppi-elie tees professor and head of the department of biomedical engineering the george bush presidential library foundation undergraduate student travel grant is an excellent instrument to foster such broader impacts established in 1991 the george bush foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the historic legacy of george bush 41st president of the united states and supporting the george bush presidential library and museum the bush school of government and public service at texas a&m and the community through exhibits lectures and special events the george bush foundation works to foster a devotion to the noble calling of public service about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1074,dr bonnie j dunbar retired nasa astronaut engineer and educator has joined texas a&m engineering as a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor in the department of aerospace engineering she also has a joint appointment as the director of the tees institute of engineering education and innovation (ieei) dunbar who is a member of the prestigious national academy of engineering comes to texas a&m from the university of houston where she provided leadership in the development of a new integrated university science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) center she was an md anderson professor of mechanical engineering and she developed a new innovative course for the introduction of engineering to freshmen students she also directed the sicsa space architecture graduate program she has devoted her life to furthering engineering engineering education and the pursuit of human space exploration dunbar worked for the rockwell international space division company building space shuttle columbia and worked for 27 years at nasa first as a flight controller; then as a mission specialist astronaut where she flew five space shuttle flights logging more than 50 days in space; and then as member of the senior executive service (ses) her executive service included assistant nasa jsc director for university research; deputy director for flight crew operations; and as nasa headquarters deputy associate administrator for the office of life and microgravity sciences and applications (olmsa) after retiring from nasa dunbar became president and ceo of the museum of flight in seattle where she established a new space gallery and expanded its k12 stem educational offerings she has also consulted in aerospace and stem education as the president of dunbar international llc and is an internationally known public speaker dunbar holds bachelors and masters degrees in ceramic engineering from the university of washington and a phd in mechanical/biomedical engineering from the university of houston she is a fellow of the american ceramic society the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and the royal aeronautical society she has been awarded the nasa space flight medal five times the nasa exceptional leadership medal and the nasa distinguished service medal dunbar was inducted into the royal society of edinburgh and in 2002 was elected to the us national academy of engineering in 2013 she was selected into the astronaut hall of fame
1075,raymundo arróyave associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed associate editor of the journal of materials science he began his new role this month the journal of materials science is one of the premier multidisciplinary materials science journals and reaches a large cross section of the materials science community said arróyave i am honored to have been invited to serve as associate editor arróyave currently serves as vice-chair of asm internationals alloy phase diagram committee and vice-chair of the functional materials division in tms he was appointed to be associate editor of the journal of phase equilibria and diffusion in 2015 the journal of materials science publishes reviews full-length papers and short communications recording original research results on or techniques for studying the relationship between structure properties and uses of materials the subjects are seen from international and interdisciplinary perspectives covering areas including metals ceramics glasses polymers electrical materials composite materials fibers nanostructured materials nanocomposites and biological and biomedical materials
1076,the texas a&m foundations board of trustees recently announced the selection of tyson voelkel as its new president the us army veteran and 1996 industrial distribution graduate of texas a&m university will take office on wednesday (jan 20) as head of the universitys major-gift fundraising entity he will oversee the recently launched $4 billion lead by example campaign succeeding longtime foundation president ed davis the trustees are very pleased that tyson has agreed to accept the position of president of the foundation said george hickox board chairman he brings a remarkable set of skills and accomplishments to the job and a truly extraordinary passion for texas a&m university that will resonate with the staff and all of the other constituencies of the foundation voelkels organizational leadership asset management knowledge and diverse educational experience helped lead to his selection his aggie spirit runs deep with roots that took hold as a leader in the corps of cadets and fightin texas aggie band student government traditions council and other undergraduate activities voelkel served as corps commander the groups highest ranking member his senior year after earning his bachelors degree in industrial distribution from texas a&ms college of engineering voelkel began a distinguished 14-year career as an army infantry officer in the united states europe and the middle east he served in iraq twice as a company commander in the 325th airborne infantry regiment and earlier as a brigade assistant operations officer in the 82nd airborne division he earned numerous awards including two bronze stars in iraq the department of the army macarthur leadership award (one of 13 awarded army-wide) army ranger and airborne qualification badges and the combat infantrymans badge voelkel was selected by the army in 2005 for a fully funded graduate fellowship at the bush school of government and public service as he earned a masters degree in international affairs he served as the first student regent on the texas a&m board of regents after graduation he taught leadership and ethics at the us military academy at west point and was an assistant coach for the military academy triathlon team in 2011 while serving as executive officer to the commanding general of the 75th division in houston voelkel completed the executive master of business administration program at rice university since leaving the military in 2012 voelkel has worked with private wealth management firms that serve high net worth investors most recently he founded testudo consulting group a boutique consultancy focused on building managing and advising high net worth family offices before starting his own business voelkel was chief operating officer of capital technologies inc a holding company with more than a dozen operating companies philanthropic endeavors and various investments he managed a diverse portfolio of liquid and illiquid assets held domestically and internationally spanning many industries and interests as well as multiple nonprofit and philanthropic endeavors i am honored and humbled at the opportunity to lead the texas a&m foundation and look forward to building on the exceptional legacy of dr ed davis and his outstanding team as we move into the future voelkel said my family and i view this opportunity as a call to serve and there is absolutely no other place on earth we would rather spend our time energy and resources we believe in the unlimited potential of the students faculty and staff of texas a&m and know that the work of the foundation helps change the world through academic excellence and research i look forward to collaborating with president michael young and our world-class donors as well as the myriad stakeholders that enable academic excellence and contribute to the unique culture that continues to make texas a&m university great in memory of their daughter lily voelkel and his wife christi founded the lily voelkel foundation to serve deaf-blind children and those with charge syndrome a complex and life-threatening disorder in children lily voelkel died in 2012 after almost three years of courageously fighting various medical conditions related to the complex syndrome voelkel is a member of the texas a&m university board of visitors and advisory boards for the bush school of government and public service and the childrens memorial hermann hospital in houston in august the foundations seven-member board of trustees commissioned witt/kieffer a higher education executive search firm to identify candidates who could serve as successor to davis who increased annual contributions to the foundation from $303 million in 1993 to $1117 million this year an increase of more than 360 percent ive known tyson for about 20 years said davis a 1967 texas a&m graduate who also served as corps commander his senior year he is a person of great skill and leadership capacity who left a promising military career early to take care of his family during an especially difficult time the foundation is fortunate to have identified a person of his talent and commitment to lead this extraordinary institution with 126 employees the texas a&m foundation manages an endowment of approximately $12 billion for the benefit of texas a&m university each year the foundation makes millions of dollars available to the university for students faculty facilities and programs according to donors wishes in fiscal year 2015 these funds totaled a record $882 million an independent nonprofit the foundation does not depend on support from the university or the state the a&m foundation was fortunate to have so many exceptional candidates for consideration said texas a&m university president michael k young tyson has had an enormous impact on numerous initiatives he has undertaken in his career and i believe he will have the same golden touch going forward as he leads the texas a&m foundation he will bring energy and focus in his new role i look forward to working with him to reach our $4 billion fundraising goal christi voelkel a 1998 texas a&m graduate is manager of development communications at texas a&m at galveston they currently reside with their two daughters in friendswood texas texas a&m foundationthe texas a&m foundation is a nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance texas a&ms capability to be among the best universities to learn more about scholarships fellowships and program-focused giving to benefit texas a&m university contact the foundation at txamfoundationcom (800) 392-3310 or (979) 845-8161
1077,the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university recently hosted a two-week international atomic energy agency (iaea) interregional training course that familiarized participants with an understanding of the physics and technology behind water-cooled reactors the course used a suite of reactor simulators to teach a variety of water-cooled reactor technologies and their fundamental operations to 25 delegates from 22 different countries who are aspiring to implement nuclear technologies in their home nations the training course was funded by iaeas department of technical cooperation (tc) underneath the focus of an interregional project titled: ‘supporting member states to evaluate nuclear reactor technology for near-term deployment the course was hosted at texas a&m because of the established history of cooperation between the two organizations which was formalized through a practical arrangement in 2014 the course gave an overview of the design characteristics associated with pressurized water reactors (pwrs) boiling water reactors (bwrs) and pressurized heavy water reactors (phwrs) as well as their related safety systems and design basis events texas a&m has a very good relationship with tc said chad painter iaea senior nuclear engineer they liked the collaborative efforts they have had in the past with texas a&m weve had the inter-regional course hosted in korea spain and italy as well as numerous other national level courses and it really had to do with where the funding source was coming from the iaea has maintained a course in nuclear reactor simulation and education for almost 20 years according to painter the training course falls in line with one of iaeas primary initiatives for educating countries either developing or considering developing nuclear faculties and providing them with a better understanding of these technologies the course was composed of new country delegates who had academic training in nuclear engineering or had ties to nuclear project assessments developments or both within their home countries in working to educate these countries who are seeking to implement nuclear power the iaea is also helping to secure the safe use of nuclear assets in the future in this particular program we are pushing the technology education as member states make a determination [on pursuing nuclear power] after looking at their projected energy needs in optimum energy mix in the future said painter as these countries come to some sort of a decision that they want to pursue a nuclear program we want to make sure these member states pursue it in a safe and secure way it helps them to avoid huge mistakes and we want to have them achieve their goals in a way that is going to be safe because a reactor safety issue in one country affects the nuclear industries around the world the course was also more practical according to painter because it is more cost-effective and less time consuming than attempting to train these individual on full-scope reactor simulators that can take a significant amount of time to learn and understand this training course is one of several collaborative efforts texas a&m and the iaea have shared in the past which include programs to promote more women in science technology engineering and math (stem) to develop electron beam technologies and to provide educational training and public outreach programs among others the course served as a great event of nuclear engineering globalization and our department at texas a&m university was honored to be part of it said dr pavel tsvetkov who teaches a course based on nuclear reactor simulators at texas a&m the iaea training course gave us and our students the opportunity to engage with the lecturers share observe and discuss various simulators and teaching techniques involving these simulators i will certainly be taking this experience and the lessons learnt from it into my course to further enhance the state-of-the-art quality of our academic programs that we have continued to develop through these global experiences to see the iaea's coverage of the event click here
1078,across the world more than 100 university teams are gearing up for the highly anticipated spacex hyperloop pod design weekend at texas a&m university that will be held jan 29 and 30 on the texas a&m campus among them is tamu aerospace hyperloop a team made up of 35 undergraduate and graduate students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m team members are a combination of aero 417 and 489 classes and are under faculty advisors dr adonios karpetis and dr moble benedict tamu aerospace hyperloop is broken into 10 groups so members are able to go into more depth than other teams might as aerospace students they have a unique understanding of the hyperloop problem and conditions – challenges often found in the design of high-performance high-altitude aircraft one student was skeptical of the entire hyperloop concept but being part of this team and learning more about it made the idea seem more feasible a benefit to doing this as a class project is it has expanded the students learning beyond textbooks with this project you actually get to go through the design process and multiple iterations of the design its helped build technical and coding skills says one student hyperloop is an ultra-high-speed ground transport concept proposed by spacex and tesla motors co-founder elon musk in a 2013 white paper the hyperloop consists of a low-pressure tube with capsules that are transported at both low and high speeds throughout the length of the tube the focus of the hyperloop competition is to design a capsule or pod capable of transporting people in the hyperloop student teams will present their pod designs prototypes before a judging panel composed primarily of spacex engineers tesla motors engineers and university professors after receiving feedback vetting and approval to proceed the pods will be constructed and tested on a one-mile test track adjacent to spacexs hawthorne california headquarters in a competition slated for june 2016 the design weekend offers more than just the competition according to dr greg chamitoff professor of practice in the department of aerospace engineering and organizer of the design weekend the event will include speakers activities and a variety of tech demonstrations from companies companies will also be able to use the weekend as a time to select teams to sponsor by contributing funds toward the construction of a teams pod
1079,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr a daniel hill holder of the stephen a holditch 69 department head chair in petroleum engineering the endowed chair appointment was effective nov 1 2015 the appointment is in recognition of hills exceptional record as a researcher and educator hill is a professor and head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university and he holds five patents in oil recovery and well injection processes hill is an expert in the areas of production engineering well completions well stimulation production logging and complex well performance (horizontal and multilateral wells) and has presented lectures and courses and consulted on these topics throughout the world he is the author of the society of petroleum engineering (spe) monograph production logging: theoretical and interpretive elements co-author of the textbook petroleum production systems 1st and 2nd editions co-author of an spe book multilateral wells and author of over 170 technical papers he has been a society of petroleum engineers (spe) distinguished lecturer has served on numerous spe committees and was founding chairman of the austin spe section he was named a distinguished member of spe in 1999 received the spe production and operations award in 2008 was one of the first two recipients of the spe pipeline award in 2012 and received the spe john franklin carll award in 2014 he currently serves on the spe editorial review committee the spe global training committee and is a member of the spe board of directors hill earned his masters and phd both in chemical engineering from the university of texas in austin and his bachelors degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m
1080,lynn and bill crane have established the lynn 84 and bill crane 83 chair within the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university the cranes' gift to establish the chair will be matched by the texas a&m university presidents office the cranes' gift which will be credited to texas a&ms lead by example campaign will be used to support the teaching research service and professional development activities of the holder in accordance with university guidelines we are passionate about the impact software is having on our world said bill crane by endowing a chair in the department of computer science and engineering we can ensure that future students will be able to learn and grow as we did at texas a&m for generations to come the lead by example campaign is a $4 billion comprehensive campaign to address major societal challenges facing the state nation and world it is the largest fund-raising endeavor ever undertaken in texas and only one other public university in the nation has ever announced a higher goal both lynn and bill graduated from texas a&m with computer science degrees and they have been giving to texas a&m since graduating bill received the distinguished former student award from the department of computer science in 2014 he also serves on the departments advisory council lynn and bill started as software developers at ibm in the san francisco bay area bill then became the vice president of engineering at network computing devices e-loan redline networks (later acquired by juniper networks) and proofpoint most recently he was vice president of engineering for linkedin during its early high-growth period since 2010 he has served as interim vice president of engineering and technical advisor for a variety of startup companies in the silicon valley and europe he is currently on the board of greatnonprofitsorg and women who code the couple currently resides in sunnyvale california and they have two children
1081,"space micro announced that they have finalized an exclusive licensing agreement with texas a&m university this agreement marks the start of a new joint initiative to embed a&m's novel algorithms and software into the space micro radiation hardened star tracker product line space micro's vp of engineering michael jacox commented ""we've built and demonstrated a diverse star tracker product line by implementing the unique pyramid star identification and calibration routines created by drs mortari and junkins at texas a&m university this license gives space micro the exclusive rights to use these techniques which have been shown to be superior for robust and rapid stellar attitude determination about space micro inc space micro recently celebrated its 13-year anniversary and continues to support the space industry with innovative affordable and high performance digital/image processing rf communication and attitude determination sensor products a brief list of accomplishments include: developed single board computers and digital/image processing systems developed software defined tt&c transponders (stdn/sgls/usb) developed high performance frequency agile mission data transmitters developed targeted star tracker and sun sensor systems space micro inc is a leader in patented affordable radiation hardened by design technologies these technologies have been implemented in the highly successful protonx-box avionics suite which features the proton p200/400k series single board computers providing industry leading performance and affordability our digital expertise extends to our ipc (image processing computer) systems including the ipc-5000 which has passed the three-year on-orbit mark on the highly successful air force ors-1 program variants of this are also in production on two separate classified programs from a rf perspective space micro's high performance software defined tt&c transponders and mission data transmitters have flight heritage (iris/ladee) with very positive customer feedback ongoing our industry leading ka-band transmitter is in production for two separate programs with engineering models successfully provided finally space micro continues to provide sun sensor products for various domestic and international customers and has completed full qualification for its high performance µstar star tracker system space micro is an employee-owned company based in san diego ca usa for more information visit http://wwwspacemicrocom or contact michael jacox vice president of engineering at (858) 332-0700 this article originally appeared on the space micro website"
1082,mohammad torki phd candidate in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won first place in the doctoral-mathematics poster category at the texas a&m university system 12th annual pathways student research symposium held at texas a&m university-corpus christi in october of last year torkis poster a unified criterion for void coalescence under combined tension and shear was co-authored by dr amine benzerga and dr jean-baptiste leblond benzerga professor in aerospace engineering is torkis adviser and mentor the symposium was open to all students in the texas a&m university system with separate categories for undergraduate master's and doctoral level research the purpose of the annual symposium is to provide an opportunity for students to present research in a poster or oral format while interacting and discussing the research with faculty judges and other participants it also provides the participants with a broader exposure to the texas a&m system community
1083,a societys socio-economic status depends on the quality of its infrastructure all of those highways buildings and power supplies are structures enabling the technological growth of our society we all utilize this infrastructure and we all pay for this infrastructure if we are paying for this we want it to last beyond lasting we want it to not require lane closures and detours that cause us to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic wasting time and money the majority of this infrastructure is concrete – something we use so much of that it is impossible to substitute another material class for it there are simply not enough elements in the earths crust to satisfy our demands for infrastructure while concrete is the most used material in the world after water what ensures its performance is the key ingredient – the cement paste holding it together it is this key ingredient that can be improved upon to extend the life of the concrete saving billions of dollars in maintenance and construction research on cement longevity is underway in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university dr zachary grasley associate professor and peter c forster faculty fellow i recently had his paper on the subject published and recognized as an outstanding paper for 2015 in materials and structures making concrete more durable and resilient has enormous societal impacts said grasley it will lessen the pressure on finite natural resources needed to meet our growing demand for concrete infrastructure the models we create help us to understand how and why concrete deforms the way that it does which gives us insight into how to better engineer its performance his research is a combined experimental and modeling approach rooted in fundamental sciences and aimed at improving concrete infrastructure in the united states and around the world it involves new material development novel experiments to measure important properties related to durability and resiliency and advanced models to uncover mechanisms and predict performance of concrete in real structures viscoelastic materials are like the tempur-pedic mattress said grasley those materials have a couple of very important characteristics one is the ‘elastic part of that term its reversible recoverable and goes back to the way it is supposed to do that the ‘visco part of that term means it comes back slowly if you leave a column sitting on a concrete surface gradually you will see that surface sink under the weight over time if you can tailor those properties you can reduce the stress on your concrete meaning less repair is necessary materials with tailored viscoelastic properties can better absorb an impact or force moving forward if concrete is designed with specific viscoelastic properties it may delay or even prevent damage from taking place thereby saving a great deal of money on repair and maintenance the new materials experiments and models grasleys group is developing will ultimately have wide-ranging applications they may one day be used for 3-d printing of structures or structural elements or rapid repairs of infrastructure the experiments could be used for quality control or quality assurance to help improve concrete durability in pavements and bridges the models may one day be integrated into a design and analysis tool that allows optimized simultaneous structure and material designs from a materials development perspective grasley is currently working on developing rapid hardening concrete intrinsically reinforced with carbon nanofibers the goal would be a crack-resistant concrete that gains strength fast enough to be utilized in minutes rather than days he has developed a novel rapid test for measuring concrete permeability which quantifies how easily water or other liquids can flow through concrete which is actually porous like a sponge with respect to modeling he has worked on advanced material models that couple the evolution of the material structure which changes as cement chemically reacts with water with material response to the environment and external loading his is the first research group to develop a method to adequately disperse high-volume fractions of carbon nanofibers in a cementitious matrix his research has led to the discovery of new mechanisms of creep gradual deformation that occurs under constant load and drying shrinkage grasleys research makes an impact outside his own field of study because his research is based on fundamental science rather than empiricism the models and experiments he has devised have far reaching applications outside of civil engineering his work with a former phd student led to the creation of a novel quantification method on how well dispersed nanoparticles are within a composite material this method is so general that it may be adopted to quantify how well crops are dispersed in a field or how well dispersed stars are in the sky the potential applications are limitless it is impossible to predict where such research might ultimately be utilized
1084,six current faculty members of texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering have been named fellows of the institute for electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) those receiving the prestigious honor include: dr timothy davis (computer science and engineering); dr anthony guiseppi-elie (biomedical engineering); dr jiang hu (electrical and computer engineering); dr peng li (electrical and computer engineering); dr daniele mortari (aerospace engineering); and dr xi zhang (electrical and computer engineering) guiseppi-elie who joined the texas a&m faculty in august of last year is on the list under his previous university clemson university the ieee fellow is one of the most prestigious honors of the ieee and it is bestowed upon a very limited number of senior members said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering having so many texas a&m engineering faculty members named fellows in one year speaks to the excellence we have within our ranks the ieee fellow distinction is bestowed upon a very limited number of senior members who have contributed importantly to the advancement or application of engineering science and technology bringing significant value to society the number of ieee fellows elevated in a year is no more than one-tenth of one percent of the total ieee voting membership davis professor in the department of computer science and engineering was honored for contributions to sparse matrix algorithms and software guiseppi-eli tees professor and head of the department of biomedical engineering was honored for contributions to organic electronic materials in biotechnology and biomedicine hu professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering was honored for contributions to gate interconnect and clock network optimization in vlsi circuits li professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering was honored for contributions to the analysis and modeling of integrated circuits and systems mortari professor in the department of aerospace engineering was honored for contributions to navigational aspects of space systems zhang professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering was honored for contributions to quality of service in mobile wireless networks ieee is the worlds leading professional association for advancing technology for humanity through its 400 000 members in 160 countries ieee is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering electric power and consumer electronics dedicated to the advancement of technology ieee publishes 30 percent of the worlds literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields and has developed more than 900 active industry standards the association also sponsors or co-sponsors nearly 400 international technical conferences each year for more information about ieee or the ieee fellow program visit the ieee website
1085,dr tim davis professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been named a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) for his contributions to sparse matrix algorithms and software ieee fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement the grade of fellow is conferred by the ieee board of directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the ieee fields of interest the total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting membership davis is also a fellow of the society for industrial and applied mathematics (siam) and the association for computing machinery (acm) making him one of the few individuals to hold all three distinctions becoming an ieee fellow is an honor that brings back fond memories of my undergraduate days at purdue when i first became a member of ieee said davis as an undergraduate student i relied on the spice circuit simulator for my circuit design projects but the cycle has come full circle since there are now many commercial and government lab circuit simulators that rely on my sparse matrix solvers im please to bring this honor to texas a&m which is a wonderful environment for my research davis is recognized as a world leader in algorithmic research for sparse matrix computations his work combines graph-theoretic methods and numerical techniques to create algorithms for solving problems in computational science that arise across a wide range of applications he incorporates his novel theory and algorithms into robust library-quality open-source software that is widely used in industry academia and government labs davis graph and sparse matrix algorithms are important to scientific and engineering simulations social network analysis computer vision computer graphics robotics and many other domains the mathworks relies on his sparse solvers in matlabtm a widely-used language and application for technical computing every photo in google streetview photo tours and 3-d earth is placed in proper position using his software via googles ceres non-linear least squares solver the us geological survey (usgs) uses his sparse solvers to process images of the earth moon mercury and other planetary bodies cutting its time-to-solution from hours/days down to minutes davis open-source software has been adopted by all major linux distributions and is widely used in open-source packages such as sandias xyce circuit simulator gimp r octave fenics ros openslamorg boost julia and scilab to name just a few davis joined the faculty at texas a&m in 2014 after 23 years at the university of florida he holds doctoral and masters degrees in electrical engineering from the university of illinois urbana-champaign and graduated with distinction with a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from purdue university
1086,dr m sam mannan director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations mary kay oconner process safety center and regents professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was named the first holder of the ma naser chair by bangladesh university of engineering and technology (buet) mannan was introduced during a ceremony to mark the launch of the chair by rahman murshed president of the buet chemical engineering association and professor maa shoukat choudhury department head of chemical engineering at buet the chair was established by the buet chemical engineering alumni association to recognize the contributions made by professor ma naser former vice chancellor of buet and a pioneer in the field of chemical engineering education in bangladesh dr toufiq ali ceo of karnaphuli fertiliser company ltd professor nooruddin ahmed and professor tqbal mahmud both former vice chancellors of buet gave presentations at the ceremony also in attendance were representatives from the bangladesh national authority of chemical weapon convention the armed forces division chevron and dutch-bangla bank
1087,dr p r kumar professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university delivered the keynote speech during the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) real time systems symposium (rtss) during his speech kumar holder of the college of engineering chair in computer engineering and a university distinguished professor discussed what kinds of deadline guarantees can be provided over an unreliable medium like wireless kumar is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the world academy of sciences he was awarded an honorary doctorate by eth zurich he received the outstanding contribution award of acm sigmobile the ieee field award for control systems the donald p eckman award of the american automatic control council and the fred w ellersick prize of the ieee communications society kumar is an acm fellow and a fellow of ieee he was a guest chair professor and leader of the guest chair professor group on wireless communication and networking at tsinghua university beijing china he is an honorary professor at iit hyderabad he is a d j gandhi distinguished visiting professor at iit bombay and a visiting professor in the robert bosch centre for cyberphysical systems at the indian institute of science bangalore he was also awarded the distinguished alumnus award from iit madras the alumni achievement award from washington university in st louis and the daniel c drucker eminent faculty award from the college of engineering at the university of illinois ieee rtss is the premier conference in the area of real-time systems presenting innovations in the field with respect to theory and practice
1088,three professors in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university were named fellows of the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) dr jiang hu (left) dr peng li (center) and dr xi zhang (right) were named ieee fellows for their research contributions ieee fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement the ieee grade of fellow is conferred by the ieee board of directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the ieee fields of interest the total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting membership hu was elected for contributions to gate interconnect and clock network optimization in vlsi circuits li was elected for contributions to the analysis and modeling of integrated circuits and systems and zhang was elected for his contributions to quality of service (qos) in mobile wireless networks dr jiang hu digital vlsi chips such as microprocessors and video decoders are mostly composed by logic gates which are connected by interconnect wires and synchronized by clock networks hus research accomplishments encompass all these three key elements for gate optimizations he is a main contributor to the state-of-the-art solutions that address industrial challenges in nanometer vlsi technologies including competing design objectives complex models non-ideal effects and huge problem sizes interconnect is a critical bottleneck to digital chip performance on interconnect optimization hu has produced large impact in both academia and industry his research results have been applied on many industrial chip products facilitating better chip performance less chip power shorter design turn-around time and solving difficult design cases hu is also highly recognized for his research on vlsi clock network optimization among many contributions he pioneered the concept of cross-link which greatly enhances clock network robustness with very high energy-efficiency and inspired numerous follow-up research activities hus overall achievement is instrumental in shaping the course of vlsi optimization research and helping the vlsi industry tackle real world challenges dr peng li li obtained his ph d in electrical and computer engineering from carnegie mellon university and joined the department in 2004 he has established expertise in electronic design automation integrated circuits and systems brain-inspired computing and aspects of computational neuroscience in addition to his elevation to ieee fellow his work has been recognized by various distinctions including four best paper awards from prestigious vlsi and eda conferences an nsf career award four inventor recognition awards from the microelectronics advanced research corporation and the semiconductor research corporation li received the best paper hat trick award prolific author award and top 10 author in fifth decade award all from the ieee/acm design automation conference the worlds premier vlsi technology conference lis former associates have obtained faculty and research positions in academia and industrial labs (michigan tech cornell medical college/cornell university intel strategic cad laboratories) and research and development positions in the united states high-tech industry he has brought his work to the real world through technology transfer and consulting for major semiconductor firms and startups dr xi zhang zhang founding director of the networking and information systems laboratory joined the department in 2002 upon receiving his phd degree in electrical engineering and computer science (electrical engineering – systems) from the university of michigan ann arbor he was a research fellow with the school of electrical engineering university of technology sydney australia and the department of electrical and computer engineering james cook university australia he was also with the networks and distributed systems research department at&t bell laboratories murray hill new jersey and at&t laboratories research florham park new jersey zhang has published more than 300 research papers two books and multiple book chapters in mobile wireless networks statistical delay-bounded qos guarantee for multimedia wireless networks 5g mobile wireless networks wireless cognitive radio networks wireless sensor networks underwater wireless networks network protocol design and modeling statistical communications random signal processing information theory and control theory and systems his publications have been extensively cited in the research communities he received the us national science foundation career award in 2004 for his research in the areas of mobile wireless and multicast networking and systems he is an ieee distinguished lecturer for both the ieee communications society and ieee vehicular technology society he received best paper awards at ieee globecom 2014 ieee globecom 2009 ieee globecom 2007 and ieee wcnc 2010 respectively zhang is author of an ieee best readings (receiving the top citation rate) journal paper he also received a tees select young faculty award for excellence in research performance from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m in 2006 he is serving or has been editor for numerous ieee transactions and journals including ieee transactions on communications ieee transactions on wireless communications ieee transactions on vehicular technology ieee journal on selected areas in communications ieee communications letters ieee communications magazine and ieee wireless communications magazine he has served as the technical program (tpc) chair for ieee globecom 2011 tpc vice-chair for ieee infocom 2010 tpc area chair for ieee infocom 2012 panel/demo/poster chair for acm mobicom 2011 and general chair for ieee wcnc 2013 etc
1089,the texas a&m university chapter of the american nuclear society (ans) recently hosted a nuclear science merit badge workshop for local area troops of the boy scouts of america (bsa) faculty from the department of nuclear engineering in conjunction with ans volunteers helped the scouts work through various requirements to earn the nuclear science merit badge and provided hands-on educational experiences at both the nuclear science center (nsc) and at labs within the university services building the instructors also provided classroom instruction on a range of nuclear theory related topics senior nuclear engineering student and ans public relations coordinator andrew foster helped coordinate the event and also served as a certified merit badge counselor for the scouts foster said that this outreach program with the bsa has gone back as far as 2010 and has done much to interest young boys in careers in the fields of nuclear science and engineering we like to see late middle-school aged if not high-school aged boys with some sort of science class under their belt foster said we have a template to run this workshop and take it through its different facets nuclear power technologies and radiation safety protection many topics to where it kind of becomes a crash course in nuclear and mirrors in some ways what undergraduate students would take in a nuclear 101 class the ans volunteers and faculty members who participated helped the scouts with the various requirements needed to complete the merit badge which revolve around a curriculum in the areas of nuclear power radiation safety nuclear science theory and an introduction to the career opportunities available in the fields of nuclear science and engineering foster said the workshop which allowed the scouts to tour dr lin shaos accelerator laboratory and visit the nuclear reactor in the nsc works to go beyond the minimum requirements of the merit badge to help the scouts develop an interest in science and other science technology mathematics and engineering (stem) related activities if we can get them to come in and see what we do and see the projects we are working on they can see that this is kind of cool foster said by the end of the day they were all super excited about wanting to become aggie engineers and that is what we are striving for with this program to give them the knowledge and cultivate that interest foster who wants to help expand the program to include a workshop for the girl scouts of america said that in addition to informing young children and stimulating their interest in the fields of nuclear science and engineering these types of outreach programs help to alleviate public confusion about nuclear power applications it makes me happy and proud because i feel nuclear is sometimes incorrectly viewed by the public and to see that these kids want to get involved with this is a real highlight for us foster said we try to get the negative stigma of nuclear out of the equation and we try and show them how radiation helps them in their day to day lives and how it is about more than just nuclear bombs and radiation
1090,dr daniele mortari professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been named an ieee fellow mortari was recognized for his contributions to navigational aspects of space systems the ieee grade of fellow is conferred by the ieee board of directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the ieee fields of interest ieee fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement mortari has shown exceptional research performance and has clearly demonstrated a number of unique talents and important capabilities of significant value to the field of space flight mechanics and navigation mortari has made a significant and permanent impact on both fundamental theory and practice of space flight impact that has given honor to ieee and to texas a&m in particular his expertise in spacecraft navigation guidance and control is of vital significance to the field he is an international authority in spacecraft mechanics with two main areas of specialization: spacecraft navigation (with emphasis on attitude sensors data processing) and constellations design he has made fundamental contributions that have significantly re-shaped these fields and impacted theory and practice in both areas in regards to spacecraft navigation in terms of spacecraft attitude estimation he has developed several fundamental algorithms to estimate the orientation of spacecraft one of the most critical tasks in spacecraft navigation in sensor data processing he has developed an extremely efficient and elegant solution available for identifying stars from a randomly pointed image of a star-field this algorithm is used in most of the satellites with star trackers as the gold standard for both efficiency and reliability at the heart of this solution he has developed a new range searching technique called k-vector that has found many applications in other research areas such as geoscience computational fluid dynamics level-set analysis and space debris database management recently nasa-jsc assigned mortari the task of developing the image processing of the vision-based navigation algorithms for the three manned nasa orion missions the main purpose of this backup software is to estimate the spacecraft position by processing earth moon or mars images this software will become active in case of communications loss if this happens mortaris algorithms will be tasked to bring the astronauts back to earth in the field of constellation design he has developed the flower constellations an entirely new class of spacecraft constellations this design involves novel periodic configurations with respect to assigned rotating reference frame (eg earth) mortari has developed a tool that allows efficient optimization over this family of constellations subject to user specified constraints he has proved that the approach leads to better observability with two fewer satellites than in the existing gps constellation since these satellites are large and extremely expensive the practical implications of the flower constellations design tool (ie fewer spacecraft in a new constellation design without performance degradation) are enormous this new design methodology has a wide range of civilian and military applications in telecommunications earth and deep space observation global positioning systems and more in his 12 years in the department of aerospace engineering mortari has graduated 12 phd students and six master of science students he has taught at the school of aerospace engineering of romes university and in electronic engineering at university of perugia he graduated in nuclear engineering from university of rome la sapienza in 1981 he has published about 275 papers holds a us patent and has been widely recognized for his work including receiving a best paper award from aas/aiaa two nasa group achievement awards the 2003 spacecraft technology center award and the prestigious 2007 ieee judith a resnik award he is an aas fellow an aiaa associate fellow an ieee distinguish speaker and an honorary member of ieee-aess space system technical panel the ieee is the worlds leading professional association for advancing technology for humanity through its 400 000 members in 160 countries the ieee is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering electric power and consumer electronics dedicated to the advancement of technology the ieee publishes 30 percent of the worlds literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields and has developed more than 900 active industry standards the association also sponsors or co-sponsors nearly 400 international technical conferences each year to learn more about ieee or the ieee fellow program visit the ieee website
1091,dr daniele mortari professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the prestigious 2015 dirk brouwer award by the american astronautical society the award was established to honor significant technical contributions to space flight mechanics and astrodynamics and to recognize brouwer's outstanding role in celestial mechanics and his widespread influence on workers in space flight and astrodynamics brouwer was an inspiring leader in the field of celestial mechanics during a period that saw a revival and flowering of that discipline from its purely academic and esoteric role to one of widespread development and application in man's exploration of space he was successful as a researcher teacher and administrator he always strove to make the growth of his subject truly international the space flight mechanics committee selects the recipient of this award mortari an ieee fellow holds interests in spacecraft attitude and orbit estimation satellite constellations design and attitude sensor data processing previous award winners from the department include dr rao vadali dr john junkins and dr kyle t alfriend
1092,anthony guiseppi-elie tees professor and head of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) for his contributions to organic electronic materials in biotechnology and biomedicine ieee fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement the grade of fellow is conferred by the ieee board of directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the ieee fields of interest the total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting membership it is a rare privilege to be honored by ones peers in this way; i am delighted to join other ieee fellows as standard bearers for our organization guiseppi-elie said guiseppi-elies research interests are in engineered bioanalytical microsystems in the service of human health and medicine and he has been principal investigator on more than $20 million in funding of sponsored programs gifts and contracts including a recent $3 280 000 award from the us department of defense his research uses intrinsically conductive polymers combined with synthetic hydrogels and natural biopolymers to engender biologically active and responsive interfaces in biosensors implantable electrodes and soft implantable electronics with more than 145 peer-reviewed publications eight book chapters and eight patents guiseppi-elie is a recognized international expert in his field he is a fellow of the american institute for medical and biological engineering and the royal society of chemistry a lifetime member of the american institute of chemical engineers and holds memberships in the american association for the advancement of science the american chemical society the materials research society and the biomedical engineering society guiseppi-elie has been an ieee embs distinguished lecturer and the past year was selected for a fulbright specialists project at universidad nacional de tucumán (unt) facultad de ciencias exactas y tecnología (facet) in argentina prior to joining texas a&m guiseppi-elie served as professor of life sciences and chemical engineering and professor of emergency medicine at virginia commonwealth university/medical college of virginia and later as professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering professor of bioengineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at clemson university where he was the dow chemical professor and directed the center for bioelectronics biosensors and biochips ieee is the worlds leading professional association for advancing technology for humanity through its 400 000 members in 160 countries ieee is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering electric power and consumer electronics dedicated to the advancement of technology ieee publishes 30 percent of the worlds literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields and has developed more than 900 active industry standards the association also sponsors or co-sponsors nearly 400 international technical conferences each year for more information about ieee or the ieee fellow program visit wwwieeeorg about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative medicine medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1093,the sky is the limit for ivan delgado the senior carver high school student has been dreaming of becoming an astronaut since he was 11 years old at 18 his dream is one step closer to becoming reality delgado is an intern at nasas johnson space center the only high school student on the payroll in the fall hell become the first person in his family to attend college when he begins classes at texas a&m university as a general engineering student one giant leap for mankind ever since delgado learned about neil armstrong and the apollo 11 mission to the moon he became obsessed with the idea of space travel to me the engineering aspect of the lunar landing was truly remarkable he said delgado began researching the type of fuel the spacecraft used and the special movements it had to perform in order to re-enter earths atmosphere thats when he knew he was hooked delgados parents were migrant workers who never had the opportunity to finish high school but they encouraged their son to study hard my parents cant even believe that i am at nasa he said my parents always wanted me to have more than what they have they supported me and its paying off their words and the encouragement of his teachers at carver high school made all the difference his ap algebra ii teacher samita debnath speaks fondly of delgado when i gave him the info about the nasa program he came back the next day with the application filled out she said i asked him ‘why would i recommend you he said he wanted to be an astronaut and when he was saying it he was sincere about it delgado said he wants to prove to his community that hard work pays off as far back as i can remember people in my community are always saying they cant achieve this or that he said they say that because they lack commitment and determination to achieve what it is they want part of my inspiration came from them i am going to prove to them that the only limits that exist are the ones that one imposes on oneself delgados dream job during his junior year delgado was one of 270 high school students to participate in nasas high school aerospace scholars project a weeklong program at johnson space center (jsc) the application process was tough but delgado was determined that determination turned into a yearlong internship at nasa in the avionics and software branch under the international space station division of the safety and missions assurance directorate every day at 11 am delgado leaves carver high school and drives across houston to jsc my job consists of working on a key program that is used by the computer safety working group here at johnson space center he said it is essentially a program that generates an excel spreadsheet compiled of relevant data found in nasas software directory this information is then utilized by nasa officials to identify all possible safety concerns for upcoming flights missions software transitions or any final safety reviews delgado is taking advantage of opportunities afforded to nasa employees hes learning russian something he said is required of all astronauts and hes getting scuba certified by a nasa neutral buoyancy laboratory dive master before going to space astronauts learn about weightlessness in the jsc pool delgado hopes this will help his resumé stand out when he applies for a full time job at nasa getting to texas a&m delgado decided he wanted to attend texas a&m after attending an engage summer camp in the summer of 2015 with his high school an engage partner school engage programs developed by the dwight look college of engineerings access and inclusion program provide pre-college opportunities for students from underrepresented groups to gain hands-on experience with engineering dr sonia garcia senior director of the access and inclusion program is excited about delgados success i am thrilled over the news that one of our own engage partner students is interning with nasa as a senior in high school has been admitted to the college of engineering at texas a&m and will become an aggie engineer she said launched in 2014 access and inclusion focuses on the outreach recruitment retention and professional development of students from underrepresented groups from invitationals (day trips to campus) to the weeklong residential engage summer camp students get a first-hand glimpse of life at texas a&m and the college of engineering for delgado the engage summer camp showed him what it means to be an aggie through hands-on experiments at the engage camp i researched engineering concepts such as how thermal energy is used to keep food refrigerated in developing countries he said my peers and mentors were among the sharpest ive ever worked alongside at that point i knew i could only find this learning environment at texas a&m delgado hopes to make the world a better place through innovative technology he plans to major in electrical engineering or computer engineering and one day hed like to explore the final frontier people are meant to be pioneers and i am determined to achieve my fullest potential for myself my family and my friends he said i did not own a telescope but ever since my 11th birthday i look up at the moon and always say ‘one day for more information please contact senior director dr sonia garcia garcias5@tamuedu
1094,dr srinivas rao vadali professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the mechanics and control of flight award the highest award given by the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics this award presented for an outstanding recent technical or scientific contribution by an individual in the mechanics guidance or control of flight in space or the atmosphere honors vadali for his lasting contribution to the understanding of the relative motion of satellite formations and the control of this relative motion the award will be presented during the aiaa science and technology forum in january vadali has more than 30 years of academic teaching and research experience his current research interests are focused on spacecraft relative motion and formation flying he is a co-author of the book spacecraft formation flying: dynamics control and navigation he has served as an associate editor of the aiaa journal of guidance control and dynamics and is currently an associate editor of the international journal of aerospace engineering he is a fellow of aas and an aiaa associate fellow
1095,two sixth-grade girls peer at the computer screen scrolling up and down looking for clues to help them program their robot its late afternoon at cypress grove intermediate school in college station texas and the all-girls first lego league (fll) team is gearing up for a competition texas a&m university engineering student and team mentor miranda jones leans in and points to the screen she asks a question to guide them in the right direction theres another attempt to get the robot to complete its course and theres another failure about an hour in the robot does exactly what its supposed to do and the girls cheer and high five each other in the long run thats what fll is about teaching children to think critically and problem solve while simultaneously sparking an interest in engineering concepts the women in engineering (we) program at texas a&m sponsored three all-girls teams from the bryan/college station area this year providing funding as well as mentorship from female engineering students the three teams went on to compete in fll qualifier events in austin and waco in december we was established to increase the participation of women in the engineering profession and director shawna fletcher said instilling confidence in young girls is the first step for girls confidence precedes interest fletcher said many times people think that girls naturally shy away from robots i have found that if you support an all-girl team they are able to participate in the technical aspects and dig in by designing building and programming robots girls learn a wide range of skills that increase their confidence in their abilities once they experience what first is about and see that they are successful they get excited and then they are hooked fletcher said engineering student kellie meredith volunteered at bryans sam rayburn middle school with the lady rebels team seeing them develop from being hesitant to open the lego box and then to know how to put things together and now they just dive in she said that progression has been amazing at fungineering engineering student julia devinney said she wouldnt trade her experience as a mentor for the world i didnt have this opportunity when i was in middle school devinney said i think its cool to get the girls involved now because they can see the passion behind it amy bowman a teacher who helped organize the team at sam rayburn said it was great watching the girls come together as a team the amazing part about this robotics program is that the girls come from all different backgrounds economic backgrounds and even different interests and likes and theyve come together for a common project she said fletcher said fll is important because it provides an avenue for girls to explore designing building and programming robots however fll is much more than robots she said girls gain valuable technical experience working on their robot and mission while completing a comprehensive project as well as their team core values fll promotes a non-competitive sharing and open culture during qualifiers and regional events she said for girls its essential that they have positive hands-on experiences that build their confidence and interest fletcher said this inevitably leads to an interest in and pursuit of engineering careers we also provides assistance to parents and teachers who would like to become team coaches and mentors the program is assisting the surrounding community to provide opportunities for people to participate each team received recognition for its success the cypress grove intermediate school kaboom team advanced to the next round and will be competing again in february the lady rebels of sam rayburn middle school received an honorable mention and the gamer girls at fungineering received the inspiration award and placed 10th out of 24 teams in robotics challenges for more information about the women in engineering program click here
1096,tamu aerospace hyperloop adviser: dr mobile benedict one of the most exciting and challenging aspects of the spacex hyperloop pod competition is the fact that building something like the hyperloop has never been done before so while some of the engineering problems teams encounter may be solved with old solutions or by adapting old solutions to new problems others may require whole new solutions heading into the competition the tamu aerospace hyperloop team believed it had solved one of these engineering challenges with a whole new solution a novel air bearing system that allows its pod to hover using minimal air it was one of the things that the team thought would make its design stand out as it turned out they were exactly right the team won the award for levitation subsystem technical excellence and was selected as one of the teams that will get to build its pod and test it this summer in california seeing the judges reaction and winning the subsystem award it was one of those solidifying points where if nothing else it was a confidence booster that we got this side down team captain matthew connelly said now weve just got to make it work connelly a senior from murphy texas doesnt want to go into too many specifics of their air bearing design because the team has filed for intellectual property protection on it in fact the team didnt even want to answer all of the judges questions at the competition and the judges had plenty of them after they presented they were impressed he said they were surprised that we could achieve the power that we were getting out of the system they had some questions that we were sort of disinclined to answer because were applying for intellectual property on it by advancing to the next stage of the competition connellys team will get a chance to answer the biggest question of them all can the team make it work it is confident it can all of our tests have shown that its going to work he said weve 3-d printed a model to show that it will work weve tested it down in the lab now its all about machining and manufacturing the team of 35 students came together from a couple of aerospace engineering classes and one of its main goals in the competition wasnt just to win the competition but to make sure its design could be carried to full scale however that creates some issues when just looking to create a small-scale competition pod some of our ideas are great for the full scale model when were putting into production on a massive scale connelly said but because this is a half scale competition at slower speeds and overall smaller we have to see what we can cut and what we can make simpler the more complicated the system the more likely it is to fail connelly who will be going into the air force after graduation said one great thing about the hyperloop competition was that texas a&m engineering got to be in the spotlight for a few days it was really cool to host it here he said to see the different ways everyone approached the problem was really interesting there were so many creative ideas; it was really cool to see that play out in the competition and as a university we got to show off our campus we got to tell everyone about how cool a&m is and really get some exposure we dont always get because were kind of out here in an oasis in texas --- aggieloop adviser: david kanipe texas a&ms aggieloop team was comprised of students from across multiple class years and disciplines in the college of engineering who came together to compete they were brought together by their desire to work on something completely new what brought them together according to senior industrial engineering major ryan coelho was the fascination with being able to work on something new one thing that makes us different is definitely our passion its how we approached the whole project coelho said as soon as they announced it we were enthralled with the idea of participating coelhos teammate tyler paschal a senior mechanical engineering major added that this group faced challenges with allocating time and finding resources but that being part of the hyperloop competition has been worth the effort were not doing this for a grade or for a teacher paschal said were all going to school we all have other things going on but we wanted to contribute to this project because its something new its never been done before to be able to be part of that progress is amazing to us --- society of flight test engineers adviser: dr diego donzis the society of flight test engineers was the only texas a&m spacex hyperloop pod competition team comprised of a student organization the group which is hoping to eventually become a member of the nationwide society of flight test engineers was made up of aerospace engineering students of all ages junior charles noren said the competition was invaluable from an experience standpoint and for texas a&m as a whole i think getting to say that a&m engineering is hosting this competition shows how far forward and how munch progress we make as a school at developing that next level of innovation noren said this should show every engineer who wants to be one of those top-level designers that wants to be a game changer that they should come to a&m to help solve some of the problems they ran into noren had to turn to other disciplines within the college of engineering in fact he wanted to make sure to show some gratitude toward one department in particular that helped them throughout the design process our team is mostly aerospace engineers and we ran into some interdisciplinary challenges so i got to go to the mechanical engineering department for the first time noren said after seeing what those guys do i have mad respect for them we definitely owe them a lot on this project ---- texas a&m hyperloop alliance adviser: dr mark holtzapple the hyperloop alliance teams full system design had one of the boldest designs of any of the teams in the competition with its approach not just to the pod itself but also to the entire tube concept the team wanted to make the loop itself much wider we had a really good presentation team captain nick mora said we talked about everything we wanted to in the time we had the judges were a little disappointed that they only had 10 minutes to ask us questions morand also said that being part of one of the a&m teams hosting the event was a great experience overall being part of a&m youre in a way the face of the competition morand said you bring it upon yourself to really interact with more teams than maybe you would have and thats been really cool ive gotten to meet a lot of great people from all over the country and all over the world i think this is exactly what a&m needed to put its foot down as one of the main engineering schools in the country ---- hyperwhoop adviser: dr charles culp comprised of students from the colleges of engineering science and architecture the texas a&m hyperwhoop team embraced an interdisciplinary approach to the spacex hyperloop pod competition originally two separate teams hyperwhoop came together after the two original teams met at an early mixer for the competition sophomore aerospace engineering major katie schneider said that having those different perspectives is what its design apart from other teams engineers are needed obviously this is an engineering project schneider said but theres been multiple times that one of the architecture students said ‘what if it could do this and at first all of engineers said it was impossible but then you start thinking about it and step-by-step it becomes possible having people with that different mindset really helped schneider said that she walked around the hall of champions saying ‘howdy to as many teams as possible and enjoyed getting to share the teams ideas with teams from around the world ive heard nothing but good things about texas a&m and how friendly everyone has been schneider said everyone keeps saying the people are incredible ---- hullabaloop advisers: dr bill schneider and dr andrea strzelec advised by texas a&m department of mechanical engineering professors dr bill schneider and dr andrea strzelec hullabaloop originally started as two teams in the fall senior mechanical engineering major andrew warren said merging the two senior design classes together proved to be one of the biggest challenges the team faced but also helped bring countless ideas to the table everyone has a different idea at the start warren said when we first combined we had two totally different ideas overall weve done a really good job and i think its helped us according to warren teams in the competition basically only have elon musks original hyperloop white paper to work off of but warren said schneider and strzelec encouraged them to not even let that be a constraint they said not to just build something that we think spacex wants its for us to learn how to design something warren said so whatever we do make sure we think its the best the team members said the experience of working on a complete idea from concept to design is something they think will help them after they graduate this taught us so much about how to interface with people and work with different parts of a huge project said teammate connor mitchell the team management and project management time constraints costs these are things you dont normally get in a classroom setting ---- rb3designs adviser: dr tracy fullerton consisting of just four people rb3 designs was one of the smallest teams in the hyperloop pod competition but it was slightly bigger than when it first began for the first proposal it consisted of just one person sophomore engineering student rodrigo barrera iii theyre all sophomores and barrera admitted they lack both the experience and manpower to put together some of the complicated designs the other teams had however they chose to focus on a subsystem that they think other teams will pass over were focusing on safety features because i think safety for the humans is going to be a problem at 750 miles per hour he joked he echoed the sentiments of many of the teams which is that one of the most exciting aspects of the hyperloop is also the most challenging the hyperloop is a brand new thing so theres nothing to go look up he said basically whatever we do here is going to be on the books
1097,dr jerald caton the gulf oil/ thomas a dietz professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been named a service award recipient for the college of engineering teaching service and engineering outstanding contribution awards faculty members are nominated by their department heads and must be holders of an endowed position the principal purpose of the engineering service award is to acknowledge those who have made significant contributions to the college of engineering during the past five years caton has taught classes and led research focused in the areas of internal combustion engines thermodynamics emission reduction technologies alternative fuels and cogeneration at texas a&m since 1979 he holds both a bachelors and a masters degree in mechanical engineering from the university of california at berkeley and a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering with an emphasis in thermal sciences from the massachusetts institute of technology his research interests are in internal combustion engines modeling engine and combustion processes reducing pollutant emissions studies of nitric oxide formation and removal selective non-catalytic (sncr) and catalytic (scr) nitric oxide removal technologies cogeneration combined cycles gas turbine power plants alternative fuels; thermodynamics heat transfer fluid mechanics and fundamental and applied combustion topics he is the director of the engines emissions energy research laboratory a research laboratory that conducts research and engineering activities in three main categories: engines emissions and energy the majority of the laboratory activities are directed by caton and conducted by his graduate students caton has been honored with several awards for his work in mechanical engineering including the american society of automotive engineers (asme)–ice meritorious service award (2010) the society of automotive engineers (sae) excellence in oral presentation award (2009) distinguished achievement award – teaching from the association of former students and texas a&m (2008) gulf oil/thomas a dietz professorship (2007 – present) sae fellow (2007 – present) sae excellence in oral presentation award (2005) texas a&m university college of engineering: and the halliburton professorship (2005–2006) in 2015 caton published an introduction to thermodynamic cycle simulations for internal combustion engines a book on engine cycle simulations and the thermodynamics of engines receiving this award is a great honor and im proud to be recognized by the college for my accolades he said
1098,"dr xiaoning qian assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has received the prestigious faculty early career development (career) award sponsored by the national science foundation (nsf) qian who is also affiliated with the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) agrilife center for bioinformatics and genomic systems engineering (cbgse) received his career award for his proposal ""knowledge-driven analytics model uncertainty and experiment design qian proposes a knowledge-driven analytics framework to solve mathematical and computational issues that exist in high-dimensional network-based systems prediction and intervention problems where the models are uncertain he says this framework has strong potential for translating available diverse large-scale data to create reproducible knowledge for driving life sciences and materials science research if successful it could eventually lead to computational tools for more efficient experimental design to maximize the use of existing big data and speed up the processes for effective disease therapeutics and new materials discovery qian believes that the interdisciplinary nature of his proposal promises to foster cross-fertilization of ideas between engineering life sciences and materials science in both the domains of research and education qian received his bachelor's and master's degrees from shanghai jiao-tong university china and his phd in electrical engineering from yale university in 2005 prior to joining texas a&m he worked for four years as an assistant professor at the university of south florida his current research interests include computational network biology genomic signal processing and biomedical image analysis some of his interdisciplinary research efforts at texas a&m have been recently funded by an nsf eager grant a usda grant and a grant from the los alamos national laboratory he recently co-organized the international workshop on computational network biology: modeling analysis and control (cnb-mac) he has been serving on the editorial boards for several journals and on the organizing and technical program committees for several international conferences"
1099,dr konstantinos kakosimos assistant professor in the chemical engineering program at texas a&m university at qatar was awarded the hutchison medal by the institution of chemical engineers (icheme) for his paper example of a micro-adaptive instruction methodology for the improvement of flipped-classrooms and adaptive-learning based on advanced blended-learning tools which was published in education for chemical engineers every year icheme awards published papers that are philosophical practical wide-ranging or thought-provoking papers are nominated by publications medals board assessors during the year and across all spectrum of icheme journals and conferences finally the board selects as the winner of the hutchison medal a single paper considered an important contribution to the literature that will stimulate further debate within the chemical engineering community some of the judges comments that the board made publically available: this paper looks at making use of modern technologies to change the way students are educated presenting a teaching methodology and development of related tools collection of student feedback and information on learning progress in advance of teaching being a key aspect of the methodology presented a catalytic paper showing what can be achieved with the use of modern technology within both conventional education and industrial settings the paper is likely to stimulate a lot of discussion on what is an interesting concept and what can be practically achieved the discussion during the meeting fed to a unanimous decision that this paper is a very deserving winner of the medal the institution of chemical engineers (icheme) is the global professional membership organization chemical engineering professionals and anyone involved with the process industries with over 44 000 members in over 120 countries icheme is the only organization that awards the internationally-recognised qualifications of chartered chemical engineer and professional process safety engineer
1100,"dr michael j demkowicz associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a grant to speed up the development and application of nanometallic materials (nmms) the grant is supported by the national science foundations (nsf) designing materials to revolutionize and engineer our future (dmref) program and is a collaborative effort between texas a&m the university of michigan and virginia polytechnic institute and state university texas a&m is the lead institution and demkowicz is the principal investigator the project designing and synthesizing nano-metallic materials with superior properties will develop nmms that possess extreme strength resistance to damage from repeated loading and the unique property of being resistant to radiation damage nmms are composites made up of nanoscale elements demkowicz specializes in computational materials design and fundamental physics of material behavior especially mechanical properties and radiation response the shear variety of nmm structures is so vast that it cannot be explored exhaustively by brute force experiments said demkowicz thats where computation comes in we want to scan over a vast space of nmm designs using efficient fast algorithms constructed based on judiciously selected experiments"" the nsf in support of the multi-agency federal materials genome initiative (mgi) seeks to target one of the primary mgi goals to halve the time and cost for transitioning breakthroughs from the laboratory to the marketplace a process that currently takes as long as two decades by integrating theory modeling and experiments the project led by demkowicz aims to engineer the architectures interfaces and compositions of nmms to achieve superior mechanical performance the project will follow an iterative design-synthesize-test cycle that scans the design space rapidly and integrates insights gained in each iteration by updating theoretical models connecting design parameters to performance metrics"
1101,high school students from across the state recently had the opportunity to visit texas a&m university and gain hands-on experience with engineering during the society of women engineers high school conference this year marked the 40th time the conference has been held at texas a&m the two-day camp hosted 100 high school students and required months of planning and the work of 70 volunteers about 40 students stayed in residence halls overnight getting an authentic texas a&m student experience following an iron chef inspired theme the students used unconventional food-related materials to solve three design challenges competing against the clock for first place they also had their photo taken with reveille went to yell practice and watched performances by the aggie wranglers and fade 2 black dance troupes volunteer gissel gardea said she went to a similar camp in high school it was an experience that inspired her to major in engineering herself after i came back from the engineering camp i attended i somehow knew that engineering was for me she said i didnt see myself doing anything else and im glad the camp made me realize that camps and conferences are a great way to figure out what we love to do gardea said she enjoyed sharing her experiences with students and answering questions i had a couple of conversations with some of the students about career choices engineering and texas a&m in general she said one of the girls that was in my lab tour group asked me why i chose engineering and i simply said ‘because i love to solve problems volunteer nicholas wieworowski is a masters student in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering he helped students check in at the beginning of the camp and led participants on lab tours i got to see the combination of anticipation and anxiety on the faces of the students as they entered and got to work with them through initial introductions he said as the conference went on it was wonderful to see the anxiety leave to be replaced with excitement and energy about the event wiewiorowski enjoyed watching the students participate in classroom discussions most amazing was watching their minds work through the problems with only limited background engineers in the making he said wiewiorowski said the camp is a good way to present engineering in a different way than what high school students might be familiar hopefully we inspired them to consider engineering at texas a&m in the future he said this truly is a wonderful event swe puts on and i want to say that they do a tremendous job i hope this continues for many more years into the future
1102,dr xia (ben) hu a member of the texas a& m engineering experiment stations (tees) center for remote health technologies has joined the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university as an assistant professor his research focuses on data mining and social computing which is a hands-on field that requires him to work closely with industry professionals nowadays data is everywhere hu said it becomes large and complex my research mainly focuses on how we can deal with this large-scale networked sparse and dynamic data along with directing the data analytics at texas a&m (data) lab he works alongside an assortment of industries such as linkedin ibm research centers yahoo! labs and nec labs and health care professionals we try to mine interesting patterns from social media data to help the users to gain a better consumer experience he said my group is also working on health informatics to provide better solutions for patients to receive better healthcare and for medical doctors to make better decisions by mining historical data hu said that he also sees his research in data mining expanding to new areas such as environmental sciences prior to joining the computer science and engineering faculty at texas a&m hu worked as a postdoctoral researcher for arizona state university and the phoenix veteran affairs health care system he holds a bachelors and masters in computer science from beihang university and a phd in computer science from arizona state university he is also a member of the tees center for the study of digital libraries
1103,the texas a&m engineering experiment station's nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) at texas a&m university and pandit deendayal petroleum university (pdpu) co-hosted a two and half-day nuclear security training workshop for the indian academics from feb 10-12 the workshop was held at the pdpu campus in gandhinagar (gujarat state) india and was sponsored by the us department of state's partnership for nuclear security (pns) with support from crdf global the audience for the workshop included 21 faculty members and 43 students from ten different universities in india the workshop covered 16 lectures on nuclear security fundamentals nuclear security culture insider threat and insider threat mitigation the us team included pns program officer priya sethi along with nsspi interim director dr sunil chirayath and nsspi senior research engineer and assistant professor of nuclear engineering dr craig marianno both of whom lectured at the workshop indian faculty delivered approximately half of the lectures at the workshop these faculty were trained through various pns-sponsored programs including the nuclear security training series an annual summer program for indian academics that takes place at texas a&m and the us national laboratories and the advanced nuclear security workshop for indian universities a four-day workshop in india led by nsspi faculty indian faculty and technical experts from sandia national laboratories all of these activities are intended to promote the integration of nuclear security topics into the normal course of study for students in indian nuclear engineering programs
1104,a team of texas a&m university engineers has been accepted into the nsf innovation corps (i-corps) program which is managed by the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship (cnve) of mays business school i-corps™ is a set of activities and programs that prepares scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and broadens the impact of select nsf-funded basic-research projects the latest texas a&m team to receive the funding is from the department of mechanical engineering in the dwight look college of engineering the team is made up of dr andrea strzelec (principal investigator) brian musslewhite (entrepreneurial lead) and dr dale cope (industry mentor) this teams innovation to be tested is a miniaturized emissions sensor that is mounted on a drone that can be deployed to difficult and/or dangerous locations to analyze the existing environment strzelec has served as pi on a previous i-corps team and recognizes the high value of this training and how it impacts her research the cnve has played a key role in team formation guidance and mentoring of the team i-corps is a public-private partnership program that solicits three-member teams – composed of an academic researcher a student entrepreneur and an industry mentor – to participate in an intensive seven-week program to determine commercialization opportunities for their innovations selected i-corps teams are receive $50 000 in nsf grant funding to support their efforts in the combined on-site and online curriculum which is based on the lean launchpad methodology for business model validation cnve maintains a dedicated i-corps program that is focused on discovering recruiting and encouraging scientists and engineers to participate in this program which is designed to discover the true commercial capabilities of research innovations charles (chuck) hinton leads the cnves efforts as part of the southwest i-corps node (http://swicorpsorg) one of seven national partnerships of universities funded by nsf to support i-corps expansion texas a&m ut-austin rice university and texas tech university share responsibilities for promotion of this high-impact program and recruitment of i-corps team applicants at texas a&m 11 teams with grants totaling $550 000 have been assembled from the colleges of agriculture & life sciences engineering and science as well as texas a&m engineering experiment station prairie view a&m texas a&m health science center specializing in biochemistry computer science material science mechanical engineering chemical engineering physics biomedical engineering electrical & computer engineering biological and agricultural engineering entomology and environmental and occupational health about cnve: through a combination of entrepreneurial-focused curricular and experiential opportunities the cnve seeks to enhance the livelihood of texas a&m university and the greater community since its inception in 1999 the cnve has served as the hub of entrepreneurship for texas a&m university
1105,dr roozbeh jafari associate professor in biomedical engineering computer science and engineering and electrical engineering (courtesy appointment) joined the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university in august 2015 jafari is the director of the embedded signal processing (esp) lab his research interests include embedded systems design wearable computing signal processing and cyber-physical systems his current research focuses on wearable devices that target multiple areas including long term in-home health monitoring rehabilitative therapy and enhancing the communication capability of the disabled motionnet biowatch and healthhub are just a few of the prototypes the esp lab has developed my objective for my students and my team is to change the world jafari said i dont know how far we can get but thats our goal computer science and engineering students jian wu and viswam nathan work alongside jafari in the esp lab wu said that the most exciting aspect of the research is to see how his work will impact peoples lives i am really excited with the american sign language recognition system since it helps clear the communication barrier between deaf people and people who don't know sign language wu said the thing i enjoy most about working in the embedded signal processing lab is the opportunity to approach problems from many different perspectives of engineering nathan said i've learned several concepts about statistics networking and signal processing by just working and collaborating on various projects prior to joining the texas a&m faculty jafari was an associate professor in electrical engineering at the university of texas at dallas he received his bachelors in electrical engineering at the sharif university of technology in iran his masters and phd in computer science at the university of california los angeles and was a post-doctoral fellow at the university of california berkeley
1106,"texas a&m university has been selected to join the 100kin10 network a national initiative to add 100 000 top-rate stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) teachers to classrooms across america by 2021texas a&m is one of 49 new members recently admitted into the 280-partner nonprofit coalition launched in 2011 to unite key us academic institutions businesses foundations and government agencies in a ground-level effort toward an ambitious goal: training and retaining 100 000 excellent stem teachers to help educate the country's next generation of innovators and problem solvers""as a flagship research-intensive campus texas a&m university will be a tremendous asset to this organization and will help advance the goals of 100kin10 "" said dr timothy p scott associate dean for undergraduate programs in the texas a&m college of science and a co-director of the center for mathematics and science education ""as a land-grant institution we take very seriously our mission to educate the residents of texas at all levels especially in the high-need stem fields""scott notes that the university's application was a collaborative effort involving three texas a&m colleges the college of science the college of education and human development and the dwight look college of engineering he says texas a&m was invited to apply for membership last fall on the basis of its proven strength in teacher education and in particular its emphasis on certifying mathematics and science teachers an area in which it has led the state of texas for more than a decade""texas a&m university was accepted because of the strength and significance of your commitment your organizational capacity and leadership and your ability and desire to contribute to the 100kin10 goal and network "" said talia milgrom-elcott team 100kin10 executive director and co-founder ""the review panel specifically called out your engineering work as well as your ability to help fill a critical need in the rio grande valley you display the ambition and commitment necessary to make our goal a reality we are thrilled to welcome texas a&m university into the 100kin10 network""each 100kin10 partner is expected to strategically apply its organizational expertise and resources to make bold ""above and beyond commitments"" that contribute to achieving the group's collective goal through one of three focus areas: increasing supply retaining excellence and building the movement partners also offer expertise learning and resources to support one another to achieve these commitments and to build the shared knowledge and capacity of the networkfor its part texas a&m has chosen the first focus area pledging to help increase supply by preparing 950 high-quality teachers by 2020 a total that will include 165 secondary mathematics and science teachers uniquely equipped to serve the highly diverse needs of texas k-12 students""this partnership has the potential to further our efforts and expand our impact to truly make a difference for children in texas "" said dr joyce m alexander dean of the texas a&m college of education and human development ""our faculty and staff already are helping to prepare the math and science teachers for tomorrow's classrooms our graduates already are the most sought-after professionals for texas classrooms and are the most dedicated educators staying in classrooms and school systems longer than many others i am so proud that we can be a part of 100kin10 and look forward to seeing the influence of our efforts""under the university's 100kin10 proposal the three texas a&m colleges will work together toward several new initiatives including a possible teacher preparation program through a newly created multidisciplinary engineering major in the teacher certification areas of biology chemistry engineering physics and mathematics as part of engineering's 25 by 25 initiative other potential collaborations currently being discussed include hands-on stem tools for early childhood teachers to contextualize engineering and embed it into mathematics and science lessons and integrating an engineering design theme across the middle grades mathematics and science program and much like the 100kin10 review panel university administrators see strong potential in the rio grande valley a historically underserved area where texas a&m is set to open an extension campus with an emphasis on stem education""because very few high school teachers hold engineering degrees it is difficult to prepare and excite their students about this field through their own personal experience "" said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering ""this innovative partnership will help graduates earn an engineering degree while they earn a secondary science or math teacher licensure by better preparing the teachers they can better prepare their students""for additional information about 100kin10 visit https://100kin10org/# # # # # # # # # #about research at texas a&m university: as one of the world's leading research institutions texas a&m is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery including that of science and technology research conducted at texas a&m represented annual expenditures of more than $8666 million in fiscal year 2015 texas a&m ranked in the top 20 of the national science foundation's higher education research and development survey (2014) based on expenditures of more than $854 million in fiscal year 2014 texas a&m's research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit http://researchtamuedu"
1107,"the texas a&m foundation recognized dr john junkins distinguished professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university as the inaugural partner in philanthropy faculty award recipient for his outstanding commitment to enhancing the efforts of fundraising junkins received the award at a reception on tuesday (feb 23) the award was established to celebrate an individual faculty member who has provided dedicated and lasting participation commitment and creative leadership to philanthropy at texas a&m this accolade acknowledges an individual faculty members effort to build long-term productive relationships between the university former students and other private partners in philanthropy the partner in philanthropy faculty award will honor a different faculty member each year to be selected faculty must be nominated by a member of the texas a&m foundation development staff recipients will be chosen based on their lasting participation and commitment to creative leadership and philanthropy ""john was the obvious choice as the inaugural recipient of this award said george hickox chairman of the texas a&m foundation board of trustees and a 1980 graduate of the university the texas a&m foundation trustees selected him because he embodies the philanthropic spirit and demonstrates an unwavering desire to extend texas a&ms ability to solve great global challenges a distinguished professor of aerospace engineering and a regents professor junkins serves as the founding director of the texas a&m institute for advanced study (tias) a program that recruits eminent scholars to collaborate with texas a&m faculty and students by identifying and attracting national academy and nobel-caliber academic talent tias aims to make texas a&m a distinctive university measured by world standards for academic excellence junkins has worked steadfastly to support a culture of philanthropy at the university through ongoing efforts to develop philanthropic partnerships in support of tias hickox added during his time at the helm of tias junkins has developed relationships with potential donors and demonstrated a deep understanding of the value of private support in addition junkins has made gifts to support the university from his personal estate in 2012 he and his wife gave $2 million to establish the john and elouise junkins chair in aerospace engineering as he watched tias enrich the academic environment at texas a&m junkins was inspired to create his own gift to support that initiative as well he committed $1 million for the john and elouise junkins directors chair to benefit tias by promoting tias to potential fellows and donors and by supporting it through our endowment i am doing all that i can to ensure that the institute doesnt end as just a wonderful experiment that ran out of money said junkins as holder of the royce e wisenbaker chair junkins has a first-hand understanding of the power of an endowed gift and its impact on his career his gifts are the result of his effort to pay it forward and he hopes others will do the same my career and indeed the quality of my familys life has been greatly enhanced by the wisenbakers generosity and other endowments said junkins elouise and i reflected on this truth and we feel it is only fitting that we invest our estate to enhance the future of our academic home i also believe faculty involvement in philanthropy will strike a powerful chord and help motivate other donors to give they will see that we faculty truly believe in what we are doing and have personally bought into moving the university to the next level the foundation hopes the partner in philanthropy award will encourage other faculty members to embody this spirit of service and philanthropy so evident in junkins it is imperative that faculty not only understand the role of philanthropy in their academic pursuits but that they actively participate in the philanthropic process said former texas a&m foundation president ed davis who worked alongside junkins to seek private support for tias in this way john is the exemplar his dedication to seeking support for tias demonstrates his deeply held faith in the academic value of endowments for tias and for broadly advancing texas a&ms quality and stature about the texas a&m foundation:the texas a&m foundation is a nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance texas a&ms capability to be among the best universities for additional information please contact monika blackwell at mblackwell@txamfoundationcom or (979) 845-7468"
1108,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr satish bukkapatnam as the barbara and ralph cox 53 faculty fellow in industrial and systems engineering bukkapatnam is a professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering and serves as director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations institute for manufacturing systems he is also the rockwell international professor and holds a courtesy appointment in the department of biomedical engineering he earned both his masters degree and phd in industrial and manufacturing engineering from pennsylvania state university
1109,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr i yucel akkutlu holder of the flotek industries inc career development professorship in petroleum engineering the endowed development professorship was effective jan 1 akkutlu is an associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university he is also the director of graduate advising and the william keeler fellow he earned a bachelors degree in chemical engineering from hacettepe university in ankara turkey and a masters and phd both in petroleum engineering from the university of southern california akkutlus research focuses on phase behavior of multi-component fluids in nanoporous materials; shale gas and oil resource assessment and characterization; co2-enhanced shale gas and oil recovery; and transport and reactions in porous media
1110,laura byrd courtney charanza debra hanson and eleanor schuler are four of 25 individuals selected to receive the 2015-16 presidents meritorious service award all four will receive their award during a ceremony feb 29 at 3:30 pm in the in the memorial student centers bethancourt ballroom on the texas a&m university campus nominations for the award were submitted in the fall and an anonymous committee comprised of representatives from across campus selected the winners byrd is a program assistant in graduate student services in the zachry department of civil engineering charanza is an academic business administrator i in the department of mechanical engineering hanson is the engineering organizational services manager in the department of electrical and computer engineering and schuler is a senior administrative coordinator in the graduate program in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering each individual recipient receives a $1 000 cash award a commemorative plaque and a lapel pin awards are funded through the generosity of the association of former students and the program is coordinated by texas a&m human resources for a complete list of recipients visit https://employeestamuedu/talent-management/managers/employee-recognition/pmsa/
1111,the professional association for industrial distribution (paid) recently hosted its annual career fair at texas a&m universitys hall of champions paid is one of the largest student-run organizations at texas a&m with more than 700 members paid was formed in 1983 to serve as a link between industrial distribution students and industry for more than 30 years paid has played a key role in providing internships and job opportunities for industrial distribution students industrial distribution is one of only two majors on campus to host major-specific recruitment fairs the other being construction science paid has been hosting its fall career fair for more than 20 years and due to industry demand added a spring fair nine years ago the career fair attracted a record 70 companies from around the united states that were recruiting for full-time and internship positions each company in attendance recognizes the value of industrial distribution students said cory cobler president of paid there is no place in the country that you can find the caliber of students we produce here at texas a&m paid is a leading student organization added evan vestal an adviser to paid and a faculty member in industrial distribution it serves several purposes for most industrial distribution students including providing a platform for connections with industry an outlet to provide service to others and a mechanism to assimilate students into social interaction thereby leading to lifelong relationships with others paids career fairs are premier events on campus and the fall career fair was the largest and most successful yet many of our industry partners commented on the tremendous success of the event in addition to organizing the career fairs paid also hosts power lunches corporate spotlight the paid banquet intern-for-a-day and digital resume collection paid has also raised funds for charitable causes with events such as 5k runs and crawfish boils for more information on paid and the career fairs visit paids website
1112,dr lydia tapia former student from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the denise denton emerging leader abie award at the 2015 grace hopper conference in houston the denise denton emerging leader abie award is presented by the anita borg institute for women in technology to a junior faculty member at an academic or research institution who pursues high-quality research in engineering or physical sciences demonstrates leadership capabilities and contributes to promoting diversity in his/her environment tapia assistant professor of computer science and director of the adaptive motion planning research group at the university of new mexico (unm) received the award because of her research accomplishments ability to overcome great personal challenges and her work with minority students while in graduate school at texas a&m tapia suffered from two strokes causing her to lose the use of one arm her sight and her ability to walk one year later after regaining her ability to walk write and type she returned to finish her doctorate degree in computer science in addition to leading a very successful research group tapia volunteers to introduce underprivileged youth to technology and robotics she brings her research to the students with an interactive exhibit that allows the students to learn about robotics in an engaging environment at unm tapia serves as a research mentor to both undergraduate and graduate students her research in methodologies for the simulation and analysis of motions has been published in numerous conference and journal publications she is working to advance the fields of molecular binding and robotic obstacle avoidance through her research and mentorship her goal is to give back to her students tapia has started a women-in-computing group at unm to help boost female involvement in computer science while at texas a&m tapia was a research and teaching assistant and served in numerous clubs and organizations at texas a&m tapia was a doctoral student under dr nancy amato unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering her graduate thesis was titled intelligent motion planning and analysis with probabilistic roadmap methods for the study of complex and high-dimensional motions tapia received several awards while at texas a&m for her impact in womens progress leadership mentoring and more she graduated from the university in 2009 with her phd in computer science
1113,sujay shankar a junior at a&m consolidated high school who is working with assistant professor akhilesh gaharwar of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been honored with several awards at the austin energy regional science festival for his research project developing biomaterials for medical implants for his work with gaharwar and graduate student charles wpeak shankar received the austin energy best of fair award the asm material education foundation award the i-sweep award and the us navy/marine science award in addition he also has been named a finalist for the intel international science and engineering fair scheduled to take place this may in phoenix shankars project focuses on developing bioink for 3-d printing applications gaharwar notes three-dimensional printing provides an effective solution to tissue and organ failure however a vital aspect as well as a bottleneck to the design and implementation of a 3-d printing system for biomedical applications is bioink he explains looking to address the challenges associated with bioink shankar is developing a mechanically stiff and cell-compatible material for 3-d printed tissues and organs that can potentially be used for transplantation this research gaharwar says will not only solve the organ transplant problem but also has potential to make a significant impact in areas such as stem cell engineering wound and surgical sealants and drug delivery the austin energy regional science festival is one of texas largest regional science fairs with almost 3 000 students ranging from third through 12th grade it encourages and rewards innovative student research and provides scientists engineers and other professionals a chance to volunteer in the community about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1114,dr lewis ntaimo associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and dr v jorge leon allen-bradley professor in the department were recently featured in the february issue of iie magazine the article highlights leon and ntaimos team for developing a model for companies to enhance performance by sharing partial information with other companies when collaborating on a large-scale project in an uncertain environment leon and ntaimo authored the article nodal decomposition-coordination for stochastic programs with private information restrictions with eric b beier general dynamics information technology senior scientist and saravanan venkatachalam wayne state university assistant professor
1115,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was well represented at the 2015 grace hopper celebration of women in computing conference (ghc) in houston the conference hosted by the anita borg institute for women in technology in partnership with the association for computing machinery (acm) is the worlds largest technical conference for women in computing ghcs 2015 theme was #ourtimetolead ghc set records with almost 12 000 attendees and 1 352 organizations from 63 countries who met to network collaborate and promote women in computing according to the annual impact report there was a 50 percent increase in attendance and 69 percent increase in organizations from the previous year throughout the conference 76 faculty staff and students represented the department while the conference is designed to celebrate women in computing the department representation included 11 males a demonstration of how aware the student body is of the importance of diversity in computing joining the department were two students yvonne chukwu and july alejandra romero garcia who are enrolled in the texas a&m-chevron engineering academy at houston community college i enjoyed every minute of the conference said chukwu one thing that stood out to me was the overwhelming sense of sisterhood that i felt from all the ambitious and successful ladies that i was surrounded by it was a great experience overall in addition to current student attendance dr lydia tapia former student of computer science and engineering was awarded the denise denton emerging leader anita borg institute excellence award the award is given to a junior faculty member who has high-quality research and has made a significant impact on diversity within the profession she was recognized for her work with disabled minorities and research at new mexico state university four faculty members from computer science and engineering represented the department as speakers at ghc dr dilma da silva department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii dr valerie taylor senior associate dean of academic affairs for the dwight look college of engineering and royce e wisenbaker professor dr nancy amato unocal professor and dr tracy hammond associate professor each presented mentoring and technical sessions to the attendants from the impressive career fair opportunities the people they meet from all fields in computing and the career advice they are exposed to our students benefit tremendously from attending the conference da silva said they do a great job representing the aggie spirit one of our transfer students recently told us that their decision to move to texas a&m was due to spending time with our students at ghc in addition to her presentation amato was the co-chair of the ghc scholarship committee this year there were over 1 800 scholarship applicants the committee awarded over $800 000 in scholarships to 500 students at the conference both the look college of engineering and the department of computer science and engineering provided funding for the ghc this year computer science and engineering was one of only 15 departments to be a gold sponsor of the conference the 2016 ghc will be in houston from oct 19 until oct 21 for more information about the upcoming conference please visit the ghc website
1116,global grand challenges facing the energy and environmental sectors are highlighted by governmental intergovernmental and corporate entities they hinge on concerns related to energy security energy affordability and the generation of lower-carbon energy multi-scale systems engineering has focused on addressing several of these challenges across scales that vary temporally and/or spatially through the use of principal engineering components: modeling design synthesis simulation and optimization professor christodoulos a floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute and erle nye ‘59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university along with graduate students alexander m niziolek onur onel and logan r matthews highlight key research areas that multi-scale systems engineering has and continues to address in the march 2016 american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) journal perspective article the article multi-scale systems engineering for energy and the environment: challenges and opportunities is featured as the cover of the aiche journal and focuses on co2 capture utilization and storage; renewable energy; natural gas-based processes; and production of valuable chemicals each key area demonstrates the significant progress made by multi-scale systems engineering toward an environmentally sustainable energy economy computational methods have made it possible to accurately predict properties of co2 mixtures and design novel materials for co2 separations which naturally lends itself to design more efficient carbon capture and sequestration processes furthermore the development of efficient and cost-effective renewable processes has shown the potential to achieve remarkable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions the increased focus on natural gas in multi-scale systems engineering has led to significant contributions in methane purification reactor network design optimal natural gas conversion and blueprints for the strategic deployment of gas-to-liquids refineries these contributions are attributed to the rapid development of shale gas reserves in the united states finally in response to the expected future growth of the chemicals industry multi-scale systems engineering techniques have aided in the development of flexible and selective processes for chemicals production from various feedstocks such as shale gas as the perspective article demonstrates multi-scale systems engineering has and will lead researchers to breakthroughs that address challenges related to energy and the environment the list of influential directions that stem from the emergence of multi-scale systems engineering includes (1) the growth of renewable energy; (2) new processes for carbon dioxide capture utilization and storage; and (3) multi-scale methods for design simulation and optimization of energy processes among others the tools frameworks and methodologies developed lay a solid foundation to address the next generation of challenges which include the food energy and water nexus; uncertainty quantification in energy systems; and the intermittency of various renewable sources the full reference to the article is shown below: floudas c a; niziolek a m; onel o; matthews l r multi-scale systems engineering for energy and the environment: challenges and opportunities aiche journal 2016 62 (3) 602-623 doi:101002/aic15151
1117,six former students of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university recently participated in the industrial distribution programs ‘grad forum during the sales engineering class (idis 330) the former students comprised a panel and interacted with both sections of the class the former students included: larry alexander (vice president of national accounts at mckesson); bj tietze (sales manager at west & associates); natalie boyd (supply chain analyst at distribution now); hannah aurich (inside sales at hydraquip distribution); zac henderson (sales manager at kwi production equipment); and lauren english (procurement manager at exxonmobil) the panel members interacted with students explained their career paths since graduation and explained their responsibilities in their current positions panel members answered questions from the students on resumes interviewing what they look for in recruits school to work transition personal finances how to better prepare for the workplace and challenges faced in the workplace this class session constituted an experiential learning experience in which students could get answers to their questions from former students who have a vested interest in the industrial distribution program and who are not far removed from being in the position of the students who were asking the questions said dr norm clark senior lecturer in the department and course instructor
1118,his team might not have been from texas a&m university but an aggie still helped take home the top honors at the spacex hyperloop pod competition design weekend held at texas a&ms kyle field on jan 29-30 john mayo a 2014 texas a&m graduate in mechanical engineering and a graduate of a&m consolidated high school in college station texas was the project manager for the massachusetts institute of technologys (mit) team that won the competition hes now seeking his masters in mechanical engineering at mit and said it was exciting to be back in his hometown for the event so that his mit friends would finally understand the school he came from i was trying to explain a&m to all of these people from other schools like berkeley or delft from all over the world and they never really understood he said so finally it was great to be there and to be able to show them everything mayo said his time at texas a&m specifically his time working with the formula sae car in his senior capstone course prepared him for the work he is doing now a lot of our hyperloop team at mit is made up of former sae people the experience i had through mechanical engineering in that program definitely has helped us be successful in this competition bringing that from a&m brought a lot of insight that was one of the most realistic real-world senior design projects i could have ever have done according to mayo the mit team focused on making its pod buildable so that it could actually produce it in time for this summers competition in california as a result the teams pod was pretty straightforward and in mayos terms didnt look as slick as some of the others in fact mayo said his teams members were so impressed with a number of other teams that they werent going to be surprised if they didnt win there were a lot of very innovative designs he said being among the other teams and talking to them was great there were a lot of really neat things there we werent going to be upset if we didnt win because there were so many great designs out there mayo couldnt stay in college station for the results though because he is also part of mits hermes humanoid robot system which was competing in the united arab emirates robotics for good competition he left for dubai after the first day of the hyperloop competition and was in bed at 3:30 in the morning when his phone started buzzing everyone was texting and saying we won mayo said i had a sim card and i blew all my minutes in my first six hours of being here because i was talking to people back home the energy from the team i could feel it here it was an unreal feeling that we won i wish i could have been there but i cant be in two places at once the stakes were slightly higher in dubai where mayos mit team was one of six finalists that competed for a $1 million grand prize he describes the hermes as something similar to the robots in the movie pacific rim in the way that the user interacts with the robot one of their examples of how hermes could have been used was in repairing the main reactor during the fukushima meltdown in 2011 its a person inside of a suit operating it and when the robot gets hit or anything the person feels it in the suit mechanically he said its the concept of having a person fully immersed in the experience of operating the robot not only giving it commands with the exoskeleton suit but also feeling mechanical pushes so they can tell how the robot is doing in the situation its intended for disaster response purposes where you dont want to send a person but you want a persons full ability to sense their environment and react to unknown situations there even though mayo had to miss the second day of the hyperloop competition to be in dubai he said the excitement from his teammates and the feedback from other teams showed that the event was great exposure for texas a&m the competition definitely put a&m even more on the map in engineering he said especially for teams like delft from around the world they know the engineering caliber of texas a&m now and the hospitality was great a&m professor emeritus dr make mcdermott was the adviser for the sae team when mayo was a senior mcdermott said the thing that always stuck out to him is how mayo still made time to work with local high schools and middle schools competing in robotics competitions he was one of the very best students that i taught in 42 years at texas a&m mcdermott said hes not only very intelligent but hes got great people skills and hes so energetic i was just looking back over his resume and even looking at it makes me tired mayo has accepted a position starting this fall working at the nasa jet propulsion laboratory in the robotic mobility and manipulator group
1119,texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering was one of six organizations honored by laserfiche for using its enterprise content management to improve productivity innovate processes and achieve exceptional business results the texas a&m university system selected laserfiche to enhance the ability to share documents and workflows across the systems 1 000-plus departments and units and to reduce costs by eliminating redundant hardware and software systems the look college used laserfiche to automate the employee onboarding process saving more than 2 000 hours a year the other organizations recognized were: heifer international (little rock arkansas); first foundation bank (irvine california); sanitation district #1 (fort wright kentucky); frisco independent school district (frisco texas); and olmsted county (minnesota) at the heart of any enterprise transformation is a shift in business strategy along with technology to enable that change said chris wacker ceo if laserfiche from saving $10 million annually to giving sustainable development professionals more time to focus on providing meaningful programs to those in need these six organizations have used laserfiche to achieve truly remarkable results for more on the winners visit the laserfiche website
1120,the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university hosted its annual student paper contest on jan 30 with runoffs held on feb 6 over the past four decades the contest has become a time-honored annual event and has grown significantly both in the number of participating students and the amount of industry support and sponsorship each year junior senior and graduate students in petroleum engineering give technical presentations before panels of industry judges the students must research and write the presentations themselves the top winners of the senior and graduate levels advance to participate in higher-level contests this year 440 students competed in 29 sessions before 130 judges over the two weekends first and second place winners from the senior masters and doctoral groups will compete in the regional competition which will be held on april 16 on the texas a&m campus in college station winners from the runoffs were: junior – first place: alex lambros; second place: katherine johnson; third place: luke weissler (lambros johnson and weissler) senior – first place: melissa leroy; second place: victoria najvar; third place: austin draughon (draughon najvar and leroy) master – first place: hanyu li; second place: isaac zhukovsky; third place: antu xie (li xie and zhukovsky) doctoral – first place: nadav sorek; second place: karin gonzalez abad; third place: jixiang huang (sorek gonzalez abad and huang) the objective of the local contest is to assist students in developing proficiency in the presentation of technical or research projects in both oral and visual form aggie petroleum students have an impressive record of winning at the gulf coast north america section regional level as well as at the society of petroleum engineers international level dr duane mcvay is the director of the contest and is assisted by a team of staff coordinators: kathy beladi phaedra hopcus and carol mumford due to its size and complex arrangements the contest often takes several months to coordinate many former students and industrial supporters regard the contest as one of the most important professional development opportunities the department provides for its students they are willing to donate both time and money to ensure its continued success this year sponsorship of the event by industry and former students totaled $51 050
1121,thousands of potential students and their families visited texas a&m university and the dwight look college of engineering for aggieland saturday a university open house held feb 13 aggieland saturday brought approximately 13 000 visitors to campus to explore all texas a&m has to offer through guided tours presentations resource tables and the opportunity to meet with faculty and staff representatives the college of engineering hosted more than 4 000 of those visitors with information and tours specific to engineering the event kicked off in rudder auditorium with a presentation by dr valerie taylor senior dean for academic affairs with the engineering academics and student affairs (easa) office taylor highlighted the many benefits of an engineering degree; her presentation was followed by the office of admissions explaining the application process for the prospective students and their parents were always excited to welcome students and their families to the college of engineering and let them see first hand why texas a&m engineering is an excellent choice for them said taylor the visitors were then welcomed to the engineering activities buildings where all departments college programs and student organizations had resource booths in total there were more than 30 present with handouts demonstrations and information this gave visitors the opportunity to meet with faculty staff and students to learn more about each program
1122,in addition to the resources in the engineering activities buildings each department hosted additional activities throughout campus visitors could take laboratory tours see demonstrations and learn more about each discipline to learn more about aggieland saturday visit the website
1123,dr ignacio e grossmann a world renowned researcher for developing novel mathematical programming algorithms and techniques for solving problems in process systems engineering delivered the distinguished mcferrin lecture which is part of the lindsay lecture series hosted by the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university grossmann is the rudolph r and florence dean university professor of chemical engineering and former department head at carnegie mellon university he is a member of national academy of engineering he presented his lecture recent advances in computational models for the discrete and continuous optimization models of industrial process systems with several references to applications in the oil and gas industry grossman gave an overview of deterministic and stochastic models based on mixed-integer liner/nonlinear programming to optimize the offshore oil and gas facilities these models and algorithms are applied to the design and planning of offshore facilities with uncertain crude oil prices and reservoir sizes said grossmann grossman is the director of the center for advanced process decision-making which comprises of a total 20 petroleum chemical and engineering companies in addition to nae he holds memberships in the mexican academy of engineering american institute of chemical engineers institute for operations research and management science mathematical optimization society and the american chemical society the jd lindsay lecture series enables outstanding speakers from industry and academia to visit texas a&m and the department of chemical engineering to exchange ideas on teaching and research with students and faculty
1124,what happens when you mix engineers with education students and design needs from sponsors you get solutions to healthy eating habits educational and safe social media and special needs education tracking these three ideas took the top spots at the latest aggies invent which was focused on educational needs in 48 hours the innovators created mobile apps virtual reality physical devices and more to combat problem statements related to improving educational techniques for children aggies invent promotes an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m university it gathers invited students provides them with the needs statements submitted by sponsors allows them to self-select teams and gives them access to industry mentors and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours the focus of the most recent aggies invent was education the main event sponsor was at&t pricewaterhousecoopers (pwc) huckabee (an architecture firm specializing in educational space design) and the texas a&m college of education were also sponsors of the event more than 100 students applied for aggies invent: education and 59 were selected to participate the students ranged from freshmen to doctoral candidates most participants were engineering students but the group included students from across the university notably half of the participants were female engaging different disciplines fosters development of solutions that are truly innovative and creative the winning team veggie roll was comprised of carlos rios crystal nguyen caitlin vu and muddassir tai veggie roll is a portable gardening tool to teach children proper planting distances for crops the goal of veggie roll is to teach children in developing countries how to grow food to sustain themselves additionally veggie roll teaches children about geometric shapes accuracy with planting and healthy living habits second place went to the team of austin verrett mohammad sagor julian franklin murphy young nivedhan manavalan and thomas rockwood for its product stem space a social media app to engage kids in stem (science technology engineering and math) at an earlier age stem space offers students a new format to become interested in stem through engaging online activities; additionally teachers can track student progress and promote a safe learning space online grit (guiding results and informing teachers) came in third place with an app for teachers to create and monitor the educational path of special needs students team members included will davis mehwish khan miguel rodriguez and katie black grit streamlines data collection for special needs educators builds a collaborative platform for educators and parents and tracks student progress this aggies invent was judged by dr prasad enjeti from the college of engineering; darrell lane director of pricewaterhousecoopers; dr lynn burlbaw professor and co-department head department of teaching learning and culture (tlac) in the college of education and two software engineers from at&t stormy adams and robert reilly the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively the innovation does not stop at the awards all teams are invited to continue working on their project and will have access to the eic and mentors to help them improve their idea and create more advanced prototypes rodney boehm director of aggies invent and associate professor of practice continues to provide guidance to each team throughout this process each team developed very unique and innovative solutions to their design challenges boehm said we are encouraging them to continue by helping them tap into the entrepreneurial resources throughout the university for more information about aggies invent please see https://aggiesinventtamuedu/
1125,carl runco a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university competed in the southwest regional robert l lichten competition and won first place for his presentation design and development of a meso-scale cyclocopter giving him the opportunity to compete in the national level competition the lichten competition was established through the american helicopter society to provide new researchers who have not previously presented a paper at a technical conference a chance to showcase their work the award is focused on recognizing new and innovative research in the area of rotorcraft and vertical flight runco is a second year graduate student working under the guidance of dr moble benedict assistant professor in the advanced vertical flight laboratory on the construction and flight testing of a novel micro air vehicle the cyclocopter the cyclocopter is a vtol capable vehicle that uses a lift generating mechanism that is different than a conventional helicopter rotor the paper he presented focuses on the design development and flight testing of a 29 gram meso-scale cyclocopter which is the smallest cycloidal-rotor based aircraft ever built
1126,joshua harris phd student and graduate research assistant in the vehicle systems and control laboratory (vscl) in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to join the aiaa intelligent systems technical committee (istc) the istc addresses the application of intelligent system (is) technologies and methods to aerospace systems the verification and validation of these systems and the education of the aiaa membership in the use of is technologies in aerospace and other technical disciplines members of the istc have experience in developing and managing aerospace systems involving knowledge engineering knowledge acquisition verification/validation of knowledge based systems neural networks and expert systems as well as the use of artificial intelligence concepts/techniques to support natural language interfaces image understanding planning/scheduling and data fusion harris a student under dr john valasek professor in aerospace engineering has been a vscl researcher since 2010 his research investigates intelligent systems in the realm of flight dynamics and controls harriss interests include the use of intelligent and adaptive systems for robust flight control intelligent systems identification methods cooperative and multi-agent control and integrated systems health management for aircraft and spacecraft
1127,the human immunodeficiency virus hiv-1 can infect via entry a variety of cells the specific cell-type infected by a viral strain is referred to as hiv-1 tropism and can affect treatment and overall patient outcome cell-based methods for determining hiv-1 tropism are costly with a slow turnaround and as a result there has been significant interest in developing computational tools for predicting hiv-1 tropism based on isolated dna sequences encoding the virus as described in an article recently published in plos one researchers led by christodoulos a floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute and erle nye '59 chair professor for engineering excellence have made a significant breakthrough in the computational prediction of hiv-1 tropism [1] the research team responsible for this work includes assistant professor phanourios tamamis postdoctoral research associate dr chris a kieslich and doctoral students yannis guzman and melis onel hiv-1 remains difficult to treat due to its high genetic variability one approach that has been adopted to circumvent the difficulties of thwarting the quickly mutating virus is to target a specific class of human cell-bound proteins referred to as coreceptors which are hijacked by hiv-1 for cellular entry the coreceptor used for cellular entry typically drives hiv-1 tropism and is based on an interaction with a short segment of a hiv-1 envelope protein unlike existing tropism prediction methods the method developed by professor floudas and his team accounts for the specific amino acid interactions between the human and viral proteins that drive coreceptor usage as a result of this development the new method provides significant improvements in accuracy in comparison to existing methods this advance was enabled by computationally-derived complex structures for the interactions between the segment of hiv-1 envelope protein gp120 and human coreceptors ccr5 [2] and cxcr4 [3] which were also developed by the floudas group the team has also developed the web tool crush (coreceptor usage prediction for hiv-1) the use of features based on the computationally-derived coreceptor complex structures allows crush to be much simpler than existing methods in terms of computation and complexity crush accuracies are not anchored to a genetic reference sequence and as a result crush provides highly accurate predictions across the major geographic and genotypic hiv-1 subtypes the improved accuracy and generality of crush makes it an ideal candidate for genotypic determination of hiv-1 tropism in clinical settings which will be the focus of future work 1 kieslich ca tamamis p guzman ya onel m floudas ca highly accurate structure-based prediction of hiv-1 coreceptor usage suggests intermolecular interactions driving tropism plos one public library of science; 2016;11: e0148974 doi:101371/journalpone01489742 tamamis p floudas ca molecular recognition of ccr5 by an hiv-1 gp120 v3 loop plos one 2014;9 doi:101371/journalpone00957673 tamamis p floudas ca molecular recognition of cxcr4 by a dual tropic hiv-1 gp120 v3 loop biophysical journal 2013;105: 1502–1514 doi:101016/jbpj201307049
1128,payman dehghanian phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a university level scholarship from the society for maintenance and reliability professionals (smrp) dehghanian whos under the advisement of dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department was selected to receive one of the five scholarships from the houston chapter of smrp dehghanian received his bachelors degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his masters degree from sharif university in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications dehghanians recent honors include being selected as one of the top 20 young scholars for next generation of researchers in power systems a research grant scholarship award from the golden key international honor society the 2015 aggies commit fellowship from the texas a&m graduate and professional student council and the international education fee scholarship from texas a&m smrp started in 1992 as a non-profit organization designed to create opportunities for those in maintenance and reliability professions to network and learn from each other the houston chapter was formed in 2005 by a group of national members who wanted to network with those in the area they use allocated chapter funding to assist students with scholarships who may be interested in a career in the maintenance and reliability field
1129,editor's note: original story posted on texas a&m today drawing an analogy between antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the demolition of kyle field was apparently clever enough for texas a&m university doctoral candidate anthony sperber to walk away with several titles including overall winner at this years three-minute thesis (3mt®) competition developed by the university of queensland in australia the 3mt® is a research communication competition open to masters and phd students the competition focuses on excellence in communication challenging graduate students to translate key research results and their significance to lay audiences in three minutes or less the students were judged by a panel of experts from across campus as well as the audience who selected peoples choice winners via texting sperber a student in the department of biochemistry & biophysics presented identification and characterization of proteins affecting cell wall synthesis which summarized research in fighting antibiotic resistance likening the targeting of bacterial cells to building construction we used to fire the construction workers sperber said in making his analogy now we can target the engineers in the end sperber was declared the winner and peoples choice winner in the doctoral category and the competitions overall winner who will move on to regional competition in the coming weeks
1130,the doctoral runner-up was sayyeda marziya hasan department of biomedical engineering with self-expanding foams for brain aneurysm treatment an endeavor to treat potentially fatal brain aneurysms by filling them with polymer foams in the masters category the winner and peoples choice winner was michael young department of aerospace engineering with robotic rehabilitation and diagnostic device for trismus patients young emoted the horrors of trismus a condition which causes extreme pain and difficulty opening ones mouth often seen in oral cancer survivors young described a hands-free headphone device with motors and sensors that provide therapy by manipulating facial muscles and which also take diagnostics the masters category runner-up was kaytan kelkar department of geology & geophysics with geodetectives: connecting the dots to map landslides he explained the widespread and devastating dangers of landslides proposing the use of the geographic information system (gis) to map areas of the world based on their risk for landslides also in the masters category was kelly mcnamara department of sociology who explored the repeated failure of legislators to pass laws protecting the employment rights of transgender individuals in failing to protect: a historical analysis of the employment non-discrimination act the other doctoral competitors were matthey josefy department of management with to conform or not to conform: board responses to the financial crisis of 2007-2009; maria reimi department of geology & geophysics with climate forensics: how to use dust to reconstruct ancient climate; and jacqueline turner department of educational psychology with the other side of the cover: factors that influenced the academic success of graduate students raised in poverty competitors were judged by their communication style audience comprehension and audience engagement winners were awarded cash prizes -30- contact: lesley henton lshenton@tamuedu 979-845-5591
1131,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr lewis ntaimo the marilyn and l david black faculty fellow in industrial and systems engineering in recognition of his accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship was effective jan 1 ntaimo is an associate professor in industrial and systems engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2004 ntaimo received his bachelors degree in mining engineering and his masters degree in mining and geological engineering both from the university of arizona he earned his phd in systems and industrial engineering also from the university of arizona his research interests are in stochastic programming systems modeling and engineering processes and discrete event modeling and simulation
1132,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr amarnath banerjee the corrie and jim furber 64 faculty fellow in industrial and systems engineering in recognition of his accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship was effective jan 1 banerjee is an associate professor in industrial and systems engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in september 1999 banerjee received his bachelors degree in computer science from birla institute of technology and science in pilani india and his phd in industrial engineering and operations research from the university of illinois at chicago his research interests are in modeling simulation and visualization and their applications he directs the virtual manufacturing and augmented reality laboratory banerjee teaches courses in simulation health care systems virtual manufacturing manufacturing and production systems design and control and facilities planning
1133,students completing a capstone course in electronic systems engineering technology (eset) at texas a&m university are getting valuable hands-on experience solving real problems in the space industry thanks to a new collaboration between eset nasa texas instruments and texas space technologies applications and research (t star) the new collaboration was announced during a software developers cartel event the end result will be the development procurement and distribution of the modular integrated stackable layer (misl) architecture a series of space-qualified rack-and-stack embedded system printed circuit boards (pcb)s that will benefit a variety of industries from aerospace to oil and gas to biomedical development of the collaboration began when the nasa control and data handling (c&dh) branch learned of an eset capstone project to develop a power system monitoring capability for nasas deep space habitat at johnson space center paul delaune at nasa contacted dr joseph morgan professor and director of mobile integrated solutions laboratory at texas a&m about their interest in working together to develop a layer concept for rapid prototyping and product development by accepting eset took on three primary responsibilities: the undergraduate capstone students would co-develop new layers for the stackable architecture; they would learn and use the technology; and eset would establish and maintain a wiki-based open environment so all parties would have access to designs and supporting software texas instruments got involved to help commercialize the technology by providing a gift to eset the students will be able to purchase a large number of boards reducing the cost for the customer from thousands of dollars to hundreds stackable layer architecture is a way to rapidly build your embedded intelligence system by truly just plugging in one layer to another morgan said unlike most other implementations of this architecture the misl architecture has two different high capacity connectors one for power and one for data morgan said it is the only architecture that allows the use of a large number of microcontrollers and is the only one that has been space-qualified by nasa these factors make the misl architecture a no-brainer choice by product and systems developers in the aerospace automotive oil and gas medical communications and other industry segments requiring operations in hazardous environments he said students participating in the course operate like a small start-up company with four-person teams each team member takes on a different primary task to ultimately fulfill the customers needs we are building the tsat which is a t star satellite said matt leonard president and ceo of t star the tsat a 10-centimeter by 10-centimeter by 10-centimeter cube satellite needs a way to communicate with the earth to downlink data from the researchers experiment from a technical standpoint theres no one that can compete with us said dvdt team member dakotah kareer every course has a lab so were working on real world hardware and software integration
1134,laura byrd program assistant in the zachry department of civil engineering graduate office was recently awarded the president's meritorious service award along with 24 other individuals and two teams byrd is a well-known face around the department she came to texas a&m university in 2010 and began working in civil engineering in 2011 an army brat born in japan byrd relates to the somewhat transplanted feeling one can experience with higher education she prides herself on knowing and maintaining a relationship with the students from check-in on day one through graduation they are not just a number to me i like when they drop by for a piece of candy and tell me bits of their lives outside of school said byrd this award is most humbling because i was nominated by students i love my job and i love helping and interacting with each student or any other person that asks me for assistance when the graduate students arrive on campus their first stop is the graduate office waiting for them is a bowl of candy and support as they prepare to settle into the department in the two years that i have been a graduate student in the civil engineering department it has been the graduate student services office that has given me the most support and most defined my experience working with administration said juliana cammarata civil engineering graduate student ms laura byrd has resolved every issue i have come to her with swiftly and effectively even when they were outside of her purview we have close to 500 graduate students in the department and laura knows each and every one of them said dr yunlong zhang associate professor and assistant department head for graduate programs in civil engineering she is resourceful knows or can quickly find the solution to problems and is always ready to help the president's meritorious service awards began in 1986 currently these awards are presented to recognize 25 outstanding individuals and two outstanding teams for their meritorious service to the university nominations are typically called for during the fall; an anonymous committee appointed by the president selects the recipients awards are presented at a special award ceremony each individual recipient receives a $1 000 cash award a commemorative plaque and a lapel pin the teams will be recognized with a plaque for departmental display each member of the team receives a cash award of $200 a lapel pin and a framed certificate of recognition the president's meritorious service awards program is sponsored by the office of the president and the association of former students the program is coordinated by texas a&m human resources
1135,dr alan needleman tees distinguished research professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university chaired the program committee for the 2016 annual conference of the academy of medicine engineering and science of texas (tamest) the program was held in dallas and the theme was challenges and opportunities in materials science and engineering in the 21st century founded in 2004 and with 260-plus members tamest is composed of the texas-based members of the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine and the states nobel laureates tamest brought the states top scientific academic and corporate minds together to further position texas as a national research leader this years event marked the 10th anniversary of the edith and peter odonnell awards established in 2006 to recognize the states most promising young researchers the odonnell awards have honored a total of 44 individuals for their achievements in medicine engineering and science following welcoming remarks by kenneth arnold tamests 2015 president and dr cd mote jr president of national academy of engineering needleman a member of national academy of engineering introduced the program
1136,the 2016 tamest annual conference highlighted recent developments in materials science and engineering that are and will be leading to qualitative changes in the way products are manufactured in the way medicine is practiced and the way energy is provided to our society said needleman it provided a window into materials science and engineering developments that will affect how we will live and how we will do business in 21st century texas the program highlighted advances in the fundamental understanding of the behavior of materials and in transitioning that understanding into products and processes that people can use to meet 21st century grand challenges in health care in providing energy in improving environmental quality and in providing a robust economy there were presentations by individuals whose work is defining the frontiers of materials science and engineering on new manufacturing technologies novel materials system design and performance on earth and in space materials for sustainable energy advances in biomaterials including drug delivery and tissue engineering and computational modeling that is making the virtual design of materials an emerging possibility texas a&m attendees associated with the department of materials science and engineering included dr dimitris c lagoudas associate vice chancellor for engineering research and university distinguished professor dr ibrahim karaman head and chevron professor i in materials science and engineering and dr amine benzerga associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering and an affiliated faculty member in materials science and engineering
1137,research shows the united states is facing a crisis with the shortage of science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) professionals entering and remaining in the workforce with stem job openings on the rise it is imperative that the number of career-ready scientists and engineers increases to meet the demand the 2016 stem teacher summit & pk-12 leadership forum held in college station texas last month sought to close that gap by giving 150 educators from around the state the tools they need to inspire the next generation of stem professionals through paneled discussions and workshops the event helped reinvigorate educators and inspire them to inspire their students teachers inspire the next generation m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university thanked the educators and administrators in attendance for what they do for the children of texas i consider you to be tending the garden of intellectual curiosity of the state she said were waiting for these students to come and join us at the college of engineering we need them prepared banks said its important for educators to not only stress the importance of being proficient in science and mathematics but also to be creative it isnt just about doing the calculations she said its about thinking outside of the box its handing the students a blank sheet of paper and saying ‘go for it women bring something new to the table the summits theme was women in stem and tricia berry director of the women in engineering program at the university of texas at austin was the events keynote speaker an engineer berry stressed the importance of increasing the diversity of engineers working in the industry particularly the number of women if we were to ask a girl or any kid what does an engineer or scientist look like what do you think they would say she asked the audience the consensus was an older caucasian man holding a beaker one of berrys colleagues a female engineer put this example to practice asking children to draw an engineer or scientist the results came as no surprise most children drew a man in a white lab coat then they had the children interact with a diverse group of scientists before having the children draw a scientist again the second time around the drawings were different the lab coats were gone and some of the drawings illustrated female scientists african-american scientists or as one student said normal people this is the power of changing the image berry said this is what we need when we talk about bringing kids into stem berry said its also important to change the language urging educators from using words like nerdy and geeky to describe engineers and scientists i want to put myself out of business so please help me do that she said the takeaway for palacios high school science teacher christopher page learning ways to incorporate more engineering into all of his classrooms was his driving factor he also wanted to learn tips on how to engage his female students were laying the foundation so our job is one of the most important ones he said dr robert m capraro co-director of the aggie stem center echoed a similar sentiment the other colleges focus heavily on creating stem professionals and we focus heavily on preparing teachers to induct the next generation of stem professionals into higher education he said in the end its all about working together to change the face of stem we need women in stem and all the underrepresented groups said shelly tornquist director of pk-12 engineering education outreach what that brings to the table for engineering is a better look at a problem if you get everybody thinking the same thing then nobodys thinking at all this event was made possible by the dwight look college of engineering the college of education and human development the college of science the texas a&m engineering experiment station and chevron phillips chemical
1138,dr thomas ferris assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has developed a new two-day course for the national center for therapeutics manufacturing (nctm) that examines the impact of human error on the safety and quality of operations in biomanufacturing systems the course applies well-practiced human factors theory and methods to the emerging and growing field of biomanufacturing ferris course is unique to the field in the way it combines the topics of biomanufacturing systems human cognition human error analysis and systems design human error can be described as a system failure in which a human activity contributes to an unintended system outcome different types of errors tend to occur when humans are operating under different cognitive or behavioral modes for example a person performing well-practiced highly automated tasks tends to have little conscious engagement in those activities and errors are caused by failures in attentional focus when people encounter a relatively unfamiliar set of circumstances they are consciously-engaged in the task to a greater extent than with well-practiced activities and errors tend to be expressed more so in the decisions of which actions to take or how to perform them rather than in a failure in the execution of the selected actions human error and resilience in biomanufacturing systems teaches students how to recognize and analyze errors when they occur and to recognize system design components that may increase the likelihood of an error occurring eventually students learn about cognitive functions such as attention memory and perception and how errors emerge as a result of breakdowns in these functions as when teaching texas a&m engineering students ferris wants the students in this course to acquire knowledge and skills that can be directly applied in the biomanufacturing workplace but also to feed an interest in the workings of human cognition in everyday life my teaching philosophy is to inspire an appreciation for not only what the problems (errors) are but how they occur as a result of basic human tendencies because i think this helps immensely when students then go to try to solve the problems ferris said i also find that the basic science of human cognition illustrated through common examples in familiar contexts is interesting to a lot of people as it is of course to me additionally having deeper insight into how people including the student learners themselves think and act in everyday situations can be advantageous in many types of social interactions the course also teaches how to design a system that can be resilient to human error by first admitting that error is inevitable error proof is a fantasy ferris said as long as a human is involved in either the design or operation of a system there will be sources for error to emerge instead of identifying every possible way errors might be expressed in a biomanufacturing system and designing safety systems to make each individual error less likely ferris champions the approach of building resilient systems that assume human errors will be a natural occurrence and to focus safety design on ways to tolerate human errors weaken their consequences and prevent sequences of cascading errors that could contribute to a catastrophic system failure we received positive feedback from the participants most of whom were from contract biomanufacturing organizations said jenny ligon assistant director of nctm they were excited to implement the resilience engineering tools they learned to mitigate or even eliminate human error in their automated manufacturing systems ferris said he looks to be a pioneer for human factors science as well as practice in the emerging biomanufacturing domain and hopes to make a positive impact on biomanufacturing operations for current and aspiring practitioners in that domain as well as scientists and researchers in bioprocessing fields he is also excited to bring the domain knowledge being gained through interactions with members of the biomanufacturing industry back into his classes for texas a&m students providing a new set of real-world case studies and anecdotes in which to illustrate the concepts tools and techniques he teaches for building stronger more resilient systems and managing human error nctm is a joint center of texas a&m and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees)
1139,debbie hanson engineering organizational services manager in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the 2015-16 presidents meritorious service award the president's meritorious service awards recognize and reward staff for their commendable service to texas a&m recipients of this highly prestigious award have demonstrated their commitment to the aggie core values of excellence integrity leadership loyalty respect and selfless service hanson will receive her award during a ceremony on feb 29 nominations for the award were submitted in the fall and an anonymous committee comprised of representatives from across campus selected the winners hanson received her bachelors degree in agricultural economics in 1984 she joined the department upon graduation other honors she has received include the departments outstanding staff award and the deans staff achievement award from the college of engineering each individual recipient receives a $1 000 cash award a commemorative plaque and a lapel pin awards are funded through the generosity of the association of former students and the program is coordinated by texas a&m human resources
1140,a noninvasive device that enables doctors to quickly and accurately identify cancerous tissue in a persons mouth is a step closer to reality thanks to an international collaboration between texas a&m university and qatar aimed at more effective diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer the collaboration is supported by a three-year $800 000 grant from the qatar national research fund (qnrf) that will enable development and deployment of a handheld device for detecting oral cancer that will be tested at rumailah hospital hamad medical corporation (hmc) in qatar says javier jo associate professor in texas a&ms department of biomedical engineering jo who is lead researcher on the project is working with colleagues from texas a&m at qatar qatar university and hmc to develop the potentially life-saving tool that makes use of technology known as fluorescence lifetime imaging (flim) using flim jo explains his team can measure and visualize the biochemical changes that occur in oral epithelial tissue as it turns cancerous measuring these specific changes the technology jo says can assist physicians in detecting and differentiating precancerous cancerous and benign lesions in a patients mouth jo presented his research at last years world molecular imaging congress a venue where scientists and clinicians discuss cutting-edge advances in molecular imaging his work with the qatar team will focus on the continued refinement of the technology the primary goals of this phase of the project jo explains are to scale down the device so that it is easier to use and increase the speed at which the device captures images from the oral cavity in addition the team is working to create and refine the algorithms needed to process the image information so that physicians can be provided with accurate information about the tissues they are examining in real time this type of instrument jo says could make a significant impact at home and abroad the national institutes of health estimates more than 8 000 people in the united states will die from oral cancer and another 37 000 new patients will be diagnosed this year alone in qatar the disease is rapidly growing and could soon form up to a third of all cancer cases according to the qatar national cancer strategy the successful completion of this research will result in a working prototype of a clinical tool for noninvasive real-time detection of epithelial precancerous and cancerous lesions in the oral cavity even more troubling identification of oral cancer can be challenging jo says doctors typically rely on the naked eye to look for problematic areas in a patients mouth that warrant a biopsy but identifying these areas can be difficult because a patients mouth can manifest lesions that may be both benign and precancerous/ cancerous he explains these different types of lesions are indistinguishable to the naked eye and even some imaging tools experience difficulty distinguishing between them resulting in false positives and triggering unnecessary and painful biopsies jo adds furthermore tissue from a biopsy may register as benign but the surrounding tissue that was not biopsied can be cancerous and remain undiagnosed jos device which is essentially a small handheld microscope employs the flim technique to noninvasively evaluate tissue for the structural and molecular changes that serve as key indicators in determining if tissue is precancerous or cancerous with the tool jo can observe distinct fluorescence signatures – molecular fingerprints of a sort – that are specific to benign precancerous and cancerous tissue this enhanced identification is critical to early detection jo explains but it also is an important tool during the surgical removal of cancerous tissue from a patients mouth during surgery physicians are tasked with the challenge of removing all cancerous tissue from the oral cavity while leaving intact as much surrounding healthy tissue as possible the current practice is to remove a 10 mm normal-looking border around the cancerous lesion if anatomically possible jo says however the high rate of recurrence of carcinomas at the primary site indicates the inadequacy of this approach he notes in other words trace amounts of cancerous tissue can get left behind but jos technology would provide surgeons instantaneous visual feedback about the tissues they are removing for a more directed accurate extraction
1141,the successful completion of this research will result in a working prototype of a clinical tool for noninvasive real-time detection of epithelial precancerous and cancerous lesions in the oral cavity jo says such a tool could potentially be used to assist at every step involved on the clinical management of oral cancer patients from early screening and diagnosis to treatment and monitoring of recurrence the grant is made possible by the national priorities research program (nprp) the flagship funding program of qnrf it is intended to foster a research culture in qatar by encouraging the local population to embrace research and development grants awarded through the program are aimed at building human capital in qatar; funding research to benefit the nation the region and the world; and raising qatars profile within the international research community joining jo in this research are beena ahmed a signal processing expert from texas a&m at qatar; nasir rajpoot an image analysis expert from qatar university; and zeynel dogan and hussain al-enazi senior otolaryngology surgeons at hmc about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences contact: javier jo associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m at 9794583335 or via email: javierjo@tamuedu or ryan a garcia communications manager at 9798475833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
1142,researchers at the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) in conjunction with the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university and professor charles m folden iii at the cyclotron institute have developed a new method in nuclear forensics research to determine the reactor origins of weapons-grade plutonium this methodology gives investigators and other government entities the ability to track the production source of black market nuclear materials specifically plutonium the goal is forensics said professor sunil chirayath the projects principal investigator and interim director of nsspi if somebody is smuggling plutonium to the united states and if it is confiscated we need to attribute who did this and we have to put together several pieces of this puzzle one of the pieces of the puzzle we specifically deal with is determining which type of nuclear reactor produced the confiscated plutonium in the neutron spectrum of nuclear reactors chirayath explains that there are two extremes: thermal reactors and fast reactors with some variants between based on a number of variables different reactor types leave different signatures in the plutonium that is created from spent nuclear fuel once investigators are able to determine what kind of reactor the material came from it becomes a game of elimination between the different countries where these reactor types operate using this information government agencies will look at possible countries in which the material could have been produced and attempt to track how the plutonium may have been transported and illegally acquired
1143,according to chirayath the method for tracing the source of the nuclear material shares some similarity with modern criminal forensics in the same way criminals might leave fingerprints or dna evidence at a crime scene the process for creating the weapons grade plutonium leaves its own type of characteristics on the nuclear material some specific elements when you separate plutonium go with that plutonium as trace contaminants chirayath said when you touch something you dont leave just your fingerprint behind you leave some characteristics behind with that print that leaves an indelible mark we want to know if there is any trace contamination in that plutonium where these specific elements are and we can then tell through that element where this material was created the researchers use a radiochemistry process known as plutonium uranium redox extraction (purex) to separate the plutonium from the trace elements created from spent nuclear fuel this process which has been replicated at texas a&m makes texas a&m the only university within recent times that has the appropriate radiochemistry lab setup to refine irradiated fuel samples through this unique process these trace contaminants that are attached to separated plutonium through the purex process are isotopes that are identifiable to investigators as indicative of specific reactor types
1144,there are certain isotopes that we know as trace elements that point directly to specific reactor types chirayath said for example sm-150 is an isotope that is produced in a thermal reactor in a quantity 100 times greater than if this same isotope was produced in a fast reactor when normalized to plutonium production even if we were to somehow mess up by 10 to 20 percent in our measurements its still a factor of 100 which means that if we find this isotope in an abundance as a trace element it leads to certain identification of a thermal reactor the project which is currently in its fourth year has trained six graduate students from the department of nuclear engineering three who work on the experimental purex process and three who work on the computational aspect of the research to model the different reactor types according to folden the project has had a broader impact in helping to increase the number of students who work in radiochemistry which is beneficial because there are so few radio-chemists in the united states in total the project is a six-year endeavor and the team is hoping to get the project funded for two more years with current funding ending in august of this year the team hopes to look at different plutonium separation processes apart from the purex method and to further diversify the method to identify more reactor types across the spectrum i knew that the ability to use radiochemistry in our forensic research is something that has been lacking in nsspi chirayath said our goal is to study this and develop a methodology using this purex process so that the methodology that we develop can be applied like a technology for forensics specialists and others to use we set out to prove both computationally and measurement wise that this methodology is effective we hope it becomes the standard methodology and it can be used by anyone at the lab level *this work is supported by the us department of homeland security domestic nuclear detection office under academic research initiative (dndo-ari) grant award number nsf grant no eccs-1140018 and dndo-2012-dn-077-ari1057-02&03 the views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the researchers and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies either expressed or implied of the us department of homeland security
1145,mikayla barry and kendal ezell undergraduate students in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university each have been selected to represent the university in the prestigious barry goldwater scholarship and excellence in education program barry and ezell are two of four total students endorsed by the university to move forward in the scholarship competition the scholarship program honoring sen barry goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics the natural sciences and engineering the goldwater scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields if named a scholar this spring barry and ezell each will receive a two-year scholarship that covers the cost of tuition fees books and room and board up to a maximum of $7 500 per year goldwater scholars are selected on the basis of their commitment to a career in research within the math science or engineering discipline with the average awardee having a 39 gpa goldwater scholars have impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs recent goldwater scholars have been awarded 86 rhodes scholarships 123 marshall awards 123 churchill scholarships and numerous other distinguished fellowships barry is the first member of texas a&ms beckman scholars program she conducts research in associate professor melissa grunlans polymeric biomaterials laboratory developing coatings for silicone to prevent blood clots this project could allow devices like catheters to remain implanted longer with a lower risk of infection and clot formation after earning her undergraduate degree she intends to pursue a phd in materials science and mentor undergraduates as a faculty member at a research university ezell is conducting research in the biomedical device laboratory headed by professor duncan maitland working with maitland and graduate student landon nash ezell is researching surface modification techniques for shape memory polymer foams (smps) used to treat brain aneurysms in addition she serves as an undergraduate research assistant at the texas a&m institute for neuroscience under the direction of professor mark packard after earning her undergraduate degree she plans to pursue an md–phd in biomedical sciences so that she can embark on a career that enables her to work in the clinic while also conducting laboratory research to develop new medical technologies the goldwater foundation is a federally endowed agency established in 1986 since its first award in 1989 the foundation has bestowed more than 7 400 scholarships worth approximately $48 million the trustees plan to award about 200 scholarships for the 2016–2017 academic year about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1146,demkowicz demonstrating a hydrogen analyzer in his laboratory dr michael j demkowicz has joined the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university as an associate professor demkowicz specializes in computational materials design and fundamental physics of material behavior especially mechanical properties and radiation response he currently leads several projects in these areas one of them is a national science foundation-supported effort to design and synthesize nano-metallic materials (nmms) with superior mechanical properties nmms are composites made up of nano-scale elements when feature sizes in a material are that small its properties are markedly different said demkowicz we are trying to understand how we can design materials where nanometer scales yield unprecedented improvements in materials performance another project led by demkowicz investigates the effect of hydrogen on metals since hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on earth materials are commonly exposed to it hydrogen is very small so it easily diffuses into many materials said demkowicz once inside it usually degrades the performance of the material how that change happens is very much a mystery we are conducting experiments to figure that out demkowicz cites the rising stature of texas a&m and its materials science and engineering department among his reasons for moving to texas prior to his arrival he had several ongoing research collaborations with texas a&m faculty he is also interested in leading outreach activities that promote the aggie post-doctoral community through recognition networking and mentoring we are entering into an era of materials engineering where we design materials from the bottom up said demkowicz it is an exciting time to be a materials scientist
1147,dr michael louis shuler a leading authority on modern biochemical engineering delivered the springs first distinguished lindsay lecture at the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university shuler the james m and marsha mccormick chair of biomedical engineering and samule b eckert professor of chemical engineering at cornell university joined the list of internationally recognized researchers who have been invited to discuss groundbreaking ideas with students and faculty shuler a member of the national academy of engineering and the national academy of arts and sciences presented his speech building a body-on-a-chip: applications to drug development he discussed the development of a human-based in vitro system that could possibly eliminate dependency of animal testing and make better predictions of human response to drugs with a combination of cell cultures and microfabrication a human surrogate can be constructed said shuler these devices have been referred to as body-on-a-chip systems such chips should be relatively low cost to contract and have the potential for broad application in drug development and potentially to evaluate the toxicity of chemicals schulers research has helped lay the foundation of modern biochemical engineering and has led to commercial processes for production of the anticancer agent taxol in addition to tools to produce proteins from recombinant systems the jd lindsay lecture series enables outstanding speakers from industry and academia to visit texas a&m and the department of chemical engineering to exchange ideas on teaching and research with students and faculty
1148,dr je-chin han distinguished professor and the marcus c esterling chair in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been named a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) aiaa confers the distinction of fellow upon individuals in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics aiaa honorary fellows and fellows represent the best of the aerospace community said aiaa president jim albaugh these individuals have advanced the state of the art of aerospace science and technology making unique contributions to the profession aiaa congratulates the members of the 2016 class of fellows and honorary fellows on their selection the induction ceremony for the fellows will take place at the aiaa aerospace spotlight awards gala on june 15 at the ronald reagan building and international trade center in washington dc han joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1980 as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering after serving as a senior research engineer at ex-cell-o corporation in walled lake michigan from november 1976 to august 1980 he was named a distinguished professor in september 2006 han has been a pioneer in the area of high temperature gas turbine blade cooling research that has greatly impacted the modern development of high efficiency gas turbine engines for both aircraft and land-based power generation applications hans research interests are in thermal fluid sciences and energy and power technology his research in thermal fluid sciences includes: heat transfer and cooling in gas turbines; heat transfer enhancement; heat transfer in rotating flows; film cooling in unsteady high turbulence flows; mini-scale heat transfer; combustion system heat transfer; and advanced cfd and experimental methods hans research in energy and power technology includes: advanced hydrogen turbine for clean power; advanced gas turbine for aircraft propulsion and vehicle transportation; micro-turbine; and clean and renewable energy technology previous awards received by han include: asme heat transfer division 75th anniversary medal (2013); asme k-14 warren rohsenow prize for best paper (2007); asme igti certificate award for valued service as chair of the heat transfer committee (2004-2006); aiaa thermophysics award (2004); the international symposium of rotating machinery award in heat transfer (2004); and asme heat transfer memorial award in the art category (2002) han received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from national taiwan university and his masters degree also in mechanical engineering from lehigh university he earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology in 1933 orville wright became aiaas first honorary fellow today aiaa honorary fellows and aiaa fellows are the most respected names in the aerospace industry
1149,dr ben zoghi the victor h thompson professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has been appointed editor-in-chief of the international journal of automated identification technology (ijait) ijiat is a peer-reviewed journal that addresses issues of automated identification technology (ait) which relies on advanced computer technology ait is used in disciplines such as medical and health care systems product and asset tracking production and manufacturing streamlining supply chain management access control and criminal identification zoghi joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1993 as an associate professor in 1999 he was named a professor and in 2009 was named holder of the victor h thompson endowed chair professorship he received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from seattle university and his masters degree also in electrical engineering from the ohio state university he earned his phd in bioengineering/electrical engineering from texas a&m in 1993 his research interests include rfid/sensor system applications and emotional intelligence
1150,dr daniel f jennings the andrew rader professor of industrial distribution at texas a&m university received the 2015 runner-up award for the 2015 best case from the southwest case research association at its annual meeting in oklahoma city the southwest case association is a division of the federation of business disciplines jennings is the founding director of the department of engineering technology and industrial distributions master of industrial distribution (mid) program and joined the dwight look college of engineering in 1997 as a professor he was previously the mays professor of entrepreneurship and strategic management at baylor university the runner-up case exi corporation is the disguised name of a successful company that rents and operates a variety of test equipment to large companies during scheduled maintenance outages these companies include large manufacturing firms power plants utilities and different process industry firms the case involves the ethical behavior exhibited by the two owners of exi during an attempted take-over by one of the owners mid graduates lane batson and aaron schrems participated as co-authors a registered professional engineer in texas jennings holds a bachelors degree in industrial engineering with honors from the university of tennessee an mba from northeast louisiana university and a phd from texas a&m jennings research interests are in the areas of strategic alliances achieving a competitive advantage strategy-structure alignments and top management ethical behavior his industrial experience includes engineering and managerial positions in forest products and chemical firms located in the united states canada and south america
1151,dr ji ma with a sample of growing rod developed with the adaptive alloy technology at the microstructural engineering of structural and active materials (mesam) laboratory scoliosis is typically defined as the curvature of the spine which in severe cases can lead to severe physical deformity in addition to pulmonary and cardiac problems early-onset scoliosis refers to spine deformity that is present before 10 years of age children with early-onset scoliosis often spend their entire childhood undergoing several surgical procedures to correct the curve in their spine surgeons implant metallic growing rods in the spine and expand them in bi-annual surgeries to keep up with the childs growth as the body moves the screws attaching the rods to the bone become loose increasing the chances of additional complicated surgeries to keep the rod in place dr ji ma texas a&m engineering experiment station assistant research scientist and dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor i and head of the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university have designed a growing rod material that can significantly reduce the complications from corrective surgeries the material a superelastic adaptive alloy is five times more flexible than any currently available growing rod implants it allows natural movement of the body and adjusts itself depending on the stress applied by the growing spine this could potentially improve the success rate of the treatment materials composing the implant are required to be biocompatible fatigue and corrosion resistant and they have to be compatible with the biomechanical environment of the patients body and the bone the bone is a living tissue that responds to the change in forces that arise once an implant is mechanically fixed to the skeleton unfortunately the large mismatch between the mechanical properties of the metallic implants and the bone frequently result in complications such as implant loosening bone atrophy from stress shielding and bone disease near implant extremities these problems become increasingly important in young patients with osteoporotic or immature bones where implant-related complication rates are markedly higher the researchers say using a series of thermo-mechanical processing steps ma and karaman engineered a new titanium shape memory alloy it possesses stress-dependent elastic properties that gradually decrease as the stress on it is increased by modifying these properties to fit the biomechanical environment of the bone it is now possible to create a device that satisfies the seemingly conflicting requirements of rigidity and flexibility required in growing rods said ma the adaptive alloy allows growing rods to bend at the ends and stay stiff in the middle giving the necessary support to the spine the patients natural movements stay flexible due to reduced friction and stress this is not something you can do with all materials said ma we preserve the strength and add flexibility to the implants without compromising the mechanical properties karamans national science foundation grant design and in-vitro characterization of ni-free biocompatible shape memory alloys led to the present-day technology and its application in early onset scoliosis treatment the researchers set out to develop a titanium-niobium alloy as an alternative to nickel titanium shape memory alloy since it has better biocompatibility and corrosion resistance similar to the human bone they later found evidence that nickel titanium alloy offered the same properties as the titanium niobium alloy currently they are using both the alloys as candidates for the application in growing rods the adaptive alloy is designed to have bio-inert constituents less sensitivity to impurities and inclusions better corrosion resistance more stable fatigue response and predictable fatigue life ma and karaman are now working with dr dennis devito at childrens orthopedics of atlanta to get a surgeons perspective on effective application of the technology all children experience at least one complication during their treatment said devito ma and karamans research offers a potential solution to some of the complications the researchers have begun to commercialize the adaptive alloy technology in 2015 they co-founded adallo llc with eric flickinger ceo at meditech spine llc to develop prototype testing
1152,dr hussein alnuweiri professor of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university at qatar has been appointed as the first holder of the maersk oil qatar professorship in stem leadership for the next two years alnuweiri was awarded the prestigious position in recognition of his cutting-edge research and his significant contributions to educational outreach to young qataris the stem professorship is part of the dhia: engineering leaders partnership between maersk oil qatar and texas a&m at qatar that is developing local capacity in science and engineering teaching whilst inspiring the next generation of young engineers and scientists in support of the qatar national vision 2030 (qnv 2030) through practical skills development programs dr alnuweiris rich portfolio of stem education and other outreach activities made him an obvious choice for this prestigious new professorship said dr ann kenimer interim dean of texas a&m at qatar he is an integral part of the success of this campus and in achieving our vision of being the premier provider of engineering education in the region a valuable contributor to knowledge internationally and a valued resource to the state of qatar we congratulate dr alnuweiri for this tremendous honor alnuweiri recently delivered his inaugural talk which focused on the future of technology and the internet of things in which devices infrastructure and appliances become increasingly interconnected to enhance lives he noted the growing demand for exceptional expertise in science and engineering to support these emerging technologies something he will be exploring further through research and thought leadership in his new role lewis affleck managing director of maersk oil qatar commented the appointment of the maersk oil qatar stem professor is another important milestone for the dhia: engineering leaders program it will enhance understanding of how teaching and learning practices in the context of qatar can promote greater success and participation in stem subjects in young people stem skills are vital for a strong knowledge-based economy and for developing the countrys future scientists engineers and entrepreneurs maersk oil qatar is committed to qatar for generations to come and through long-term sustainable programmes such as dhia we are working to bring real meaningful benefits to the state of qatar in support of the qnv 2030 we are confident that dr alnuweiri and the professorship in stem leadership will contribute significantly to this field in the coming months and years alnuweiri joined texas a&m at qatar faculty as professor in 2007 and chaired the universitys electrical and computer engineering program from 2009 to 2014 an outstanding teacher and researcher he has also carried out many outreach and stem activities while at texas a&m at qatar during his time at texas a&m at qatar he has produced more than 70 journal papers 180 conference papers three book chapters and several us patents as well as 12 research grants totaling almost $9 million in funding
1153,the university of tennessee at knoxville hosted an invited seminar and webinar given by texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) senior research scientist dr frank garner regarding work he and dr lin shao associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university have produced on the study of material behaviors under extreme conditions garner is a member of shaos research group which pioneers both accelerator-based irradiation testing and research directed at understanding the fundamentals of radiation materials science garners seminar covered how self-ion irradiation at accelerated rates simulates damage to reactor materials over time and creates void swelling within the reactor material the research team hopes to identify stronger materials to use through these tests to ensure improved reactor structural safety according to garner nuclear power reactors have a large amount of structural steel when the reactor is first brought to power these structural systems are in optimum shape and all safety considerations needed to safely operate the reactor are accounted for in the design however there is a concern that over time exposure to the radiation produced under the reactors operating conditions can effect the reactors structural integrity neutrons that bounce around during these nuclear reactions have the ability to transfer their energy into the atoms that make up this structural steel and as a result displace other atoms within the steel and cause the steel to become fragile if i said 50 displacements per atom (dpa) occur that means every atom in the steel on the average over its lifetime has been displaced 50 times said garner it makes you wonder how the material remembers what it used to be according to garner as a consequence of this displacement the steel swells and grows and can create a structural issue that garner calls irradiation creep creep and swelling have been known to be life-limiting degradation issues for fast reactor structural materials and could be limiting for other reactor types while research had been conducted about the effects of irradiation creep in the 1970s and 1980s interest in the issue has recently resurged with improvements in calculation and measurement tools researchers have achieved a better understanding of the phenomenon if swelling in these steels gets to be around 10 percent certainly in an excess of 10 percent the steel develops a brand new method of fragility and it becomes very fragile garner said this is the major limitation of using these steels in the nuclear reactor because i cannot exceed 10 percent swelling because of a safety consideration garners solution to the issue of irradiation creep is to change the type of steel used structurally in reactors to prevent swelling the project garner and shao have been working on has been studying different types of materials using accelerated ion-radiation to simulate irradiation creep and determine metals that may be resistant to its effects the team is currently testing ferritic alloys they have determined would be better materials than the austenitic alloys used as structural materials in the past in texas were taking every ferritic -martensitic and ods [oxide-dispersion-strengthened] variant of that alloy in the world and were routinely taking them all to 1 000 dpa garner said were hunting for why is this one swelling later than that one and we take that clue to make a better alloy and thats what the texas program is about
1154,the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) presented awards for excellence in retention as part of the hispanic serving institutions (hsi) pre-conference on retention and transition on march 30 mountain view college–dallas county community college district dallas; san jacinto college–south houston; and south texas college mcallen were each awarded $1 500 in recognition of their promising practices for innovative retention and transition programs through virtual environments learning communities dual enrollment programs and dedicated faculty and staff the award winners created model programs with proven student success these award-winning programs exemplify what it takes to help students succeed in science technology engineering and mathematicsnot only at their two-year institutions but also in the four-year institutions where the students transfer said dr teri reed assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs for the look college and assistant agency director of workforce development for tees we chose each of these colleges because their ability to inspire students inspired us held the day before the annual mid years engineering experience conference the pre-conference provides hispanic serving institutions from across texas the opportunity to address barriers and challenges for students transitioning from two-year to four-year engineering institutions and is funded by a national science foundation grant elaine mendoza vice chairman of the texas a&m university system board of regents presented the awards during a ceremony at the hilton college station & conference center from left: regent mendoza; dr kelli davis interim university relations officer south texas college; andrew vines department chair chemistry engineering geology and physics san jacinto college–south; dr karen duston engineering program coordinator san jacinto college–south; and dr stephen l jones executive dean of the science technology engineering and mathematics division mountain view college
1155,research shows that america desperately needs professionals specializing in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) to expand and advance its economy and society currently less than 15 percent of engineers are women to reverse this statistic maintaining enthusiasm in science technology engineering and mathematics among students throughout high school and college is not only important but also necessary women in materials sciences (wims) a student organization led by the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university believes in changing existing cultural perceptions about womens roles in stem fields last month wims met with middle school students from the girl scouts of central texas at the 2016 stemfest that was organized by the dwight look college of engineerings women in engineering office the purpose of the event was to encourage the students to pursue careers in science and engineering wims members developed several activities to make science fun they engaged students with experiments that included simple polymer technology demonstrations such as hydrogel to create the effect of snow in addition to demonstrations with shape memory alloys the same week a group of 15 students from liberty christian high school in argyle texas visited with wims members on the texas a&m campus for laboratory tours and demonstrations wims members prepared short presentations and hands-on experiments and more importantly shared their personal stories and experiences with the visiting students during the 2016 national engineers week wims collaborated with the women in engineering office to promote engineering to second through fifth graders at discovere girl day we believe that these repeated activities will help trigger interests in science and engineering at an important age when they still have ample opportunities to advance academically in order to be able to pursue careers in science and technology said victoria albright vice president of wims and a doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering materials science and engineering offers vast opportunities for women said dr svetlana sukhishvili professor in the materials science and engineering department our organization aims to bring more diversity and inclusion to the field by enhancing historically under-represented populations in our engineering community sukhishvili who serves as a faculty advisor to wims is seeking speakers to discuss topics related to succeeding as a woman in engineering launched in the fall of 2015 wims has plans to start several outreach activities to promote the stem field at schools in bryan and college station texas to learn more about wims visit the organizations website
1156,ania kimberly kaminski ‘07 a former student of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university is currently in her eighth year at the international atomic energy agency (iaea) she worked for six years in the technical support division designing installing and maintaining unattended non destructive assay (nda) monitoring systems in nuclear facilities throughout the world for the past two years she worked as a nuclear safeguards inspector where she directly performed verifications in facilities these verifications are aimed at assuring the international community that nuclear material facilities and other items subject to safeguards are used only for peaceful purposes currently kaminski works primarily in uranium enrichment facilities in europe i was lucky and ready for the challenge kaminski said of her job with the iaea i landed in a job where there were a lot of immediate opportunities for hands on technical applications kaminski said she has always preferred hands on work to theory because of the ever changing challenges of engineering solutions in the field an austin texas native kaminski began her undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at texas a&m then transferred to electrical engineering and lastly transitioned to nuclear engineering i had a couple of friends in nuclear engineering at the time and i could see the broad applications nuclear engineering had to offer kaminski said it was at the time of the nuclear renaissance uranium enrichment is a service offered to countries all over the world natural uranium is mined out of the ground at a concentration of 0711 percent but in the interest of making the fuel burn more efficiently centrifuge enrichment facilities like the ones kaminski inspects can enrich the concentration of the u-235 isotopes to a higher percentage usually in the range of 5 percent for most commercial light water reactors however according to kaminski enrichment facilities can pose a major proliferation risk because they have the potential to enrich the uranium to become highly enriched weapons grade uranium which would be sufficient for producing a nuclear weapon safeguarding these facilities falls under the iaeas responsibility as the nuclear watchdog of the world ensuring the peaceful use of nuclear facilities material and activities kaminskis work has taken her all over the world often to remote locations where according to her she and her fellow inspectors sometimes live a spartan existence kaminski travels on average one week out of every month and has been to many nuclear hotspots including historic spots such as chernobyl and semipalatinsk you learn to appreciate the basics kaminski said is there drinking water are we going to eat are there bathrooms or something that can be used as a bathroom most nuclear facilities are in the middle of nowhere for good reason i have been to unique and wonderful places that very few people in this world will ever see i dont know how many people in this world can say that they worked at a nuclear reactor in the middle of a tiger reserve according to kaminski there are around 1 250 facilities and locations outside of facilities under nuclear safeguards in 181 states across the world eight years after starting her career with the iaea kaminski still credits her education at texas a&m as a contributing factor to her success i think a lot of people in the us dont realize how wide of a scope an education in nuclear engineering covers kaminski said the range of nuclear engineering extends beyond just nuclear power reactors; it can involve anything from medical research diagnosis and treatment health food irradiation pest management to safeguards security and safety and so much more as aggies we have a unique nuclear program that allows for a lot of practical hands training and classes at the triga reactor and in the laboratory which gives an advantage on a lot of universities in that respect
1157,dr xia hu assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is collaborating with arizona state university and yahoo! to understand user behavior on social media platforms by developing novel data mining algorithms these predictions are not based solely on a users personal social media presence but rather based on the interaction with their friends and their friends' opinions this is motivated by two fundamental social theories homophily and social influence which state that people befriend others who are similar to them or they become more similar to their friends over time understanding and processing data produced by social media services is necessary to improve the quality of user experience and to positively impact the overall value of the social systems going forward in the collaborative project with arizona state and yahoo! hus team at the data analytics at texas a&m lab (data) focuses on social spamming detection and understanding user behavior by analyzing peoples online posts and social interactions social spamming occurs when unwanted spam content appears on social networks or any website with user-generated content to targeted users and it is often intended to boost a users social influence legitimacy and credibility successful spammer detection in social media is important to improve the quality of user experience and to promote the healthy use and development of a social networking system hu said since social media provides a platform for people to share thoughts on various events we have done work on identifying rhetorical questions online protest participation advocates of political campaigns health discussions et cetera hu co-authored predicting online protest participation of social media users a paper to predict if social media debate will turn into violent protests which was recently presented at the 2016 aaai conference on artificial intelligence (aaai) brownian motion which notes the interaction between fluid particles in motion over time was applied to this research by looking at the interaction between users the team was able to employ this theory to model the probability of a user declaring protest
1158,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr david ford the beavers charitable trust/william f urban 41 professor in construction engineering and management in the zachry department of civil engineering in recognition of his exceptional record as a researcher and educator the endowed professorship appointment is effective april 1 ford is a professor in civil engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2000 ford received his bachelors and masters degrees from tulane university and his phd from the massachusetts institute of technology his research interests include sustainability in built infrastructure managerial real options construction as a product development process project management process design and system dynamics
1159,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr bryan rasmussen the leland t jordan career development professor in the department of mechanical engineering in recognition of his accomplishments and future potential the endowed professorship is effective april 1 rasmussen is an associate professor in mechanical engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in september 2012 rasmussen received his bachelors degree from utah state university and his masters degree and phd from university of illinois at urbana-champaign all in mechanical engineering his research interests are in dynamic modeling and control of thermo-fluid energy systems model reduction model validation automated modeling nonlinear control robust control and alternative energy systems
1160,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr anastasia muliana the cain faculty fellow i in mechanical engineering in recognition of her accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship is effective april 1 mulliana is a professor in mechanical engineering she joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in september 2004 mulliana received her bachelors degree from bandung institute of technology indonesia and her masters degree and phd from georgia tech university all in civil engineering her research interests include analytical numerical and experiment approaches in areas of structural and computational mechanics ie nonlinear and time dependent constitutive material modeling thermal stress analysis contact and damage modeling delamination crack growth in laminated composites micromechanics of composite materials and structures multi-scale material modeling modeling nanoindentation tests large-scale nonlinear structural analysis numerical and finite element modeling and neural network simulations in engineering
1161,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr partha mukherjee the morris e foster faculty fellow ii in the department of mechanical engineering in recognition of his accomplishments and future potential the endowed faculty fellowship is effective april 1 mukherjee is an assistant professor in mechanical engineering he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2012 mukherjee received his bachelors degree from north bengal university india his masters degree from india institute of technology and his phd from penn state university all in mechanical engineering his research interests are in electrochemical energy storage and conversion (batteries fuel cells); processing/transport/property interactions; mesoscale physics and stochastics in energy materials and manufacturing
1162,a new method for manipulating the gel-like environments that house stem cells could help researchers direct the growth of these versatile cells into bone tendon tissue or other specific lineages says a texas a&m university biomedical engineer who has developed the approach working with collagen-based hydrogels which are biodegradable gels used in a number of biomedical applications because of their compatibility with the body and its processes akhilesh gaharwar has developed a method for modulating their stiffness without affecting chemistry or structure – a result that could have major implications for stem cell research gaharwar assistant professor in the universitys department of biomedical engineering has published his findings in the scientific journal acs nano the full article can be accessed at http://pubsacsorg/doi/abs/101021/acsnano5b03918 specifically gaharwar has been able to increase a hydrogels stiffness by 10 times and its toughness by 20 times through a process in which he adds a small amount of spherical magnetic nanoparticles to the collagen-based hydrogels the entire process is complete in a matter of seconds and it enables him to customize the gel along varying degrees of stiffness and toughness depending on the amount of nanoparticles in the material gaharwar says the process he adds has another distinct advantage: its cell friendly because gaharwar is using extremely low concentrations of nanoparticles his process doesnt significantly alter the chemical composition of the hydrogel controlling the physical properties of hydrogels gaharwar explains is essential because these gels need to be durable while also matching the properties of the tissues they are simulating when deployed in the body – for example when acting as scaffolds that aid with healing of internal injuries thats just one of a multitude of biomedical applications gaharwars hydrogel could impact in addition to tissue engineering applications gaharwars mechanically enhanced hydrogel could advance drug delivery approaches biosensors and other technologies but it could play an even more important role as a tool for learning about stem cells he says the system he explains could enable researchers to better understand how stem cells behave and even control how they differentiate into specific types of cells known for their ability to develop into different cell types – such as a muscle blood or brain cells – stem cells have the potential to serve as an internal repair system replenishing other cells key to this transformation gaharwar notes is the microenvironment surrounding the stem cells depending on where these stem cells are located within the body these cells will transform into different types of cells he explains for example stem cells that are being stretched in stiffer environments could ultimately grow into bone cells whereas stem cells that remain round in softer environments might develop into cartilage think of it as a kind of domino effect: the stem cells microenvironment influences its shape and the stem cells shape influences its development into a specific cell type given this fact gaharwar believes controlling the stiffness of the cells environment (in this case a hydrogel which encompasses stem cells) could result in increased control of stem cell differentiation
1163,we know that under certain physiologic conditions stem cells can be induced to become specific cells with special functions gaharwar says we are investigating if we can differentiate these cells into distinct lineages simply by controlling the mechanical environment of these cells controlling that environment gaharwar says is achieved through a process known as crosslinking crosslinking he explains involves joining the polymeric chains that make up a hydrogel so that they form an interconnected network that basically serves a backbone for the gel and as a result increases its stiffness joining these chains requires gaharwars nanoparticles which serve as a sort of mortar by linking these chains at a molecular level these spherical iron oxide nanoparticles which have had their surfaces modified by gaharwar and his team have multiple conjugation points at which the polymeric chains attach by forming strong chemical bonds he says when this occurs a network of chains is formed and the hydrogel is reinforced he says other standard technologies that make use of different nanoparticles dont result in the same level of mechanical stiffness because the nanoparticles arent chemically interacting with the polymeric chains in the gel; theyre just entrapped gaharwar explains whats more the approaches that do achieve some measure of stiffness often produce a non-friendly environment for the cell that results in cell death due to high concentrations of the reinforcing agent he says gaharwars approach overcomes that challenge by using a 10 000-fold less concentration of nanoparticles by adding a minute concentration of nanoparticles we can get a drastic increase or decrease in the physical properties of the hydrogel gaharwar says by changing the size and concentration of the nanoparticles we can get hydrogels that range from one kilopascal to 200 kilopascals fueled by the promising initial results he and his team have achieved gaharwar plans to continue working with the enhanced hydrogel to determine if it can indeed trigger a differentiation in stem cells these cells he explains need to experience a dynamic environment (as they would in the body) where varying degrees of force are applied through the hydrogel and experienced by the cells within it in the next phase of the research the team he says hopes to introduce this external stimuli with a bioreactor so that more in-depth studies can be conducted gaharwars research team includes postdoctoral researcher manish jaiswal and daniel alge assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences contact: akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university at (979) 458-5540 or via email: gaharwar@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 847-5833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu
1164,when andrew salazar took the stage during this years spark conference he was prepared but nervous more than 200 students filled the bethancourt ballroom at texas a&m university and all eyes were on the freshman engineering student a year before he had been one of the many faces in the audience a high school student excited to compete in the k-12 design competition and hang out with other students now he was an engineering student himself living proof that the spark conferences mission to inspire young people to choose an engineering career was successful salazar ultimately chose the engineering program at texas a&m because of the conference and now as a member of the organization that hosts spark the student engineers council (sec) he has the opportunity to inspire other students like himself thats honestly what made me want to join the sec he said seeing how involved they were and how much fun they were having and also knowing what they did for me its not often you have a bunch of college kids caring about the kids after them and trying to help them experience what they experience when salazar took the stage he told the middle and high school students in the audience to remember to do three things ask questions have fun and thank the teacher who brought them salazar took his own advice asking his high school engineering teacher luis rivera of john jay science and engineering academy to stand up he thanked rivera for the inspiration he was throughout high school and for taking the time to bring his students to spark andrew has always been one of my top students through my teaching career rivera said when we participated in the first spark conference last year andrew was one of the students that took it upon himself to spearhead the design of his catapult and his sense of pride and accomplishment was very contagious among his team salazars team did not place in the competition last year but rivera said the experience was very positive for his students so this year i took another team to the second spark conference and not knowing anything of his [salazars] involvement the first person i met when we arrived was him rivera said just by seeing him involved as part of this event was awesome rivera said it was exciting to see salazar speak during the conference i felt a sense of pride and happiness to see him already striving to be the best as a freshman and i have no doubt of his future success he said rivera said spark spawns interest and curiosity in young students and challenges them to think outside the box they get to apply pretty much every single thing they have learned in high school therefore they get to experience the usefulness of what they are learning in a real world scenario he said it is a fun competition and it instills camaraderie and friendships among students of different backgrounds yet similar interests this is the second year the sec has hosted spark conference sec president andrew west said it was a big undertaking but the payoffs were plenty there are many members of sec who volunteer their time to make this event a reality and encourage k-12 students to develop interest in engineering west said knowing andrew [salazar] attended the event last year and was inspired to pursue an engineering degree at texas a&m makes all that work absolutely worth it having him in sec now is icing on the cake and his unique viewpoint will undoubtedly help spark become a better event next year salazar is also a member of engineering honors and the society of hispanic professional engineers for more information visit the spark conference website
1165,in 1989 chuck hull changed product design and manufacturing processes when he introduced the world to 3-d printing technology hull was seeking to develop a low-cost manufacturing process that could be used in the modeling of prototypes and commercial products the first item he manufactured was a small cup which could be used as an eye wash three-dimensional printing is a manufacturing process where thousands of layers of thin plastic or metal are laid on top of each other to form intricate designs depending on the process the objects are solidified either thermally or chemically three-dimensional-printed products can be more complex in shape and durable than those produced using traditional manufacturing processes today faculty and students of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university have access to 3-d printers in the department with the capabilities to print any design they can conceive the 3-d printing studio provides students with the opportunity to learn and work on the same machines they will potentially work with in their engineering careers although 3-d printing has advanced in the past 30 years the technology still has many limitations to successfully make large objects support structures which act similar to building scaffolding are often used these structures are removed by hand trimming high-pressure water blasting or solvent solution after printing the challenge is mostly present in the 3-d printing of soft jelly like materials due to the difficulty of creating and removing support structures these soft materials could be used in the modeling of synthetic tissues which could prove instrumental in the advancement of biomechanical and biomedical research dr bruce tai an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and director of the manufacturing innovation laboratory at texas a&m and his students have developed a method that on a small scale eliminates the need for support structures and allows them to 3-d print soft objects the team developed a support-free fabrication processes by creating a hydrostatic condition inside of a polymer resin by employing this technique the researchers will also be able to eliminate the traditional layer-by-layer printing technique for geometric soft structures tai worked with dr rocky zhu of dow corning corporation to test different non-commercialized silicone products curing properties when introduced to different uv wavelengths the experiment utilized a uv lamp system an optical lens array and a 3-axis motion stage the entire setup was covered in amber plates to prevent affects from atmospheric uv lights this is a cross-disciplinary research project involving polymer science optics fluid mechanics and machine design said tai the challenge for our team as mechanical engineers was to integrate all the knowledge from the multiple concentrations to test design and ultimately develop a new low-cost manufacturing process a challenge the team faced was accurately curing a specific region of the silicone to create the soft geometric objects the team had to obtain low one-photon polymerization (lopp) inside the resin as opposed to stereolithography where polymerization takes place on the resin surface the liquid pressure around the cured object then holds the shape in position creating the hydrostatic condition needed to cure the target area of the silicon resin and form a precise three-dimensional geometry an example similar to our technology is created when an individual dives into a swimming pool said tai the zero-gravity environment created in the water causes the individual to feel weightless lose no body mass and maintain form to achieve the in-resin solidification the team had to find the accurate uv wavelength intensity and exposure time needed to accurately cure the resin at the focusing spot with low one-photon polymerization an improper setting caused the resin to polymerize either too fast or too slow said tai we had to figure out how to accurately create lopp in the silicone resin by adjusting the uv light and testing different angles focal lengths and silicone products tais research eventually proved the feasibility of support-free fabrication process capable of 3-d printing of soft structures there are currently commercial printers which have the capabilities to make soft materials gel or even real tissues said tai these printing techniques are either limited to low-profile shapes or require support structures our research provides a starting point for the future of unsupported 3-d printing
1166,the national science foundation innovation corps (nsf i-corps) program is designed to challenge engineers during a seven-week business boot camp in an effort to help foster entrepreneurship and the commercialization of technology engineers participate in a set of activities and programs that are aimed at teaching business skills that cant be gained in the laboratory alone nsf i-corps teams are comprised of a student entrepreneurial lead (el) who does most of the marketing and research for the project a principal investigator (pi) typically the students graduate advisor and an industry mentor (im) who helps to ensure the project activities are focused on a viable commodity to a specific industry ronita roy a graduate student in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university served as the el for her team which recently completed the program our specific project was concerned with creating and developing technology that would increase energy storage and use nano-particles as surface coating to enhance cooling said roy the focus of this nsf i-corps program is to explore this technology as an energy application in industries such as the oil and gas industry hvac and cooling solutions for electronic companies initially roys team aimed to market its research to heating ventilation and air conditioning systems (hvac) in both residential and commercial areas after conducting 100 interviews with hvac companies the team learned this was a difficult market to penetrate with new products in response to this the team adjusted its targeted industry and pivoted to market its device to electronics companies such as data centers which they estimated could still gain from improvement to their current cooling techniques currently a typical water cooling system which can be used in cooling computers consist of four main components: cooling blocks which transfer heat into liquid; radiators used for dumping waste heat; pumps to move the liquid throughout the cooling system; and a reservoir to store and filter the coolant data centers are becoming more power hungry said dr debjyoti banerjee a professor in the mechanical engineering department and the pi for the team their waste heat could be used to supply hot water to entire cities rather than dumping the heat into the environment roys team developed paint with nanoparticles the paint keeps the computer chips cooler by dumping the heat out more efficiently the paint also has the capability to reduce corrosion (rust) and fouling (gunk) after going through the nsf i-corps program roy credits her growth and success to banerjee and the teams im dr james a monroe founder of allvar a startup organization focused on creating affordable scalable and stable all-variant thermal expansion alloys for laser applications my industry mentor gave me excellent feedback about my interview techniques said roy he taught me how to really listen to the person i was talking to and adjust my responses based on their body language and other cues dr banerjee provided expert feedback about the intricacies of our research and consciously geared our research toward commercialization research and experiments with this type of technology has doubled cooling efficiency in devices and reduced cost by half it is also easy to manufacture and retrofit and solves many of the problems of current cooling products currently there is a 10 year gap between technology development in an academic research laboratory and commercial implementation in a chip-package especially those involving electronic chip cooling technologies said banerjee in banerjee's opinion this is unacceptable and he continuously seeks methods to help push the performance envelope in small form factors while reducing cost industry leaders are just now becoming acquainted with the idea of using nano-particles as additives in cooling fluids or as paints applied to hot surfaces for replacing current cooling technologies he said we are confident that in the next few years this technology will experience exponential growth in january banerjee formed another nsf-icorps team to focus on market research segments in the oil and gas industry primarily businesses involved in mid-stream operations for the insertion of nanotechnologies in novel heat exchanger development by leveraging 3-d printing and additive manufacturing technologies though more customer discovery must be made to identify the factors that can accelerate the universal adoption of these nano-particle paints these innovations were patented by banerjee to enable roy and her team to be more effective in its commercialization endeavors and the creation of new markets for these technologies
1167,zhaokai meng graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2016 association of former students distinguished graduate student award for excellence in research – doctoral meng who is working as a research assistant in the advanced spectroscopy lab directed by professor vladislav v yakovlev was recognized for his outstanding academic record and contributions in research as an award winner he will receive a framed certificate and commemorative watch he is scheduled to be formally honored this april meng specializes in nonlinear optics microspectroscopy and the corresponding applications in biomedical engineering and sciences his research interests include microscopic imaging for molecular cellular and tissue structures and extending these techniques into biomedical studies the association of former students chooses up to 15 graduate students each year to receive a distinguished graduate student award for excellence in one of three categories: doctoral research masters research and teaching student nominations are supplied by faculty advisers or departments a panel of reviewers made up of faculty and administrators choose award recipients from a large number of nominations about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1168,"amy bolon doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has received the buck weirus spirit award one of the highest awards a student can earn at texas a&m i am honored to receive this award and will strive to continue to work hard and represent texas a&m university and the department as i continue on in my professional career said bolon bolon works under the supervision of dr miladin radovic associate professor in the department and studies the mechanical properties and relaxation mechanisms in doped oxides for applications in solid-state ionics in particular solid oxide fuel cells the buck weirus spirit award honors up to 55 students each year who demonstrate high involvement create positive experiences throughout the aggie community impact student life at texas a&m and enhance the aggie spirit unlike other awards the buck weirus spirit award recognizes those students who make contributions to the university through participation in student organizations aggie traditions and university events the buck weirus spirit award named for richard ""buck"" weirus '42 recognizes students for their outstanding contributions to student life programs at texas a&m university weirus served as executive director of the association of former students from 1964 to 1980 because of his unique leadership vision and support of student involvement the award was established by the association's board of directors in 1982 in his honor a committee composed of faculty staff and students appointed by the buck weirus committee chair reviewed the applications"
1169,with more devices connected to the internet homes have become smarter its possible for a refrigerator to send shopping reminders and to control the lights or thermostat while away from home but as the things around us become smarter there is a growing need to ensure that they also become safer texas a&m university has long been a leader in cybersecurity but with the formation of the texas a&m cybersecurity center the university looks to take on a larger role in tackling some of the biggest challenges of the 21st century dr daniel ragsdale a retired army colonel and distinguished texas a&m alumni who received his phd in computer science from texas a&m in 2001 is leading those efforts as the director of the center which is a joint endeavor between the university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) ragsdale joined texas a&m in 2015 as a professor of practice after working for the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) where he was awarded the secretary of defense medal for exceptional civilian service the highest decoration for non-career federal employees we believe that texas a&m can contribute not only to national and economic security but also to the social good and thats the really inspiring vision for our center ragsdale said cybersecurity is a subject that covers a vast array of disciplines with a definition so technical that ragsdale believes the subject has been hard for people to grasp most people understand the data and information aspect of cybersecurity but he believes many dont fully understand what the industry calls the internet of things as more and more components are connected they can have an influence on the physical world he said most people dont fully appreciate what that means through hacking into any one of these systems they can change something in the physical world thats very different from traditional information technology (it) it systems focus almost exclusively on processing transmitting and storing data if the information stored on these systems were stolen modified or deleted that could be highly disruptive but with the internet of things and industrial controls systems weve integrated components that dont just manipulate data they change the physical world around us potentially in scary life-threatening ways to help explain what has become a quickly expanding field ragsdale defines cybersecurity as a study of the conflict and competition the conflict takes place in code and in systems that people work with on a daily basis but its more than just as he puts it bits and bytes we need to bring academic disciplines that arent only technically oriented into the cybersecurity community he said you can think of computer science information technology computer engineering and information management those are the people that address the software part but to address the conflict and competition aspect of cybersecurity we need to engage with folks that are involved in psychology behavioral science sociology ethics law and business all of them at least in part address inherent conflict or competition that is a part of our human nature that need for an interdisciplinary approach is why he believes tees and texas a&m are perfectly positioned to be at the forefront of cybersecurity research texas a&m has an internationally renowned group of faculty who are already engaged in groundbreaking cybersecurity research he said additionally the university benefits from having great facilities which enable much of this impressive research portfolio and finally it is a well-known fact that texas a&m a premier land-grant institution has absolutely fantastic students the combination of great faculty great facilities and great students give me tremendous confidence that a&m will soon move to the very forefront of cybersecurity research and education with 16 colleges more than 3 500 faculty members and almost $900 million in research annually texas a&m can bring cybersecurity into many disciplines we have always had pockets of excellence in a variety of places around the campus for folks doing cybersecurity research he said now because we have a center we can connect the dots as we have interactions with sponsoring agencies for example theyre seeing theres more of a holistic program in place now the added focus on this field also brings benefits to texas a&m students ragsdale said the cybersecurity industry is expecting tens of thousands of jobs in the near future that it currently doesnt have a workforce to fill he describes bringing a focus on cybersecurity to the students of texas a&m almost a moral obligation going beyond students who may enter the actual cybersecurity field though ragsdale emphasizes that more and more fields require knowledge of cybersecurity earlier this semester texas a&m announced a minor in cybersecurity starting next academic year with a curriculum that involves courses from six different colleges ragsdale said there has already been off-the-charts interest from students we have students that are interested in this he said they are captivated and they know the significance of it they get it they look to us for curriculum offerings that will allow them to pursue something theyre interested in and at the same time prepare them for important work working with those students is why ragsdale decided to give up what he described as a great job that he loved at darpa to come back to college station we were doing important work hanging out with all the cool kids making the world a better place he said but i had very little interaction with students and i missed that so much when this opportunity at texas a&m presented itself i said i could continue to do important work but at the same time i can be engaged with young men and women in classroom settings in lab settings and in club settings much as i expected it has already been a tremendously rewarding and fulfilling experience for me
1170,"max levchin co-founder of paypal and ceo of affirm recently visited the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university levchin met with departmental student organization leaders and shared experiences from his undergraduate career and other bumps and triumphs along the road that led to his success an open pitch session was also held giving 12 students and entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their own ideas to levchin and receive immediate feedback from the successful entrepreneur and his team this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for our students to learn from and pitch their ideas to a personality like max levchin said dr nancy amato unocal and regents professor and senior director of the engineering honors program that night levchin sat down with engineering honors student sahil dhanju and eppright professor dr lawrence rauchwerger for an informal fireside chat which was managed with the help of computer science engineering honors students ""the fireside chat was an awesome opportunity to have some back and forth conversation and debate with max through different perspectives "" dhanju said ""it definitely helped me gain a better grasp of various subjects such as graduate school venture capitalists the twists and turns of building a company from the ground up and so much more"" this was levchins third university tech tour and texas a&m was his second stop he concluded this tour in austin texas at south by southwest where he presented a keynote talk unstoppable trends that are changing the world ""lack of diversity in silicon valley is a serious issue and this tour gives me and my teams the opportunity to find top talent within underrepresented populations such as women and other minorities levchin said levchin who graduated from the university of illinois in 1997 is a serial entrepreneur computer scientist philanthropist and active investor in early stage startups his goal for each tech tour is to recruit diverse talent with fresh ideas he said he also hopes to be a mentor for young people who have the drive and desire to begin a startup company this was evident as he engaged students during his visit he welcomed questions from students and was eager to share his knowledge and wisdom through personal experiences levchins current venture affirm is using modern technology to reimagine and rebuild core components of financial infrastructure from the ground up and claims to have no hidden fees no added costs and no fine print he wanted to provide a better way to pay instead of using a credit card with compounding interest rates that can get out of hand you pay in simple installments that fit your budget and know exactly what your total cost will be levchin is also the chairman of glow a womens reproductive health company which recently debuted its newest application glow baby both affirm and glow were created and launched from his san francisco based innovation and investment lab hvf which stands for hard valuable fun ""i have put together a collective of the best minds in finance and technology and we are revolutionizing the banking industry to be smarter more accessible and more accountable to the people it serves levchin said in 2002 levchin was named one of the top 100 innovators in the world as well as innovator of the year by the mit review he has served on several boards such as yahoo! and evernote and was recently appointed to the consumer advisory board of the us consumer financial protection bureau"
1171,youve seen them in futuristic science fiction movies for decades but the reality is that unmanned vehicles are just around the corner quite literally fully automated vehicles are expected to hit the roads as early as 2018 in the meantime you might catch the zachry department of civil engineerings autonomous vehicle research car donated in full by the sterling auto group in bryan cruising around the texas a&m university campus this vehicle will be used to investigate interactions and reactions between automated and regular vehicles and pedestrians to this technology not only will our driving environment change drastically but we can expect the interaction between automated and regular vehicles to be different from the interaction between regular vehicles said dr alireza talebpour assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering there will be a wealth of possible changes to foresee and acclimate ourselves to before automated vehicles can fully integrate the impact of this technology is expected to reach far beyond the transportation systems impacting our daily lives with changes in driving habits vehicular movements and safety research at the smart city lab in the civil engineering department focuses on understanding the interactions between regular vehicles connected vehicles automated vehicles and pedestrians on the roads as well as investigating the effects of these interactions on congestion safety emissions and energy consumption how people move in the built environment has determined the design and orientation of buildings roadways and most of urban and suburban developments said dr robin autenrieth department head of civil engineering with the introduction of automated and connected vehicles there could be significant change to the infrastructure beyond the obvious with the introduction of automated vehicles into daily commuting many scenarios will arise that need to be anticipated automated vehicles will be capable of following other vehicles more closely at distances that are considered unsafe for manned vehicles this close following feature of automated vehicles will also impact the capacity and efficiency of our roads less congestion reduces the travel cost which in turn may increase travelers and impact longevity of the infrastructure a major part of this research will focus on pattern recognition and data visualization collected on the texas a&m campus this data will aid in understanding the underlying behavioral patterns necessary for equipping automated vehicles for safety and efficiency the united states department of transportation has identified five levels of automation where level zero corresponds to no automation and level four corresponds to fully automated vehicles at level four automation there is no need for a driver and the vehicle can handle all necessary maneuvers from origin to destination unfortunately the limited understanding of driver behavior in a mixed regular and automated environment prevents the production of level four automated vehicles therefore the current focus of the technology and car industries with few exceptions is on level three at level three automation the vehicle can handle nearly all maneuvers from origin to destination; however the presence of a driver is necessary to take over the driving task and handle unexpected and challenging driving maneuvers transition from automated to regular driving is one of the biggest challenges research is being conducted on developing a reliable mechanism to provide a safe and efficient transition from automated to regular driving this is an exciting time in the transportation and automotive industry with how quickly transportation is changing said michael gonzalez sales operations manager at sterling auto group to be a part of the future supporting this research in our backyard is a great opportunity for our dealership we look forward to seeing how this develops and the impacts on the university and the community in addition to the donation from sterling auto group the texas a&m university system and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) provided start-up funds for this research area
1172,richard coffman associate professor at the university of arkansas presented on remote sensing for geotechnics on march 11 to the zachry department of civil engineerings geo-institute student chapter his visit was funded by the sec travel grant coffman's visit aimed at establishing further research collaboration with dr marcelo sanchez associate professor with the zachry department of civil engineering and coffman's faculty host and also with the other geotechnical faculty in the department due to recent advances in increased sensor capabilities applicability to solving problems and seamless integration into geographical information systems remote sensing has become an essential tool in many fields of engineering although in situ measurements of soil properties are still the most commonly acquired measurements in geotechnical engineering the use of remote sensing is a viable alternative/supplement for monitoring geotechnical related phenomena because many remote sensing platforms are satellite-based and collect data on regular intervals remotely sensed data may be utilized to look back in time to examine the development of a problem several case histories that document the use of satellite-based or ground-based remote sensing for monitoring of tunnel induced displacements dam movement man-made slopes and expansive soils were presented coffman received his bachelors degree in civil engineering from the university of wyoming in 2002 his masters degree in civil engineering from the university of texas at austin in 2003 and his doctoral degree in civil engineering from the university of missouri-columbia in 2009 he is a licensed professional engineer in the states of arkansas and missouri and is a licensed professional land surveyor in the state of missouri he is a member of the deep foundations institute the american society of civil engineers the american society of testing and materials and the united states society on dams coffmans research focuses on soil behavior (laboratory and field testing of soils and deep foundations) and on remote sensing applications within geotechnical engineering
1173,three engineering faculty members are among 24 faculty and staff members who have been selected to receive the 2016 texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award dr melissa a grunlan from the department of biomedical engineering was selected for teaching dr kyle t alfriend from the department of aerospace engineering was selected for research and dr i yucel akkutlu from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering was selected for student relations the university-level distinguished achievement awards were first presented in 1955 and have since been awarded to more than 1 000 professionals who have exhibited the highest standards of excellence at texas a&m a complete list of recipient can be found here more about the awards can be found online the 2016 distinguished achievement award will be formally presented at 1:30 pm on april 25 during ceremonies in rudder theater on the texas a&m campus in recognition of their achievements each recipient will receive a cash gift an engraved watch and a commemorative plaque
1174,dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the françois-xavier bagnoud vertical flight award by the american helicopter society (ahs) this award created in 1992 and first known as the ahs directors award is given to an individual society member under the age of 35 for their career-to-date outstanding contributions to vertical flight technology the award honors the memory of a young helicopter engineer swiss resident author and rescue pilot who founded the ahs student chapter at the university of michigan at 20 years of age he published a treatise on helicopter aerodynamics subsequently he developed within europe ifr procedures for rotorcraft and as a commercial pilot he performed more than 300 helicopter rescue missions benedict will receive the award at the ahs international annual grand awards banquet in west palm beach florida on may 18 the banquet is one of the principal activities of the 72nd annual forum & technology display may 16-19 and is attended by more than 600 leaders in vertical flight technology benedict joined the department in 2014 he received his phd in aerospace engineering in 2010 from the university of maryland and his bachelor and masters of technology from the indian institute of technology bombay his areas of expertise are in design development and autonomous control of high performance next generation aircraft at small (mavs/uavs) and full scales energy efficient green aviation and high efficiency vertical axis wind turbines
1175,dr bimal nepal associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has been elected to serve on the institute of industrial engineers computer and information systems division board of directors the two-year commitment begins this year iie is a flagship professional organization for industrial engineers worldwide the cis division brings together members from academia industry and government who share a common interest in topics related to research and practice of computer and information systems primary interests include theory methodology and practice within all technical areas that develop or apply cis
1176,the industrial distribution program at texas a&m university prepares students with the use of gaming technology
1177,by using a first-of-its-kind sales training program based on gamification texas a&m university students are learning about the attention and discovery stages of the sales process the lead generation process developed and run by researchers and faculty in the department of engineering technology and industrial distributions talent incubator program (tip) uses game design and experiential learning lead generation research was initiated at tip in the thomas and joan read center for distribution research and education and the industrial distribution program students created a model to generate leads and provide metrics for sales leads lead generation a part-time job and experiential learning opportunity for students uses the science of game design to teach sales skills the program is sponsored by various organizations and businesses in return participants put their new knowledge to the test by generating leads for the sponsoring industry partner i have been tasked with the duty to map out a lead generation process for memorial hermann said david wisniewski i am expected to meet key performance indicators each week that include metrics on cold calling contacts found and data entry i have been using the crm system and after working with data and leads through calls i will use analytics to determine the best contacts to call on the best times to call and the best process to use while calling them the design of the lead generation provides a collaborative yet competitive environment for students to engage with their peers the system provides an internal competition that keeps students connected on-task and motivated to fine tune their sales abilities this dynamic environment helps students be self-driven and self-motivated skills that are vital to their future careers the program employs gamification in goal achievement connects students and provides extrinsic motivators for project success gamification is an innovative way to make learning enjoyable provide extra motivation and improve skills while students are developing leads for their sponsor they are also being trained on the attention and discovery steps of the sales process and it shows students how and why customers make decisions the program provides interaction with real practice and connection with industry and companies experience benefits in overall sales and recruiting more companies are choosing to be involved and enjoy the relationship they maintain with the students and the university the semester-long sales training program is the first of its kind and follows in the footsteps of tip which centers on experiential learning aligning industry to advancement of student learning the lead generation program has provided extraordinary value for my future career in sales said clayton hatten my sponsoring company is wisenbaker builder services i have been tasked with analyzing their perceived value in the national production builder marketplace as well as performing a competitive analysis on their top three cabinet competitors our goal is to gain an understanding of where wisenbaker value proposition can align with their competitors inefficiencies in the texas marketplace understanding the competition is invaluable in a sales atmosphere the lead generation program in the talent incubator has been one of the most practical educational tools i have experienced outside of the classroom and is comparable to the value an internship provides lead generation is directed by the dr esther rodriguez-silva and has evolved by automating the sales process sales activities are integrated and the students are engaged in generating leads through cold calls they are also able to track the result of their leads students follow strategy with the industry and outside sales force regarding the estimated prospect opportunities propose solutions in the selling phase aligned with the sales capabilities and customer typologies and assess the value added on post-sales activities for more information about the talent incubator and lead generation contact: dr esther rodriguez silva via email estherrsilva@tamuedu or phone: (979) 845 3146
1178,brandon sweeney and blake teipel graduate students in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university won the $50 000 first prize for their patent-pending 3-d printing at the 2016 baylor new venture competition at baylor university the two-day event was composed of a dual-round business plan competition and speed pitch competition both of which were geared at promoting entrepreneurship and small business development sweeney and teipel presented trifusion devices which they co-founded to design and manufacture customized durable and load-bearing prosthetic devices using carbon nanotube-coated printed filament coupled with their novel microwave welding process trifusion devices has raised $52 000 so far and continues to garner interest from venture capitalists and institutional investors seeking to fund new technology startups exciting new technology combined with humanitarian core values and solid financial projections naturally positions trifusion devices to grow into a successful and stable business said sweeney in the fall the students were selected as winners at the 2015 southeastern conference (sec) symposiums inaugural student entrepreneurial pitch competition in atlanta they also won the center for new ventures and entrepreneurships 14th annual raymond ideas challenge at the mays business school teipel won the competition for the second year in a row
1179,haley marks graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been recognized for her work developing a handheld device that tests for trace levels of toxins in blood at this years 2016 photonics west symposium in san francisco marks was awarded first runner-up in the ocean optics young investigator competition at this years symposium for her research paper detailing the development of the technology as an award recipient marks who is advised by professor gerard coté charles h & bettye barclay professor in biomedical engineering and director of the center for remote health technologies and systems received a $500 cash prize and the laboratory where her research is performed received a $1 000 equipment credit from ocean optics the young investigator award is presented to a researcher who is a graduate student or who has completed their graduate work in the last five years and is the primary author of the best juried paper submitted as part of the colloidal nanocrystals for biomedical applications xi conference at the 2016 photonics west symposium ocean optics an industry leader in modular spectroscopy applications and products has sponsored the young investigator award since 2005 authorities on biophotonics nanophotonics and biomedical optics from throughout the world convene annually at the high-tech symposium to discuss their cutting-edge work each year the symposium attracts more than 20 000 people who want to see learn about and purchase the latest devices components and systems that are driving trends such as state-of-the art medical technologies smart manufacturing and autonomous vehicles as part of a collaboration involving texas a&m strathclyde university in scotland and basepair biotechnologies of houston marks is developing a lab-on-a-chip device that will ultimately have the ability to deliver blood results in minutes eliminating much of the need for a skilled technician and laboratory marks who is working on the sensing chemistry for the chip is using magnetic nanoparticles to detect bisphenol a (bpa) in blood bpa is an industrial chemical found in certain plastics and resins such as those used to make water bottles some research has linked exposure to bpa to negative health effects on the brain behavior and prostate gland of fetuses infants and children and even increased blood pressure the chemical has been traditionally hard to detect because it doesnt trigger an immune response from the body underscoring the need for enhanced detection technology marks says as the technology continues to be refined marks and her team intend to expand its capabilities so that it can be used to identify other difficult-to-detect chemicals in blood about the center for remote health technologies and systemsto enable healthy living through design and development of advanced technology and information systems is at the core of the centers vision to accomplish this vision the mission of the center is to identify and overcome the unmet patient and health care provider needs through development of breakthrough health care devices technologies and information systems toward health monitoring and disease diagnosis management and prevention in the home or in the field about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1180,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university recently held its annual spring banquet and awards ceremony in the bethancourt ballroom located at the memorial student center on campus the event provides a way for the department to recognize those who work diligently to push the department to new heights the banquet hosted by the departments student organizations and funded by the industrial affiliates program began with a reception and dinner followed by the presentation of awards certificates and recognition the night ended with a dance and brief lesson for students to enjoy to begin the night dr dilma da silva department head ppofessor and holder of the ford motor company design professor ii recognized the 2016 distinguished former student dr armando solar-lezama in 2004 the department of computer science created the distinguished former student award to recognize the exceptional contributions of its former students in the fields of computer science and computer engineering solar-lezama associate professor at the massachusetts institute of technology graduated from the department in 2003 at mit solar-lezama leads the computer aided programming group his work focuses on developing new technologies for program synthesis as well as developing new applications of this technology his work has been published at major venues in a variety of fields including programming languages (pldi popl) formal methods (cav) computer systems (sosp) software engineering (icse fse) databases (sigmod) high-performance computing (sc) and machine learning (nips) da silva then recognized the first second and third place iap research poster winners guoyo fu received third place sampath jayarathna received second place and swarna keshavabhotla received first place scott kolodziej president of the computer science and engineering graduate student association (csegsa) presented the student faculty and staff excellence awards engineering honors-computer science and computer engineering (eh-csce) program co-directors dr nancy amato and dr jennifer welch followed with the recognition of the eh-csce scholar graduates concluding the ceremony peer teacher advisor dr teresa leyk and associate head for academics dr john keyser recognized the upsilon pi epsilon (upe) spring 2016 inductees the spring banquet and awards ceremony is a great tradition to come together and give much-deserved recognition to those in our department that make it so great kolodziej said its also a great way to meet new people associated with the computer science department and communitypeer teaching excellence awards katherine click timothy foster teaching assistant excellence awards ryan vraecenar tanzir ahmed undergraduate faculty teaching excellence award dr dilma da silva graduate faculty teaching excellence award dr tracy hammond undergraduate leadership award rafael moreno cesar graduate leadership award scott kolodziej undergraduate research excellence award andrew nemec graduate research excellence award zain shamsi mentoring excellence award robert timm staff excellence award taffie behringer
1181,donald bruss a graduate student in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university won an outstanding poster award at the national nuclear security administrations (nnsa) 2016 stewardship science academic programs (ssap) symposium in bethesda maryland the saap symposium serves to highlight the accomplishments of the different academic programs that nnsa sponsors through promoting academic interaction between programs and fostering a collegiate and interactive spirit between members of the scientific community and the attending students brusss poster was entitled uq for radiation transport problems with uncertain cross sections bruss and other students in the department were taken to the symposium under the guidance of the director for the center for large-scale scientific simulations (class) dr jim morel to present the work the students were doing as a part of the center for exascale radiation transport (cert) at texas a&m a multidisciplinary project within nnsas predictive science academic alliance program (psaap) sponsored by the advanced simulation and computing (asc) program cert is dedicated to the development of computational techniques that simulate the transport of thermal radiation and predictive science techniques to quantify uncertainty in simulated results we are examining uncertainty in radiation transport calculations due to uncertainty in the nuclear data bruss said the problem is challenging because of the sheer size of the uncertain data there are thousands of uncertain correlated cross sections that must be provided as material properties for the simulation our method relies upon a physics-based dimension reduction an uncertainty-based dimension reduction and an adjoint sensitivity method to reduce the dimensionality of the problem to a size we can analyze in a reasonable amount of time the two-day conference featured speakers from the nnsa and several partnership universities within the saap program and other collaborative programs underneath the nnsa including a presentation by morel that gave an overview of cert and its project components integration methods and more the conference was a fun experience and it was a very pleasant surprise to win the outstanding poster award bruss said
1182,texas a&m engineerings graduate program ranked 11th overall and seventh among public institutions in the latest us news & world report survey americas best graduate schools 2017 the current overall ranking is an improvement of one spot from last years rankings individual programs ranked were: aerospace engineering 10 (7 public); agricultural engineering 3 (3); biomedical engineering 37 (19); chemical engineering 26 (16); civil engineering 12 (8); computer engineering 23 (13); electrical engineering 19 (11); industrial engineering 15 (9); materials 45 (27); mechanical engineering 16 (8); nuclear engineering 3 (2); and petroleum engineering 2 (2) computer science which is ranked in the sciences category was 40th nationally and 23rd among public institutions
1183,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university gave one of the nine invited topical lectures at the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) meeting in washington dc aaas the organization that publishes the highly respected magazine science was founded in 1848 to promote science and engineering the annual meeting is one of the most widely recognized and reported interdisciplinary scientific events attended by members of the science business media and policy-making communities this year over 8 500 scientists were in attendance murphys lecture disaster management: robots informatics and people reflected on the work being conducted through the texas a&m engineering experiment station center for emergency informatics (cei) cei works to create unmanned systems new sensors wireless networks data mining simulation and visualization social networking and other technologies that can revolutionize response and recovery the 2016 theme global science engagement focused on how the scientific enterprise can meet global challenges in need of innovation and international collaboration murphy received her bachelors masters and phd in computer science at the georgia institute of technology she is active in disaster response having participated in 21 disasters and is active in the larger scientific community having served on the ieee robotics and automation executive committees and numerous national academies and defense boards including the defense science board
1184,matthew aguirre a senior in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as the first-place winner of the james barany student award for excellence from the institute of industrial and systems engineering (iise) the award recognizes undergraduate students who have exemplified excellence of scholarship and campus leadership since the beginning of their junior year the texas a&m iie student chapter could nominate two graduating seniors for this award aguirre will graduate in may with plans to eventually earn his phd in industrial engineering he will be honored at the iie annual conference and expo at the end of may
1185,adolfo r escobedo phd candidate in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was selected as a 2016 recipient of the us senator phil gramm doctoral fellowship the us senator phil gramm doctoral fellowship was established to promote encourage and reward outstanding teaching and research by doctoral students each college selects two students whose command of their respective disciplines exemplifies the meaning of scholar/mentor in the highest sense to submit to the office of graduate and professional studies recipients are then evaluated and selected by a committee under dr erick morenos supervision escobedos research focuses on the theory and application of optimization: linear mixed-integer and nonlinear programming mathematical programming error reduction/elimination; and the design analysis and high-performance-computing implementation of algorithms escobedo has three publications that have appeared or been selected to appear in journals such as iie transactions and iie transactions on power systems a publication in the informs journal on computing was named a top six finalist in the informs junior faculty paper competition honorable mention escobedo taught isen 302 in the spring of 2015 and 2016 and currently serves as a mentor for the louis stokes alliance for minority participation bridge to the doctorate program at texas a&m through his mentor service escobedo works to develop necessary skills in peers to help them be successful minority professionals escobedo anticipates graduating with his phd in may 2016
1186,dr erick moreno-centeno assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the dr hamed e eldin outstanding early career ie in academia award from the institute of industrial and systems engineering sponsored by integrated systems technology this award recognizes those who have demonstrated outstanding characteristics in education leadership professionalism and potential in industrial engineering early career iise members are honored for their contributions in application design research or development of industrial engineering methods moreno-centenos research is focused in the theory and applications of discrete optimization with an emphasis on network optimization his focus is to design and analyze optimization models and algorithms that are computationally possible for real-world applications to achieve this he combines effective modeling with efficient computational techniques his current projects include designing a roundoff-error-free and fast-in-practice linear programming algorithm and solving problems in energy (topology control) decision theory (voting) and machine learning moreno-centeno has been invited to accept the award at the iise annual conference and expo in may
1187,dr austin buchanan graduate of the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been selected for the second place pritsker doctoral dissertation award by the institute for industrial and systems engineering the pritsker doctoral dissertation award recognizes outstanding research in industrial engineering during his time at texas a&m buchanan published five articles one of which was selected as the may 2015 presidents pick article he is now an assistant professor in the department of industrial engineering and management at oklahoma state university buchanan will be honored at the iise annual conference and expo in may
1188,julie hammett phd student in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the heep graduate fellowship by the texas a&m institute for advanced study the heep graduate fellowship is awarded to those who demonstrate outstanding academic performance research ability and potential and leadership qualities under the supervision of dr mark lawley hammett is working to develop a remote healthcare system to monitor patients with chronic illnesses such as diabetes and sleep apnea
1189,improved training techniques safety monitoring and rehabilitation methods were the focus of the most recent aggies invent: sports students looked at all perspectives of sports from safety to training to recovery and knocked it out of the park with their innovations aggies invent: sports tasked students with designing solutions relevant to sports whether that be to improve the health and safety for athletes training devices and equipment and workout aids almost 50 students from across campus participated in the weekend aggies invent promotes an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m university it gathers invited students provides them with the needs statements submitted by sponsors allows them to self-select teams gives them access to industry mentors and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours its exciting to have a relationship with engineering that brings focus to improving sport devices and activities explained richard b kreider professor and department head of health and kinesiology engineering and sport go hand in hand and technology is such an important factor for advances in sport first second and third place were awarded $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively for their innovations the judges were very impressed with the teams and decided to add a fourth prize to the list a new category most market potential was added for a prize of $250 pocket trainer a wearable aid to ensure physical therapy was performed properly was awarded first place team members included will davis zachary reinisch martin jeffers siddhartha regmi and eric matthews their pocket trainer provides speed and range of motion sensor technology to track training and rehabilitation exercises stretch armstrong in second place created a wearable device to measure the acceleration motion and direction in a three-dimensional format for rehabilitation and training purposes team members include utashya shah craig medlin michael walker nathan stephens usman muhammad and gerardo vazquez the third place team created the drill drone its programmable drone allows athletes to train with the drone for enhanced agility and speed training the drone acts as a personalized trainer with the ability to capture motion and acceleration and will measure and record progress brendan cooper taylor frederick austin lu ty jahns xin xing and ankit singh were the team members the final team the judges deemed to have the greatest market potential is h2u a dehydration detection system its wearable device is capable of continuous monitoring of an athletes hydration status a critical factor for high performing athletes especially in the heat the team had the added benefit of two texas a&m student athletes who could attest to the need for this product team members included ian sequeira adam curtis kate hajdu sarah gibson and yi yan this aggies invent was judged by dr steven riechman associate professor and chair from the department of health and kinesiology; kreider; jim wilson eic facility manager; and grace fletcher aggies invent engineering mentor and former aggies invent winner the innovation does not stop now teams are invited to continue working on their project and will have access to the eic and mentors to help them improve their idea and create more advanced prototypes rodney boehm event organizer director of aggies invent and associate professor of practice serves as the mentor for each team throughout this process teams also have the opportunity to work with startup aggieland you need an innovative team approach to solving these problems kreider said and engineering has to play a role in this team
1190,"two researchers with the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) have received research instrumentation awards from the us department of defense (dod) dr ibrahim karaman head of the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university and chevron professor i received an award from the air force office of scientific research for his proposal multi-material bulk deposition and characterization system dr i-hong hou assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering received an award from the army research office for his proposal equipment for research in network and systems collaborators on the project ""multi-material bulk deposition and characterization system included dr miladin radovic associate professor and associate department head in materials science and engineering; dr patrick shamberger assistant professor and undergraduate degree program director in materials science and engineering; dr raymundo arroyave associate professor in materials science and engineering; dr ji ma tees assistant research associate and dr dimitris lagoudas university distinguished professor and senior associate dean for research the awards made under the defense university research instrumentation program totaled $501 million and were handed out to 176 researchers from 96 academic institutions across the united states the program supports the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment that augments current university capabilities or develops new capabilities to perform cutting-edge defense research and associated graduate student research training the awards are the result of a merit competition jointly conducted by three dod research offices: the army research office office of naval research and air force office of scientific research those offices will make the awards which are subject to the successful completion of negotiations with the academic institutions the program is highly competitive and the three research offices collectively received 622 proposals requesting $209 million in support for research equipment the most meritorious proposals were selected to receive support the defense university research instrumentation program awards will range from $53 000 to $14 million and average approximately $300 000 per award"
1191,dr g kemble bennett senior professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and vice chancellor and dean emeritus of the dwight look college of engineering will receive the frank and lillian gilbreth industrial engineering award from the institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) the frank and lillian gilbreth industrial engineering award is the highest and most revered honor given by iise recognizing those who have made contributions to the welfare of mankind and distinguished themselves in the field of industrial engineering bennett's research and enterprise interests span manufacturing maintainability reliability logistics and quality engineering he served as the us technical representative for maintainability and authored engineering standards that govern the international trade of electronic and mechanical equipment and components he has been named an eminent scholar by tau beta pi and a fellow by iise and the society of logistics engineers (sole) he has previously been honored with distinguished educator awards by iise and sole bennett began his career at texas a&m 30 years ago in the department of industrial engineering and oversaw all engineering programs as the vice chancellor and dean for nine years he founded texas task force 1 and served as the chair of the texas board of professional engineers as well as the federal emergency management agency national advisory council along with numerous positions in iise and sole bennett will be honored at the iise annual conference and expo in may
1192,dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university is a member of a multidisciplinary team led by dr ibrahim karaman that was awarded a $550 000 grant from the airforce office of scientific researchs defense university research instrumentation program (durip) durip supports university research infrastructure essential for acquiring major equipment necessary in developing high quality research capabilities that support research in technical areas of interest to the department of defense the team included faculty members from industrial engineering materials science and engineering and aerospace engineering the grant will be used to develop a state-of-the-art multi-material deposition additive manufacturing system with insitu monitoring and material characterization capabilities this will support the teams cutting edge research in design and discovery of new materials
1193,the second annual big data workshop was held recently at texas a&m university to foster connections across disciplines that intersect this area and help people to continue to identify opportunities for collaboration the workshop was comprised of 27 short talks from speakers from across the university organized in thematic sessions with time for discussion the sessions encompassed big data in sensing and social applications; environment resources and power; materials; cybersecurity; and bioinformatics medicine & health sciences participants also discussed broader issues for big data research in the university including infrastructure support computational resources and availability of data for collaboration there were over 90 registered attendees many researchers across texas a&m have current or emerging research interests in big data methods systems or applications and there are currently opportunities at the federal level for major funding of cross-disciplinary projects in data science building on the first workshop held last year dr nick duffield professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering big data initiative and dr dilma da silva head of the department of computer science and engineering organized the workshop to continue to build community amongst big data researchers at texas a&m since the first workshop interdisciplinary teams from texas a&m have submitted proposals for funding opportunities including the nsf bigdata and nsf big data spokes programs in order to help researchers better position themselves for these and other opportunities the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) in partnership with the texas a&m division of research texas a&m agrilife research texas a&m health science center (tamhsc) and the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) has awarded nearly $350 000 in seed grant funding to seven interdisciplinary research teams for big data texas a&m is positioned to lead in applications of big data in its disciplinary areas of strength not only in research but by leveraging its network of cross-sector partnerships to realize the benefits of big data applications more widely said duffield texas a&m will host a conference on advances in big data modeling computation and analytics '' on sept22-24 which will feature leading researchers and practitioners in the field the 2016 workshop program including slides for some presentations can be found at http://cesgtamuedu/bigdata2016/
1194,more than 100 texas a&m university engineering students spent a saturday learning how to become better leaders during the accenture leadership symposium hosted by the student engineers council (sec) the accenture leadership symposium is a perfect opportunity to develop the skills necessary to succeed in leading not only at texas a&m but also in industry said andrew west current sec president the symposium is a great opportunity for engineering students to obtain the skills that aren't necessarily taught in the classroom accenture representatives spoke to the group of engineering students about various aspects of leadership the sessions focused on being an authentic leader managing time and a work-life balance assessing an individuals social style and working with teams west said accenture did a great job of organizing this event to help students better understand their leadership style and instill confidence to be more effective leaders he said they hold the symposium in the spring to assist in the development of new leaders and their transition to leadership roles within each student organization the attending students were representatives from engineering student organizations including: aggie club of engineers; american institute of chemical engineers; american institute of chemical engineers; american society of civil engineers; biomedical engineering society; chemical engineering graduate student association; chi epsilon civil engineering honor society; engineering world health; engineers without borders; health physics society; institute for electrical and electronics engineers tech; national society of black engineers; omega chi epsilon; society of asian scientist and engineers; society of hispanic professional engineers; society of petroleum engineers; society of women engineers; student engineers' council; and the tau beta pi national engineering honor society accenture hosted an inaugural symposium in spring 2015 and plans to continue to hold symposiums with the sec and engineering students in future semesters
1195,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been named one of the 30 most innovative women professors alive today by the best masters degrees a website that provides reviews and rankings to help narrow down the field when it comes to selecting which programs to pursue in higher education the female professors on this list are some of the most impressive and innovative in the united states they have been chosen and ranked based upon their individual successes in their respective fields including politics robotics mechanical engineering literature and law to name but a few each woman on the list embodies the term innovative as defined as something featuring new methods among the 30 women honored with this recognition three are involved in researching and developing robotics murphy is the only woman recognized from texas a&m murphy is director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for emergency informatics which includes the center for robot-assisted search and rescue (crasar) at texas a&m crasar is one of only two centers in the world specializing in disaster robotics she established the field of disaster robotics in 1995 alongside dr satoshi tadokoro of the international rescue systems institute at tohoku university along with directing crasar murphy also founded roboticists without borders a program designed to bring together groups of professionals in ground aerial or marine robots or emergency response to aid in the recovery after an incident occurs at no cost to responders and agencies as stated in her tedwomen talk in may 2015 if you can reduce the initial response by one day you can reduce the overall recovery by 1 000 days or three years she works tirelessly to reach her ultimate goal of saving lives with robotics among her numerous awards murphy recently received the association for computing machinery eugene lawler award for humanitarian contributions within computer science and informatics beyond innovative research murphy has employed innovative means of engaging students and the public she created robot petting zoos which have been held at south by southwest and other venues introducing robots to over 5 000 participants she has a blog and a new book robotics through science fiction which uses classic science fiction stories to explain robotics her research interests include human-robot interaction heterogeneous teams victim management perceptual directed behavior-based control and artificial intelligence as applied to emergency informatics and research especially with tactical land sea and air vehicles
1196,dr satish bukkapatnam and dr cèsar malavè of the department of industrial and systems engineering have been selected to receive the fellow award from the institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) bukkapatnam is a professor in the department and malavè is the head of the department the fellow award recognizes outstanding leaders who have made significant nationally recognized contributions to industrial engineering this is the highest classification of iise membership bukkapatnam and malavè are both leaders in promoting industrial engineering and continue to enhance the impact of the industry through promotional activities they have each served in national and international groups relating to industrial engineering and work to enhance the visibility of the industry these qualities among others qualify bukkapatnam and malavè for this honor the pair was selected by the fellows committee to attend a reception and awards banquet at the iise annual conference and expo in may
1197,the business and engineering colleges at texas a&m university are partnering in a new entrepreneurial training program to better prepare undergraduate and graduate students interested in the oil and gas industry the petroleum ventures program (pvp) is a certificate program funded by a $12 million gift by anthony bahr and jay graham business partners in houston-based wildhorse resources management company both bahr and graham graduated from texas a&m bahr in 1991 and graham in 1992 in petroleum engineering the partners gift stemmed from bahr and grahams personal experience in identifying the industry importance and student benefit of providing business experience to engineering students as well as the market value of graduating finance students with a specialization in the oil and gas industry thanks to the generosity and foresight of mr bahr and mr graham texas a&m has a magnificent opportunity to have an even more prominent role in providing intellectually transformative learning experiences that are so vital to our state and nation said texas a&m university president michael young the entrepreneurial emphasis for the program reflects their expectation of excellence and their successsuccess to which they attribute in part to what they learned here at texas a&m it is very fitting that this bold new venture takes advantage of the strengths of both our engineering and business programs offering an interdisciplinary experience that will well serve our students presenting them with a competitive advantage among their peers as they enter the workforce this academic collaboration between mays business school and the harold vance department of petroleum engineering will foster teamwork among petroleum engineering students and students in the department of finance at mays students will take courses and work together on projects and a petroleum business impact lab will be established the first classes for the pvp certificate program will be offered in fall 2016 the program will target undergraduate and graduate petroleum engineering students and business students who have a desire to work in energy finance or petroleum acquisitions and divestitures fields as well as petroleum engineers or business graduates who are employed and seeking specialized training after completing the program graduates will be better prepared to pursue entrepreneurship opportunities in the petroleum industry providing entrepreneurial opportunities for our students is critical in better preparing them for our changing workforce requirements said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering we appreciate anthony bahr and jay graham for supporting a program that will help increase the marketability and success of graduates the petroleum engineering component will be called the graham petroleum ventures program and the mays component will be called the bahr petroleum ventures program this program is an example of innovation in action and mays business school is honored to step up to serve our state and nation in this very important area said eli jones dean of mays business school we will be connecting the curriculum with industry needs and giving students a competitive advantage in an interdisciplinary way graham said the program is a way to bring more formal training in business concepts to petroleum engineers while they are students he and bahr credit their success to their mentor and initial investor professor billy p pete huddleston his influence is interwoven into all of it bahr said a lot of the driving force behind why were doing this program is to continue and build upon the spark he put into a lot of his students within the petroleum engineering department and push that forward a little bit further about mays business school texas a&m universitys mays business school educates more than 6 000 undergraduate masters and doctoral students in accounting business finance management management information systems marketing and supply chain management mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its undergraduate and mba programs and for faculty research the mission of mays business school is creating knowledge and developing ethical leaders for a global society about the college of engineering the college of engineering is the largest college on the texas a&m campus and one of the largest engineering schools in the country with more than 550 faculty members and more than 15 000 students in 14 departments the college is ranked seventh in engineering graduate programs and eight in undergraduate engineering programs among public institutions by us news & world report
1198,dr bonnie j dunbar texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded membership into the international honor society for systems engineering by the omega alpha association board of directors the omega alpha association was organized as the international honor society for systems engineering to recognize and honor truly distinguished individuals though election to membership and to celebrate contributions by individuals to the advancement and practice of systems engineering the objective of the association is to advance the systems engineering process and its professional practice in service to others dunbar a retired nasa astronaut joined texas a&m engineering in january and also serves as the director of the tees institute of engineering educations and innovation dunbar who is a member of the prestigious national academy of engineering came to texas a&m from the university of houston where she provided leadership in the development of a new integrated university science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) center she was an md anderson professor of mechanical engineering and she developed a new innovative course for the introduction of engineering to freshmen students she also directed the sicsa space architecture graduate program she has devoted her life to furthering engineering engineering education and the pursuit of human space exploration
1199,"honghuang lin a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a third-place best paper award at the premier conference for the functional design and verification of electronic systems lin who is in the computer engineering and systems group under the advisement of dr peng li received the award at the design and verification conference and exhibition us (dvcon us) for his paper ""functional coverage collection for analog circuits – enabling seamless collaboration between design and verification "" which is co-authored with engineers from texas instruments inc the award is voted on by all the participants of the conference lin's paper addresses the challenges in analog verification coverage which is an increasingly important topic in the industry by the proposed analog coverage checking (acc) framework it's the first work to apply functional coverage metrics on analog circuits in a mixed signal simulation environment which utilizes analog functional checkers deep inside the schematic hierarchy in addition it provides a mechanism for seamless collaborations between analog designers and verification engineers by unifying the definitions of analog functional descriptions in the chip level for analog and mixed signal designs and the construction of meaningful analog covergroup verification at the top level its also an efficient way to track the verification progress the proposed acc framework serves as an efficient tool to embed analog checking in the early design stage and to conveniently track the verification progress lin received his bachelors degree in automation from tsinghua university china in 2011 his research interests include analog and mixed-signal circuit verification machine learning based circuit analysis and circuit modeling dvcon is the premier conference for discussion of the functional design and verification of electronic systems dvcon is sponsored by accellera systems initiative an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating design and verification standards required by systems semiconductor intellectual property (ip) and electronic design automation (eda) companies in response to global interest in addition to dvcon us accellera also sponsors dvcon europe and dvcon india for more information about accellera please visit wwwaccelleraorg for more information about dvcon us please visit wwwdvconorg"
1200,"two texas a&m university students in the department of computer science and engineering ryan vrecenar and zach varnadore completed all four tiers of the third annual national security agency 2015 codebreaker challenge – an impressive feat very few have accomplished more than 2 000 students from colleges and universities nationwide competed in the prestigious challenge which lends students the opportunity to test their creative problem solving abilities in order to solve a fictitious but realistic cyber threat texas a&m ranked fifth in student participation only 54 students solved all four tiers the nsa builds the challenge in a way that each tier becomes progressively more difficult and poses a completely new problem to be solved by the students varnadore said that he has learned a lot of what he used for the challenge through the education he is receiving at texas a&m i was able to complete the challenge using knowledge tactics and intuition that i have learned over the past year or two from studying certain computer engineering topics such as reverse engineering "" he said the challenge designed to create a platform for students across the nation to develop the mindset required to solve real world problems is anticipated to grow and continually improve in the years to come the codebreaker challenge was a truly intriguing experience "" vrecenar said i embrace the challenges and entered the phd program to gain advanced training in math modeling and algorithms design it is truly an invaluable experience to better grasp safe programming and have fun taking apart binary in addition to vrecenar and varnadores success the university also performed well as part of a sponsored activity by the recently-formed texas a&m cybersecurity club the university finished seventh overall out of the 329 schools and ranked first as the school with the most level 1 solutions professor of practice and director of the cybersecurity center for the texas a&m experiment extension service (tees) dr dan ragsdale and instructional assistant professor dr philip ritchey are the faculty advisors for the cybersecurity club which serves as an open forum for students to engage in community service projects and to compete against students at other universities in cyber defense and ""capture the flag"" competitions"
1201,dr svetlana sukhishvili professor in the department of materials science and engineering has received a $424 000 grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to conduct fundamental research on controlling the structure of functional polymer coatings for biomedical and optical applications sukhishvili leads the project nonlinear growth of polyelectrolyte multilayers: chain dynamics and film structure as the principal investigator two doctoral students will assist her on the project using advanced techniques they will explore the effects of various molecular and film deposition parameters on film layering biomedical and optical applications necessitate the need for coatings that are easily deposited on a variety of surfaces through an environmentally friendly process and have structure controlled by deposition procedure and conditions yet currently available biomedical functional polymer coatings do not deliver multiple drugs such as anesthetics antibiotics and growth factors sequentially the goal is to achieve structured films which support such sequential delivery and can be deposited through fewer steps advanced instrumental techniques will be used to take snapshots of how multilayered structures water content and film mechanical properties can be manipulated we can create a smart coating that responds to the environment and delivers the payload in a predictable way we can also program the time when such a coating releases therapeutics - for example an anesthetic followed by an antibiotic followed by a growth factor said sukhishvili our research on layered films lays the groundwork for such a delivery which is highly needed for many types of biomedical implants the project will create a fertile training ground for participating graduate undergraduate and high school students sukhishvili is the academic advisor of women in materials science graduate students organization and leads several outreach activities to promote female and minority engagement in engineering
1202,dr costas georghiades associate dean for research and texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) associate agency director for strategic initiatives and centers has been appointed texas a&m universitys new senior associate vice president for research his appointment is effective april 1 we are grateful for dr georghiades many contributions to the texas a&m engineering program during his distinguished career said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering we wish dr georghiades the best in his new position and look forward to continued collaborations and interactions additionally dr narasimha reddy the jw runyon jr 35 professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering will assume the responsibilities of the associate dean for research and tees associate agency director reddy currently serves as the tees assistant agency director for national global initiatives georghiades joined the college of engineering in 1985 as a faculty member in the department of electrical and computer engineering and served as department head from 2005 until moving to the office of the vice chancellor and dean in 2012 he is the holder of the delbert a whitaker endowed chair reddy earned is phd in computer engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 1990 he has received numerous awards and honors and is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers
1203,the most recent publication of dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor and the william and ruth neely faculty fellow in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is on acs macro letters top 20 most read list for the month of february the article is co-authored by fei li yanpu zhang and se ra kwon who are all researchers in lutkenhaus organic thin films and nanostructures lab the article electropolymerized polythiophenes bearing pendant nitroxide radicals reports on a facile way to synthesize polythiophenes carrying 2 2 6 6-tetramethylpiperindinyl-1-oxyl (tempo) radicals this work was supported in part by the welch foundation acs macro letters publishes research in all areas of contemporary soft matter science in which macromolecules play a key role including nanotechnology self-assembly supramolecular chemistry biomaterials energy generation and storage and renewable/sustainable materials
1204,daniel salahuddin awoke from a nap in the zachry engineering center two years ago and saw a flyer on the wall that caught his eye the flyer was advertising a study abroad opportunity in beijing china the queens new york native always wanted to travel but china was never on his list the flyer was advertising a two-week program that would count as a class credit for petroleum production systems a petroleum engineering major salahuddin knew he needed to take that class through the study abroad program he could complete it in two weeks while also gaining the experience of a lifetime on the other side of the world the junior applied and was accepted into the 2015 summer course it was an experience he said he will never forget it was one of the best trips of my life he said i would not have expected any of that just because i never thought about going to beijing salahuddin said the petroleum course specializes in extracting oil from reservoirs in the most cost effective way we learned a lot about the production aspect of things he said we also got to see an oil field the importance of studying abroad director for engineering global programs maria alves said its crucial that students are prepared to join the job market in todays global economic environment the need to prepare students ready to work in a global environment is not only stated by the national academy of engineering but also by the different companies we interact with on a daily basis she said we want students to come back from those study abroad experiences with an appreciation for the different cultures and a deeper understanding of their engineering fields in different countries alves said the programs are designed to help students grow personally and professionally thats certainly what the outcome was for salahuddin and he encourages other students to apply for the program alves said there are more than 40 study abroad programs in more than 20 countries available for engineering students the programs range from one-week to semester-long courses last year 700 engineering students studied abroad the goal of the program is to have 2 000 students study abroad every year the end result alves said is industry-prepared individuals a study conducted by two researchers with centers for international business education and research found that almost 40 percent of us companies surveyed missed international business opportunities because of a lack of internationally competent personnel she said given that 95 percent of consumers live outside of the united states the authors articulate why it is important for students to gain international experience the mission of the engineering global programs is to create and implement opportunities for students to develop the skills to become global residents global engineers and global leaders for more information about this study abroad opportunity in china visit the engineering global programs website
1205,a workshop this month will pair some of the most brilliant minds in cardiovascular health with some of the brightest minds in engineering and the end result could make waves throughout the medical community and the world the workshop on cardiovascular science engineering and medicine is set to take place march 14-16 at the texas a&m health science center in houston dr kumbakonam rajagopal the jm forsyth chair regents professor and distinguished professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is spearheading the event assisted by an organizing committee consisting of faculty from texas a&m and the texas medical center the collaboration with the scientists and doctors at the texas medical center will allow the engineering faculty to work on problems that will have more societal relevance and impact than any other class of problems one can think of rajagopal said they will be able to work on projects that can enhance the quality as well as save lives and alleviate human suffering what more meaningful research could one ask for dwight look college of engineering professors and students will travel to the conference where they will learn about some of the biggest challenges facing doctors and surgeons in cardiovascular health medical professionals will be explaining the science behind pathophysiology and cardiovascular diseases filling a knowledge gap in which engineers are not knowledgeable among the cardiovascular diseases to be discussed are: ischemia a coronary and peripheral arterial occlusive disease; valvular an aortic and mitral valve disease; and congenital and cardiac malformations and cardiac failure engineers will also learn about diagnostic imaging state-of-the-art pharmacotherapies cell-based therapies and various device-based therapies rajagopal has a longstanding interest in cardiovascular health challenges two of my former students dr jim antaki at carnegie-mellon university and dr david york at the university of pittsburgh have distinguished themselves in the area of cardiovascular medicine and i have interacted closely with doctors in the field rajagopal said also recently in 2014 i was instrumental in organizing an international workshop in mechanical circulatory support and thoracic organ transplantation that was jointly sponsored by the indian institute of technology madras and fortis hospital group (the largest hospital group in india) which drew speakers from several top medical institutions in the united states and india that event was very successful and rajagopal hopes to see similar success during this workshop some of the most eminent persons in the field of cardiovascular medicine and science people who have changed the course of the field will be giving lectures at the workshop he said i cannot think of a better learning experience than that which will be provided by the workshop for engineers interested in cardiovascular science engineering and medicine the department of mechanical engineering the dwight look college of engineering and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) helped sponsor this event
1206,each year the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university supports students who design and build a formula style racecar that is raced in the annual formula sae (fsae) student design competition held in lincoln nebraska in order for mechanical engineering students at texas a&m to participate in the project and receive course credit they must enroll in the meen 401/402 senior design course in the fall and spring semester of their senior year yuval doron lecturer in the department teaches the class throughout the year and acts as a mentor to the students dorons years of engineering design and fabrication expertise helps him teach students how to approach the engineering challenges they will face as they build their racecars as an instructor its important i teach the students how to engineer a safe fast and competitive race car doron said the team which is part of the departments sae chapter works each semester to raise funds and sponsorships to design and build a new car this challenge provides a unique experience for the students as each car is built differently and engineered to race in various divisions of the sae competition i dont want these students to come in and have an easy build doron said thats not the engineering reality they will face when they graduate and go to work in their various professions therefore its up to the students to raise awareness of the team attract sponsors and build a car that will win texas a&ms fsae team has competed annually since 1999 it has placed first overall five times second overall three times and in 2015 placed 14th overall to the students who make the journey each year to the competition the experience of competing against 80 other teams and representing the department cant be quantified however if the students were to bill out engineering hours spent on the car the value of the team would be significant this years team is led by mechanical engineering senior shawn phillips who became interested in the team after noticing members of the 2015 team working on the car design in labs housed in the james j cain engineering building and thompson hall in high school i was interested in anything fast said phillips when i found out the mechanical engineering department provided an opportunity to take a class dedicated to the car design and build i was hooked and began volunteering for the team that spring ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ the 2016 team is hosting a public reveal of this years car on march 26 at the thomas g hildebrand dvm 56 equine complex in college station texas
1207,dr rafiqul gani acclaimed for his extensive research in computer-aided methods and tools for sustainable products and processes in chemical engineering delivered the jd lindsay lecture at the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university he is a professor of systems design at the department of chemical & biochemical engineering at the technical university of denmark and the former head and co-founder of the computer aided process engineering center (capec) gani's lecture new vistas in chemical product and process design referenced design of chemicals-based products that were broadly classified process centric and product centric he pointed out that everything around us has chemical-based aspects and described several sustainability issues related to integrated product-process design the modeling challenges related to product properties and functions and the motivation to find novel innovative and sustainable solutions gani's current research interests include development of computer aided methods and tools for modeling property estimation process-product synthesis and design and process-tools integration while significant advances have been made in the development of systematic model-based techniques for process design and also for optimization operation and control much work is needed to reach the same level for product design said gani gani is the former editor-in-chief of the computers and chemical engineering journal editor for the elsevier cace book series and serves on the editorial advisory board of the journal of process systems engineering and current opinion in chemical engineering he was awarded three doctor honoris causa degrees from university politehnica bucharest university of pannonia and babes-bolyai university he is also the president of the european federation of chemical engineering (efce) elected for a second term 2016-2018; a fellow of the aiche and also a fellow of icheme he was awarded the aiche (cast division) computers in chemical engineering 2015 award in november 2015 currently he leads a special project called speed (sustainable product process engineering evaluation and design) with three post-docs 10 phd students four masters students and six visiting students the jd lindsay lecture series enables outstanding speakers from industry and academia to visit texas a&m and the department of chemical engineering to exchange ideas on teaching and research with students and faculty
1208,dr hung-jen wu assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2016 kaneka junior faculty award for his excellence in research wu will receive the award at the polymer technology industrial consortium meeting in april i am deeply honored to receive this award wu said i would like to express my thanks to kaneka for the recognition i also appreciate the tremendous support provided by the chemical engineering department wus research focuses on using nanostructured materials and analytical tools to develop diagnostic techniques for disease screening the applications of these techniques include infectious disease screening imaging complex biological networks that are critical to the development of diseases exploring cell membrane function and drug discovery wu received his bachelors and masters degrees from national cheng kung university in taiwan and his phd from texas a&m the kaneka americas holding scholarship fund was established to provide scholarship and award funding to promote and support material science related research activities for students and faculty at texas a&m the scholarships are awarded to junior faculty exchange students/visiting scholars graduating phd students graduate students and undergraduate students who conduct research in material science or organic chemistry fields or take at least a material science and engineering course for undergraduate students
1209,jordan evans a materials science engineering doctoral student at texas a&m university was named a recipient of the roy g post foundation scholarship and will be receiving the award valued at $5 000 at the annual waste management conference in phoenix on march 8 recipients of the scholarship are full-time students enrolled in a post-secondary educational program in either technical or policy fields that are seeking to contribute to the safe management of nuclear materials the scholarship is funded by the roy g post foundation a non-profit organization that provides scholarships to students who want to develop careers within nuclear materials management fields the foundations namesake roy g post was the founding chief executive of wm symposia and is the sponsor of the international waste management conference this years conference will address policy and technical developments in the global radioactive waste community include over 175 companies 130 technical sessions and over 500 paper presentations covering a variety of radioactive waste management issues evans is a native of houston and earned both his bachelors and masters of science in nuclear engineering at texas a&m evans current research focuses on the development of advanced nuclear materials including both reactor structural materials and nuclear fuel evans has completed several recent projects including the development of a uranium mononitride or sesquisilicide ceamic fuel composite in collaboration with westinghouse electric evans is also working with lockheed martin on developing nuclear reactor structural material that is produced by laser-based additive manufacturing evans is currently pursuing a doctorate in materials and science engineering with a focus on nuclear nanomaterials under dr sean mcdeavitt the director and principal investigator of the fuel cycle and materials laboratory under the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m evans is planning on using the conference as an exploratory experience to consider options and needs within the industry to find the best role he can fill the plan at the moment is to see whats out there evans said i still have more than a year to go so it doesnt make sense to make any plans right now but one of the things i am really looking forward to is the opportunity to see whats out there at this conference while the conference offers attendees a look at national and international opportunities within the environmental and radioactive waste management fields evans believes the real reward will be the ability to meet with professionals in his field and network with future employees and colleagues its certainly an honor and its never a bad thing to experience different things and see what other folks are doing in the field evans said the conference is definitely something i am looking forward to
1210,knowledge of how dna folds and bends could offer new perspective on how it is handled within cells while also aiding in the design of dna-based nano-scale devices says a biomedical engineer at texas a&m university whose new motion-based analysis of dna is providing an accurate representation of the molecules flexibility the model which is shedding new light on the physical properties of dna was developed by wonmuk hwang associate professor in the universitys department of biomedical engineering and his phd student xiaojing teng hwang uses computer simulation and theoretical analysis to study biomolecules such as dna that carry out essential functions in the human body his latest model which provides a motion-based analysis of dna is detailed in the scientific journal acs nano the full article can be accessed at http://pubsacsorg/doi/abs/101021/acsnano5b06863 in addition to housing the genetic information needed to build and maintain an organism dna has some incredibly interesting physical properties that make it ideal for the construction of nanodevices hwang notes for example the dna encompassed within the nucleus of one human cell can extend to four feet when stretched out but thanks to a number of folds bends and twists it remains in a space no bigger than one micron – a fraction of the width of a human hair dna also is capable of being programmed for self-assembly and disassembly making it usable for building nano-mechanical devices understanding its unique physical properties is key to unlocking dnas potential as a building tool but previous studies hwang notes have provided limited information about dna flexibility this is largely due to their reliance on static structural models of the molecule hwang says unlike those studies hwangs model incorporates an atomistic simulation so that inherent thermal motion of dna can be analyzed hwang and his team are then able to measure how the dna strand deforms during this movement the key concept in the analysis hwang explains is known as ‘principal axis ' which basically denotes where a rod can most easily bend or where it is the stiffest for instance a ruler can bend most easily near its flat side while it is the most difficult to bend near its thin edge he says similar behavior can be seen for dna this motion-based analysis hwang says has already resulted in some key findings and biological insights about dna for example a dna double helix chain hwang notes can have varying flexibility based on how the sequences of nucleotides on the chain are organized whats more hwangs model revealed dna responding in specific ways to physical forces – either twisting or bending this response can be seen when proteins bind to dna hwang explains when proteins bind without much energetic cost they tend to twist dna but high-energy binding results in more of a bending of dna hwang says these tiny-sized reactions hwang notes could have big implications particularly when it comes to using dna as molecular building blocks for nanodevices such as drug delivery systems and circuitry in plasmonic devices building incredibly small yet advanced devices is a major goal of nanotechnology and doing it with dna isnt as far fetched as it sounds throughout the last few years researchers have used the genetic material to build a number of nano-sized constructs shaping it into various three-dimensional shapes such as boxes that can open and close the process known as dna origami is still in its relative infancy but the information provided by hwangs model could help researchers build more advanced constructs driving a car is one thing but building it is another; you turn the key and step on the gas pedal and the car moves – you can use it without any need to know what is happening inside the car hwang says but to truly engineer a better car you must have knowledge about the properties of its components and how they are put together the same hold true about dna as it continues to be used for building these nanostructures and we are providing a mechanical spec sheet for it through our analysis about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences contact: associate professor wonmuk hwang at 9794580178 or hwm@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at 9798475833 or ryangarcia99@tamuedu
1211,dr michael moreno and dr partha mukherjee faculty members in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university have been selected as texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) young faculty fellows the tees fellows program has provided the opportunity to annually recognize outstanding engineering faculty for more than 30 years the tees fellow designation recognizes established faculty members with a history of continuous performance tees is an engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system texas a&m engineering faculty hold joint appointments as tees researchers moreno is an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering with joint appointments in the department of biomedical engineering and the college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences he also serves as director of biomechanics research and engineering in the department of orthopedics and sports medicine at houston methodist research hospital his work is focused at the intersection of academic research in experimental and computational biomechanics the medical device industry and clinical practice his currently funded research projects are supported by nih nsf darpa methodist and corporate sponsors these projects include cross-campus interdisciplinary international industry and clinical collaborations he received his bachelor's degree in physics from florida international university in 1996 a master's degree in science education from florida international university in 1997 a second masters in biomedical engineering from florida international university in 2003 and a phd in biomedical engineering from texas a&m in 2009 he joined the mechanical engineering department in 2014 mukherjee is an assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department his research focuses on electrochemical energy storage and conversion (batteries fuel cells) he is the director of the energy and transport science laboratory which focuses on developing a holistic approach toward fundamental understanding of the mesoscale physics and stochastics of materials-transport-interface interactions in energy storage and conversion his research is supported by nsf doe nasa and various industrial sponsors mukherjee received his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from north bengal university in 1997 his master's in mechanical engineering from the indian institute of technology kanpur in 1999 and his phd in mechanical engineering from pennsylvania state university in 2007 he joined the mechanical engineering department in 2012 prior to joining the department he worked for the united states department of energy laboratories as staff scientist at oak ridge national laboratory (2009-2011) and as a directors research fellow at los alamos national laboratories (2008-2009)
1212,dr anastasia muliana professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was selected as a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) faculty fellow the principal purpose of the award is to recognize long-term outstanding research performance muliana will be formally recognized at an awards ceremony later this year the tees fellows program has provided the opportunity to annually recognize outstanding engineering faculty for more than 30 years tees is an engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system texas a&m engineering faculty hold joint appointments as tees researchers mulianas research focuses on nonlinear and time dependent constitutive material modeling thermal stress analyses micromechanics of composite analyses of heterogeneous materials subject to coupled thermal electrical and mechanical stimuli time-dependent degradation of polymers and composites nonlinear analyses of flexible and compliant structures activated by non-mechanical (electric field light solvent and thermal) stimuli large-scale nonlinear structural analyses numerical and finite element methods she received her bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the bandung institute of technology in 1997 a master's degree in civil engineering from the georgia institute of technology in 1999 and a phd in structural engineering and mechanics from the georgia institute of technology in 2004 she joined the mechanical engineering department in 2004
1213,more than 80 people who work in the oil and gas industry in qatar attended the 2016 international workshop on computational methods with applications to oil and gas hosted by texas a&m university at qatar the workshop held at the hamad bin khalifa university student center in education city consisted of lectures short courses and software tutorials given by leading academicians and experienced practicing engineers attendees included practicing engineers working in qatars oil and gas industry as well as researchers faculty and graduate students who are working on oil and gas-related research problems in qatar the workshop also gathered stakeholders and local and international experts from academia and industry to discuss recent research and trends in computational aspects of mechanics and materials science with applications to the oil and gas industry and their role in tackling complex problems at texas a&m at qatar our vision is to be the premier provider of engineering education in qatar and the region and that includes our outreach activities in stem our conferences and symposia and our continuing education said dr eyad masad vice dean of texas a&m at qatar this workshop illustrates the importance of working together with industry government and academic partners to develop the highly skilled workforce that qatar needs to drive its future and to develop scientific solutions that have direct impact on the world around us dr sami el borgi from texas a&m at qatars mechanical engineering program and dr othmane bouhali from the texas a&m at qatar advanced scientific computing group jointly organized the workshop which featured 19 speakers in 24 sessions the first day consisted of plenary lectures and presentations while the second day consisted of short courses and tutorials on software used in the oil and gas industry key speakers included dr jn reddy university distinguished professor at texas a&m university and a member of the us national academy; dr normand mousseau from the university of montreal; and dr andreas polycarpou professor and head of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university other presenters came from qatar the united states australia the united arab emirates the united kingdom canada and france more information can be found at http://iwcmogqatartamuedu/
1214,dr a dan hill made a presentation on behalf of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) during a working group dinner convened on the first night of the world economic forum (wef) in davos switzerland on jan 19 hill the head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university was speaking on the subject of a global model curriculum for petroleum engineering hill who also serves as the director of academia on the spe board of directors was approached by spe to develop such a model after spe was contacted by bob dudley ceo of bp and the head of the wef oil and gas working group the working group composed of many high level members of the oil and gas industry expressed its concern that the educational variance of petroleum studies around the world was detrimental to establishing critical basic skills hill introduced the idea of a model curriculum to all the dinner attendees but stressed in his speech that such a curriculum must be flexible this cannot be a case of one curriculum fits all hill said what works at texas a&m is not going to work at stanford or at marietta college and not at the university of lagos it cannot be universal but the model can be flexible so thats what well be formulating in spe the current plan is for hill to coordinate an effort through his spe advisory committee to provide a model curriculum once spe and the oil and gas working group are satisfied with it the information can be shared internationally through the web as a guide for schools everywhere this is not about accreditations or abet said hill its not about us programs this is about improving education in developing places around the world where oil and gas activities are perhaps just starting but where the education system hasnt really caught up the wef annual meeting in davos convened approximately 2 000 ceos and political leaders from around the world these meetings are founded on the idea that this is a fast-paced and interconnected world where breakthrough technologies demographic shifts and political transformations have far-reaching societal and economic consequences the wef members feel leaders need to share insights and innovations on how best to navigate the future the oil and gas working group hill gave his speech to represents only one facet of the wef program and the groups members were interested in more than just petroleum engineering education once the spe model is developed the group has further plans their interest is not just furthering petroleum engineering education but also all of the disciplines that are so critical to the oil and gas industry said hill they are using spe to provide this model using petroleum engineering first and then they will perhaps do something along the same lines for geology geophysics and other related sciences
1215,thirteen nationally and internationally prominent scholars including four who will be part of the dwight look college of engineering were formally inducted as faculty fellows during a ceremony on friday feb 26 dr robert a calderbank (electrical and computer engineering) dr j karl hedrick (mechanical engineering aerospace engineering texas a&m engineering experiment station) dr john a rogers (mechanical engineering biomedical engineering electrical and computer engineering materials science and engineering) and dr kumares c sinha (civil engineering texas a&m transportation institute) will serve as in-residence tias faculty fellows collaborating with numerous texas a&m faculty and students ten of the 13 visiting faculty fellows from the 2015-2016 class plus one fellow from the 2014-2015 class were formally introduced during the red carpet event bringing the total number of fellows who have pursued a wide range of collaborative research interests at texas a&m since its establishment in 2010 to 35 the fellows spend up to 12 months in residence typically spread over two academic years texas a&m president michael k young thanked tias founding director john junkins for his brilliant idea and texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp for his unfailing support during his opening remarks welcoming the fourth and largest class of fellows top students and outstanding young faculty flock to this great university and the institute for advanced study really ensures that these students and these faculty will forever be collaborating with the finest minds in the world president young said texas a&m is one of the finest universities in the world because of this dedication to collaboration tias is designed through an extensive nomination and vetting process to provide a streamlined structure for moving texas a&ms academic programs into the top tier of universities and into a position of global academic leadership so far tiass recruitment efforts has yielded recipients of two nobel prizes a national medal of science a wolf prize a hubbell medal in literature and a national medal of technology and innovation as well as other highly competitive awards and multiple memberships in national and international academic academies of the 35 faculty fellows who have visited six have joined the texas a&m universitys faculty permanently they are: dr leif andersson dr robert e skelton dr christodoulos a floudas dr roger howe dr j karl hedrick and dr alan needleman junkins himself a distinguished professor of aerospace engineering and a regents professor spoke to the elite talent level of the faculty fellows during the gala by saying they must have shown tangible evidence of a transformational contribution to their field of study before being considered for a fellowship the vetting process needs to establish beyond doubt that each fellow is at the top of his or her field junkins said each fellow must also have a proven legacy of mentorship where they have made a positive impact on the careers of young people working with them without a doubt this process has led to an exceptional pool of talent robert a calderbank charles sydnor professor of computer science and director of the information futures initiative duke university – the co-inventor of space-time codes a key technology behind the wireless revolution calderbank is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the american mathematical society the american association for the advancement of science and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers calderbank will collaborate on interdisciplinary research on big data with faculty and graduate students from the department of electrical and computer engineering in the dwight look college of engineering; the department of sociology in the college of liberal arts; the department of mathematics in the college of science; and the college of medicine j karl hedrick james marshall wells academic chair and professor of mechanical engineering university of california berkeley – recognized for his contributions to the development of automated transportation systems hedrick is a member of the national academy of engineering he is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers and received asmes rufus oldenburger medal which recognizes significant contributions and outstanding achievements in the field of automatic control hedrick will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students from the departments of mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering in the dwight look college of engineering and with researchers in the texas a&m engineering experiment station john a rogers swanlund chair professor of materials science and engineering university of illinois at urbana-champaign – a researcher who seeks to understand and exploit characteristics of polymers liquid crystals and biological tissues rogers is a member of the national academy of engineering the national academy of sciences and the american academy of arts and sciences he will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students from the departments of mechanical engineering biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering in the dwight look college of engineering and the department of materials science and engineering in the colleges of science and engineering kumares c sinha edgar b and hedwig m olson distinguished professor of civil engineering purdue university – recognized for his development of an integrated approach to managing highway systems and groundbreaking research on pavement and bridge performance life cycle costing and road safety sinha is a member of the national academy of engineering an honorary member of the american society of civil engineers he will collaborate with faculty-researchers and students with the zachry department of civil engineering in the dwight look college of engineering and the a&m systems texas a&m transportation institute for more on the tias fellows visit the tias website
1216,caption: (from left to right): geno martinez edna cano kenia sifuentes and giselle perez what does it take to earn a diploma at texas a&m university for a group of seniors in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution their final undergraduate degree requirement involves a display of street magic or so it appears the teams task is to equip a go-kart so that the electronic vehicle will follow another go-kart all on its own as in: without a driver this study in intelligent transportation systems is the capstone design project plan for one male student and three female students in the departments electronics systems engineering technology program as they prepare for graduation in december intellimotion innovations is the name of the team whose objective is to create a scaled prototype of a phase 1 vehicle following system with all movement dependent upon wireless sensing control and communication the lead vehicle will have a driver and the second go-kart will trail its path autonomously such synchrony does not come by accident but will be the direct result of the mindful assembling of the four students as a corporate body we grew together over the years said project manager edna cano of the teams decision to work together each member self-selected his or her own position for the project we have to implement hardware software and control design into two vehicles they must be scaled and they need to work in an enclosed area with the second vehicle having to intelligently mimic the first vehicle the first vehicle is going to have sensing and it will process data that wirelessly communicates with the second vehicle controlling the vehicles speed steering and braking right now we are in the planning stage doing research said cano i feel confident that well get this done weve already talked amongst ourselves that when the summer hits we are not leaving on vacation but we are going to stay here and work said geno martinez software engineer faculty member dr joseph morgan said they will be designing their own circuit board which will have embedded intelligence and it will be required to work we are talking about a significant level of work that is not typical of a senior design project they build everything from the boards to the enclosures theyll be under the car with crescent wrenches and screwdrivers the automotive industry has been trying to pursue this capability of wireless communication between cars for many years said martinez this capability could then be scaled up in many ways while the scope of this effort is rare more so is the composition of the team never before in the program has a four-person capstone project team included three female students since the project will occupy a year of the students time and effort each responded to questions about the familial support and interest surrounding this initiative im going to be a first-generation college graduate said kenia sifuentes hardware engineer from mexico of this project my mom said ‘do you think you can do it it makes them proud but at the same time i have to prove to them that i am going to do this giselle perez systems engineer from cuba said my parents are not very technical so they probably would not understand the concept i should probably [explain it to them] martinez added when i shared this with my parents my father who is a marine wondered if the military would be interested in using this technology i dont have engineers in my family but they are aware of how much work i have to put into it they are very proud and very supportive of me said cano by the summer of 2016 intellimotion expects to have reached the design implementation phase of the project funding for the project was obtained from general motors and awarded to dr reza langari department head and professor this project enables our students to work on a cutting edge problem in the emerging area of automated and connected vehicles while also providing an opportunity for the gm partnership to have meaningful impact on the education of our students said langari capstone projects in the electronics systems engineering technology program must meet a technical merit software and hardware must be developed and the project needs to be funded
1217,the master of industrial distribution (mid) program at texas a&m university has been selected as one of the recipients of the 2016 texas distance learning association (txdla) award for outstanding commitment to excellence and innovation by a four-year higher education institution bharani nagarathnam associate director for graduate programs in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution runs the mid program we are proud to have a committed team of faculty and professional staff to deliver relevant practical and cutting-edge education to working professionals nagarathnam said we are also tankful for the support of the coe remote learning team the mid program is a 21-month part-time lock-step online graduate program designed for working professionals the program focuses on supply chain management logistics and profitability of distributors and manufacturers (suppliers) in the industrial channels the program involves immersive learning and experiences such as residency week a global class and trip and a capstone project txdla provides recognition of outstanding achievements in statewide distance learning through its annual awards program
1218,a lot has changed this semester for sophomore mechanical engineering major emily tasker the 19-year-old from round rock texas is a member of the first cohort of students to participate in the zachry leadership program at texas a&m university the zachry leadership program is a collaborative effort between the dwight look college of engineering and zachry group the program seeks to empower engineering students to become future leaders who are well versed in the free enterprise system collaborative in their decision-making skills and humbly self-confident in their behaviors its helping me diversify myself and become more marketable tasker said the five-semester long course kicked off in november 2015 with orientation and a welcoming reception the cohort of 32 students then attended a retreat at camp allen in navasota texas the week before the spring semester the four-day camp allowed the students to bond with each other and get out of their comfort zones ive been to camps before and usually people only find a couple of people to connect with but the atmosphere they fostered was an atmosphere of openness and vulnerability tasker said they were working really hard to make sure that everyone was meeting everyone and getting to learn peoples strengths and weaknesses as a result tasker said she is close friends with people who she might not have taken the opportunity to get to know before its been a lesson in compassion and understanding i learned a lot about myself and about others how you can have differences without having to have a debate about it she said i can have a completely opposite view but we dont have to argue about it until someone changes in the end tasker said this helps foster an environment of inclusion where everyone can bring something different to the table im diversifying myself by spending time with people who are different than i am she said adding that these skills will be beneficial when she enters the workforce i learned how to have compassion and empathize with people i learned to try to understand the history behind peoples actions instead and that so many things could have brought them to this point the zachry leadership program gives students perspective on how they will fit into this world a deeper insight into their individual potential and a specific view of how they want to begin their professional careers the students meet once a week for two hours working on group projects and learning content that is built on the three pillars of the program leadership business and residentship the students in the program also gain advice and life lessons from business and engineering professionals tasker said shes learning about business and marketing skills that expand on her engineering abilities as an engineer i can build something or fix something but unless there is somebody who wants that it doesnt matter if i can fix it she said its helped me see that theres so much more to it students in the program earn a certificate in engineering leadership upon completion of the five-semester program for more information visit the zachry leadership program webpage
1219,dr mark kimber assistant professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university is working to make advanced thermal reactors safer by establishing trusted uncertainty guidelines regarding advanced reactor turbulent mixing processes the overall goal of this project is the efficient management of heat transfer and being able to predict what's going to happen in accident scenarios from a thermal hydraulics standpoint kimber said a lot of what im doing in this research is focused on establishing uncertainty in the predictive tools that we have for measuring those accident scenarios kimbers group can run a simulation for an accident scenario or a hydraulic mixing phenomena which is able to produce information that may seem accurate but kimber and others need to be able to know how well that information can be trusted kimbers current three-year grant focuses on high temperature gas cooled reactors for these reactors modeling tools are available to generate predictions but these predictive tools have not been validated to the extent necessary for next generation reactor conditions and environments we essentially want to be able to validate the simulation tools that we have and ensure that they will not only help us predict how the flow will mix but that we can trust those tools kimber said turbulence is a very difficult problem to simulate accurately because there are various tools that we have and most of those require you to make certain assumptions about the flow every time you are making an assumption about the flow you are limiting the physics you can simulatein this particular project kimber is trying to validate the tools used to simulate turbulent mixing within the advanced reactor the project looks at situations where a reactor would have both hot and cold flows mixing together at some point down the stream the flows will equalize and mix together at an intermediate temperature before this condition is reached however temperatures can bounce between hot and cold which can cause the nearby solid supports to contract and expand in those regions this has the potential to cause structural and other issues in the reactor the goal is to have the fluids mix together completely in an area of the reactor called the lower plenum so that the temperature fluctuations in the flows are below an accepted value before reaching the gas turbine for power conversion kimber then assesses the uncertainty by making assumptions in his model and comparing it against an experimental data set of the same configuration and flow according to kimber turbulence is especially difficult because exploring the full physics requires extensive computational resources one of the challenges the researchers are addressing is the relationship between the desired level of uncertainty and the computational complexity of the model according to kimber his background in mechanical engineering has benefited his work in uncertainty qualification while he worked at an electronics cooling laboratory as a part of his doctoral research at purdue university my research very simply put was to take a new and innovative cooling technology that was not yet tried and tested and come up with predicative tools to help us understand the maximum cooling we could achieve kimber said these skills directly translated into thermal hydraulics because in thermal hydraulics we are worried about taking the heat in the core and moving it in an effective and safe manner to eventually generate electricity kimbers work drives investigation into the world of advanced reactors an area that 10 years ago had much interest but has had its international support weakened in the wake of such events as the fukashima disaster however the us department of energy (doe) and foreign agencies that play a similar role still see advanced reactors as a potential solution to growing worldwide energy needs according to kimber despite whether a bill is passed to build high temperature reactors in the near future or even years from now this research needs to take place to be ready for if and when advanced reactors take the next step the end goal of my contribution to this field is not to simply characterize performance issues but as a result of trusted simulations be able to design around these problems and build things better he said
1220,dr césar o malavé professor and holder of the sugar and mike barnes department head chair in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been named the new dean and chief operating officer (coo) at texas a&m university at qatar is malavés appointment is effective july 1 the texas a&m university system board of regents and chancellor john sharp formally approved malavés selection upon the recommendation of texas a&m president michael k young and provost and executive vice president karan watson the texas a&m university at qatar program is very important to texas a&m university and the state of qatar and i am honored to have been selected to serve in this capacity said malavé i look forward to the opportunity to work with the faculty and staff as they continue to educate world-class engineers and conduct impactful research he will succeed dr mark h weichold who stepped down as dean and ceo to become executive director for the halliburton global engineering program in texas a&ms college of engineering dr ann l kenimer has served as interim dean since dr weicholds term ended malavé will be responsible for the administration and management of the academic research and public service programs of the institution as well as for providing vision and direction for the engineering-oriented branch campus in qatar it offers bachelor of science degrees in petroleum chemical mechanical and electrical engineering and a master of science and a master of engineering degree in chemical engineering dr malavé brings extensive administrative and academic experience to the position president young said and that will serve him and the university well in working with the faculty and students at our qatar campus as well as with his counterparts at the other american institutions there and with qatar foundation officials internationally recognized for his contributions to engineering education malavé brings more than 30 years of service to texas a&m university to his new role under his leadership the department of industrial and systems engineering has recruited new faculty at both the junior and senior level developed a new advanced manufacturing initiative and launched major initiatives to revitalize the undergraduate curriculum and graduate program in addition as lead principal investigator for texas a&ms participation in a 10-year national science foundation funded foundation coalition grant to revamp engineering education malavé coordinated all activities related to curricula development implementation and outcomes assessment across partner institutions and disseminated the resulting educational model through workshops in the usa and abroad i have had the privilege of working with dr malavé for over 30 years he is internationally recognized for his contributions to manufacture engineering and engineering education has a passion for his students and our unique aggie spirit said watson i can think of no better choice for this position as we continue our commitment to a full texas a&m university experience for our students in qatar before his appointment as department head malavé served in a variety of administrative positions in the college of engineering these included assistant dean for international programs assistant and associate director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and associate dean for recruitment and international programs in this latter role he was responsible for all international collaborations and undergraduate recruitment programs he is a registered professional engineer and fellow of the institute of industrial and systems engineering earning his bachelor of science in chemical engineering and his master of science in operations research from the georgia institute of technology and his phd in industrial engineering from the university of south florida
1221,drs zachary grasley and mary beth hueste of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university received awards at the spring 2016 american concrete institute (aci) concrete convention and exposition in milwaukee wisconsin grasley associate professor and the peter c forster faculty fellow i was awarded the aci young member award for professional achievement for contributions to advancing the use of innovative materials and technologies in concrete construction through research technology transfer and mentoring of younger colleagues and students he is also a faculty member in the materials science and engineering department and has been with texas a&m for eight years grasley also spent two years as a faculty member at virginia tech university grasleys research interests include concrete shrinkage creep durability and sustainability nanomaterials cryogenic concrete poroelastic behavior and early-age behavior grasley uses a combination of novel experiments and theoretical modeling in his research approach with a focus on leveraging fundamental science he has made contributions in uncovering new mechanisms for concrete creep and irreversible drying shrinkage and advanced the science of quantifying dispersion of nanomaterials in concrete additionally he devised a novel method for quantifying concrete permeability grasley teaches classes on concrete material science and mechanics to students ranging from sophomore to phd levels hueste a professor in the department was awarded the delmar l bloem distinguished service award for outstanding leadership of committee 352 joints and connections in monolithic concrete structures joint aci-asce she has been a member of the structural engineering faculty for 17 years and is currently the major highway structures program manager and acting division head for the construction geotechnical and structures division within the texas a&m transportation institute hueste has held leadership positions with aci including current chair of joint aci-asce committee 352 joints and connections in monolithic concrete structures and past secretary of the reinforced concrete research council she is a member of aci committee 374 performance-based seismic design of concrete buildings and aci subcommittee 318-j joints and connections her research interests include behavior analysis and design of reinforced and prestressed concrete building and bridge structures; nonlinear analysis and probabilistic assessment of structures under extreme loads; earthquake engineering; and assessment of aging and historic infrastructure
1222,dr nancy m amato unocal professor and regents professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was honored with the 2015 distinguished educator award from the university of illinois where she received her phd in computer science this award is presented to a computer science alumnus who has made exceptional contributions to computer science education and research and recognizes those who excel at motivating computer science students amato is senior director of the engineering honors program at texas a&m and is co-director of the parasol lab which focuses on research related to next-generation computing languages and systems and the development of algorithms and applications that exploit these to solve computation and/or data intensive applications she is program chair for the upcoming robotics: systems and science conference and is an elected member of the cra board of directors (2014-2017) she served as co-chair for the national center for women in information technology academic alliance (2009-2011) and is currently co-chair of the computing research association's committees on the status of women in computing research most recently amato was named a 2015 association for computing machinery fellow for her contributions to robotics and leadership in broadening participation in computing and a 2015 texas a&m regents professor she was also named in robohubs 25 women in robotics you need to know about her research interests include motion planning and robotics computational biology and geometry and parallel and distributed computing
1223,eight computer science and engineering students received recognition for their research during texas a&m universitys 2016 student research week (srw) zachary varnadore placed first in the undergraduate math statistics computer science division for his poster which was based on a portion of the work he is executing for a gps receiver network project in the real time distributed systems (rtds) lab under dr steve liu computer science professor the work i presented was about how we were able to implement evaluation models for data availability and reliability of gps data from hundreds to thousands of gps receivers using software that i developed varnadore said the purpose of doing this is to evaluate a large gps receiver network called the cors network to identify quality issues in the data provided by gps receivers in the network the data received by the cors network gps is used by many different research groups and organizations for positioning data applications i am most delighted to see his hard work recognized liu said his work helps my team to validate our model based on this large-scale experiment and it will help us to elevate our research to the next level of investigation sampath jayarathna a phd candidate and teaching fellow placed first in the graduate poster competition in the math statistics computer science division for his research poster which explored new models of relevance feedback the idea is to learn consumer preferences more accurately by accounting for their behaviors in web search environments jayarathna works under faculty advisor dr frank shipman who is the associate director for the tees center for the study of digital libraries i believe that analyzing user behavior and capturing user preferences is of great importance for the design of many personalized recommendations and other relevant applications such as behavioral targeting computational advertising and information retrieval jayarathna said raniero lara-garduno a phd student in the sketch recognition lab (srl) under dr tracy hammond associate professor received second place in the graduate poster competition in the math statistics computer science division his poster was centered on his dissertation project which focuses on the digitization and automation of digitized sketch data in neuropsychological tests lara-gardunos research focuses on a universal windows app written specifically to adapt paper-and-pencil exams from the field of clinical neuropsychology srl is currently in the process of collecting data from the general population to develop a computational model of sketching behavior this model would be applied to pre-diagnosis which would prove invaluable in early detection of cognitive illnesses such as alzheimer's and dementia i feel very fortunate in working with this exciting project as it merges the field of sketch recognition with a novel approach in neuropsychology that can have significant impact in the field lara-garduno said i always enjoy participating in student research week which gives me and similar phd students the invaluable opportunity to present our research and hear feedback from experts from stem fields graduating seniors timothy foster andy tran shane scott karrie cheng and natalie rawle made up team tanks which placed first overall the undergraduate teams for the sigma xi symposium theme award and in the undergraduate oral presentation division recently dr robin murphy director of the center for robotic-assisted search and rescue (crasar) and founder of the roboticists without borders program was sent to greece to assist the local coast guard and lifeguard organizations in rescuing refugees from drowning to further aid in this effort murphy proposed several different capstone projects her students could choose from all of which would be used to help with the refugee crisis of the projects proposed team tanks chose to work on the draw me a picture app which was presented by the team at srw the app is designed to help refugees make it back to safety as efficiently as possible by displaying a gif with easy-to-understand instructions rawle created a majority of the graphics found in draw me a picture's documentation i am excited about the opportunity to work on a real-world problem going on right now said foster team leader as we speak refugees are risking their lives to escape turmoil and what we are doing may save lives that would have otherwise been lost it was a pleasure to share our work with student research week and the other competitors
1224,three texas a&m university engineering students were honored at the distinguished graduate student awards ceremony april 25 the students honored were trevor jon terrill (mechanical engineering) jaskirat singh batra (electrical and computer engineering); and zhaokai meng (biomedical engineering) trevor jon terrill a doctoral student in the department of mechanical engineering terrill is focusing his dissertation on automating and improving the diagnosis of energy efficiency recommendations in manufacturing facilities terrill attended brigham young university graduating summa cum laude in 2012 while earning his bachelors degree he worked at the idaho national laboratory as a research intern while obtaining his masters degree terrill completed a long-term energy study to characterize best practices for energy efficiency in religious facilities from that research terrill was published in two journals terrill worked at the texas a&m industrial assessment center (iac) and has been involved in more than 30 energy assessments as a result of his assessments and recommendations manufacturing facilities have saved more than $400 000 annually through the iac program terrill won a research grant and received the national iac outstanding student of the year award terrills faculty advisor is dr bryan rasmussen jaskirat singh batra batra is currently pursuing his phd in materials science and engineering at texas a&m focusing his research on micro- and nano-fluidic devices chip design labs soft robotics and locomotives sensors and actuators medical and wearable electronic devices batra would like to use his engineering degree combined with his research interests to make contributions in the field of medical technologies batra earned his master of science in electrical engineering from texas a&m in december 2015 he has earned numerous academic research and leadership awards most notably the 2016 buck weirus spirit award and 2016 whos who among students in american universities and colleges he was a nominee for the howard hughes medical institute international student fellowship in 2015 batra is also involved with aggies in science technology and engineering policy a student organization he founded that mentors prospective texas a&m scientists he has participated in grad camp 2015 as a chair and counselor and has mentored more than 30 undergraduate students in his lab through the aggie challenge program and other summer research programs batras faculty advisor is dr jun kameoka zhaokai meng biomedical engineering doctoral student zkaokai meng specializes in applied optics with an emphasis on its biomedical applications since 2011 meng has worked as a research assistant in the advanced spectroscopy laboratory directed by dr vladislav v yakolev his research focuses on mapping and imaging 3-d microscopic viscoelasticity for biological samples using optical spectroscopy his work offers several noninvasive and reliable diagnostic tools for future life-science research and clinical practices meng has authored more than 15 peer-reviewed journal articles including 11 first-authorship in top-tier academic journals he has also delivered 21 presentations at different international conferences meng has also been invited to author a review article on brillouin imaging a recently emerged bio-imaging technique that has been greatly boosted by his work
1225,the inaugural smart grid student symposium is scheduled for friday (april 29) in the memorial student center at texas a&m university this student-led symposium will provide a forum to discuss valuable lessons learned from the fourth annual smart grid workshop organized around the theme smart grids big data moreover the symposium will offer an opportunity for students to present research results in 10-minute talks in addition to poster presentations the best three combined oral and poster presentations will be given awards for more information visit the symposium website or contact payman dehghanian (979-587-3095 paymandehghanian@tamuedu) or po-chen chen (734-604-7470 pchen01@tamuedu)
1226,dr william schneider zachry professor of engineering practice in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was spotlighted in a recent article this expandable structure could become the future of living in space for smithsonian magazine the article opines emerging opportunities for the everyday man or woman to live and work in space courtesy of soft-sided spacecraft that can be launched from earth and stabilized in an extraterrestrial environment schneider invented designed and patented the breakthrough technology discussed after retiring from nasa schneider was hired by robert bigelow real estate tycoon turned space entrepreneur to develop the prototype while simultaneously teaching at texas a&m schneider divided his time in las vegas where he and his team helped fabricate materials and engineer a structure that could endure not only a turbulent launch but also have the expandable functionality needed for a first-of-its-kind mission at present two inflatable modules have successfully been in orbit for a decade at the turn of the century the proprietary design was successfully put to the test at the johnson space center this concept for space travel and billeting finds a market with industry space aficionados and other venture capitalists im a businessman bigelow said the future of space is going to be commerce it has to be like everything else in the world if space is going to be sustainable it has to be commercially viable additional news coverage appears here
1227,tamara becejac a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a travel grant to participate in the 2016 ieee woman in engineering (wie) international leadership conference (ilc) becejac was among only five recipients nationwide to receive the travel grant to attend the conference which will take place in california in late may the conference gives attendees the opportunity to create communities that fuel innovation facilitate knowledge sharing and provide support through highly interactive sessions designed to foster discussion and collaboration wie ilc focuses on providing leading-edge professional development for mid-level and senior women becejac was born in novi sad serbia she received a bachelors degree and a masters degree both from the university of novi sad and both in electrical engineering in 2011 and 2014 respectively since 2014 she has been pursuing her phd in electrical engineering at texas a&m her research interests include power system protection and control smart electricity grid solutions synchrophasor technology and applications in power systems as well as big data analytics becejac received the 2016 international student services graduate scholarship award from texas a&m for scholastic accomplishments and academic excellence in 2015 she was the recipient of the scholarship award from dositeja-fund for young talents of the republic of serbia her honors include receiving the 2015 best project poster award at the power system engineering research center (pserc) industry advisory board meeting since 2014 becejac has been extensively involved in the pserc high impact project life-cycle management of mission-critical systems through certification commissioning in-service maintenance remote testing and risk assessment under the supervision of dr mladen kezunovic her main focus has been developing a pmu testing and calibration synchrophasor environment at texas a&m and data management for synchrophasor technology using the osisoft pi system tools becejac has been serving as vice-president for the texas a&m ieee ias-pes-pels joint student chapter and vice-president for the texas a&m honor society chapter since 2014 the mission of the ieee wie ilc is to inspire engage and advance women in engineering through more than 600 affinity groups and 18 500-plus members around the world ieee women in engineering transforms the lives of hundreds of thousands of young girls and women around the world through pre-university outreach technical seminars humanitarian projects networking events and educational programs
1228,the college of engineering at texas a&m university honored six alumni during the 2016 outstanding alumni awards banquet receiving the outstanding alumni honor award were stuart r bell 79 president the university of alabama; greg c garland 80 chairman and ceo phillips 66; j stephen rottler 80 deputy laboratories director and executive vice president national security programs sandia national laboratories; merri j sanchez 85 chief scientist air force space command; and charlie shaver 80 chairman of the board and chief executive officer axalta coating systems receiving the outstanding early professional achievement alumni award was christopher t rodenbeck 99 head advanced concepts group us naval research laboratory stuart r bell 79 president the university of alabama dr stuart r bell became the 29th president of the university of alabama on july 15 2015 he first joined alabama in 1986 as an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering and was named department head nine years later he then served alabama for 16 years and directed the center for advanced vehicle technologies with a research interest in combustion engines bell has expertise in alternative fuels for engines innovative engine designs and modeling of engine and engine processes prior to becoming alabamas president bell first served as dean of the college of engineering at the university of kansas then as executive vice president and provost at louisiana state university both institutions opened new facilities and saw an increase in student recruitment retention and success under his leadership bell was awarded the society of automotive engineers ralph teetor award for outstanding contributions to research and teaching in 1988 he was presented the t morris hackney faculty leadership award from alabamas college of engineering in 2001 and the richard s woodbury award from the american society of mechanical engineers in 2005 a native of abilene texas bell earned a nuclear engineering degree from texas a&m university in 1979 he earned his master of science and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from texas a&m in 1981 and 1986 respectively bell and his wife susan have three adult children stuart stacy and stephen greg c garland 80 chairman and ceo phillips 66 greg c garland is chairman and chief executive officer of phillips 66 with more than 30 years of industry experience in the oil natural gas and chemical industries garland served as senior vice president exploration and production americas for conocophillips starting in 2010 prior to joining conocophillips garland served chevron phillips as senior vice president planning and specialty chemicals before being elected as president and chief executive officer previously garland has held numerous leadership positions at phillips including general manager of qatar/middle east general manager of natural gas liquids manager of planning and development in planning and technology and manager of the k-resin® business unit garland began his career with phillips in 1980 as a project engineer for the plastics technical center he later worked as a sales engineer for phillips plastics resins business service manager for advanced materials business development director and olefins manager for chemicals he serves on the board of directors for dcp midstream the board of amgen the board of the national petroleum council the board and executive committee of the american petroleum institute the board and the executive committee of junior achievement for southeast texas the board for the greater houston partnership and as a member of the engineering advisory council for the college of engineering at texas a&m university garland received a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m in 1980 he and his wife gail have four children jared stacey tim and jon and four grandchildren j stephen rottler 80 deputy laboratories director and executive vice president national security programs sandia national laboratories dr j stephen rottler is the deputy laboratories director and executive vice president national security programs at sandia national laboratories in this role he leads the nuclear weapon program management unit and is responsible for other national security-related functions in his 31-year-career at sandia rottler has held a number of leadership roles including vice president of sandias california laboratory; leading the energy and climate program management unit; chief technology officer and vice president science and technology; and chief engineer and vice president weapon engineering and product realization rottler is a recipient of the department of the air force award for exemplary civilian service he is a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science and a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics a former member of its board of directors and has served on several of its committees rottler has led and served as a member of advisory boards and independent review panels for government agencies other national laboratories and universities such as the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the system engineering research center at stevens institute of technology he received his bachelor of science master of science and doctoral degree in nuclear engineering from texas a&m university in 1980 1982 and 1984 respectively he and his wife lee 81 have two children caitlin and adam merri j sanchez 85 chief scientist air force command dr merri j sanchez is chief scientist for air force space command (afspc) she is the primary adviser to the commander on all scientific and technical matters concerning space and cyberspace serving as the senior authority for this substantive program sanchez entered government service in 1982 with nasa her last role at nasa was as liaison to afspc strategic command northern command and norad where she advised the nasa administrator on us department of defense space-related matters she has served as an increment manager for the international space station program (iss) and as the x-38 deputy project manager for operations prior to assuming her current position sanchez was senior director for the space systems group at the sierra nevada corporation in colorado where she was deputy program executive and program manager for the dream chaser commercial crew lifting body spacecraft sanchez received two nasa exceptional achievement medals the johnson space center (jcs) directors commendation and two jsc certificates of commendation she was also selected as a recipient of the outstanding aerospace engineer award from the aerospace engineering department sanchez is a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics has authored 18 publications and was an adjunct professor at the university of colorado at colorado springs she currently serves on the advisory boards for both the college of engineering and the aerospace engineering department at texas a&m sanchez earned her bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from texas a&m she earned two masters degrees and a doctoral degree from the university of houston she lives in colorado springs colorado charlie shaver 80 chairman of the board and chief executive officer axalta coating systems charlie shaver is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of axalta coating systems shaver has spent more than 35 years in the global petrochemical oil and gas industry from 2004 to 2011 prior to leading axalta shaver was chief executive officer and president of the tpc group shaver also served as vice president and general manager for general chemical from 2001 to 2004 and as a vice president and general manager for arch chemicals from 1999 to 2001 shaver began his career with the dow chemical company serving in a series of operational engineering and business positions from 1980 to 1996 he has served in a variety of industry organizations including the american chemistry council board of directors and finance committee the american coatings association board of directors and executive committee and the national petrochemical and refiners association board and executive committee he has also served as an operating partner of private equity firms golden gate capital (san francisco) and the carlyle group (washington dc) shaver currently serves as chairman of the board of directors for us silica and is a past chairman of taminco inc he serves on the presidents council and is a major donor to ducks unlimited conservation organization he earned his bachelor of science in chemical engineering from texas a&m university in 1980 shaver and his wife sharon 80 live in villanova pennsylvania and have four children caroline nick megan and ryan christopher t rodenbeck 99 head advanced concepts group us naval research laboratory dr christopher t rodenbeck joined the us naval research laboratory in january 2015 to start a new millimeter wave airborne radar department he has won multiple grants for advanced millimeter-wave radar systems and was recently promoted to head of radar divisions advanced concepts group responsible for identifying and developing disruptive radar technologies for the us navy from 2004 to 2014 rodenbeck led a multidisciplinary advanced/exploratory technology development program for radar and sensor applications at sandia national laboratories he has mentored numerous engineers in the radar electronics application area and is responsible for numerous radar innovations including a spatial power-combining technique mitigating interference between co-located radar systems and a novel radiation-hardening-by-design technique applicable to commercial semiconductor processes rodenbeck received an internal citation at sandia for excellence in radar technology leadership in 2011 and the prestigious 2012 national nuclear security administration award of excellence he received a sandia corporate-wide innovator award in 2013 and the outstanding young engineer award in 2015 from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers microwave theory and techniques society as an associate editor of the encyclopedia of electrical and electronics engineering rodenbeck is responsible for its microwave theory and techniques subject area he has authored or co-authored 29 refereed journal papers 18 conference papers and 19 government reports and holds six patents with 10 more pending rodenbeck earned his bachelor of science master of science and doctoral degree in electrical engineering from texas a&m university in 1999 2001 and 2004 respectively he and his wife haifeng ‘08 have a daughter elizabeth
1229,four seniors in the department of engineering technology & industrial distribution at texas a&m university assembled individual strengths under a team identity dvdt to undertake a capstone project that was effectively launched into outer space on april 9 from hillsboro airport in hillsboro texas in affiliation with a t star initiative the objective was to provide a communications platform for cube satellite technology (tsat) in low-earth orbit at 400km the students mentored by department and industrial advisors went on to surpass equipment requirements we made a system that actually works said trent tate team program manager we did field testing and found that our system could easily transmit over four times the distance to the international space station (1600km)
1230,"the electronic systems engineering technology program degree plan requires that prior to graduation seniors must solve a problem for industry and their solution must work dvdt began developments of a modular integrated stackable layers (misl) stack-compatible communications module in the summer of 2015 the team decided to use a high-altitude balloon filled with helium as the launch vehicle for the module which lifted the device to 107 000 feet we went into it knowing nothing about communicating in space said david smith who performed testing and simulations for the team going through that process weighing through the pros and consand building the system is a good experience that we have"" asked about trials the team faced in working on such a technical real-world problem dakotah karrer the teams hardware engineer said when you have to integrate with multiple and different parts it can be challenging i communicated with nasa to know their standards the integration aspect is important youre never just going to be working by yourself one of the most professional presentations i've ever seen: from its completeness to the data they achieved and what their design looked like said matt leonard t star president and industry client for the project t star is a startup company and tsat is the turnkey satellite we are developing the communications layer is critical to the satellite being able to be on orbit and communicate its data back to earth this was our first flight unit now we can say we already have a unit that has flight experience karrer is finding that sharing the video of their launch with other non-engineers is a great way to explain the type of work he and his teammates performed vince rodriguez the teams software engineer added the videos show people what we are doing my family really caught on to them he advises other students who will begin their capstone projects to ask questions many of them we as a program are investing in a number of different focus areas and one of those is spaced-based products and systems said dr joseph morgan professor and one of the dvdt advisors the ability to partner with nasa to create this rack and stack hardware architecture for rapid prototyping and with a small business like t star to merge the technologies and create products is a win-win-win what was missing when we looked at our partnership with nasa and the development of this product line was the ability to communicate 400 kilometers and to do that reliably t star recognized the need for this capability and this team took on that challenge which is well above undergraduate-level work furthermore their success is now allowing us to create a reference point that will inspire more teams to step up to that level it will be difficult for future teams to ever accomplish the level of engineering design and development that this team has the ultimate result of dvdts work is that the created device communicates reliably at a higher data rate than current cube satellite communications modules further they proved this radio technology at distances well over 10 times the greatest distances tested by the component manufacturers said mike willey lecturer and project faculty advisor for the team the team will compete in several upcoming competitions locally and nationally in march dvdt made a presentation at the american society for engineering education gulf-southwest 2016 conference at texas christian university"
1231,smith will graduate in may and will be commissioned into the united states air force tate and rodriguez will also graduate in may and begin work at texas instruments with karrer also joining the company as a summer intern before graduating in december
1232,ahad esmaeilian phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the demonstration of energy & efficiency developments (deed) student research grant provided by american public power association the deed program is dedicated to improving the operations and services of public power utilities by supporting and demonstrating its members innovative activities through research funding and education goals of the scholarship program are to introduce students to career opportunities in public power support students entering technical programs and majors in short supply and high demand by the utility industry and to provide assistance to deed members who sponsor scholarships esmaeilian was awarded the grant for his research application of intelligent methods to estimate weather-related power outages on distribution system esmaeilian received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the university of tehran in 2009 and 2011 respectively both in electrical engineering he is currently working as a research assistant under the supervision of dr mladen kezunovic in the power systems control and protection laboratory his main research interests are wide area power system protection fault location and application of intelligent methods to power system monitoring and protection he also received the 2015 conocophillips graduate fellowship 2016 ieee ias myron zucker award and the 2016 golden key international honor society research grant
1233,dr diego gómez-gualdrón former graduate student of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has accepted an assistant professor position at chemical and biological engineering department colorado school of minesgómez-gualdrón received his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from industrial university of santander colombia in 2006 and phd in 2012 from texas a&m he joined northwestern universitys department of chemical and biological engineering in 2013 as a postdoctoral fellowduring his graduate studies gómez-gualdrón worked under the supervision of dr perla balbuena professor and holder of the gpsa professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and affiliated faculty in the department of materials science and engineeringas a student gómez-gualdrón conducted research modeling carbon nanotube growth with the goal of designing nano-catalysts for structurally-selective nanotube synthesisdiegos work was essential to the elucidation of the atomistic mechanisms of a complex catalytic process which are needed for the design of better catalysts to yield carbon nanotubes with specific properties said balbuenagómez-gualdróns current research focuses on the design of porous materials such as metal-organic frameworks (mofs) with the goal of discovering materials that can effectively store and deliver gas fuels such as methane and hydrogen for vehicular applications efficiently capture carbon dioxide from power plant streams and catalyze chemical reactions selectively he received a silver graduate student award in 2012 from the materials research society and an outstanding researcher award in 2014 from the international institute for nanotechnology at northwestern universityphoto courtesy: chemical and biological engineering department colorado school of mines
1234,prerna jain graduate student in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university won second place in the engineering and architecture subject area at the universitys annual student research week (srw) event jains research is supported by the mary kay oconnor process safety center jains research has many implications for the development of efficient and integrated risk management methods within the oil and gas industry formed in 1994 as a one-day poster event srw is in its 19th year each year srw enable hundreds of students from both the graduate and undergraduate levels to present their research in the form of oral or poster presentations not only does the event showcase student research at texas a&m srw honors excellence in research giving a huge value booster to a students career the college of engineering had the largest number of competitors at srw accounting for 32 percent of the 740 registered participants that was double the size of the second-largest participating college
1235,dr stuart bell president of university of alabama talks with dr andreas a polycarpou mechanical engineering department head during a visit to campus dont let the crimson tie fool you dr stuart bell is very proud of his texas a&m university roots the department of mechanical engineering recently honored the university of alabama president with an outstanding alumni award bell graduated from texas a&m in 1979 with a nuclear engineering degree before returning for his masters in mechanical engineering and finally his phd also in mechanical engineering bell spent 10 years as a student at texas a&m and they are years he fondly remembers during bells visit to campus he and his wife susan sat down to talk about their experiences in aggieland she is a 1979 graduate of texas a&m as well the couple met their senior year in 1978 at fort shiloh grille where susan worked as a hostess they attended ring dance together the following spring and the rest as they say is history becoming president of the university of alabama bells path to success was paved with hard work and determination as president of the university of alabama bell leads a university that is home to more than 37 000 students its a tremendous accomplishment for the abilene texas native and not one he saw coming bell jokes that he fell into the administrative abyss but its a job he enjoys i think i would probably argue that if you start off with the idea that you want to go into higher education administration you may not be a very good administrator he said instead bells career in higher education began in the classroom after working in industry for a couple years after completing his masters degree stuart and susan who were newlyweds moved to dallas stuart took a job in research and development for mobil while he loved research he realized he sorely missed the classroom thats when he decided to go back to texas a&m for his phd what you cant ever forget is what really makes a university great are the people he said if you go back 100 or 200 years ago if you go back over to europe when universities were first formed it wasnt buildings it was the handful of philosophers that students gathered around to learn from the road to success in 1986 bell accepted a position as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at alabama he remained there until 2002 when he became dean of the university of kansas school of engineering in 2012 he became chief academic officer and chief operating officer of louisiana state university last june bell was named president of the university of alabama i have the best job in the world bell said these young people have a lot of dreams and aspirations bell said students today have a different mindset than when he was a college student when i got out of school i wanted to be an engineer he said these students when they come out they want to change the world theres a very different focus i think with this generation how bells engineering degree paved the way to success if something is not working engineers assess the problem before coming up with a solution bell said its kind of in your nature to do that he said certainly texas a&m does a great job in preparing kids to think that way engineers rock you learn how to approach things bell has some advice for engineering students heading into the workforce: work hard my dad always said ‘the harder you work the luckier youll get he said adding that there isnt a lot of luck involved in success i can think back to a lot of folks that have been successful in their careers and companies that have been successful you need to understand what youre doing and i think engineering provides a great basis for that bell said students need to understand how business works too learn that business and then learn the people he said i would say if you want to be a leader learn to work with people well appreciate what they do learn your core business and you better have a business plan to move that forward bell said texas a&m helped set him up for a successful rewarding career i think a&m is going to give these students a great foundation to work off of just like they did me he said
1236,dr reza langari jr thompson department head chair of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university presented an invited lecture at ford research and innovation center in dearborn michigan on april 13 the presentation focused on his work on the application of game theory and hybrid dynamical systems to autonomous driving my research stands to offer a promising approach to autonomous driving systems (self-driving vehicles) and is intended to enable these vehicles to behave in a predictable and socially acceptable manner said langari in the next several years a mixed traffic environment of regular and autonomous vehicles is expected to become commonplace added langari who has also worked on hybrid electric vehicles (hevs) developing one of the earlier approaches to predictive modeling for energy management in hevs his work has been published in ieee transactions on vehicular technologies and ieee transactions on control systems technology among other venues
1237,brent bielefeldt graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has received the science mathematics & research for transformation (smart) fellowship through the department of defense (dod) the smart fellowship is a highly competitive scholarship for students pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) disciplines the fellowship pays for awardees tuition and fees provides a monthly stipend and guarantees employment for an awardee at a sponsoring dod facility bielefeldt received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the university of alabama in may 2014 for the past two years bielefeldt has worked with dr darren hartl (texas a&m) in collaboration with dr jacob hochhalter (nasa langley) on the numerical analysis of shape memory alloy sensory particles for structural health monitoring applications dr amine benzerga (texas a&m) has served as co-chair after graduating with his masters degree in august bielefeldt will remain at texas a&m and begin working on his phd in aerospace engineering with hartl focusing on developing high bandwidth distributed shape memory alloy actuators as well as computationally efficient methods of analyzing avian-inspired morphing air vehicles bielefeldt will intern this summer at the air force research laboratory at wright-patterson air force base in dayton ohio the smart fellowship will sponsor bielefeldt in working with the air force life cycle management center - armament directorate located at eglin air force base in valparaiso florida he will intern on site during summers beginning in may 2017 with a view to a permanent position after the completion of his doctoral degree
1238,a texas a&m university engineering students passion for rock climbing may lead to a new innovation in the field mack ragland pitched his idea for light-up rocks for rock wall climbing and took home the top prize in the u-ignite video competition u-ignite allows students to showcase their creative ideas to improve the world through innovative solutions to problems that impact lives students create a one to two minute video to be judged by a committee composed of faculty and staff the top 10 students then proceed to pitch their idea to a panel of judges u-ignite is designed to inspire engineering students from freshman to graduate level to act on their innovative ideas said magda lagoudas executive director for nonprofit partnerships this years winners demonstrate the creativity of our students we invite engineering students to consider participating at least once in the u-ignite competition during their time in college ragland a sophomore mechanical engineering major won $1 000 for his light climbing pitch he proposed to replace the route marking tape used on all rock climbing walls with led lights ragland would use multicolored leds light sensors and a laser pointer to light the rocks and change the color pattern when necessary ragland said that additional uses of light climbing would be for climbing in the dark because of the glowing rocks as of now hes in the early stages of working on this project and is considering moving forward with the design and implementation second place in the competition went to alfredo costilla-reyes and zachary burke graduate students in electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering respectively their product bitgrange is an automated hydroponic system for easily growing food in places not previously thought practical third place was a tie between two teams: ez-lock and the nanowell alex content and zach kitowski both sophomores in mechanical engineering presented ez-lock an innovative bike lock holder nanowell is an innovative approach to drinking water and team members included cole fincher and geoffrey garner both mechanical engineering seniors and jeffrey ott and jeffy ho both petroleum engineering juniors participants of u-ignite are eligible to utilize the engineering innovation center and pursue their ideas further u-ignite is an annual competition and will be held again in fall 2016
1239,for the first time a robust low-cost and portable technology deployed using drones can be used to monitor and control infectious disease outbreaks in remote locations says texas a&m university researcher dr victor ugaz who has built the instrument by eliminating the need for samples collected in the field to be transported to distant laboratories for analysis by specialized personnel this instrument can accelerate diagnosis enable pinpoint delivery of therapeutics and help provide real-time data to better inform decision making the lab-on-a-drone technology not only transports medical test kits and samples to and from areas that have limited or no access to a lab infrastructure it also can perform the diagnostic tests during flight according to ugaz professor holder of the charles d holland 53 professorship and the thaman professorship associate department head in texas a&ms artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering the ability to perform rapid in-flight assays with smartphone connectivity eliminates delays between sample collection and analysis so that test results can be delivered in minutes suggesting new possibilities for drone-based systems to function in broader and more sophisticated roles beyond cargo transport and imaging says ugaz a detailed overview of the technology was recently published in analytical chemistry a scientific journal of the american chemical society one of the current gold standard tools for diagnosing infectious diseases including those related to pathogens like ebola and zika involves a technique called the polymerase chain reaction (pcr) a powerful process that makes billions of copies of dna or rna by repeatedly heating and cooling the sample however this repeated heating and cooling also requires a lot of electrical power making pcr difficult to adapt for portable use texas a&m researchers overcame this barrier through the use of convective technology that performs pcr by circulating reagents through a thermal gradient operating like a mini lava lamp this breakthrough enables pcr to be performed using a variety of inexpensive power sources including a hand crank data collection and analysis are performed using an ordinary smartphone the $50 hardware cost and compatibility with quadcopter drones breaks existing price barriers while the simplified imaging makes it possible to leverage a huge second hand smartphone market for devices that may be obsolete in first-world markets but remain well equipped for diagnostic applications in resource-limited settings co-authors of the report include doctoral student ashish priye and a team of undergraduate students involved in texas a&ms aggie-challenge program who worked together to develop the initial pcr device prototype the students efforts helped to take our fundamental knowledge from the lab and show how it could be implemented as a product said ugaz the researchers also collaborated with college station-based technology start-up ai biosciences inc to adapt diagnostic assays to their platform and to show how the drone can be transformed into a mini centrifuge so that sophisticated pop-up laboratories can be established in any field site
1240,the elevator pitch a short easily understandable description of a project that instantly attracts interest and support is a skill that can be perfected with practice and is not sufficiently covered in graduate curriculum texas a&m universitys materials advantage chapter offered an opportunity to 13 teams of graduate students in the dwight look college of engineering and the college of science to practice their elevator pitch describing their complex research at the 2nd pitch your research competition earlier this month we designed the competition to help improve graduate students' communication skills before they entered the workforce said amy bolon president of the organization and graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering the office of graduate and professional studies (ogaps) funded the competition the teams were allotted three minutes to pitch their research they then had time to improve their pitch based on judges comments and presented their pitch again the judges included robert badrak director of engineering materials at weatherford dr julio maldonado advising materials engineer at chevron energy technology company michael pendley technical sales manager at villares metals and dr k ted hartwig professor in the materials science and engineering department timothy brown graduate student in materials science and engineering was named the first-place winner second place went to jake carrow and lauren cross both graduate students in the department of biomedical engineering yilhwan you graduate student in materials science and engineering and aniket biswas graduate student in biomedical engineering together won third place xuan wang graduate student in the department of chemistry won the most improved award to be a member of texas a&ms materials advantage chapter visit http://materialadvantageorg/ and choose texas a&m university as the local chapter
1241,former students liu and simon named rising stars in civil + structural engineering two former students of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university ivan liu 11 and jessica simon 07 were recognized as civil + structural engineer magazines 2016 rising stars liu and simon are two of just 25 professionals chosen for this honor rising stars are individuals 40 years old or younger who have shown exceptional technical capability leadership ability effective teaching or research or public service benefiting the civil engineering profession their employers project owners and society liu is a bridge engineer with finley engineering group in tallahassee florida liu has performed design and construction engineering services for many types of complex bridges including precast segmental cast-in-place segmental and cable-stayed bridges with his background in engineering software he has become a major part of all bridge modeling and analysis at finley he is a major contributor to development of junior level staff and interns guiding them through their work and pushing them to reach their potential as a student he led the texas a&m steel bridge team to a national competition for three straight years and as an intern with the texas a&m transportation institute he performed structural analysis of traffic barriers and crash testing to correlate theoretical behaviors with actual results in his personal time liu is involved with the association of former students at texas a&m to mentor and encourage current civil engineering students with career advice and goal setting simon an associate/project manager at jq engineering llp in dallas has participated in the structural design of some of the more complex projects undertaken by the firm her work includes the evaluation and strengthening of historic structures to gain compliance with current building codes the design of vibration-sensitive structures critical to research and education and the development of structural designs sympathetic to the aesthetic desires of nationally recognized architects she is currently leading the structural team designing a 200 000-square-foot engineering research building for the university of texas at dallas and a visitor center at manila american cemetery in the philippines simon also leads technical review committees tasked with creating and codifying the firms design and management standards simon was named an associate at jq engineering in 2015 the youngest associate in the firms history she also helped spearhead jqs efforts to increase its engineers direct involvement and proficiency with bim software simon leads multiple community outreach programs is an avid advocate for women in the profession and is responsible for the establishment of a group within jq leading the conversation about finding the right work/life balance contributing author: ryan terry
1242,texas a&m university's american society of civil engineers (asce) steel bridge and concrete canoe student teams competed in the regional competitions held april 7-9 at texas tech university the steel bridge teams first place finish qualifies it for the national competition to be held at brigham young university in provo utah may 27-28 2016 the steel bridge team placed first out of 16 teams at the texas-mexico regional competition in the steel bridge event teams have 30 minutes to construct their bridge as quickly and with as few people as possible after building is complete the bridges are loaded with 50 pounds laterally and 2 500 pounds vertically the team with the stiffest lightest and fastest bridge wins the competition there are 13 team members on the texas a&m team all of whom are students in the zachry department of civil engineering the concrete canoe team placed third overall at the regional competition teams are judged on four equal parts: the design paper an oral presentation the final product and the races the races consist of a mens sprint womens sprint mens slalom womens slalom and a co-ed sprint the outcomes of these races determine the points awarded for that portion of the competition the concrete canoe team works for almost a whole academic year to research design and construct its canoe all 18 students on the team are from the college of engineering click here for more information on the teams and competitions contributing author: ryan terry
1243,nasan tsengeg sophomore in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university placed first for undergraduate research in the engineering category of texas a&ms student research week tsengeg contributes to ongoing research being conducted by dr carlos estrada-pérez and dr yassin a hassan within the department of nuclear engineerings thermal hydraulics laboratory estradas research project focuses on experimental investigations of two-phase flow systems typical in water cooled nuclear reactors the gathered experimental information provides new insights to help on the design of safer and more efficient reactors the end goal is to have an algorithm that will gather new and relevant experimental information to improve and modify numerical algorithms that are used in the design and safety analysis of nuclear reactor systems tsengeg said according to tsengeg single bubble experiments have been performed since the time of da vinci to study how bubbles affect water turbulence allowing the scientists of the day to develop fundamental equations however previous experiments were performed in single bubble rising conditions in real life there are hundreds of thousands of bubbles the researchers are dealing with and those equations may be limited to accurately predict reality the project was funded by the consortium for advanced simulation of light water reactors (casl) and was a collaboration between tsengeg fellow student researcher nivyan musavvir estrada-pérez and hassan tsengeg became involved with the thermal hydraulics research group after meeting key members and students while visiting texas a&m as a high school student once accepted to texas a&m he began working for the lab as a student researcher and was able to submit his work as a part of student research week i've always been passionate about nuclear engineering and owe a lot to tim crook and the nuclear engineering faculty i met while in high school for getting me to this point tsengeg said after doing student research week the main thing i got out of this was that any undergraduate can get involved in research as long as you are willing to work
1244,"tsengeg and musavvir mapped the bubble flow by using a high speed camera to capture water-air interaction at 10 000 frames per second then by using high speed shadowgraphy (hss) and particle image velocimetry (piv) cross-correlated individual bubbles characteristics with the surrounding liquid velocity field allowing researchers to understand how the bubbles may affect different important parameters such as the liquid turbulence and heat transfer tsengeg feels the work he collaborated on spoke to the purpose of programs like the research week the keynote speakers main emphasis was that research is only brilliant research if it is able to help mankind tsengeg said ""i think the project pinpointed that perfectly because in essence we are gathering more understanding to help prevent any future nuclear reactor incidents by making safer cooling processes bubbly flow also exists in refrigeration chemical processes and any process that involves momentum and heat transfer process at multiple scales so tsengeg believes that with a few modifications this research has the potential to be interdisciplinary tsengeg is also passionate about renewable energies nuclear among others and will continue his education in the hopes of becoming a venture capitalist to sponsor renewable energy research i've really gotten to appreciate the opportunities that drs hassan estrada lee and vaghetto have given me in terms of mentorship and research without all these great people i wouldn't have been given the opportunity to do this"
1245,the department of aerospace engineering in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university inducted 12 individuals into the aerospace engineering distinguished alumni academy during the aerospace engineering annual awards banquet on april 1 receiving the outstanding young engineer award were isaac ekoto phd julie parish phd and puneet singla phd this award is presented to an alumnus under the age of 40 who has shown outstanding work in their field and is a promising leader for the future those elected must have a strong commitment and interest in the university and the department the outstanding aerospace engineer award is presented to an alumnus 40 years or older who has proven superior professional achievement community service and service to the university those elected are role models for all to follow and their example of distinguished professional practice deserves recognition the alumni receiving this award were paul hill donald ruhmann hanspeter schaub phd kirk shireman and john vassberg phd the aerospace engineering honorary engineer award is presented to non-texas a&m university alumni who have made major contributions to the engineering profession and whose support of the department merits recognition the two honorees given this distinction were leland carslon phd and donald ward phd col usaf (retired) two alumni were honored with the highest distinction in the academy the distinguished aerospace engineering alumni award this award is presented to an alumnus who is retired or near retirement with outstanding career records this award also recognizes sustained and meritorious contributions to engineering and engineering management the two honorees were dennis ray deel and elaine mendoza for more information on the distinguished aerospace engineering alumni academy see /aerospace/former-students/alumni-academy/members
1246,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received several recent honors for leadership and scholarly activities dehghanian received a research grant scholarship from the american public power association (appa) under the demonstration of energy and efficiency development (deed) program additionally he was awarded the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship for the 2016-2017 academic year and was selected as the ieee industry application society (ias) electric safety workshop (esw) 2017 student program chair for the appa scholarship dehghanian will work with bryan texas utilities on the project flexible implementation of power system topology control in face of extreme weather conditions the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship award recognizes a students participation and leadership in campus and community organizations at texas a&m in his role as ias esw student program chair dehghanian will perform required tasks concerning the student program for the 2017 electrical safety workshop in reno nevada next january dehghanian who is the current leader of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the ieee pels-pes-ias received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications
1247,saving lives improving patient comfort and streamlining procedures in dangerous situations were just a few of the topics covered in the latest aggies invent held at texas a&m university the theme for the weekend first responders was sponsored by the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) center for emergency informatics during the weekend students created prototypes relevant to first responders search and rescue paramedics firefighters and others in the field aggies invent promotes an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m it gathers invited students provides them with the needs statements submitted by sponsors allows them to self-select teams and gives them access to industry mentors and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours grace duoduo mack ragland and milan pandya took first place with the quadcomm an adapted uav with two-way radio transmission they equipped a quadcopter with a microphone and a two-way radio for first responders to have direct conversation with people in hard to reach areas during a disaster situation ragland said he was drawn to the first responders event because it felt like something that would impact others and could potentially save lives finding out what people need during a disaster rescue is just as important as retrieving them ragland said the second-place team was ez triage a fitbit-like device to track and monitor patients during emergency response triage situations the current system of tracking triage patients is outdated and inefficient hence the need for updating the technology austin isburgh maximiliano ortiz pravir singh gupta sagar samant shikha sinha sujoy saha and swetha sridharan comprised team ez triage third place went to team lift with its airboard to assist first responders placing large patients onto stretchers the needs statement was to help reduce the likelihood of back injuries to first responders and increase patient comfort team lifts students included justin samorajski muhammad aun roshan karna samuel mcconnell and trey newman the panel of judges included dr jon mogford texas a&m vice chancellor for research; don lewis director of startup aggieland; dr jerry livingston clinical assistant professor of clinical and transitional medicine and dr debjyoti banerjee professor of mechanical engineering dr robin murphy from the center for emergency informatics spoke to the students about their success and the centers support for their continued innovation the judging panel was so impressed with the results of the competition that mogford decided to award each team a $250 prize the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively for their awards all teams are invited to continue working on their project and have access to the eic and mentors for guidance and advice they also have the opportunity to work with startup aggieland for additional assistance additional coverage from aggies invent: first responders here to learn more about aggies invent visit https://aggiesinventtamuedu/
1248,"more than a dozen nuclear engineering students from texas a&m university presented at the 2016 american nuclear society (ans) student conference in madison wisconsin doctoral student lane carasik received the designation of best presentation in the graduate category for the thermal hydraulics research track carasiks paper was turbulence model study for pressure and velocity distributions for molten salts in a cross-flow tube bundle and detailed his research to develop a methodology to solve for pressure drops inside compact crossflow heat exchangers meant for molten salt reactor application the pressure drop determines the sizing or wattage of the pumps to implement in the reactor design in the case of molten salts the material can be highly corrosive and can require special pump designs when carasik initially investigated heat exchanger designs for molten salt reactors applications he found that there was very limited data or no discernable methodology for determining crossflow pressure drops to solve this problem he decided to develop a methodology using a simplified computational analysis the hope is that someone in the future will look at this methodology and find it useful carasik said the idea behind it is that someone can utilize this work while developing a reactor design specifically determining what a cautious estimate of the pressure drop inside a heat exchanger for that reactor would be carasiks work draws inspiration from an oak ridge national lab small modular advanced high temperature reactor design in the design he is investigating the geometry of the reactor has certain size constraints that influence the design parameters of the heat exchanger specifically the size constrains both the arrangement (or direction) by which the fluid passes over the tubes and the size of the heat exchanger with these design constraints in mind carasik had to look at a way to determine the pressure drops in the proposed heat exchangers above: the flowpath inside a heat exchanger carasik has pursued this research on molten salt reactor heat exchangers apart from his regular graduate research primarily because of his interest in furthering the development of molten salt reactors according to carasik they can provide an economical and cost effective energy source for a variety of situations molten salt reactors and other reactor types had their development scaled back in the 1970s in favor of light water reactors (lwr) which led to the development and use of pressurized water reactors (pwr) a type of lwr that was developed and is currently used by the us navy since the commercial nuclear energy program was born out of the navys nuclear program in conjunction with the atomic energy commission lwrs became the standard reactor type in the us and around the world one of the appeals of molten salt reactors to carasik is the large amount of start-up companies working towards bringing this technology to market weve already built them before and weve proven that they work its just a matter of what technology we need to develop to put them on the commercial market carasik said lwrs are perfectly good machines they are the backbone of our largest portion of clean energy output in this country and we should keep producing them but we should always strive for improvements and innovations however according to carasik nuclear industry groups may be hesitant to be the first to focus on this technology because costs cannot yet be ironed out from a regulatory side which may constitute an economic risk in contrast carasik does note that the potential economic and energy efficiency gains from capital costs and higher operating temperatures outweigh that risk according to carasik higher operating temperatures allow for higher energy efficient turbines to be utilized and can reduce the overall size of the reactor for example if i have a 1 000 megawatt electric power plant an lwr could be at least 30 percent larger in terms of physical size than a molten salt reactor of the same wattage carasik said that translates to lower cost from construction materials to produce the reactor but with the same energy output being created more efficiently according to carasik with any solution there are drawbacks such as the inherently toxic nature of most molten salts however molten salt reactors provide more flexibility for the use of nuclear fuel which enables these reactors to keep running and have longer operating cycles until the reactor has to be taken offline for maintenance molten salt reactors can also be used for disposal of the spent fuel from lwrs as the spent fuel is no longer useful in lwrs but a molten salt reactor can help diminish lwr nuclear waste by using it as fuel carasik who one day hopes to become a tenure track professor or staff scientist at a research university or national laboratory hopes that his work will give back in an important way ultimately i got into this because i would like to benefit society carasik said everyone wants to benefit society but even the small little beneficial pushes like this are a move in the right direction 2016 ans conference presentations: ""feasibility studies on a hexagonal-lattice core for a world-class cold neutron source at nist"" by dylan m prevost ""turbulence model study for pressure and velocity distributions for molten salts in a crossflow tube bundle"" by lane b carasik - won best graduate presentation in the thermal hydraulics track ""sensitivity study of pwr upper vessel flow and phenomena using relap5-3d"" by timmy crook ""development and verification of matlab functions for pressure drop estimation in crossflow tube bundles"" by jonah b haefner ""depleted uranium soaring temperature reactor (dustr)"" by jacob t landman and mason childs ""design of thorium fuel in current light water reactors"" by joshua p smith jessica taylor sierra sanders and connor jarvis monte carlo simulations and experimentation of hindlimb mice in chronic low dose environments"" by david h saucier for those further interested in work regarding molten salt reactors see below: references: 1 http://wwwthirdwayorg/report/advanced-nuclear-101 2 http://wwwworld-nuclearorg/information-library/current-and-future-generation/molten-salt-reactorsaspx"
1249,dr nick duffield professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was appointed a fellow of the institution of engineering and technology (iet) the iet which is based in the united kingdom is one of the worlds largest engineering institutions with more than 167 000 members in 127 countries it is also the most multidisciplinary – to reflect the increasingly diverse nature of engineering in the 21st century iet fellowship is awarded to individuals who have sustained high levels of achievement for example through leadership influence senior responsibility innovation and professional service at the forefront of engineering technology or cognate disciplines for a period of five years or more i am honored to be recognized as a fellow by the iet duffield said i intend to use my relations with the iet fellow community to help build international connections in my research fields of communications networking and data science duffield who also has a joint appointment in the department of computer science and engineering and is director of the texas a&m engineering big data initiative received his bachelor's degree in natural sciences in 1982 and a masters in 1983 from the university of cambridge he received his phd in mathematical physics from the university of london in 1987 his research focuses on data and network science particularly applications of probability statistics algorithms and machine learning to the acquisition management and analysis of large datasets in communications networks and beyond before joining the department duffield worked at at&t labs-research florham park new jersey where he held the position of distinguished member of technical staff and was an at&t fellow he previously held post-doctoral and faculty positions in dublin ireland and heidelberg germany duffield the author of numerous papers and holder of many patents is co-inventor of the smart sampling technologies that lie at the heart of at&ts scalable traffic analysis service he is specialty editor-in-chief of the journal frontiers in ict and he was charter chair of the ietf working group on packet sampling duffield is an ieee fellow and serves on the board of directors of acm sigmetrics he is an associate member of the oxford-man institute of quantitative finance the goal of iet is working to engineer a better world by inspiring informing and influencing its members engineers and technicians and all those who are touched by or touch the work of engineers
1250,three students in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university have received the prestigious gulf coast power association (gcpa) scholarship angel clark leah murff and benjamin wiseman were presented their awards during a ceremony in april qualifications for the award include an interest in the power generation industry a commitment to work in that industry and a good gpr the gcpa scholarship was initiated in 2007 from a desire to attract and support young people who had indicated an interest in the electric power industry in their pursuit of higher education in 2008 following the death of gcpa's founding executive director david olver the scholarship fund was renamed in his memory as the gcpa-david olver memorial scholarship program clark is a second year master's student studying power systems and power electronics she attended the university of california san diego for her undergraduate studies where she received her bachelor's degree in environmental engineering her current research interests include energy storage renewable integration and distributed generation murff is a sophomore in the department her interests include solar energy and power generation and distribution shes a member of the society of women engineers the institute of electrical and electronics engineers and the energy club where she is also co-chair of the solar and grid committee wiseman is a senior electrical engineering major from baton rouge louisiana a member of hkn he recently completed an undergraduate thesis through the undergraduate research scholar's program investigating how to improve power system models using synchrophasor data after graduating in may wiseman plans to continue his research as a master's student under dr le xie in his spare time he serves as webmaster for engineers without borders and participates in his chapel's bell choir the gcpa was formed in houston in 1983 as the gulf coast cogeneration association by a handful of individuals from development companies and suppliers of goods and services involved in the new industry spawned by passage of the public utility regulatory policy act of 1978 (purpa) since then association membership has increased steadily both in numbers and in the diversity of industry segments represented until now with 35 corporate members and around 220 individual members it embraces virtually every aspect of the electric power industry in 1994 the board recognized that its members' interests had broadened beyond just us cogeneration to include power production delivery and marketing of competitive electric energy supplies worldwide using a variety of energy sources the name of the association was changed officially in 1995 although gulf coast was retained to reflect the home base of the organization and to maintain name recognition the association's focus was expanded and re-directed on the basis of the mission statement and objectives
1251,dr phaneendra kondapi has joined the college of engineering at texas a&m university as the director for subsea engineering kondapi has over 20 years of experience in the industry with fmc technologies and kbr where he focused on engineering and consulting projects worldwide as the kbr adjunct professor of subsea engineering at the university of houston he helped develop the first subsea engineering program in the united states we are very pleased to have dr kondapi join texas a&ms subsea engineering program as director said dr kristi shryock executive director of interdisciplinary engineering programs he brings not only 20 years of industry-related experience but also teaching experience with significant technical articles and presentations at various industry conferences and workshops building upon these experiences i believe will allow texas a&ms subsea program to become a world leader in a field that is emerging at the bottom of the ocean texas a&ms masters program in subsea engineering was established in 2014 and is one of only two such programs in the nation subsea engineering involves offshore oil and gas development and production operations from reservoir to onshore or platform and its challenges throughout the life of the field i am honored to lead the subsea program said kondapi i know how important it is to design this program in such a way that we are sending top engineers into the oil and gas industry kondapi emphasized that subsea engineering is a multidisciplinary program his plans include collaborating across the college and with industry to extend the subsea research and strengthen the courses the goal is to provide a program so that students truly understand the technical details of subsea engineering and the practical skills required for the industry the college of engineering currently offers a masters of engineering with an emphasis in subsea engineering kondapi is a member of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) and a founding member of the upstream engineering and flow assurance forum of the american institute of chemical engineers kondapi received his phd from tennessee technological university and bachelor of science and master of science degrees from andhra university all in chemical engineering he received the spe innovative teaching fellow award from spe international and the outstanding alumnus award from andhra university college of engineering both in 2013
1252,"m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr andreas a polycarpou the james j cain chair in mechanical engineering in recognition of his exceptional record as a researcher and educator the endowed chair appointment is effective may 1 james j cain 51 established the chair in 2013 through his gift given by his estate to the texas a&m foundation cain received his bachelors in mechanical engineering in 1951 and passed away in july 2015 polycarpou who is also the meinhard h kotzebue 14 professor is the head of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university he joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in december 2012 polycarpou received his bachelors masters and phd all in mechanical engineering from state university of new york at buffalo his research interests include tribology nanotechnology microtribology related to miniature systems magnetic storage surface characterization friction/vibration interaction system dynamics and modeling and experimental design and instrumentation specifically he studies micro/nanotribology of magnetic head disk interfaces and microelectromechanical systems recent emphasis has been on the tribology of devices for reduced energy and improved environmental-related impact such as the use of carbon dioxide as a natural refrigerant and the use of surface treatments toward oil-lees machine operation polycarpou is the author of more than 130 archival journal papers numerous book chapters volume proceedings a dozen patents and numerous conference papers ""i know how much texas a&m and the department of mechanical engineering meant to mr cain "" polycarpou said ""his support of our department is tremendous in allowing us to continue enhancing the quality of education we provide our students for my part i will endeavor to do my best to uphold the respect integrity and aggie spirit of mr cain as holder of the james j cain chair"""
1253,dr gang sun instructional assistant professor in the department of engineering technology & industrial distribution at texas a&m university is a recipient of the 2016 american society for agricultural and biological engineers superior paper award the award follows suns submission of the article he co-authored odor and odorous chemical emissions from animal buildings: part 3 chemical emissions to the transactions of the asabe sun performs research in the areas of complex dynamic systems (biological systems) using embedded systems and computational intelligence and statistical methods
1254,it was an eventful retirement for former texas a&m university nuclear engineering student patrick pfanz 93 who attended his retirement ceremony in college station texas on march 25 after serving 21 years in the us navy as a nuclear submarine officer the ceremony was as a tribute to pfanzs friends family and supporters who helped him progress from texas a&m through his naval career this was very important to me because everything came full circle pfanz said seeing my professors my shipmates my buddies from the corps of cadets and the people i studied with as a student gave me the opportunity to give thanks to everyone who made an impact in my life after graduating high school pfanz knew he wanted to pursue an engineering degree and also had a desire to serve as a military officer an interest that ultimately led him to texas a&m and the corps of cadets where he was a member of the navy/marine unit company p-2 i was looking for a good engineering school but what really tipped the scales for that was that i knew i really wanted to go into the military so the rotc [reserve officer training corps] program through the corps of cadets really was important to me pfanz said when pfanz began his education in 1989 he was inspired by dr ron hart a former professor to switch from aerospace engineering to nuclear engineering where he entered the department as only one of eight students he was granted a military commission through the navys college program and commissioned as an officer upon graduation in 1994 pfanz then attended naval nuclear power school the navys specialized nuclear school designed to take individuals from different technical backgrounds and make them proficient nuclear engineers in six months despite his formal education in nuclear engineering according to pfanz there were certain aspects of the school that were still challenging the navy nuclear power program is a short amount of time to teach someone without a nuke background what nuclear power is how it is generated and its safety considerations pfanz said for me it was learning how the navy wanted you to learn it the specific navy way of how they wanted me to learn or relearn some of the nuclear engineering concepts i had been taught
1255,following his term at naval nuclear power school pfanz served in many capacities during his naval career pfanz began his career with the uss batfish where he served as a damage control officer later transitioning to nuclear power training unit (prototype) to serve as a shift engineer and command duty officer after serving as a combat systems officer on the uss providence and uss alexandria pfanz and his family were eventually relocated to japan where he served as the operations officer and submarine movement advisory authority manager for submarine group seven my family followed [me] like they did with every step of my career when we moved to japan pfanz said after two years in japan pfanz served as the executive officer of the uss connecticut before becoming the chief of strategy contingency plans and assessments with special operations command south pfanz also had some personal difficulties during his career including a time when he suffered an accident at sea while serving on the uss providence during poor weather conditions the submarine was overtaken by an incoming wave and pfanz was thrown against the vessel breaking in place one of the vertebrae within his neck in addition to these challenges pfanz also acknowledges the sacrifices his family has made to support his career being a submarine co [commanding officer] was interesting to me but i didnt want my family to have to pay the greater commitment for that pfanz said i wanted to retire and transition to a civilian career in the nuclear industry before my nuclear experience started to get stale [so] i applied to be a senior reactor operator at florida power and light pfanz is currently transitioning into the commercial industry as a nuclear unit supervisor in training at turkey point in homestead florida where he will soon begin his senior reactor operator licensing class and become a nuclear unit supervisor for one of the two nuclear power plants at turkey point my retirement ceremony served to honor my family for their sacrifice and to give back to the professors who are still there at texas a&m pfanz said i was glad i was able to say thank you in that way to all those who have helped me along the way
1256,texas a&m university nuclear engineering doctoral student and idaho national laboratory (inl) research scientist vishal patel is designing the space ships of tomorrow developing rockets powered by nuclear thermal propulsion (ntp) that may one day take humans on their journey to mars the basic design is similar to chemical rockets where you use chemical reactions to heat up a working fluid like hydrogen and you pump it through a nozzle to create thrust patel said with ntp engines instead of using a chemical reaction you use nuclear fission to heat up that same fluid and run it through the same nozzle to get your thrust according to patel ntp will allow the rocket transporting the astronauts to reach mars at a rate of 15 to 175 times faster than if they used chemical fossil fuels to make the journey using ntp will also eliminate the need for the astronauts to take large amounts of chemical fuel with them on their journey giving them more space to pack supplies and other necessities both the chemical and ntp methods for powering the rocket use the same type of hydrogen working fluid to create thrust for the rocket but ntp is found to be much more efficient according to patel there are additional benefits the shorter transit time will allow astronauts to be in space in a low gravity environment for less time which will mean less radiation exposure from cosmic sources for these astronauts patel said right now that might be a deal breaker for chemical as a fuel source because more radiation exposure will cause harm to those astronauts solar energy has also been considered as an alternative and would take energy from the sun using solar panels on the craft and convert it into electrical energy but it would be slower than both nuclear and chemical energy sources however patel does advocate for the usage of solar energy in transporting supplies for the mission ahead of time which will be there before the astronauts arrive and wont be subject to radiation issues while the ntp system has many advantages patel and the other members of his team are working to overcome obstacles in the knowledge base regarding ntp technology ntp technology has been considered in the past by the us government as a part of project rover an ongoing us government project from 1955 to 1972 that designed a ntp engine to get people to the moon and then to mars however the government ultimately decided not to pursue a space program and one of the teams initial hurdles is that while these technologies have been demonstrated in the past there is not an ntp engine currently running since most of the engineers who worked as a part of project rover have either retired or passed away patel and the other members of his team are on a journey of rediscovery and he says this isnt necessarily a bad thing although we don't have the previous expertise anymore this gives us an opportunity to find new ways of constructing and analyzing things computationally and experimentally so we can improve on those designs patel said such as using low enriched uranium as opposed to high enriched uranium patel and his group have demonstrated computationally that the long held belief that highly enriched uranium will always be better than low enriched uranium is not the case the next step is for patel and the team to show this in experimental models what it comes down to is that the smallest nuclear reactor is not always going to be the best nuclear reactor for this type of engine because of thermal limits patel said we need a certain surface area for heat transfer to ensure we keep the fuel from failure limits [and] this idea enables us to use low enriched uranium patel also credits innovations in the nuclear private sector as beneficial to successful design of the craft according to patel smaller businesses in the private sector can fund and can develop a design solution for a small component of the system this can sometimes be preferable to larger corporations developing the entire system themselves because of the immense amount of project funding required for patel the work he and others have contributed to the design of the rocket serves to empower the explorative interest of this generation i see it as inspiring the next generation patel said when i was kind of younger and there was still a bigger space program at nasa a lot of kids back then wanted to be astronauts now when i talk to kids you don't really see that anymore so i want to bring that back to give people the idea of wanting to explore the unknown you can read patel's article regarding his work on the ans cafe website here
1257,texas a&m university senior civil engineering student kaci hicks has a lot on her plate with graduation approaching in may hicks is preparing to move to houston to begin work at jones and carter in the meantime shes devoting much of her time and energy to an organization that has grown close to her heart pb&j is a student organization that sells peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to raise money for a worthy cause feeding children in kenya hicks is director of the group this year we help feed kids in kenya hicks said adding that a $2 donation will feed one child for a month its a minimum donation of $1 for a sandwich in its eighth year pb&j provides funding for the organization kenya kids can the group provides a school lunch program that feeds more than 16 000 children every day as well as computer classes pb&j raises roughly $100 a week hicks said its raised more than $1 200 this year were just a simple organization that tries to reach out globally she said on the local level pb&j hosts a free garage sale in bryan texas called jubilee the next garage sale is set to take place from 8 am to noon on saturday (april 23) in sue haswell park hicks and her fellow pb&j members have been collecting donations for the free sale last year we had 150 families come she said its a way to give back to lower income families in the area hicks said pb&j is a faith-based organization that is open to any student interested in joining there are currently about 40 members she said and the group is very actively involved this year weve been able to grow with really passionate people she said for more information about pb&j visit the pb&j website for more information about kenya kids can visit the kenya kids can website
1258,the texas a&m institute for preclinical studies (tips) and the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university under the direction of associate professor dr gamal akabani have installed and commissioned a new multimodal albira si micro-pet/spect/ct system for preclinical small animal imaging akabani has been a strong proponent for the establishment of the small animal imaging core facility at texas a&m since his arrival in 2009 and believes the commissioning of this unit is the first step towards establishing what he distinguishes as an essential research core facility with the advent of small animal imaging core facilities across research institutions the evolution of biomedical research has been transformed from its traditional qualitative hypothesis-based single-molecule paradigm to a quantitative omics systems-based high throughput paradigm akabani said above:the evolution of protein analysis from traditional biochemistry to unbiased proteomics adapted from macbeath g protein microarrays and proteomics nat genet32 suppl 526–532 (2002) the phenotyping of small animals mainly rats and mice using in vivo imaging is employed across the study of many chronic and degenerative diseases and in drug development: predominantly in the areas of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics one of the main applications of in vivo imaging is the longitudinal monitoring of treatment response for early indications of efficacy in vivo small animal imaging has had the greatest impact in drug development through monitoring disease progression and therapeutic response according to akabani the process of drug development and research is very competitive with significant failure rates however the use of small animal imaging will allow for the fast preclinical testing of early-stage drugs for proof of concept efficacy and safety without the need to invest significant resources into unnecessary phase i clinical trails above: the pipeline process of biopharmaceutical research and development adapted from biopharmaceutical research and development : the process behind the medicines phrma 2015 the in vivo imaging modalities most currently used are optical (bioluminescence and fluorescence) positron emission tomography single photon emission computed tomography x-ray computed tomography (pet/spect-ct) and magnetic resonance imaging (mri) with the acquisition of the albira micro-pet/spect-ct akabani and his group hope to provide the faculty and research staff across campus the capacity to longitudinally image the spatiotemporal pathophysiology on animal models using radiolabeled compounds the albira si system is the first generation of micro-pet/spect/ct utilizing silicon-based photomultipliers and new acquisition and reconstruction modules providing great stability and robustness to the system in collaboration with industrial partner bruker biospin corporation the department of nuclear engineering plans to continue supporting the mission of tips to improve the quality of translational research and preclinical services the system has been commissioned for imaging with the positron emitting radionuclides 18f 124i and 64cu and with more to come the system has also been commissioned for imaging with the single photon emitting radionuclides 99mtc and 123i which will also be expanded upon anatomical co-registration of pet images is carried out using cone beam computed tomography small animal imaging requires the use of positron emitting radionuclide whereas some of them are commercially available some exotic radionuclides are not dr akabani and his research group have embarked into the production of radionuclides in collaboration with the texas a&m cyclotron institute their primary objective is to produce the alpha particle emitting radionuclide 211at and the other positron emitting radionuclides research by his group has focused on the development of binary systems for theranostics they have a acquired the nirta solid target system from iba radiopharma solutions (louvain-la-neuve belgium) and are in the process of commissioning the system in the k150 cyclotron tips akabani and his research group believe that the system will benefit all researchers across campus using small animals and that the system will have the potential to impact the research of others and meet their small animal imaging research needs
1259,shawna fletcher director of the women in engineering (we) program at texas a&m university was recently awarded the 2015 student employment impact award for her work with student employees we is a program that focuses on promoting and supporting female engineers the program hosts outreach opportunities for children and teens and professional development opportunities for engineering students and faculty among other events as a leader i want to empower my staff and help them to be the best they can be fletcher said there are many times that leadership requires decision-making i want to be sure transparency and collaboration are at the forefront of making decisions that affect the we staff fletcher directs a staff of seven six of whom are students judy boadu an electrical engineering doctoral student who serves as a non-teaching graduate assistant nominated fletcher for the award she pushes her student employees to think outside the box boadu said there have been moments where she sets goals and assigns tasks that may seem impossible at first and which you do not think you can possibly accomplish but because shes passionate about her job and her goals for the women in engineering program you look for ways to make it happen one thing i believe shawna has brought to the texas a&m community is that she is not only targeting female students but also including the male students faculty and staff too she is engaging them in conversations on how they can serve as role models to break the traditional perceptions of women in engineering danisha stern we program specialist said we provides women with opportunities to engage in projects and activities they might have shied away from before shawna makes it a point to connect with students and she inspires them by sharing her personal journey as an engineering student stern said for more information about the women in engineering program email weoutreach@tamuedu
1260,the chemical engineering graduate student association (chegsa) at texas a&m university organized its third annual research symposium giving graduate students in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering an opportunity to present their research and network with industry partners ninety-five graduate students showcased their research for faculty and professionals representing the dow chemical company chevron shell basf ineos kaneka foundation axalta schlumberger exxon mobil lynntech bryan research & engineering wood group and phillips 66 we are grateful to our sponsors for supporting our outreach mission said yanpu zhang president of chegsa nine students received certificates for best poster and oral presentation awards dr norman e byrne senior r&d director at dow oil gas & mining delivered the keynote address describing the companys contributions in the field of chemical engineering chegsa was established in 2013 all currently enrolled graduate students in chemical engineering are eligible for membership learn more about the organization here
1261,dr diego donzis associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2016 mcelmurry teaching excellence award at the aerospace engineering annual awards banquet held april 1 the mcelmurry award is presented annually by the senior class to a member of the aerospace engineering faculty who exemplifies dedication and commitment to developing students professionally and academically by displaying a desire for students to succeed creatively presenting classroom material and offering opportunities for mentorship and guidance outside of the classroom the award is named after thomas uriel mcelmurry lt col usaf (ret) who taught in the department for 13 years donzis research interests include large-scale high-performance computing fluid dynamics turbulence and turbulent mixing he joined the aerospace department in fall 2009 he received his bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from universidad tecnologica nacional argentina in 2001 his master's degree in aerospace engineering from georgia institute of technology in 2004 and phd in aerospace engineering from georgia institute of technology in 2007 in addition to this award he has received the francois frenkiel the nsf career award a previous tees select young faculty award two incite awards by doe and best graduates from argentina by the national academy of engineering of argentina
1262,carl runco a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was named the international winner of the american helicopter societys (ahs) 2016 robert l lichten award competition for his paper development and flight testing of a meso-scale cyclocopter runco will be honored at the annual grand awards banquet at the 72nd ahs forum in palm beach florida runco works with dr moble benedict in the advanced vertical flight laboratory (avfl) and his project involves design development and systematic flight testing of a 29 gram meso-scale cyclocopter which is the smallest cycloidal-rotor based aircraft ever built the robert l lichten award was established in 1976 to recognize new and innovative research in the area of vertical flight each of the 10 ahs regions around the world is eligible to select a regional winner from which an overall international winner and runner-up are selected
1263,students from the advanced vertical flight laboratory (avfl) in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won first and second place at the 2016 aiaa region iv student conference students from 13 different schools took part in the competition carl runco a graduate student under dr moble benedict professor in the aerospace engineering department placed first in the graduate category runcos project development and flight testing of a meso-scale cyclocopter involved design development and systematic flight testing (in hover) of a 29 gram meso-scale cyclocopter which is the smallest cycloidal-rotor-based aircraft ever built he received $500 and will advance to the final round to present his work at the 2017 aiaa science and technology forum and exposition (scitech) brett himmelberg and adam kellen undergraduates in aerospace engineering under benedict took first and second place respectively in the undergraduate category a junior in the department himmelbergs project performance measurements of meso-scale cycloidal rotors in hover focused on conducting thrust and power measurements on meso-scale cycloidal rotors (weighing less than three grams) using a custom three-component force balance which he developed he received $500 and will advance to the final round to present his work at scitech kellens project design development and performance measurements of a uav-scale cycloidal rotor earned second place in the undergraduate category a senior in the department kellens research focused on understanding the upward scalability of the cycloidal rotor concept to be used on large-scale vertical takeoff and landing (vtol) unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) his paper focused on the design/fabrication of a cycloidal rotor for a 10 pound uav and preliminary performance measurements he received $300 runco and himmelberg will attend scitech to be held at grapevine texas courtesy of aiaa due to their achievements in the student conference they will present their papers at the international student conference
1264,to roger simon becoming a leader means more than simply adding some extra zeros to his future salary it means being able to make a difference and be an example for others to follow thats why the texas a&m university sophomore aerospace engineering major decided to apply for the zachry leadership program the zachry leadership program is a collaborative effort between the dwight look college of engineering and zachry group the program aims to empower engineering students to become future leaders who are well versed in the free enterprise system collaborative in their decision-making and humbly self-confident in their behaviors simon is one of 32 students who are part of the first cohort of future engineers to make their way through the five-semester program the application opens april 15 for the next cohort which will begin january 2017 simons journey ever since his parents bought him a radio controlled helicopter for christmas when he was 8-years-old simon knew he wanted to be an engineer that made me curious about what made it fly and how it worked he said i knew then i wanted to be an engineer and learn how to build things and make peoples lives better his parents knew very early on their son would likely be an engineer they didnt push me to be an engineer though he said they were going to support me with whatever i did at age 12 simon took a flight from st louis to houston thats when he knew he wanted to become an aerospace engineer when it was time to apply to college he chose texas a&m because of its renowned aerospace program he said zachry leadership program simon said he didnt know what to expect when he first applied to the zachry leadership program what hes learned however has been much more than he ever would have imagined the program officially kicked off in january with a four-day retreat at camp allen in navasota texas through team-building activities and one-on-one collaborations simon said the retreat fostered an inclusive environment it built a lot of trust between different people he said you saw people getting close who didnt know each other it built camaraderie thats a lesson simon said he hopes to take with him after he graduates from texas a&m i think it has a really good correlation to when you go out to the workforce he said lets say that im a manager and im going to have people under me who i dont know a lot about but i trust that theyre going to follow through and trust them to actually complete the job that kind of environment fosters a successful environment he said i feel like it gives people more pressure to not disappoint the person that youre trusting he said simon and his classmates are also learning about business principals they might not gain from other engineering classes the class meets once a week to work on group projects and learn from industry leaders and professors its an opportunity for the students to gain something beyond mathematic equations and engineering concepts these are all lessons simon hopes to use later in life his goal is to one day own his own engineering business though hes not sure yet if hell go into manufacturing or research one thing he does know is he will be a leader to learn about the zachry leadership program click here
1265,of the four recipients of the college of engineerings 2016 instructional faculty teaching awards two are from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university dr tillie mcvay senior lecturer and dr john haglund lecturer will each formally receive their awards at the annual awards banquet on may 3 it is a privilege to teach students in engineering at texas a&m said mcvay these are some of the brightest college students in the nation and it is a joy to help them along in their education i am grateful that the college recognizes instructional faculty and humbled to be part of the group receiving a teaching award
1266,a robot assistant lifeguard called emily is making waves by helping migrants cross the mediterranean sea safely in the wake of unrest over 500 refugees have drowned attempting to cross the mediterranean from turkey to greece members from the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) center for robot-assisted search and rescue (crasar) and roboticists without borders gathered at the greek island of lesvos to assist the local coast guard and lifeguard organizations to prevent this from happening in the future dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university aided authorities in lesvos alongside crasar of which she is the director she is working with students to continually improve the lifesaving device which can carry up to eight people at once several undergraduate seniors are working on senior design projects that would help humanitarian efforts and five graduate students are working on an autonomous version of emily in murphys graduate level robotics class team tanks comprised of seniors timothy foster andy tran natalie rawle karrie cheng and shane scott chose to work on an app called draw me a picture as their senior capstone project the idea is that emily can display an animated gif illustrating what the responders want the refugees to do for example how to tie a rope to their boat so it can be pulled away from the rocks the app was presented at texas a&m student research week where the team placed first overall the undergraduate teams for the sigma xi symposium theme award as well as taking first place in the undergraduate oral division emilys creator tony mulligan is the ceo of hydronalix a company dedicated to the innovation of robotics and an active member in roboticists without borders the original emily built in 2010 was designed to assist swimmers caught in rip currents and bring them safely back to shore since 2010 these have been distributed to first responders around the world designed to speed out to those who require immediate relief emily gives the coast guard crucial time needed to save others in need emily can be thought of as a combination of a large life preserver with a battery powered miniature jet ski that a lifeguard can control remotely murphy began working with this type of robot and the manufacturer as part of the 2014 and 2015 summer institutes on flooding and the computing for disasters nsf research experience for undergraduates site grant this summer the institute will be focused on mass marine casualties such as refugees drownings what would happen if a cruise ship went down in galveston bay or a repeat of the cuban boat flotillas looking to the future emily can be effective in first response situations such as these murphys research was recently covered on npr all things considered and wired image: hellenic red cross team with emily
1267,approximately 700 students will participate in one of the largest nationwide events of its kind the fourth annual texas a&m university engineering project showcase on april 29 from noon to 4 pm in the hall of champions at kyle field more than $10 000 in prizes and awards will be given this year the showcase will feature work developed by almost 150 teams from areas such as capstone design classes aggie_challenge projects student design teams aggies invent engineering projects in community service (epics) undergraduate research and startup aggieland any student within the college of engineering has the opportunity to present a project at the showcase industry representatives are invited to attend to see the work of the engineering students and discuss collaborations on future students projects with faculty any industry representatives interested in judging are welcomed to help this year the event is free and open to the public attendees will have the opportunity to meet with the students involved in each project to discuss the details of the projects and learn how the students have applied their knowledge from the classroom to the solution in their projects for more information on the engineering project showcase or to serve as an industry judge please contact rodney boehm or magdalini lagoudas
1268,dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university served on a review panel of the national academies of science engineering and medicine which was charged with assessing the scientific and technical work performed by the national institute of standards and technology (nist) physical measurement laboratory (pml) the summary of the report states that the pml remains an outstanding institution of the highest standards and accomplishments broadly speaking the pml is dedicated to three fundamental and complementary tasks: (1) increase the accuracy of our knowledge of the physical parameters that are the foundation of our technology-driven society; (2) disseminate technologies by which these physical parameters can be accessed in a standardized way by the stakeholders; and (3) conduct research at both fundamental and applied levels to provide knowledge that may eventually lead to advances in measurement approaches and standards kezunovic who is also the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) smart grid center currently serves as the site director of the power engineering research center (pserc) and before joining texas a&m in 1986 he worked for westinghouse electric corp among his many honors kezunovic has been named the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) fellow and the council on large electric systems (cigre) fellow he has published more than 500 papers in journals and conference proceedings and was invited to give more than 100 lectures worldwide and is listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee pes while at texas a&m he has been the principal investigator on more than 100 research projects and supervised more than 50 graduate students the nist pml report is available at the website of the national academies press
1269,six students from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university notched seven awards including two first-place finishes for their research presentations at the universitys annual student research week (srw) event undergraduate students sarah chaudhri shannon ingram zachary lawson and rebecca sehnert and graduate students grace fletcher and scott herting all were recognized for their respective research projects at the three-day competition that highlights research occurring at texas a&m in which students play an active role formed in 1994 as a one-day poster event srw is in its 19th year each year srw enables hundreds of students from both the graduate and undergraduate levels to present their research in the form of oral or poster presentations not only does the event showcase student research at texas a&m srw honors excellence in research giving a huge value booster to a student's career fletcher who is advised by professor duncan maitland earned top honors in the oral competition for graduate students in the subject area of medicine biomedical engineering and neuroscience she presented her research on the development of biostable shape memory polymer foams for use in embolization devices another of maitlands students herting was honored at the event with the vice president of research: excellence in research award in the graduate category in the undergraduate poster competition for medicine biomedical engineering and neuroscience ingram who is advised by assistant professor michael moreno earned top honors for her poster detailing the degenerative effects of mild to moderate blast-induced traumatic brain injury ingram also was honored with the sigma xi interdisciplinary award at the event in that same subject area the team of chaudhri and lawson – also working with moreno – received second-place honors for its research poster detailing the development of a novel 3-d printed total knee replacement technology in the subject area of engineering and architecture sehnert who is advised by associate professor melissa grunlan was recognized with a second-place finish for her presentation that focused on the development of a tissue engineering scaffold based on synthetic polymers to heal damage of osteochondral tissues in the knee and in other joints srw enables students faculty and the community to see the depth and breadth of research conducted at texas a&m srw events include expert panels resource tables presentations by industrial partners research symposiums and keynote addresses from esteemed speakers in addition to these sessions students have the opportunity to volunteer during the week and support their peers by attending any of the poster or oral presentation sessions graduate students who volunteer to serve as judges gain immensely from this valuable experience srw is a premiere program of the graduate and professional student council and is the largest event that the council organizes about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1270,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering recently announced the recipients of the 2016 dean of engineering excellence award two assistant professors two associate professors and two full professors received the award each award winner will receive a monetary gift and recognition piece at an awards banquet on may 3 assistant professors: gretchen miller zachry department of civil engineering michael moreno department of mechanical engineering associate professors: elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez department of biomedical engineering arum han department of electrical and computer engineering full professors: rosana moreira department of biological and agricultural engineering mark holtzapple artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering
1271,timothy brown doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has received the national science foundations graduate research fellowship the five-year fellowship will include a $34 000 annual stipend and a $12 000 cost-of education allowancebrowns doctoral research focuses on materials for room-temperature magnetic refrigeration this method of refrigeration uses cyclic application and removal of magnetic fields in order to reduce the energy consumption and environmental impact of current systems i believe brown is very deserving of this award – it speaks to his maturity as a researcher and his demonstrated interest in advancing science among his peers and mentoring undergraduate researchers in the lab said dr patrick shamberger assistant professor in materials science and engineering nsf awards the fellowship to individuals selected early in their careers based on their demonstrated potential for significant achievement in science and engineering more than 17 000 applicants representing a diverse group of scientific disciplines from all states applied for the fellowship brown has also been selected for the national defense science and engineering graduate fellowship a highly competitive portable fellowship that lasts three years and pays for full tuition and all mandatory fees
1272,dr i-hong hou assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a research instrumentation award from the us department of defense (dod) for his proposal equipment for research in network and systems the award is the result of a merit competition called the defense university research instrumentation program which is jointly conducted by three dod research offices: the army research office the office of naval research and the air force office of scientific research the program is highly competitive and the three research offices collectively received 622 proposals requesting $209 million in support for research equipment only 176 researchers from 96 academic institutions across the united states received the award which supports the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment that augments current university capabilities or develops new capabilities to perform cutting edge defense research and associated graduate student research training hou won the award from the army research office along with collaborator and dr pr kumar professor and dr paul gratz associate professor from the department hous proposal addresses procuring equipment to support research in networking computing and storage it will support faculty members and students in the computer engineering and systems group conducting research under the dod and other areas including wireless networking programmable medium access control software defined networking cyber-physical systems and systems for emerging storage-class memory the equipment will be used to build a new system the cesg networking and systems high performance cluster hou received his bachelor of science in electrical engineering from national taiwan university and his master of science and phd in computer science from the university of illinois urbana-champaign he received the cw gear outstanding graduate student award from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign and the silver prize in the asian pacific mathematics olympiad his research interests include wireless networks wireless sensor networks real-time systems distributed systems and vehicular ad hoc networks
1273,dr jenn-tai liang professor and holder of the john e & deborah f bethancourt endowed professorship in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university was selected to receive the prestigious 2016 improved oil recovery (ior) pioneer award liang is one of five recipients and received the award at the 20th society of petroleum engineers (spe) improved oil recovery conference held in tulsa oklahoma this month liang is the only academic member among the five awardees his research exemplifies the contributions to pioneering work in the enhanced and improved oil recovery fields within the petroleum sciences made by faculty at top universities i am honored to receive this prestigious award from spe and would like to share this honor with my current and past research team members said liang without their hard work and contributions i could have never achieved what i have accomplished liang has made important contributions in several diverse areas of petroleum engineering including n2 and co2 extraction of hydrocarbons use of neural networks wettability alteration water shutoff and in-depth conformance control his current research focus is on developing promising uses of nanotechnology for improved oil recovery applications based on drug-delivery technologies from the pharmaceutical industry his research group successfully developed chemical delivery systems that use nano drug carriers to protect oilfield chemicals from the hostile underground environments this is accomplished by delaying the release of entrapped chemicals so that they can be transported to desired locations in the reservoir example applications in improved oil recovery include in-depth conformance control chemical and microbial eor flow assurance and hydraulic fracturing fluid cleanup liang has been awarded six us patents with five more pending for his work in nanotechnology he is currently an spe distinguished lecturer for the 2015-2016 lecturer season the other recipients of the 2016 spe ior pioneer award include richard hutchins sada joshi lanny schoeling and ali yousef
1274,researchers in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university are working to make life easier through research that is revolutionizing society the long awaited day of 3-d printed replacement body parts may be just around the corner; along with the day of producing metal more quickly and efficiently thanks to the work of those in the advanced manufacturing field a team of researchers comprised of dr satish ts bukkapatnam dr alaa elwany dr dinakar sagapuram and dr shiren wang is working in four core areas: precision and smart manufacturing additive and hybrid manufacturing nano and bio manufacturing and manufacturing enterprise systems during the past two years the core members of this group have together secured or brought with them seven federal grants to address the contemporary challenges in advanced manufacturing said bukkapatnam rockwell international professor in industrial and systems engineering these grants fund the research that takes place in state-of-the-art facilities such as the advanced manufacturing facility part of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) institute of manufacturing systems (ims) this facility promotes cutting-edge interdisciplinary research said bukkapatnam who serves as the director of ims there are four colleges working together in here they are engineering architecture veterinary medicine and science as well as the texas a&m health science center working together with 30 other faculty members across the college of engineering these researchers are changing society securing our world with a rise in competition and security perceptions globally the need for smart manufacturing and continuous round-the-clock monitoring of quality and integrity of our security measures is necessary for the survival of modern engineering systems bukkapatnams team has identified these needs in precision and nano-manufacturing processes for making personalized and custom parts particularly in the medical transportation and defense sectors sensor technologies are becoming available to interrogate any aspect of modern engineering systems at every conceivable scale of a product process or system bukkapatnam said these sensors have the capability to capture a variety of information on the product process or system this poses a new challenge: connecting the large-amounts of sensor data to bring significant improvements to the design and operations of these engineering systems the core of this research is to harness information on the nonlinear stochastic dynamics and the emergent behaviors bukkapatnam said this includes chaos self-organization and long-range dependencies in the form of customized multi-scale representations and formal models and to track features separated from these models to monitor and control the quality and integrity of complex systems bukkapatnam and his team have now expanded this research to the world of cyber manufacturing that is creating a virtual manufacturing set-up that has the ability to translate the clients needs into a product or process that can be implemented immediately they are working collaboratively with support from the national science foundation printing for the future focused on modeling analysis and control of next-generation manufacturing processes with special emphasis on additive manufacturing known as 3-d printing elwany is working to improve the quality of metallic parts produced using 3-d printing the main contribution of my research is to enable the production of 3-d printed parts with high levels of geometric complexity and unique physical and mechanical properties that are simply not possible or extremely expensive to produce using traditional manufacturing methods such as machining or injection molding elwany said three-dimensional printing will change the way the world knows the manufacturing industry in art construction customization energy use medicine product availability sciences and waste reduction elwany is currently working with nasa and the air force office of scientific research to test his methods in the space and defense industries the research today will improve the products produced and make them fully functional by the end user improving lives with more that one million people going through surgery to repair the tear in their meniscus every year wang is exploring the additive manufacturing of synthetic knee cartilage for meeting biomedical requirements by using 3-d printing wang is looking for solutions to eliminate the risk of pathogen transmission immune rejection and tissue mismatch for patients facing meniscus transplantation surgery first the printed material must be compatible with the environment it is placed in around the knee wang said second the material must allow the knee to function properly the leg still needs to be able to kick the ball and run in addition to 3-d printing synthetic materials wang developed a way to scale up nanoparticles and create structured forests that improve the performance of energy storage the discovery of these forests made up of tiny particles could revolutionize the current energy storage technology on the market these nanostructured forests are the future batteries wang said they will greatly enhance the performance of energy storage including cell phone and laptop batteries wang is working with and funded by the national science foundation under the faculty early career development program creating new ideas the advanced manufacturing team from texas a&m and tees was selected by the white house to lead the new gulf coast regional advanced manufacturing center the new center is a part of the clean energy smart manufacturing innovative institution which will be comprised of five regional centers located across the country researchers in the department of industrial engineering are making strides in changing the way manufacturing can easily meet the needs of our instantaneous society while maintaining a quality end product manufacturing essentially involves creating products that have value bukkapatnam said as the nation engages in various manufacturing initiatives including additive smart and nano manufacturing there is a growing opportunity for the industrial community to engage in fundamental investigations combining physical and data science principles to address major future challenges
1275,three professors in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university presented aspects of their research at texas optimization day held recently at the annenberg presidential conference center dr jianer chen presented his talk dealing with 4-variables by resolution: improved max-sat problem during his presentation he discussed the obstacles that are presented when trying to solve the max-sat problem the major contribution of chens research in this area is to identify situations in which the resolution principle can be effectively used in processing max-sat instances dr j maurice rojas joint professor in math and computer science discussed polynomial optimization he stated that fast optimization is impossible without fast polynomial system solving one of rojas' research areas is fewnomial theory – the art of finding faster algorithms for large equations that have special structure such as sparsity or hidden symmetries he then went over recent progress in fewnomial theory that points the way to dramatically faster algorithms useful in applications such as robotics and chemical reaction dynamics dr tiffani williams presented her talk combinatorial optimization and the tree of life williams examined phylogenetics and the importance of understanding the relationships between specific genes that are shared by many types of organisms texas optimization day provided an excellent forum on current trends of research in optimization and its applications and brought together experts at the research frontiers in the area to exchange ideas and to present recent progresses in their research chen said
1276,dr john niedzwecki cain '13 senior chair in offshore technology and regents professor in the zachry department of civil engineering and the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university was invited to join the international advisory board for the collaborative innovation center for advanced ship and deep-sea exploration (cisse) cisse is a research center of excellence established by the chinese government lead by shanghai jiao tong university (sjtu) and supported in part by the offshore industry the mission of the center is to define and implement a comprehensive science-based research program that engages international expertise from industry universities and research institutes the center is expected to be a catalyst for increasing international collaborative research and student exchanges in ocean science and engineering cisse partners in china include the china state shipbuilding corporation china national offshore oil corporation huazhong university of science and technology tianjin university dalian university of technology china ship scientific research center and china classification society niedzwecki will attend the cisse board of advisors meeting hosted at sjtu in may he also serves on the editorial board for the journal of ocean engineering and science the universitys new journal that is published by elsevier niedzwecki came to texas a&m more than 30 years ago as an assistant professor in 1998 he was named head of the civil engineering department a position he held until 2003 during his tenure niedzwecki was instrumental in leading the department to rank among the nation's top 10 programs he then served as executive associate dean for the dwight look college of engineering and associate agency director for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) in june 2010 he returned to the civil engineering department where he again served as department head until april 2013 whereupon he returned to teaching and research he specializes in offshore civil engineering and was instrumental in securing the national science foundation offshore technology research center for tees and the texas a&m university system niedzwecki is a fellow in the american society of civil engineers (asce) and was elected diplomate in the specialty of ocean engineering by its academy of coastal ocean port and navigation engineers he remains actively engaged with faculty at the norwegian institute of science and technology and the university of stavanger and holds visiting appointments at shanghai jiao tong university and woods hole oceanographic institution
1277,the texas a&m energy institute hosted a one-day conference on monday april 4 2016 to create an opportunity for researchers across the state to share their research and educational developments in the field texas optimization day made possible by sponsorships provided a chance for researchers practitioners and policymakers in the state of texas to collaborate and as a result build a community to promote fundamental and applied optimization research in the region dr sergiy butenko professor and donna and jim furber ‘64 faculty fellow in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was one of the organizers of the inaugural event since this is the first year for this event a goal of ours is to decide on the format locations and potential sources of funding for the texas optimization day in the future butenko said dr christodoulos a floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute and erie nye ‘59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m was pleased with the response they received for the event i am excited to see so many people from the various institutions around the state floudas said we were pleased to welcome representatives from the university of texas at arlington prairie view a&m university houston baptist university rice university the university of texas at dallas southern methodist university the university of houston and texas a&m university presentations covered topics from improving the flow of the shipping industry to finding cohesive groups within graphs to social media advertisement costs dr stratos pistikopoulos associate director of the texas a&m energy institute and tees distinguished research professor in chemical engineering was impressed with the vast range of topics that were presented it was very interesting to hear the kinds of things our peers are working on he said i am excited to see the partnerships that develop as a result of the event today floudas is passionate about impacting society through energy research and looks forward to the future of the event the energy institute is focused on important scientific and technological energy challenges that impact our society he said with events like the texas optimization day we are creating relationships among researchers that will help conquer those challenges
1278,"the 2016 texas a&m robotics workshop held recently hosted an array of distinguished speakers from institutions around the world whose research is rooted in robotics the 12 researchers who presented at the workshop are area chairs for the 2016 robotics science and systems conference (rss) which will be held this summer in ann arbor michigan the workshop held at the emerging technologies building was open to the public and over 250 students staff and faculty attended attendees traveled from the university of texas rice university and many other institutions we had many freshman engineering honors students attend; it was a great opportunity for them to get exposed to a multidisciplinary area such as robotics that touches on so many areas of engineering and science said dr nancy m amato unocal professor and senior director of the engineering honors program topics of discussion included the workflow of humans versus robots soft robotics and the lessons that can be learned from nature autonomous vehicles and robotic companions attendees had the opportunity to tour the parasol lab which amato co-directs and the netbot lab which computer science associate professor dr dezhen song directs the day concluded with a panel discussion which touched on issues ranging from technical topics such as reproducibility and validation in robotics research to a philosophical debate about how robotics will change the future of society the panel included the workshop speakers as well as dr mac schwager from stanford university and texas a&m computer science associate professor dr dylan shell ""it is a rare honor to have a cross-section of robotics research with topics and approaches that are so broad while also being presented by speakers among the very leaders of the field shell said moreover the general feeling of optimism conveyed by the panel discussion on the future of robotics was extraordinarily encouraging and i hope it will help fuel the interests of the next generation of researchers"" the workshop was organized by amato who is also director on the foundation board for the upcoming rss conference and was sponsored by the parasol lab the department of computer science at texas a&m and rss shawna thomas sam rodriguez jory denny and chinwe ekenna served as session chairs this event is an invaluable opportunity for top notch robotics researchers to gather and exchange ideas song said it is also an opportunity for our students to learn the different topics in the big field of robotics which will help them to broaden their research vision workshop speakers included: kostas bekris (rutgers university) song (texas a&m) matei ciocarlie (columbia university) eiichi yoshida (national institute of advanced industrial science and technology (aist)) raffaella carloni (university of twente) julie shah (massachusetts institute of technology (mit)) cecilia laschi (scuola superiore sant'anna) ming c lin (university of north carolina at chapel hill) hedvig kjellström (kth royal institute of technology) sertac karaman (mit) and dana kulic (university of waterloo) about rss: robotics science and systems is a conference that brings together researchers working on algorithmic or mathematical foundations of robotics robotics applications and analysis of robotic systems papers are solicited in all areas of robotics the final program will be the result of a highly selective review process designed to include the best work of its kind in every category the conference is single track to allow attendees an opportunity to see the best research in all areas of robotics the program includes invited talks as well as oral and poster presentations of refereed papers proactive efforts are underway to keep conference expenses affordable particularly for student attendees"
1279,dr darren hartl tees research assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the gary anderson early achievement award from the aerospace division of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the award is given to a young researcher in his or her ascendancy whose work has already had an impact in his/her field within adaptive structures and material systems recipients are selected by the adaptive structures and materials branch of asme hartl currently holds joint appointments at the air force research laboratory as a research scientist in the materials and manufacturing directorate and a visiting researcher in the aerospace systems directorate his work bridges the topics of advanced multifunctional material systems and their integration into aerospace platforms in his current role at texas a&m he works with a team of graduate students to address research problems ranging from self-folding origami-based structures to self-regulating morphing radiators for spacecraft to avian-inspired morphing aircraft hartl has over 13 years of experience working with shape memory alloys (smas) and morphing structures and his efforts have included both experimental and theoretical studies he has worked collaboratively with both governmental and industrial sponsors considering medical oil exploration aeronautical and space-related applications hartl received his bachelors degree in 2004 and his phd in 2009 both in aerospace engineering and both from texas a&m he was inducted into the aerospace engineering distinguished alumni academy in 2015 as an outstanding young aerospace engineer
1280,dr kyle t alfriend professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the 2016 texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award for research given since 1995 this award recognizes those individuals whose research efforts have been particularly significant and outstanding and are so recognized locally nationally and internationally the results of these research efforts should have added substantially to the basic body of knowledge contributed to the improvement of the quality of life and/or encouraged additional research for more than 40 years alfriend has been making key contributions to the understanding of the flight mechanics and control of space vehicles his career includes an unusually rich mix of experience in academia industry and government his innovations appear prominently in subjects as diverse as analytical celestial mechanics; satellite formation flying; attitude dynamics and control; surveillance of space; probabilistic problems in astrodynamics including probability-of-collision formulations used by nasa to ensure safety of manned space flight; and application of space systems to intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance it is remarkable that papers from every phase of his career continue to be cited regularly at conferences and in journals in addition to his academic and industrial posts alfriend has served as editor-in-chief of the journal of guidance control and dynamics as editor-in-chief of the journal of the astronautical sciences and as associate editor of the international journal of celestial mechanics and dynamical astronomy his many high honors include election to the national academy of engineering election to the international academy of astronautics and citation with the navy meritorious civilian service award he is an honorary fellow of the aiaa and a fellow the aas and has received both the mechanics and control of flight award and the dirk brouwer award from these societies in 2005 he received the aaas international scientific cooperation award for his decade-long efforts to organize the us/russian space surveillance workshop series he continues today as one of the two principal american organizers of this unique contribution to international understanding
1281,the texas a&m engineering experiment stations turbomachinery laboratorys first asia turbomachinery and pump symposium (atps) was recently featured in an article in international turbomachinery the article highlights the success of the symposium while outlining the challenges the atps faced namely that most in the oil and gas industry are cutting back because the price of oil sits at one of its lowest prices in decades the event was held feb 22-26 at the marina bay sands dr luis san andrés mast-childs professor at texas a&m university and associate director of the turbo lab is featured in the article talking about the value that the turbo lab can bring to singapore with the success of the inaugural atps there are discussions for a stand-alone technical program in singapore next year and planning is already underway for the next atps in 2018 read the full article here: https://wwwturbomachinerymagcom/atps-shines-in-a-tough-market/
1282,dr pr kumar professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the prestigious ieee infocom achievement award at the ieee infocom conference the ieee infocom achievement award is the highest honor that can be bestowed on a researcher in the infocom community the recipient should have a body of work that has had significant impacts on the networking community in general and infocom in particular kumar the engineering chair in computer engineering won the award for contributions to the scaling laws of wireless networks kumar has made fundamental contributions to the infocom community his research papers in scaling laws and real-time scheduling for wireless networks have influenced researchers around the world he is best known for his pioneering work on scaling laws for wireless networks which has fundamentally impacted the research community for close to a decade kumar is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the world academy of sciences he was awarded an honorary doctorate by eth zurich he received the outstanding contribution award of acm sigmobile the ieee field award for control systems the donald p eckman award of the american automatic control council and the fred w ellersick prize of the ieee communications society kumar is an acm fellow and a fellow of ieee he was a guest chair professor and leader of the guest chair professor group on wireless communication and networking at tsinghua university beijing china he is an honorary professor at iit hyderabad he is a d j gandhi distinguished visiting professor at iit bombay and a visiting professor in the robert bosch centre for cyberphysical systems at the indian institute of science bangalore he was also awarded the distinguished alumnus award from iit madras the alumni achievement award from washington university in st louis and the daniel c drucker eminent faculty award from the college of engineering at the university of illinois ieee infocom is a top-ranked conference on networking in the research community it is a major conference venue for researchers to present and exchange significant and innovative contributions and ideas in the field of networking and closely related areas ieee infocom covers both theoretical and systems research
1283,of the five faculty members selected to receive 2015-2016 college of engineering faculty fellow awards two recipients are from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university dr anastasia muliana professor was named a william keeler fellow dr choongho yu associate professor was named a william and montine p head fellow i am honored and grateful to receive the prestigious william and montine p head fellow award yu said this recognition has encouraged me to continue striving for excellence in research and education the award recipients will be honored at the college awards ceremony in may
1284,the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university will host the shannon event on saturday (april 9) in conjunction with the texas a&m physics and engineering festival april 30 marks the 100th birthday of claude shannon who is best known for developing the mathematical foundations of communication (establishing the field of information theory) data compression digital computers cryptography circuit complexity flow networks and juggling as well as laying foundations of artificial intelligence and human–computer interaction the shannon event will include booths and a poster presentation in the mitchell physics building with hands-on activities such as real-time face/body tracking with ptz -panning camera tilting and zooming there will also be a public presentation by dr krishna narayanan and dr tie liu titled claude shannon: a pioneer of the information age the presentation will be at noon in room 106 of the jack e brown chemical engineering building for more information about the physics and engineering festival visit http://physicsfestivaltamuedu/
1285,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been named the recipient of the ieee region 5 outstanding individual award this is the second year in a row he has received the award dehghanian will receive the award at the 2016 ieee region 5 annual conference during the awards banquet on saturday (april 9) the award is given to those who have exceeded their responsibilities in ieee committees and volunteer jobs for ieee promotion such as those who have demonstrated excellent research success and publication records and outstanding editorial and reviewing services to ieee conferences and journals region 5 covers all the ieee activities in the southwestern united states and includes eight states texas louisiana colorado oklahoma arkansas kansas missouri and wyoming within region 5 there are more than 23 000 higher grade members and 3 600 student members they are aligned with 26 sections and more than 90 student branches dehghanian received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications
1286,dr akhil datta-gupta regents professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the l f peterson '36 endowed chair in petroleum engineering has been appointed a university distinguished professor one of the highest honors awarded to texas a&m faculty members datta-gupta was one of three professors honored with the title which is bestowed in perpetuity the designation of distinguished professor denotes a faculty member who is preeminent in his or her field has made at least one seminal contribution to the discipline and whose work is central in any narrative of the field and is widely recognized to have changed the direction of scholarship in the field more than 85 current faculty members hold this prestigious title university distinguished professors represent the highest level of achievement for our faculty said dr karan l watson provost and executive vice president they are recognized as pre-eminent scholars in their fields and their accomplishments are exemplified by seminal contributions to their respective disciplines they demonstrate to the world the high quality of scholarship underway at texas a&m university datta-gupta joined the faculty of the college of engineering in 1994 after working for bp exploration/research and the lawrence berkeley national laboratory he earned his phd in petroleum engineering from the university of texas at austin datta-gupta was elected to the us national academy of engineering for developing the theory and practice of streamline simulation for fluid flow in heterogeneous reservoirs three-dimensional streamline simulation is widely considered as one of the major developments in petroleum reservoir modeling and performance forecasting in the last two decades the technology has been rapidly assimilated by the industry for highly detailed flow simulation reservoir management geologic model calibration and uncertainty assessment several commercial reservoir simulators have been developed based on his streamline ‘time of flight concept professor datta-guptas foundational work on streamline simulation has created an entire new area of reservoir engineering and has established him as a prominent scholar in petroleum engineering said dr dan hill head of the petroleum engineering department his selection as a texas a&m university distinguished professor is a fitting recognition of professor datta-guptas stature among his many awards datta-gupta has received the carll award and the uren award two of the top three technical awards given by the society of petroleum engineers and was elected to the texas academy of medicine engineering and science he has coauthored the textbook streamline simulation: theory and practice which set forth the foundations of modern streamline simulation technology his second book subsurface fluid flow and imaging is scheduled for publication by the cambridge university press in early 2016 datta-gupta is a registered professional engineer in the state of texas and consults for oil and gas companies worldwide texas a&m president michael k young and the texas a&m foundation will host a reception on april 27 recognizing the three new university distinguished professors and honoring all of the university distinguished professors more information including a complete list of university distinguished professors is available online at http://doftamuedu/awards-and-honors/university-distinguished-professor
1287,the department of physics and astronomy and department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university invite audiences across texas the nation and even the world to get up close and personal with science and technology this spring at the 2016 physics & engineering festival an entertaining and informative weekend scientific extravaganza for all agesno fees or tickets are required for the free annual event (view promotional poster online) scheduled for saturday april 9 from 10 am to 5 pm at the george p mitchell '40 physics building on the texas a&m campusactivities will begin at 10 am with hands-on science exhibitions and engineering technology demonstrations and conclude with a 4 pm public lecture by internationally recognized theoretical physicist and author of popular books and the preposterous universe blog dr sean m carroll research professor of physics at the california institute of technology and a past ted speaker all events are hosted by texas a&m physics and astronomy and texas a&m aerospace engineering in partnership with several other campus units including the departments of chemistry mathematics and atmospheric sciences as well as the brazos valley museum of natural historythroughout the day festival participants are encouraged to unleash their inner scientists aboard a square-wheeled bicycle run through a pool of cornstarch and try their hands at generating electricity or shooting balloons with lasers -- four of the more than 150 fun experiments and displays illustrating basic scientific and engineering technology-related concepts and principles all exhibits are manned by texas a&m faculty staff and students for the fourth consecutive year the festival will showcase dozens of exciting new demonstrations built by student teams affiliated with the university-funded deep (discover explore and enjoy physics and engineering) program hundreds of deep students undergraduate and graduate have been involved in creating the new demos during the years and many will be on hand to present their workin addition to exhibits the daylong festival will feature three fantastic performances of the science circus (11 am 1 pm 2:30 pm) by physics showman rhys thomas who teaches newtonian physics through a rare blend of science comedy and circus arts in a performance often compared to a pixar movie attendees also will have the opportunity to meet nobel prize-winning texas a&m physicists dr dudley r herschbach and dr david m lee as well as nasa astronaut and professor dr bonnie dunbar a veteran mission specialist and payload commander with the space shuttle program who flew on five missions in three successive lecture sessions scheduled for 11 am 1 pm and 2 pm respectively in the stephen w hawking auditoriumother special events on tap include large hadron collider virtual tours at noon and 1:30 pm as well as four performances of the low-temperature physics extravaganza at 10:30 am noon 1:30 pm and 3 pm finally a texas-sixed five-barrel depth charge featuring 1 000 plastic balls will close out the exhibition portion of the show at 3:30 pm outside the mitchell physics buildingat 4 pm carroll will deliver a keynote presentation the origin of the universe and the arrow of time that will discuss the differences between the universe's past and future as well as the one constant throughout -- time carroll will examine the nature of time the origin of entropy and how what happened before the big bang may be responsible for the arrow of time we observe todayprior to saturday's events texas a&m climate scientist dr andrew dessler professor of atmospheric sciences will deliver a free public lecture the historical development of climate science and why you should believe it on friday (april 8) at 7 pm in the hawking auditorium tickets are not required for the event in which dessler will review the history and science of climate change and explain why scientists remain convinced despite the ongoing and often heated debate in the public sector dessler also will touch on aspects of his research on climate feedbacks -- in particular how water vapor and clouds act to amplify warming from the carbon dioxide that humans emit -- and his experience which includes a stint as a senior policy analyst in the white house office of science and technology policyall events are sponsored by the texas a&m university system the department of physics and astronomy the george p and cynthia woods mitchell institute for fundamental physics and astronomy the texas a&m college of science external advisory and development council exxonmobil the willard and anne levin foundation and the department of aerospace engineering the event is an affiliate festival of the 5th annual usa science and engineering festival as well as a member of the science festival alliance
1288,three texas a&m university engineering students have been awarded scholarships from the national society of black engineers (nsbe) all three accepted their award at the nsbe national convention in boston eugene obeng a junior chemical engineering major and the membership chair for the nsbe tamu chapter was awarded the general mills scholarship adaora atuegbu a freshman in engineering was awarded the board of corporate affiliates scholarship atuegbu who plans on studying electrical engineering is the chapters public relations chair and a freshman executive board member alexis scott a senior in industrial engineering and the programs chair for the chapter was awarded the fulfilling the legacy scholarship the students traveled to boston in march for the nsbes 2016 annual convention attending the convention gave these students an opportunity to network with industries and their peers while participating in seminars and forums as well as recruiting i am excited about the prospects of growing my network of professionals developing my skills in workshops and professional developmental events as well as gaining greater insight into academic excellence at the national level said obeng the three students have also become involved with the access and inclusion program within the dwight look college of engineering the program works with underrepresented students on campus and provides additional resources for their success both academically and professionally i am extremely proud of our students said dr sonia garcia senior director of the access and inclusion program it is incredibly rewarding to see our tamu nsbe students being recognized nationally for the superb work on their chapter but also and most importantly for their academic accomplishments they are certainly great role models for the rest of the community the mission of the nsbe is to increase the number of culturally responsible black engineers who excel academically succeed professionally and positively impact the community for more information on the texas a&m chapter of the nsbe visit its website
1289,ray rothrock a venture capitalist and former student of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university has established the ray rothrock lecture series the series will feature a variety of national and international speakers discussing the possibilities for change and innovation within the nuclear industry the series is expected to begin in the fall of 2016 at the texas a&m campus in college station texas each speaker will discuss a different topic regarding the impact of the nuclear industry in an effort to reach out to students to change the way they perceive the opportunities they can pursue with a nuclear engineering degree nuclear innovation is alive and well in america rothrock said there are so many individuals some of them in the department of energy others who are ceos and engineers of startup companies who are all innovative in their thinking and approaches to advances in the nuclear industry and we want to share that thinking with the students rothrock was inspired to establish the lecture series to expose students to what he calls the bigger nuclear universe according to rothrock many students develop limited vision in regard to what opportunities are available to nuclear engineers in the professional world when i go down to talk to students at any university a good portion of them wind up in an energy business other than on the nuclear side rothrock said there is nothing wrong with that but they need to have their horizons broadened beyond what traditional recruiters at a&m and elsewhere provide including national labs and government-based organizations it would be great that they know there are some non-westinghouse opportunities out there rothrock has planned to fund the series for three or four years with six to eight speakers per year in selecting the individuals who would be speaking at texas a&m rothrock has encouraged and sought out individuals he feels have been innovative in their approaches toward the nuclear industry these individuals are all tremendous speakers and i think will be able to connect with students about how changes occur with the way people look at nuclear rothrock said we want to bring in people from the outside and talk about current issues that are related to nuclear power such as how it can benefit the environment and eliminate waste these topics draw big crowds and are topics that arent traditionally being talked about in the classroom but interest many young students rothrock earned his bachelors degree in nuclear engineering from texas a&m in 1977 and later became a partner in the venture capital firm venrock a firm dedicated to creating and financing technology solutions rothrock has long remained a proponent of nuclear clean energy his co-production of pandoras promise in 2013 a film that made the case for nuclear power as a clean and safe energy source helped to reinitiate a national conversation about where nuclear power fits in the clean energy universe in his current work rothrock and his associates work with legislators the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) and the department of energy (doe) to promote an environment that will foster the development of advanced reactors by nuclear startups and encourage the use of nuclear energy power sources im glad to be able to do this rothrock said the lecture series is funded with money i provided to the department that was intended to explore when they came back with the idea for using it for a lecture series it really rang true because exposing students to the bigger nuclear universe is i think really important
1290,the inaugural asia turbomachinery and pump symposium (atps) organized by the texas a&m engineering experiment stations turbomachinery laboratory debuted feb 22-26 2016 at the marina bay sands in singapore asias market center the event serves as an ideal training and networking opportunity for professionals in both turbomachinery and pump industries building on the outstanding success of the longstanding turbomachinery and pump symposia held annually in houston texas the success of atps 2016 notably marks the turbo labs largest foray into asia with more than 900 individuals in attendance 42 companies in 67 booths 90 hand-selected technical sessions and plans for an atps 2018 already underway atps 2016s technical program presented by engineers and selected by an advisory committee of industry experts included topics such as maintenance design and troubleshooting as well as case studies describing in-the-field problems and their real-world solutions the extensive program featured 24 case studies 16 lectures 10 short courses 6 technical briefs 22 tutorials and 12 discussion groups for a total of 90 sessions by attending all or part of the sessions working engineers earned continuing education credit the technical program is neatly coupled with a cutting-edge exhibit hall with booths of leading companies from the oil and gas petrochemical power pumping and turbomachinery industries exhibitors and attendees from 38 countries networked within the marina bay sands exhibit hall a from its inception atps was met with great enthusiasm receiving considerable financial academic and partnering support from a diverse array of institutions including mitsubishi heavy industries ltd elliott group ebara corp the national university of singapore nanyang technological university the korea rotating machinery engineers association the singapore workforce development agency the singapore exhibition and convention bureau and the gas turbine users forum much needed in the region atps has established a vital forum for interchange of ideas among users oems and service providers said dr luis san andrés atps advisory committee chairman and turbo lab associate director there is an obvious interest in the engineering community in the knowledge provided by the atps program content and in the interactive forum of atps since the close of atps 2016 the enthusiasm has not diminished on the contrary plans for a stand-alone technical program in singapore 2017 are currently under discussion and atps 2018 is already confirmed with planning underway
1291,the only thing separating texas a&m university from the largest medical facility in the world is 90 miles a recent three-day workshop brought individuals from the texas medical center and the dwight look college of engineering together for a discussion about cardiovascular health and the challenges facing physicians in 2016 the event was spearheaded by dr kumbakonam rajagopal the jm forsyth chair regents professor and distinguished professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m some of the biggest names and brightest minds in cardiovascular medicine attended the workshop held at the texas a&m university institute of biosciences and technology in houston the outcome we are expecting of course is to understand the issues and then hopefully use the skill sets we have to start writing proposals to federal agencies said dr nk anand executive associate dean of engineering and associate director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) we are interested in transformational research which will benefit society and humans it could be anything from a better heart device to mitigate restriction in arteries better sensors better monitoring any of these issues that will be a huge impact that we can have glen laine texas a&m university vice president for research said that as a land grant institution texas a&m has a responsibility to the residents of the state of texas in this case its directly applicable to the health of the residents of the state of texas laine said at texas a&m we have a long history of expertise in agriculture and engineering and in recent years the chancellor has made it possible for our own health science center to rejoin the university having tremendous capability in the dwight look college of engineering we have looked around and found that many of the clinical assets that we need can be found within the texas medical center dr igor gregoric a thoracic and cardiac surgeon said collaborations like this are absolutely necessary without that [collaborations] it is impossible to reach the milestones and the goals for improving technology which needs to be improved he said we still have some complications from these devices and i think the future will be better and brighter gregoric said while physicians do the clinical portion of the equation engineers do the technical portion dr oh bud frazier a pioneer in the development of heart pumps echoed that sentiment so many of the advances in modern medicine are related to technology and the development of technology he said pacemakers probably had a bigger influence on the health of patients than any other technology but that of course had to do with the engineering and electronics as well frazier who has performed more than 1 100 heart transplants in his career said heart surgery has changed drastically over the years it really depended on the technical aspect of the procedure it depended on the doctor he said it was more art than science one of the biggest barriers i had to overcome was i had to work with engineers in california or boston or minneapolis none of them were in texas despite the fact that we had the largest medical center in the world i hope to see that change dr keshava rajagopal a cardiac surgeon said what he does clinically depends on understanding cardiovascular disease making accurate and precise diagnosis and treating diseases using state of the art technology every one of those three things is dependent on sound engineering understanding of disease principals and as those principals are then applied and extrapolated to technology development for therapies he said were critically dependent upon engineers at every level for what we do and its certainly my hope that workshops and symposia such as these between institutions in the texas medical center and texas a&m will foster advances in our field the workshop was sponsored by the texas a&m engineering experiment station texas a&m engineering and texas a&m mechanical engineering
1292,the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center will host the fourth annual smart grid workshop at the memorial student center on the texas a&m university campus on april 28 this year's workshop will focus on smart grids big data big data in smart electric grids comes from many domains associated with power system operation (generation transmission and distribution customers services and markets) as well as other seemingly unrelated yet synergistically intertwined domains such as other energy commodity markets (gas and oil) environment and weather the significance of this type of data is in the diversity of its sources growth rate and spatiotemporal characteristics the workshop will include invited talks panels and focus group discussions as well as a student poster session there will be opportunities to interact with faculty and students from a number of universities as well as with professionals representing industry government/national labs and several other organizations interested in the topic registration includes workshop participation refreshments a post-workshop reception and student poster displays the registration deadline is april 21 after this deadline the registration fees remain the same but registration includes only workshop participation with no lunch or post-workshop reception due to the catering arrangement deadlines for more information on the event visit https://smartgridcentertamuedu/
1293,dr daniele mortari professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been invited to present the theory of flower constellations to several academic and industry audiences flower constellations are special satellite constellations whose satellites follow the same 3-d space track with respect to assigned rotating reference frame mortari gave a presentation at buffalo university this past weekend and will present to mcgill university (april 4) the massachusetts institute of technology (april 6) google (may 3) and nps the flower constellations theory evolution began with luigi broglios sistem quadrifoglio a four-satellite configuration to study how the upper part of the atmosphere the troposphere is affected by solar activity in 2003 mortari generalized some properties of this constellation and created the original theory of flower constellations this new way to design satellite constellations has generated interesting subsets such as the shape-preserving constellations the rock around orbits and the two-way orbits because of number theory mathematical properties the theory has been generalized to the 2-d and 3-d lattice versions and finally to the necklace problem the mathematics behind the design process uses number theory relationship unexpected untapped and unexplored constellations can be created not only to improve the existing applications communications observation and gps but also for potential current and futuristic applications the art of designing orbits satellite constellations and formations will have a large impact on the future space mission architectures and concepts mortari works on the field of attitude and position estimation satellite constellation design and sensor data processing in addition he has taught at the school of aerospace engineering of romes university and electronic engineering of perugias university he received his doctorate degree in nuclear engineering from university of rome la sapienza in 1981 he is an ieee and aas fellow aiaa associate fellow honorary member of ieee-aess space system technical panel and former ieee distinguished speaker he has published approximately 280 papers and has been widely recognized for his work including receiving a best paper award from aas/aiaa two nasas group achievement awards 2003 spacecraft technology center award the prestigious 2007 ieee judith a resnik award and the 2016 aas dirk brouwer award
1294,dr dallas little snead chair professor and regents professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was selected by the transportation and development institute to receive the 2016 american society of civil engineers (asce) francis c turner award for his work on asphalt technology and chemical stabilization of soil and aggregate systems the committee cited his work to identify the reality and importance of chemo-mechanical processes that impact microdamage and microdamage healing in asphalt concrete composites that comprise the large majority of the multi-trillion dollar pavement infrastructure little will accept the award consisting of a plaque and cash prize during the international conference on transportation and development june 26-29 in houston the board of governors of the institute also named little chief editor of part-b (pavements) of the asce journal of transportation engineering (jte) the journal of transportation engineering contains technical and professional articles on the planning design construction maintenance and operation of air highway rail and urban transportation little is a senior research fellow at the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) and was the first researcher named to that position he has served as principal investigator over an array of national research projects for such sponsors as the federal highway administration national cooperative highway research program the air force office of scientific research and the national science foundation he has also served as principal investigator on numerous projects for the texas department of transportation and private industry he recently served as principal investigator for texas a&ms role in the $30 million asphalt research consortium (arc) project focused on advancing the state of knowledge in the fundamental and applied design and analysis of asphalt materials and pavements he has published over 200 journal articles and given over 450 invited lectures little has extensive design analysis and forensic engineering experience with companies on a worldwide basis as a consultant he has been involved in numerous major projects including: denver international airport; proposed qatar-bahrain causeway; airfield design reviews for the central command in iraq and afghanistan; the new doha qatar airport; airfield design projects for houston airport systems; design-build toll highway systems such as the widening of ih 635 between fort worth and dallas; the sh 130 south texas project; preliminary engineering investigation of subgrade design for the grand parkway in houston; the new mexico city airport; the texas high speed rail project between houston and dallas; and soil stabilization implementation projects in australia new zealand and canada
1295,above: kathy tran and heather berry pose for a photo after competing in the vex u competition in league city texas a texas a&m university team of 12 female engineering students recently placed fourth out of 11 other university teams at a vex u robotics competition in league city texas the team was sponsored and mentored by women in engineering a dwight look college of engineering program conceived last year to strengthen and incorporate inclusion practices throughout the college the competition proved to be a memorable experience for the team members bolstering their abilities to work as a team and strengthening their technical skills when i formed the team in october many of the students were freshmen that wanted to be involved said shawna fletcher director of women in engineering over the past few months they have each grown in their technical abilities and became very determined to show up as tough competitors fletcher said the students now know more about project management and working with a team to overcome challenges im proud of what they were able to accomplish in a few short months she said team captain kathy tran a nuclear engineering student had competed in vex u competitions in high school she brought experience to the table that was lacking in some of the other members the team met a multiple times per week and put in a lot of hard work to complete their robot in time it was a long semester but i wouldnt trade this experience for anything tran said these women got so passionate about vex so quickly that it made this process a lot easier team member heather berry a computer science student said she really enjoyed the camaraderie its nice to be surrounded by motivating students who are hungry for success she said there were a lot of obstacles that we had to cross but it was invigorating once we got through it mechanical team lead maura cadigan an aerospace engineering student said she really appreciated the help from women in engineering they started funded and encouraged the team she said i remember the first meeting we went to with women in engineering everyone there encouraged us to be ambitious and let us know that they would support us every step of the way fletcher said the program is dedicated to providing various opportunities for women to participate many times women are not seen as technically competent though they usually have high gpas fletcher said a student approached them during the competition and said ‘it looks better than i thought those kinds of comments happen daily for women even though they keep proving they are more than competent and can excel in engineering with a fourth-place finish this team proved they are more than capable the engineering innovation center offered its assistance for design reviews and housed the projects it is this partnership that has helped the vex u team be successful fletcher said program specialist danisha stern also assisted the team throughout the process helping it order parts and stay on track to learn more about women in engineering project teams email weoutreach@tamuedu
1296,dr alan palazzolo tees professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university recently published a book vibration theory and applications with finite elements and active vibration control the book provides extensive coverage of vibration-related topics with particular emphasis on the three basic areas of modeling analysis and applications palazzolo recognizes that a thorough understanding of mathematical and modeling techniques is essential before progressing to methods of analysis and there is a complete section covering the relevant math and programming techniques in matlab and maple by using a wide range of practical examples and exercises palazzolo demonstrates how the math relates to engineering and its applications connecting theory to engineering practice and problem solving palazzolo has taught classes and led research focused in the area of vibration theory these topics include failure models kinematics and modeling unstable vibrating systems rotordynamics and finite element methods utilizing truss beam plate and solid elements the book provides the modeling skills and knowledge required for modern engineering practice plus the tools needed to identify formulate and solve engineering problems effectively including symbolic math codes the book is currently available for purchase and can be found here
1297,dr dinakar sagapuram has joined the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university as an assistant professor sagapuram comes to texas a&m from purdue university where he earned his phd in material engineering his research broadly focuses on manufacturing materials processes and tribology his contributions include development of new process technology for creating fine-grained sheet and foil from poor-workability alloys and methods for controlling flow instability occurrences in machining processes he has authored or co-authored over 15 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications and three us patent applications in these areas i am excited to begin my teaching career at one of the top engineering schools in the nation sagapuram said this fall i will be teaching isen 654: manufacturing systems planning and analysis
1298,dr michael moreno assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is a recipient of the 2016 dean of engineering excellence award the award will be presented at an annual awards banquet may 3 moreno is one of six faculty members in the college of engineering to receive this honor in 2016 he performs research focused at the intersection of experimental and computational biomechanics the medical device industry and clinical practice
1299,"david lacroix computer engineering honors graduate in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the outstanding thesis award for the science technology engineering & mathematics division of the launch: undergraduate research awards lacroix was honored during the launch recognition ceremony on may 12 at the memorial student center this accolade shows the depth of understanding and hard work put into his research and final thesis for which he worked alongside faculty adviser dr dilma da silva his thesis data services for internet of things "" centered on creating a benchmark for assessing data services for the internet of things (iot) iot can be defined as a system of interconnected devices and machines with the ability to sense and actuate on the environment while transferring data over a network without demanding human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction the overarching goal of this research project was to characterize the most effective data architecture for a given iot capacity in turn providing developers with awareness of the various issues that can emerge ""the computer science and engineering honors program has been highly influential over the course of my education; whether it was connecting me with other bright students or exposing me to important topics and speakers or providing priority registration the program has presented me with many great and impactful opportunities "" lacroix said"
1300,the national security agency (nsa) and the department of homeland security (dhs) recently designated texas a&m university as a national center of academic excellence both in education and in research this well-regarded designation places texas a&m among a select group of only 30 universities that have earned both distinctions texas a&m has been dedicated to the advancement of cyber defense since the 1990s when the very first academic course utilizing an active attack-defense laboratory was created since that time the university has continued to build a robust body of cybersecurity research under the direction of a strong faculty and has graduated an impressive number of cybersecurity students this coveted distinction aligns with the cybersecurity centers vision to collaborate with strategic partners and in doing so move to the forefront of cybersecurity research the centers mission in education and research is to develop novel and innovative methods for cybersecurity education and to facilitate the conduct of ground-breaking basic and applied cybersecurity research as stated in the nsa designation letters [texas a&m universitys] ability to meet the increasing demands of the program criteria will serve the nation well in contributing to the protection of the national information infrastructure the texas a&m cybersecurity center is jointly run by the university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) director dr daniel ragsdale was chosen to lead the center in 2015 ragsdale along with deputy director lynn schlemeyer and many faculty and staff have since galvanized the effort for cyber defense within the texas a&m university system the center will be formally recognized by the nsa and dhs at the national cyber security summit in huntsville alabama on june 8
1301,astronauts get to experience things no other humans do like see earth from afar travel where no other humans have been and make new discoveries but while spaceflight offers priceless intellectual advancements the weightlessness of space can have negative effects on astronauts bodies through a series of fortunate events and a lot of hard work and dedication researchers at the texas a&m health science center college of medicine are collaborating with other texas a&m university partners including the dwight look college of engineering and college of education and human developments department of health and kinesiology to find new medical discoveries in space but its not just astronauts who benefitthese discoveries have the potential to unlock medical discoveries on earth: in this case inflammatory bowel disease and risks of cancer treatment young scientists led by david zawieja phd regents professor and interim chair of the department of medical physiology at the texas a&m college of medicine are working on research projects supported by the national space biomedical research institute (nsbri) and nasa the nsbri a unique non-profit science institutional consortium established by nasa to ensure safe and productive human spaceflight is working on countermeasures to the physical and psychological challenges humans face on long-duration missions zawieja who is also director of the division of lymphatic biology at the college of medicine focuses his research on the lymphatic system a component of the circulatory and immune systems pivotal for transporting fluids large molecules white blood cells and immune cell signaling proteins from all regions of the body through the nodes to the mainstream circulation problems with the lymphatic system can lead to a build-up of fluid (also know as lymphedema) and impairment of immune functions so what does that have to do with spaceflight a lot as it turns out spaceflight and its accompanying microgravity cause a number of changes to the human body: bone and muscle loss immune dysregulation increased risk of cancer and changes to the cardiovascular system without gravity the pressure gradients from top to bottom of a person are drastically altered the lymphatic system is very sensitive to pressure gradients and it is this concern that led zawiejas lab to focus on space research 12 years ago while working with michael delp a cardiovascular physiologist now at florida state university and a long-time nasa-funded investigator anand sunny narayanan a graduate research fellow and walter cromer phd a postdoctoral research associate both trainees in zawiejas lab in the college of medicines department of medical physiology are supported by and working on projects relevant to nsbris research objectives by investigating tissue samples from ground-based space analogue animal models and from spaceflight missions they are furthering our understanding of the role the lymphatic system has in the context of spaceflight adaptations our lab group interacts with many groups without clinical backgrounds which really opens us up for new research avenues zawieja explained the beautiful thing about working with nasa and nsbri is that this interdisciplinary model is already in place and accepted so it works very well with our group for these types of research interests two heads are better than one: how texas a&m is a unique proving ground for collaborative research narayanan who has undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and biology said he came to texas a&m specifically because of the leading space life science researchers and the nasa/nsbri-funded mentored research graduate program in space life sciences (sls) narayanans primary research interests include the effects of radiationwhether from spaceflight or clinical radiation exposureon the lymphatic system and how that may cause damage as well as inflammation this is an important area for a number of reasons firstly radiation exposure becomes a greater issue when planning long-term trips to the moon and mars because of the extended time outside the safety of earths atmosphere furthermore radiation changes to the lymphatic system are relevant to cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy as lymph nodes and the corresponding surrounding lymphatic vasculature are the primary sites of therapy in metastatic cancers changing the game: new evidence about radiation damage at low doses previously it was accepted that the lymphatic system was relatively resistant to radiation damage except at very high doses but this groups data show detrimental effects at much lower doseslike what an astronaut is cumulatively exposed to on a long mission or what a cancer patient might receive from fractionated radiation therapy if our research keeps going this way we will have evidence for changes in the lymphatic system at low doses that have been ignored previously said john ford phd associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering at the dwight look college of engineering and we can then identify what exactly is being affected and hopefully reduce the effects of radiation ford who teaches radiation biology as part of the nsbri space life sciences training program is a close collaborator of narayanan and zawieja while helping susan bloomfield phd professor of health and kinesiology and assistant provost of graduate and professional studies and harry hogan phd professor of mechanical engineering on a former students dissertation project using a ground-based animal model of microgravity narayanan began seeing some unusual patterns in the animals digestive tissues he consulted with cromer who studies the interactions between gastrointestinal inflammation and the lymphatic system function sunnys collaboration with our laboratory has led to some very interesting parallel projects on bone health outcomes in inflammatory bowel disease co-led by my senior student corinne metzger interdisciplinary work can lead us down many interesting paths! bloomfield said whose current collaborations grew from working together on the doctoral space life science training program one discovery leads to another narayanan and cromer found that the tissues from the digestive system were inflamed in the animals exposed to simulated microgravity because lymphatic dysfunction and inflammation go hand-in-hand and because the inflammation was caused from environmental changes (not induced like in other models) this opened a door for another great collaboration damage to the digestive system means astronauts wont be able to absorb what they drink and eat exacerbating other issues that they experience while in space including bone and muscle loss immune system impairment and more figuring out these fundamental questions will help us get a better idea of what may happen and allow us to develop treatments that astronauts can use to keep them healthy in future missions narayanan said this sort of research also has application towards basic biomedical questions and problems with new treatments that could be developed and applicable in clinical settings here on earth the discovery of these effects on gut inflammation led to cromers recently awarded nsbri post-doctoral fellowship through this discovery cromer hopes to eliminate major gastrointestinal dysfunction in astronauts it is common for astronauts to have issues with muscle wasting and eyesight but major gastrointestinal dysfunction while less likely during short term spaceflight would require immediate and severe medical treatmentwhich is pretty difficult in space cromer said i hope my research can not only prevent it but counteract it prevention and treatment of issues astronauts experience during spaceflight are critical components of nasas goal to send astronauts to mars understanding and addressing the biomedical implications are crucial for maintaining operational success during any deep-space missions and knowing holistically how changes in astronauts bodies are occurring is the first step to addressing spaceflight knowledge-gaps and possible risks work done by these groups aims to address some of these unknowns by investigating novel hypotheses of how and why the physiological changes (like local inflammation) in one region in the body (such as the gut) may have implications to adaptations that are occurring in another (such as bone) through the lymphatic system weve been looking mainly at the musculoskeletal system primarily bone but when you look at the tissues from the gut like narayanan and cromer are were seeing some unexpected things hogan said these findings can help us find new relationships between different systems of the body which could potentially reveal new opportunities for interventions and drug treatments for inflammatory bowel disease and osteoporosis were seeing how inflammatory bowel disease influences immunity through changes in lymphatic function and even how it impacts bones by altering inflammation cromer added because of these reactions to spaceflight we can relate these to immunity and food absorptionthings we learn from that help us document information from an inflammatory bowel disease research perspective and how the trafficking of immune cells fluid flows and pressures have implications for patients here on earth cromer explained that space is a rapid test-bed for therapies and could be a proving ground for developing treatments and therapies for gastrointestinal dysfunction this opens up a whole new world cromer said if we can do this in a manner thats cost effective and safe it can be tested in animals in space and then can be used with human subjects in space very quickly in my opinion the most profound aspect of zawieja labs research projects within and amongst our collaborators is not the paradigm-shifting discoveries we are making but most importantly our success as a team that led to novel hypotheses through hard-work and open communication narayanan said id like to see our success as an example for encouraging interactions amongst science technology engineering and medicine – i think its benefited not just myself and walter [cromer] but graduate and undergraduate students in our collaborators labs too
1302,"the texas a&m university system is partnering with battelle the boeing company the university of texas system and the university of new mexico in a joint bid to manage the sandia national laboratories one of three doe laboratories responsible for the nation's nuclear arsenal battelle is the world's largest independent nonprofit research and development organization and boeing is the world's largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense space and security systems the texas a&m university system which will lead the texas research and education partnership that includes the university of texas system joins the university of new mexico to provide research expertise workforce training and independent peer review of the crucial research and development conducted at sandia these academic entities will be members of the board of directors for the laboratories in may 2015 the us department of energy announced that it would seek a request for proposal (rfp) for the management of sandia currently the laboratory is managed by the sandia corporation a wholly-owned subsidiary of lockheed martin and has an operating budget of $3 billion with 10 000 employees the final request for proposals was issued on may 18 2016 and a contract decision is anticipated by the end of the year the idea for creating the team to compete for the sandia contract started at a november dinner hosted by texas a&m system chancellor john sharp battelle's ron townsend executive vice president of global laboratory operations and m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering for the texas a&m system among others attended that first meeting ""when rumors about this opportunity arose in 2012 dr banks and i knew we were in a unique position to serve our nation our first call was to battelle and over the last four years this ideal team was created "" chancellor sharp said ""the texas a&m system has the capability and long history of national service that are unmatched by any other university system texas a&m's faculty expertise and our top-ranked engineering graduate programs position us well as a key partner for this opportunity the leadership of governor greg abbott made this partnership possible for the texas university systems"" governor abbott said the texas a&m system approached him almost a year ago about bidding to manage the sandia national laboratories ""from the moment chancellor sharp first approached me about bidding on the sandia national laboratory we have worked hard to build a coalition to take advantage of this unparalleled research opportunity "" abbott said ""today's announcement reflects months of work building a robust coalition that includes the texas a&m university system the university of texas system and the university of new mexico i am grateful to chancellor sharp for spearheading this remarkable effort to [ut system] chancellor [william h] mcraven for working closely with the governor's office to ensure that texas fielded a unified and robust research team together texas and new mexico can bring unprecedented research opportunities to our great state universities and would be honored to be entrusted with the management of one of our nation's premier national laboratories"" the university of texas system is the second-largest public university system in the nation with an enrollment of 217 000 students across 14 institutions the ut system has a long-standing relationship with sandia national laboratory and has worked closely with the laboratory to supply the skilled scientists and engineers needed to support sandia's mission and on numerous science and engineering projects that are important to the nation's security ""partnering with industry and academic leaders in research and development areas that ultimately will help safeguard america is a phenomenal opportunity and the ut system is proud to be doing its part "" said ut system chancellor william h mcraven ""this collaboration is a perfect fit leveraging the research power of stellar universities as well as the expertise of battelle and boeing to elevate the already remarkable development coming out of sandia national laboratories"" banks with the texas a&m system said the academic partnership is a critical component ""combined the texas a&m and university of texas systems are among the nation's largest research enterprises and include two of the most respected engineering programs "" banks said ""both have been involved in our nation's nuclear security enterprise for decades and are deeply familiar with the personnel mission and research at sandia national laboratory"" ""sandia ensures the us nuclear stockpile is safe secure and reliable and can fully support the nation's deterrence policy "" said ed dolanski president boeing global services & support ""their mission of service to the nation is directly aligned with our team's mission battelle's leadership in national lab management and boeing's leadership in weapons and systems engineering will provide new capabilities to help nnsa more effectively meet their nuclear objectives"" about the texas a&m university system the texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a statewide network of 11 universities seven state agencies a comprehensive health science center and a budget of $42 billion the texas a&m system educates more than 140 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year externally funded research expenditures exceed $946 million and help drive the state's economy about texas a&m engineering within the a&m system nine of the 11 universities offer engineering degree programs with a combined enrollment of more than 25 000 engineering students and more than 600 engineering faculty members the largest engineering program is at texas a&m university in college station with more than 16 500 students including approximately 12 500 undergraduates and approximately 3 500 graduate students and $308 million in engineering research expenditures annually among the highest in the us the a&m system engineering program also includes three state agencies: texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) which conducts engineering research performs education and workforce development and transfers technology discoveries into the marketplace; texas a&m engineering extension service (teex) which delivers emergency response homeland security and workforce training and exercises; and texas a&m transportation institute (tti) which conducts transportation research and transfers technology to industry and the public the texas a&m engineering enterprise strategic areas have strong alignment with snl: defense systems and assessments; international homeland and nuclear security; informatics/knowledge economy; energy climate and infrastructure security; cybersecurity; transportation and infrastructure; and energy and the environment"
1303,"dr helen reed professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the prestigious 2016 kate gleason award from the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) reed was selected for her lifetime achievements in the fundamental understanding and control of boundary layer transition for high-efficiency aerospace vehicles and in pioneering small satellite design and implementation the kate gleason award was established in 2011 by the asme foundation to recognize the contributions of distinguished female leaders in the engineering profession as the first woman to be welcomed into asme as a full member gleason helped pave the way for other women to enter and thrive in the field of engineering the gleason award seeks to honor an individual female engineer who is a highly successful entrepreneur in a field of engineering or someone who had a lifetime of achievement in the engineering profession formal presentation of the award which consists of a $2 000 honorarium a bronze medal and a certificate will take place during the asme mechanical engineering congress & expositions honors assembly on nov 14 reed joined the texas a&m faculty in 2004 and served as department head for four years before returning to teaching and research on a full-time basis widely regarded as an expert in hypersonics energy efficient aircraft and small satellite design reed has led research projects totaling millions of dollars and is a member of the national research councils aeronautics and space engineering board she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics & astronautics (aiaa) the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers she received the atwood award from the american society for engineering education and aiaa and she was inducted into academy of engineering excellence at her alma mater virginia tech university at texas a&m she holds the designations of regents professor presidential professor for teaching excellence and holder of the edward ""pete"" aldridge '60 professorship"
1304,maddie hirsch a junior in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university is not your typical engineering student she recently competed in the usa triathlon collegiate national championship in clemson south carolina with the texas a&m triathlon team the aggies finished fourth out of 132 teams competing and individually hirsch finished 33rd out of the 478 women competing hirsch is a native of college station texas and a graduate of a&m consolidated high school growing up hirsch loved the water and started swimming competitively at the age of 8 she continued her swimming career through high school competing with both her school team and club teams resulting in a strenuous 20-plus hours of practice per week after her swimming career ended following her senior year of high school hirsch entered her first triathlon her background in swimming combined with a love for running and an interest in cycling instilled in her by her father made hirsch a perfect competitor for triathlons she heard about texas a&ms triathlon team and attended its informational meeting her freshman year i did my first triathlon and i was immediately hooked said hirsch i enjoyed being around athletic and academically driven people its not so much about the competition but about representing this team the best i can what makes hirsch unique is her fierce determination both as a teammate and as a student as a general civil engineering student hirsch explores varying topics of interest from water resources to transportation in any subject she discovered that what she learned in class was impactful and allowed her to serve people she recently became interested in transportation engineering for this reason i like that transportation engineering is about balancing the technical side of the engineering field with the social side as well she said contributing author: ryan terry
1305,the 2016 engineering project showcase provided an opportunity for students to display and demonstrate their projects designed to solve real-world engineering problems more than 700 students gathered in the hall of champions at texas a&m universitys kyle field to showcase more than 150 projects industry representatives from nearly 40 different companies also attended the event among the participants were 16 teams from the aggie_challenge program aggie_challenge is a college of engineering program designed to actively engage engineering undergraduate students in multidisciplinary team projects related to the engineering challenges facing our society the project the team under dr zhengdong cheng in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering placed first among the 16 aggie_challenge teams the team also tied for the top overall prize at the showcase its project mitigation methods for accidental offshore oil spillages focused on exploring ways in which oil spillages at sea can be effectively cleaned up to minimize their environmental impact when oil is spilled offshore the remote locations harsh conditions make the oil spill response difficult in an open water region the spilled oil could spread quickly due to natural forces such as gravity wind current and wave effects the team explored unique methods to quickly mitigate the spill and prevent its spreading the team under the supervision and guidance of cheng and graduate mentor lecheng eric zhang the team worked on the project for two semesters team members include monica cuerno andrew nguyen chang-hyun choi khuong le matthew carlin ehab abo deeb magy avedissian and nian wei tan through researching experiences i know that teamwork is the most important factor for the success of any project said zhang thats why i always encourage my students to build professional relationships and learn to work together outside of weekly meetings i encouraged them to have more bonding time by planning game nights where we could all play games together i think that the most important thing that ive learned from aggie_challenge is to take leadership said cuerno i think its important for you to be able to take leadership so that you can learn valuable things from the experience the undergraduate students are grateful the opportunity provided by the college of engineering aggie_challenge program to allow them to participate in and experience research in their education career since 2012 more than 750 students have participated in the program the college of engineering with the aggie_challenge program is a member of the national vertically integrated project (vip) consortium of 20 or more institutions from around the world for more information on the program visit the aggie_challenge website
1306,dr li zeng assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university received the best applications paper award from the institute of industrial engineers (iie) zengs paper bayesian hierarchical modeling for monitoring optical profiles in low-emittance glass manufacturing processes will be featured in iie transactions issue focused on design and manufacturing her paper discusses an approach for controlling quality and reducing variation in the energy-efficient glass manufacturing industry zengs work is supported by the national science foundation (nsf) and studies the special quality measurements in the energy-efficient glass industry and develops systematic methods to improve the current quality control system this work introduces a new application area of industrial engineering (ie) tools and reveals the many research needs and potentials in energy-efficient glass manufacturing i am very appreciative and honored to be receiving this significant award zeng said when i started the collaboration with a local glass company four years ago i had no idea where this project would lead my career zengs research focuses on developing new data-driven methodologies for process control and quality improvement in complex systems she has expertise in statistics and data mining she has conducted research in various applications particularly in complex manufacturing systems and healthcare delivery systems the nsf the air force the university of texas system and the american heart association support zengs work this award will be a motivation for me to continue exploring new industrial engineering solutions to emergent real-world problems in the future she said zeng will be honored at the iie annual conference on may 23
1307,yashwant prakash vyas graduating senior in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university became the first international student in texas a&m history to speak at a commencement ceremony vyas was chosen as the student voice to represent the college of engineering and give the first speech at the commencement ceremony on thursday to be selected vyas submitted an application a sample speech and biography i applied because i had an important message to convey vyas said in an article published by international student voice magazine my primary message to my fellow classmates and many people who listened to the speech was to engage as active global residents and help fellow residents in need i wanted to tell them how important their contributions (big or small) are to make our world a better place to live secondly i understand that bringing a positive change is difficult it is very easy to get disheartened and discouraged by the cruelties of our world hardships of our lives and unfair and unjust systems but it is important to develop a healthy disregard to these things and continue to ethically strive for excellence help those in need and make our world a better place to live vyas earned a bachelor of science in electrical engineering with double minors in mathematics and leadership studies in addition he earned three academic certificates was recognized as an undergraduate leadership scholar and graduated with high honors during his time at texas a&m vyas has belonged to numerous student organizations such as the international student association the student government association diversity commission the india association aggie replant the texas a&m unicef chapter the aggie orientation leaders program and many more he also works as an ask us aggie worker in the library and offers diversity training to student organizations schools and community centers other honors include participating in the 9th annual brazos valley world fest where he won the culture display booth competition being inducted into the national society of leadership and success and being awarded the national engaged leader award from the society international student voice magazine serves as a voice for international students studying in the united states and for americans studying abroad this magazine is distributed to over 1 000 universities and colleges in the united states
1308,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won the 2nd place prize for best poster award at the 2016 ieee power and energy society (pes) transmission and distribution (t&d) conference and exposition the ieee pes t&d conference and exposition is the largest and most comprehensive of its type in the world with more than 15 000 attendees 900 exhibitors and electric companies it is the best place to see the latest technology and latest equipment available in the electric utility industry dehghanian whos under the advisement of dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department is the current leader of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the ieee pels-pes-ias he received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications his recent honors include receiving a research grant scholarship from the american public power association (appa) under the demonstration of energy and efficiency development (deed) program being awarded the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship for the 2016-2017 academic year and being selected as the ieee industry application society (ias) electric safety workshop (esw) 2017 student program chair
1309,kyungtae lee and gang zhao graduate students in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university were recently awarded scholarships from the texas water resources institute (twri) the scholarships will be used to support the students research in the field of water resources lee received the mills scholarship which is given to texas a&m students engaged in research regarding the texas water issues his proposed research will extend the research scope of ongoing research over the impacts of future climate change on agroclimate and surface hydrology in baja california and texas the scholarship will allow lee to extend the scope from surface hydrology to agricultural impacts especially irrigation water availability and crop yields under a changing climate his research results are expected to contribute to future agricultural production management and planning in texas zhao was awarded the us geological survey (usgs) graduate research scholarship which funds graduate research projects in the area of water resources and hydrology that have the potential to help texas solve future water issues his study focuses on connecting climate variability with water supply reliability specifically in the trinity river basin which supplies water to two of the top 10 largest cities in the united states dallas and houston the research will result in optimal plans to improve the adaptive capacity of the water supply while mitigating the losses due to disasters in the trinity river basin for more information visit https://twritamuedu/our-work/engaging-educating/water-resources-research-student-scholarships/ contributing author: ryan terry
1310,kathryn tippey phd student in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was selected to receive the outstanding student researcher award through the partnership for enhancing general aviation safety and sustainability (pegasas) program tippey is being recognized for her contribution to a collaborative project among researchers at texas a&m western michigan university purdue university and the federal aviation administration (faa) katie played a prominent role in the design of flight simulator scenarios the installation of these scenarios at the faas william j hughes technical center in atlantic city new jersey and the conduction of human subject experiments at the technical center in july 2015 said dr thomas ferris assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering tippey also coordinated with faa researchers and third-party commercial groups in the development of the technologies used in these experiments including a touchscreen-based graphical map with embedded alert text and a smart watch-based vibrotactile messaging system she will be recognized at the pegasas annual meeting on june 8 at iowa state university
1311,"an innovative approach to recycling consumer electronics to reclaim the essential elements inside of them is a step closer to reality after startup company reecycle was awarded $50 000 in funding as the top company at the 2016 texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) at texas a&m university the houston-based based company headed by co-founder and ceo casey mcneil was named first-place winner of the competition the competition which awarded a total of $150 000 in cash prizes this year promotes the commercialization of emerging technology by recognizing companies with high growth potential it was hosted by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) this competition is important because lack of funding and visibility can be challenging for a fledgling company to move to the next level said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering and director of tees we must support our faculty students and researchers as they move research ideas into the marketplace reecycle reclaims materials known as rare earth elements from recycled electronics reecycle primarily targets neodymium and dysprosium two rare earth elements essential to the production of consumer electronics clean energy technologies and national defense systems this win for us really means the advancement of a lot of different technologies that we are working on mcneil said there are some really interesting additions that we would like to make to our technology in the way of purifying our materials a little bit further and also expanding on the conversion of our material alloys – so really just advancing some of the research we are working on this funding is absolutely critical towards furthering reecycle is the second company to earn top honors at tnvc which began in 2015 and was won by noninvasix a galveston-based company developing medical technology that enables monitoring of a babys brain oxygen levels during labor and delivery ""the texas a&m new ventures competition helps elevate real companies with credible prospects and win or lose the benefits of competing in such events is invaluable "" said graham randall ceo of noninvasix since participating we've been able to further develop our prototype make inroads with high-level investors and clarify our regulatory path with the fda in addition to reecycle five other companies were recognized as finalists and received prize money trifusion devices earned second-place honors and received $35 000 for its 3-d printing technology aimed at revolutionizing the health care and sports equipment industries voyager biomedical corp ranked third and received $25 000 for its development of better vascular access technologies for use in dialysis and other treatments requiring long-term blood access fourth-place honors and $15 000 in prize money were awarded to nupark inc for its technology to create a virtual parking permit siva therapeutics inc a company developing technology for targeting therapeutic heat to treat melanoma was awarded fifth place and $10 000 cartofusion technologies inc ranked sixth and was awarded $5 000 for its mapping and planning tool for use by public safety and emergency management organizations as one of the first universities to include research commercialization as part of the tenure-granting process texas a&m believes passionately in the transfer of new and innovative technologies that will improve the lives of the residents of texas and beyond said vice president for research glen a laine the division of research is excited to be a sponsor of the texas a&m new ventures competition – recognizing and helping viable young companies execute their ideas"" as part of the tnvc elevator pitch competition which gave eight companies the opportunity to present their technologies in the format of a one-minute pitch ecm technologies took top honors winning $5 000 for its unique platform technology that enables non-animal bacterial collagens for medical devices acoustic shield earned second place and $3 000 for its one-minute pitch of an acoustic gunshot detection sensor rounding out the honorees astrapi corp ranked third and received $2 000 for its proprietary spiral modulation technology it is exciting for us to see this competition continue to grow and attract such an amazing group of entrepreneurs said dimitris lagoudas deputy director of tees its the work of innovators and thought leaders like the ones who took part in this competition that will make it into the marketplace and into the hands of the public the daylong competition which was open to all texas-based companies seeking to bring new or enhanced technology to the marketplace required 16 companies in the pre-seed/seed start-up or early growth stages to pitch their ideas to judges that included angels and venture capitalists experienced entrepreneurs non-profit founders legal professionals patent experts and banking/investment professionals the esteemed group of companies was previously selected from a larger pool of competition applicants prior to the event in the days leading to the competition participants received personal coaching and access to mentor strategists as they developed their competition business plans and presentation pitches mays business school takes very seriously its sustained commitment to support entrepreneurial excellence fueling innovation and collaboration across local state national and global economies said blake petty director of the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship at mays business school in that respect we are proud to partner in and support the texas a&m new ventures competition the distinction this program bestows on its participants and its celebration of entrepreneurial success for societal benefit funding for tnvc was made possible by tees texas a&m division of research mays business school texas a&m health science center the texas a&m university system and spirit of texas bank in kind support was provided by the aggie angel network the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship the department of biomedical engineering and texas a&m technology commercialization we are proud to support the texas a&m new ventures competition an important asset for building the startup ecosystem at texas a&m particularly in bryan-college station said paul ogden md interim senior vice president and chief operating officer texas a&m health science center and interim dean college of medicine this event is helping develop a culture of entrepreneurship and fills the gap that exists locally in providing companies with early-stage non-dilutive funding ensuring the most promising ideas end up in the marketplace for more information on the texas a&m new ventures competition including a full list of the days competitors visit wwwtexasnvcorg contact: duncan maitland tees assistant agency director for commercialization and entrepreneurship at 9794583471 or via email: djmaitland@tamuedu or ryan garcia at 9798475833 or via email: ryangarcia99@tamuedu"
1312,every semester seniors in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university enroll in the capstone senior design course the courses main objective is to provide students with experience in working on a real-life problem using the general and engineering skills they have gained during their undergraduate education at the end of the semester each team presents its project and poster to other students faculty members and sponsors the department presents awards for outstanding work the first-place team for the spring 2016 semester was comprised of oluteniola adeyemi hani arafat nathan sorkin and sarah wilson and was sponsored by the university writing center their services are in very high demand by students arafat said those trying to make an appointment with the writing center often found that they had to wait upwards of a week before they could get in the writing centers mission is to help students practice the habits of mature composers of written and oral communication and to provide resources for faculty and teaching assistants for integrating best writing and oral communication pedagogy into courses across the disciplines and in the core curriculum after meeting with dr candace hastings director of the university writing center and thadeus bowerman a writing consultant at the center the team realized the need for reduced wait times to better accommodate students seeking help this semester the university writing center started offering half-hour appointments on a trial basis to make more appointments available because at multiple points during the semester students cannot book an appointment for up to two weeks bowerman said we met with the industrial engineering team to discuss working the half-hour appointment into our regular schedule on a permanent basis the students spent the rest of the semester designing the best plan for the center and the students served by the center our goal for this project was to try to reduce these long wait times and increase the number of students that the writing center serves each day by integrating short 30-minute appointments in addition to the longer 60-minute appointments currently offered arafat said our key performance indicators were the number of students the writing center serves and the percentage of time a tutor spends face-to-face with a student the team developed a proposal that was accepted by bowerman and hastings then began working to solve the issue identified by the client we started our project by building a simulation model and later randomly generated test schedules using visual basic for applications (vba) programming software adeyemi said we later found the optimal schedule based on the total number of students served per day for each tutor the team ran the simulation over and over to achieve the best results essentially the process was as follows: when the simulation was run clients would arrive at the start of their scheduled appointment spend time with the tutor according to a random distribution dictated by whether they were a short or long appointment wilson said they would then exit the system after a maximum of either 25 or 45 minutes leaving the tutor with some un-utilized time before the next scheduled arrival after testing 130 random schedules the team ranked them based on the amount of students served per tutor per day and the percentage of a tutors time spent face-to-face with a client this new schedule allows for a 30 percent increase in the number of one-on-one consultations available each day wilson said students seeking help from the writing center will be able to schedule a 30-minute appointment as well as the 60-minute appointments this gives students more flexibility when booking an appointment that doesnt conflict with their class schedules arafat said bowerman and hastings are already implementing the new schedule allowing consultants more options when deciding the beginning and end times of their shifts the industrial and systems engineering team found practical ways to implement our new appointment times and they calculated different models that factored not only increasing the number of appointments we can offer but also factored in a statistical analysis of the most optimum schedule to mitigate tutor burnout bowerman said the team members agreed this experience was beneficial to their future careers while improving other students experience with the writing center i truly enjoyed working with the writing center wilson said i was impressed by the work they do to help the students of texas a&m and i am honored that we were able to help them serve even more students the teams schedule will be fully implemented by august 2016
1313,texas a&m university at qatar engineering student abdulaziz al-qahtani won the finale of the first edition of ignitedoha with his presentation on problem-solving at the texas a&m engineering building in education city ignitedoha much like a ted talk tasked students to introduce a particular topic to a general audience in an engaging manner the format constraints challenged students to give fast and fun five-minute presentations while also testing their ability to be clear and concise ignitedoha is a steam (science technology engineering arts and math) initiative of texas a&m at qatar that develops communication organization visual literacy and presentation skills six students competed in the ignitedoha finale munazza sayed placed second and midhat j zaidi came third the other finalists included arshaad ali zeinab makki and yossra osman they all performed admirably in front of a lecture hall packed with fellow students staff faculty and guest industry judges the judges were dr fawzi al-ajji education relations manager at maersk oil qatar; yousef al-meer head of academic affairs at qatar petrochemical company (qapco); ibrahim bu-hazzaa senior maintenance specialist at qapco; former student karim youssef associate water researcher at qatar shell research and technology center; and former student rinchu matthew phd candidate at stanford university ignitedoha aims to develop future aggie engineers communication skills which is becoming increasingly important for both their academic and industry careers ignitedoha was a successful steam initiative of texas a&m at qatar in that the event challenged students to get their message across eloquently within all of the parameters and constraints of the completion students had to be familiar with the topic at hand beyond a peripheral grasp and have a command of the language to convey it the event required engineering students to flex their otherwise relaxed language-skills muscles ignitedoha prepared students for the rigors of business presentations in the engineering industry watch al-qahtani's winning presentation here: https://wwwyoutubecom/watchv=afw0d4zq_ac
1314,dr patrick linke chair of the chemical engineering program at texas a&m university at qatar has been named holder of the qatar shell professorship this new professorship is funded by qatar shell to foster greater understanding of qatars contemporary issues relating to energy and environment and to encourage discussions about these topics with key stakeholders and the public in qatar youssif a saleh vice president of qatar shell research and technology centre qatar shell said we are extremely proud to once again collaborate with texas a&m at qatar qatar shell research & technology centre (qsrtc) works closely with universities and schools to develop local talent and enhance technical capabilities therefore delivering sustainable impact in support of the qatar national vision 2030 energy and its relationship with the environment has been the centerpiece of linkes teaching and research since he joined texas a&m at qatar in 2007 in 2009 linke co-founded the qatar sustainable water and energy utilization initiative (qwe) which continues to be instrumental in leading research in such vital areas for qatar while strengthening collaboration with stakeholders throughout the country he also was chief engineer and director of the water and energy sectors of the qatar national food security program from 2008 until 2014 in addition to his faculty and program chair responsibilities linke is executive director of graduate studies at texas a&m at qatar he has published five book chapters and more than 100 peer-reviewed scholarly articles he has presented more than 100 conference papers and delivered more than 30 invited talks linke was chosen by a panel chair and professorship holders from texas a&ms main campus and texas a&m at qatar from a pool of very competitive nominees in recognition of his outstanding contributions in energy and environment professorships help give universities a competitive edge by providing funds to attract top faculty which in turn helps attract other top-notch faculty and students texas a&m at qatar has a long and rich history of partnering with industry such as qatar shell engaging with industry enriches texas a&m at qatars core activities of teaching research and service and guides teaching creates enrichment opportunities for students and faculty and show areas in which the branch campus may be able to give back to the state of qatar directly such as outreach programs and resources for commercial innovation so vital to qatar national vision 2030
1315,research to reduce airborne contaminants exposure a breath of fresh air is a common saying used to signify something cleansing and refreshing but what if that air isnt as clean as you think in fact what one researcher with the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has found in the air may surprise you even more surprising are the applications of this finding and how it can improve our lives that saharan dust pollutes texas air was a completely serendipitous finding while investigating the amount of man-made locally-sourced pollutants said dr shankar chellam professor in the civil engineering department and faculty lead for the aerosols & water treatment lab when we think pollution in urban areas like houston we are programmed to place full blame on industry when really there are other unexpected natural factors this research can be used to adjust and regulate man-made pollutants in order to increase our quality of air the average person breathes over 3 000 gallons of air each day and breathing contaminated air can lead to a wealth of health issues ranging from irritated eyes to cancer depending on the fine particles floating around reducing air pollution became a priority of the government in 1970 with the creation of the environmental protection agency which makes it its business to clean up air pollution in the country along with industry local and state government and environmental groups ongoing research at texas a&m joins in this battle against an unseen enemy choosing to focus on finding the myriad sources of fine particles in ambient air that we breathe we want to know what the various sources are and what the particles are made of that way someone else can take the findings and create policies and take action key problems the team targets include the long-range transport of mineral dust from the sahara and middle east deserts and its impact on air quality in urban areas; particulate matter emissions from light-duty vehicles; and particle releases from petroleum refining operations pollution can be transported all over; its a mixed media that spreads and affects all said ayse bozlaker a postdoctoral researcher working with chellam we saw the need to quantify pollution caused by natural sources something we cannot control thus helping us to regulate man-made pollution and clean up our overall air quality expecting pollution to emanate from oil refineries and motor vehicles two of the common sources of pollution in major metropolitan areas of texas the researchers developed unique metal signatures for various industrial and natural sources of aerosols and then collected samples from different locations and determined whether there were signatures of various sources in the these samples through their efforts it is now possible to isolate identify and quantify petroleum refinery vehicular and desert dust impacts on urban air quality this was achieved through developing novel analytical techniques to measure platinum palladium rhodium and rare earth elements along with a wide range of other metals in the atmosphere applications from this research could play a vital role in regulating air quality impacting large industries all the way down to vehicle users the findings can be used for the objective measurement of industrial and natural particulate emissions and the development of better science-based policies or regulations for more information visit the aerosols & water treatment lab website
1316,according to the world health organization 360 million people in the world suffer from hearing loss a large portion of those affected live in developing countries particularly south asia asia pacific and sub-saharan africa experts say at least half of all hearing loss cases are avoidable through primary prevention in developing countries however primary prevention is hard to come by that is why a group of students at texas a&m university has designed a low-cost otoscope that when plugged into a smartphone can take photos of the inside of the ear the group members of texas a&ms chapter of engineering world health has designed and built a model led otoscope that it is submitting to the national organizations design competition the groups hope is that its design could be turned into a kit for easy production around the world robert hunt design team leader and tessa bronez vice president both received degrees in biomedical engineering this may and they hope the group continues to refine their design now that they have graduated we have a lot of electrical engineers on the team and they were really excited about doing something with optics bronez said when hunt and bronez joined engineering world health three years ago the group was small and there wasnt a lot of interest they said we thought coming into our senior year we should try to take some initiative and get more people involved and come up with something exciting hunt said engineering world health provides a list of problems medical professionals are faced with particularly in the developing world thats how hunt and bronez found out a low-cost led otoscope was needed to help diagnose and treat those with hearing loss we thought we could use a phone to make it low cost because they could use the camera on the phone bronez said a lot of people are surprised to hear that many people in developing countries have smartphones particularly in the more urban areas where the hospitals are their otoscope was created using a 3-d printer standard lenses and a simple motherboard the 3-d-printed clamp can be adjusted to hold any smartphone excluding the smartphone the total cost of the otoscope is $642 hundreds of dollars cheaper than the otoscope used in a doctors office during the research phase of its project a team member found a study that used different wavelengths of light instead of just white light to gain better contrast in inner-ear imaging they included red blue and green led lights in their design as a result if youre looking at a certain type of infection its easier to see if youre using green light than if youre using white light hunt said according to the world health organization hearing loss may result from genetic causes complications at birth chronic ear infections the use of particular drugs exposure to excessive noise and aging more than 5 percent of the worlds population suffers from hearing loss making a low-cost otoscope an essential tool that could be used in clinics and hospitals in third world countries hearing loss has an economic and social impact too the world health organization website states that many children with hearing loss and deafness do not receive schooling and adults with hearing loss tend to have a higher unemployment rate for hunt and bronez a project such as this created the perfect practical application for their biomedical engineering courses bronez will soon begin her graduate studies at johns hopkins university in bioengineering innovation and design and hunt is headed to stanford university for a masters degree in bioengineering theyll both be working closely with the medical community to solve problems that could have a global impact this project is only the beginning but they hope to see it come to fruition and make a difference in the lives of millions who suffer from hearing loss
1317,"several students in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university are utilizing the skills learned in class to create unique and innovative projects being used in ways beyond the classroom seniors andrew kirfman chris martin and michael brand created the improbability cube or as they also call it game³ initially the group set out to create an led display system that would visually display graphs and solutions to arbitrary calculus problems in order to assist first-year engineering students; this snowballed into a more technical plan to create an led display system that would have gaming capabilities with this start they began to envision their project for dr jyh-charn lius microcomputer systems course using autocad kirfman designed the box that all of the hardware resides in all text displayed on the cube was drawn one pixel at a time which understandably took a while to program the cube is a display created using five 32x32 led panels images are written to it from a raspberry pi using a library that the team wrote in c++; each panel is on its own coordinate system the greatest reward was being able to see the whole system in action at the end kirfman said everything in the entire project was done essentially from scratch we had no direction instructions or hand holding throughout the project recently dr jeff huang assistant professor and dr hank walker professor and graduate advisor hosted a poster session for their csce 431 and csce 606 software engineering classes this demonstration session was designed to provide students with the opportunity to design and develop free cloud-based software projects for the bryan/college station community fork friendly was a web application designed by seniors karrie cheng brandon arryo michael barker kyle wilson and forrest hicks to help those with special dietary needs due to health conditions the application allows the user to create a customized grocery list for their individual dietary restrictions bailey bauman bob timm jennings fairchild lance badoni mat dyl and nico warner presented their project care coordinator the purpose of this tool is to allow a patient to coordinate their many health related activities and appointments with the various providers they are required to visit optimizing the entire process the team proposed this project to the texas a&m health science center with advisement by the rural and community health institute (rchi) rchi accepted the project and provided the additional requirements of high-level security accountless-correspondence and export to pdf another groups project cybersecurity web application was designed for the texas a&m cybersecurity center and director dr daniel ragsdale the group was comprised of computer science graduate students avani sama riu liu and sujoy saha and electrical engineering graduate students pravir gupta sagar samant and swetha sridharan the students were tasked with developing a multi-field search and query function for the centers website for most of us it was our first software product so we had a very nice feeling of accomplishment saha said clients shared glowing reviews for the students effort and hard work one client said ""i am very pleased with the final product it is exactly what i wanted and it is even better than i had hoped i am truly grateful for the time and attention they gave to this project"" students work with real clients on building real-world software huang said the final demo session is always my happiest time not because it means the end of the semester but because i see both the students and their clients are thrilled with their final product"""
1318,dr vijay p singh distinguished professor and holder of the caroline and william n lehrer distinguished chair in water engineering in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m university received an outstanding distinguished scientist award from sigma xi the research honor society at texas a&m singh is a world-renowned scholar in water research and education areas that include hydrologic science hydraulic engineering water-resources engineering environmental engineering and irrigation engineering singh has made original contributions and significant advances in kinematic-wave modeling entropy theory-based modeling stochastic modeling of hydrological extremes using copulas hydrologic systems point and non-point source water quality modeling landfill hydrology saltwater intrusion groundwater modeling hydrologic impacts of climate change dam-breach modeling watershed modeling ecosystems management risk and reliability analysis and social engineering singh holds doctoral degrees from colorado state university and the university of witwatersrand in johannesburg south africa
1319,the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university recently held a reception to honor of the 2016 graduating class dr m nazmul karim department head and t michael o'connor chair ii and dr victor ugaz the charles d holland '53 professor and director of the undergraduate program hosted the event in the lobby of the jack e brown chemical engineering building the end of the fall 2016 semester saw more than 70 students graduate from the department of these students 63 were awarded undergraduate degrees seven were awarded masters degrees (five in chemical engineering and two in safety engineering) and 10 were awarded phds further there were a total of 29 safety engineering certificates awarded – this certificate program is essentially a minor available to all engineering students requiring between 12 to 15 course hours to complete – with 19 undergraduate and 10 graduate level certificates awarded in addition to honoring all of the chemical engineering graduates there were several student awards handed out during the reception one of the final courses in the chemical engineering bachelors degree program is chemical engineering plant design and the top three teams from this course were honored: first place team: jayci blake thomas fuller alexis musso and jennifer sakowski second place team: shayan arshad danielle gore daniel herrera evan mills and christopher omiwade third place team: alexander delasandro caleb hindy karl morales ryan popham and james webb joshua hiatt received the omega chi epsilon (oxe) award given for academic performance and contributions to the chemical engineering honor society a total of five academic excellence awards were handed out to students with the highest gpas ethan kamphaus brian wrobel david quiroz alexandra summers and hayden long each received the award the excellence in undergraduate research award which honors exceptional involvement and achievements in undergraduate research activities was presented to ethan kamphaus and tyler brehm the most prestigious award the outstanding senior award was presented to hunter reagan who said he was taken completely off guard by the honor the award is presented to the student who best exemplifies the characteristics of leadership academic excellence and service it was shocking i didnt expect it he said honestly everyone i know is exceptional so i figured other people would have gotten it i enjoyed [my experience at texas a&m] classes are hard but when you are surrounded by people you like they arent that hard jayci blake was presented with the outstanding senior award for the summer 2016 graduating class she was unable to accept the award in person as she is on the chemical engineerings study abroad trip in tianjin china
1320,amy truong a petroleum engineering major has been selected as the winner of a college-wide contest to redesign the gonfalon a banner that represents the college at graduation truongs design focused on teamwork and the diverse engineering disciplines offered at texas a&m university at first when i thought of different ways to incorporate the different disciplines i was stuck truong said but then i thought about teamwork and collaboration i looked up what different colors and shapes mean truongs design was one of 18 submitted for the contest and her winning design earned her $1 000 the houston native is an art minor who said she recently completed a graphic design class she uses art as a stress-reliever she said i thought it would be really cool to see my design on the graduation stage she said im honored to be chosen amys design description: as the triangles collaborate alongside each other projecting a diamond shape they depict the strong relationship between the diverse engineering disciplines as the use of mathematics science and technology provide the foundation of solving todays challenging ideas between and within each engineering department the center illustrates a circuit board to express the continuing growth in technology and engineering today resulting in new industries and opportunities the cohesive elements of this design work together as a whole to symbolize communication interaction teamwork and balance in engineering as the green blue and navy color palette represents energy loyalty wisdom professionalism and ambition
1321,maura cadigan a junior in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was honored with a goldwater scholarship while kendal ezell a sophomore in the department of biomedical engineering received an honorable mention goldwater scholarship cadigan and ezell were both honored in recognition of their scholastic achievements and ambitions the foundation awarded 252 scholarships from a pool of more than 1 000 applicants from 415 colleges and universities nationwide the barry goldwater scholarship and excellence in education program was designed to encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) to be awarded a goldwater scholarship students must be nominated by a goldwater faculty representative cadigan is the first aggie to be selected as a technical consultant for the stanford us-russia forum she was the mechanical team lead for the women in engineerings vex robotics team and a teaching assistant for engr 112 cadigan plans to continue her education with a phd and will pursue a career with nasa or a government research laboratory on campus shes involved with women in engineering the student engineers council and engineering honors it's a huge honor to be named a goldwater scholar she said it's validation of my work and my plans for the future it's very encouraging ezell plans to pursue an md or phd to perform clinical research on neurotissue degradation and medical device design ezell has worked in dr duncan maitlands biomedical device laboratory with dr mark packard in the institute for neuroscience and with biotechnology companies in germany on campus she is involved in kappa alpha theta engineering honors and the student engineers council
1322,the united states distance learning association (usdla) presented its 2016 international distance learning award for 21st century best practices to the master of industrial distribution (mid) program in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university as a premier organization for the entire distance learning profession we are honoring the mid program as a leader in the industry said dr john g flores executive director of usdla and program professor at nova southeastern university the mid program has raised the bar of excellence and we are truly honored by their contributions within all distance learning constituencies the mid program began in 2001 and was the first fully-online masters program offered by texas a&m university said bharani nagarathnam associate director for graduate programs for industrial distribution we are thrilled to receive the 21st century best practices award from the usdla the usdla award comes just two months after the texas distance learning association (txdla) presented the mid program the 2016 excellence in innovation and distance learning award the award-winning mid program is the only graduate program in industrial distribution and was born out of need when members of the texas a&m industrial distribution advisory board expressed a desire for their employees to earn masters degrees while increasing business acumen but there was a catchthe employees couldnt leave their jobs so the industrial distribution program developed a masters program where students explore cutting-edge practical solutions for industrial distributors and manufacturers and are able to apply what they learn to their work environments right away all mid courses are designed to be asynchronous to meet the demands of working professionals we use videos podcasts with industry professionals and discussion boards to teach courses and build professional community said nagarathnam our course videos are typically 6-8 minutes so the successful time-crunched professionals enrolled in our program are able to easily navigate course content last year responding to student feedback the program shifted all required reading to e-books and students are now given ipads fully loaded with the apps and course content needed to complete the program students also share three key immersive learning experiences: a one-week residency in august a global distribution trip and an individual capstone projecta 9-month project culminating at the end of a students second year resulting in deliverables and a return on investment for the students company the graduation rate for the masters program is 94 percent in the programs first 10 years our class cohorts hovered between 12-15 students said nagarathnam but in 2012 we began to see significant growth and our class of 2016 is 70 students from 17 states and three countries these are exciting times in our programmade more exciting with the recent awards from usdla and txdla for more information on the mid program please visit: http://midtamuedu
1323,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recognized five faculty and staff award winners from the department of electrical and computer engineering during the 2016 faculty and staff awards banquet banks presented faculty awards a staff excellence award and a key contributor award to electrical and computer engineering faculty and staff during the event carolyn warzon administrative coordinator for the computer engineering and systems group was given a staff excellence award; dr sp bhattacharyya the robert m kennedy '26 professor i in the department was given the william keeler memorial fund teaching award; dr alex sprintson associate professor in the department was awarded the william o & montine p head memorial research fund for contributions; dr rusty harris associate professor in the department was named a william keeler faculty fellow; and dr arum han associate professor in the department was given a dean of engineering excellence award
1324,charles donaway senior academic advisor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2016 presidents award for academic advising donaway received the award during the annual university advisors and counselors spring awards breakfast donaway has been an advisor in the dwight look college of engineering since 2012 and has been with the ocean engineering department since its launch in fall 2015 charlie has excellent rapport with all of our undergraduate students said dr sharath girimaji professor and interim department head of the department i depend on his input for making decisions on student affairs arguably one of mr donaways most admirable traits is his personal relationship with each and every student within the ocean engineering department said alyssa michalke undergraduate student in the department and 2015-16 corps commander of the texas a&m corps of cadets his extensive knowledge of the various aspects of industry coupled with his passion for serving others puts him on a level far superior to that of other academic advisors and we are all blessed to have such an outstanding gentleman to assist us during our time in college established in 2004 the awards recognize outstanding individuals who exemplify the qualities and practices of exceptional academic advising and service to students recipients are selected by a committee composed of three students the president-elect of the university advisors and counselors executive board and a representative appointed by texas a&ms office of the dean of undergraduate programs and associate provost for academic services each recipient receives $2 000 and a plaque
1325,above: teacher michelle gallagher poses with swe volunteers katherine garcia abigail brown and sahithy gudavalli be awesome is written in all capital letters across the white board in michelle gallaghers classroom there are opened boxes of pasta on every table their contents spilling out as each small hand reaches in to grab a handful three texas a&m university engineering students have taken over the gifted and talented program at spring creek elementary school in college station the volunteers are members of texas a&ms chapter of the society of women engineers (swe) and their outreach program is swe inspire on this day theyre helping gallaghers class build a ferris wheel using pasta noodles construction paper and glue its an exercise in problem solving and teamwork all fundamental aspects of engineering sahithy gudavalli a petroleum major is the swe inspire officer or volunteer coordinator she said the experiments and projects they work on with the kids arent about competing i dont like to focus on that she said its not about the accuracy of the project its about the design process gudavalli holds the wheel of pasta in the air and asks fourth-grader gage watson how it is supposed to spin i dont know he says gudavalli asks again rewording her question this time the students try a different method and then another before the ferris wheel spins the way it should without even realizing it they just learned the engineering process chemical engineering major abigail brown said she went to an engineering camp when she was a child and it really inspired her to consider engineering as a career thats why she signed up for swe inspire so she could provide that same encouragement she received to the next generation of engineers with the us department of commerce projecting a 17 percent growth in careers in stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) from 2008 to 2018 inspiring children to become stem professionals is an important endeavor as a female engineering student brown said the program is also a way to show young children that anyone can be an engineer within engineering women are minorities she said some kids think its not cool for girls to like science but it really is these students wont graduate from high school until 2023 and they have a lot of time to figure out their career path having positive female role models explain science and engineering in an engaging way is a step in the right direction only time will tell but one of these fourth-graders could grow up to cure cancer or solve world hunger until then swe inspire volunteers will continue to teach local school children about the many ways they can have fun solving problems
1326,recently the class of 66 returned to campus to celebrate its 50th anniversary the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university had the privilege of hosting 15 aerospace class members during the three-day event the group was treated to tours of the vehicle systems and control laboratory the materials and structures lab the basement wind tunnels as well as visiting the lab where 402 students were finishing their capstone design projects graduate students and faculty members took the opportunity to explain their various research projects and course work after the tours dr rodney bowersox department head hosted a luncheon for the members with current students bowersox presented his vision for the department while students were able to share what they were doing in the classroom and beyond with the former students
1327,anthony guiseppi-elie tees professor and head of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named chair-elect of the american institute for medical and biological engineering (aimbe) college of fellows guiseppi-elie a class of 2006 inductee of the college of fellows for bio-smart materials based on electroconductive hydrogels was elected to the leadership position by the entire college of fellows during the board of directors election and formally elevated to the position at the institutes 25th annual event in washington dc members of aimbes college fellows are nominated each year by their peers and represent the top two percent of the medical and biological engineering community since aimbes inception more than 2 000 esteemed individuals have been inducted aimbes college consists of clinicians industry professionals academics and scientists who have distinguished themselves through their contributions in research industrial practice and/or education fundamental to their achievements is the common goal of embracing innovation to improve the health care and safety of society guiseppi-elie received his scd in materials science and engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology his masters degree in chemical engineering from the university of manchester institute of science and technology and his bachelors degree in analytical chemistry biochemistry and applied chemistry from the university of the west indies guiseppi-elies research interests are in engineered bioanalytical microsystems in the service of human health and medicine and he has been principal investigator on more than $20 million in funding of sponsored programs gifts and contracts including a recent $3 280 000 award from the us department of defense his research uses intrinsically conductive polymers combined with synthetic hydrogels and natural biopolymers to engender biologically active and responsive interfaces in biosensors implantable electrodes and soft implantable electronics with more than 145 peer-reviewed publications eight book chapters and eight patents guiseppi-elie is a recognized international expert in his field additionally guiseppi-elie is founder president and scientific director of abtech scientific inc a near-patient biomedical diagnostic company he also serves as editor-in-chief of bioengineering and associate editor of biomedical microdevices and is a member of the editorial boards of the journal of bioactive and compatible polymers nanobiotechnology and applied biochemistry and biotechnology he has been a guest editor for the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) journal of biomedical and health informatics guiseppi-elie is a fellow of aimbe ieee and the royal society of chemistry he is a lifetime member of the american institute of chemical engineers and holds memberships in the american association for the advancement of science the american chemical society the materials research society and the biomedical engineering society he has been an ieee embs distinguished lecturer and the past year was selected for a fulbright specialists project at universidad nacional de tucumán (unt) facultad de ciencias exactas y tecnología (facet) in argentina aimbe is a non-profit organization representing 50 000 individuals and the top two percent of medical and biological engineers aimbe represents academic institutions private industry and other professional engineering societies aimbe was founded in 1991 to provide leadership and advocacy in medical and biological engineering for the benefit of society about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative medicine medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1328,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university has appointed dr mark lawley as the interim department head in the department of industrial and systems engineering lawley is a tees research professor in the department lawley joined texas a&m and the department of industrial and systems engineering in 2014 after serving for 17 years as a faculty member at purdue university and two years as a faculty member at the university of alabama he is a registered professional engineer in the state of texas and has done extensive consulting as well as working in engineering positions with the emerson electric company and westinghouse corporation he earned his bachelors degree in industrial engineering from tennessee technological university in 1982 and his masters degree in 1988 from auburn university in manufacturing systems engineering lawley earned his phd from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 1995 lawleys research interests are in healthcare delivery systems with emphasis on population health and chronic disease lawley also serves as the deputy director of the center for remote health technologies and systems the center focuses on developing breakthrough healthcare devices technologies and systems for disease prevention diagnosis and management in the global health setting
1329,jeffrey zhao and sahil dhanju engineering students at texas a&m university were part of a team that took home a national coding prize from the dream it code it win it competition zhao a sophomore mechanical engineering student and university innovation fellow and sahil dhanju a computer science student participated with teammates cyrun roshan and hima tammineedi from the university of texas at dallas and carnegie mellon university respectively the team took home the fiverr® $5 000 award for biomimetics for its product recall it was one of eight collegiate teams to receive an award at the third annual competition ceremony on may 5 in new york the teams product was created to help early to mid-stage alzheimers patients recall facts and important information needed for day to day life the wearable device stays on the forearm of the person and features a status led a button to start voice input and a microphone in addition to the wearable there is a mobile app a caretaker can use to fill in important information dream it code it win it is a student coding competition and celebration that is organized to reward creativity in computer science and encourage students to pursue computer science education the student submissions are judged based on the quality of the problem being tackled as well as the solution cristina dolan mit club of new york mit enterprise forum of new york and tradingscreen organized the event
1330,for many engineering students the daily grind consists of waking up studying and going to sleep matthew baumgartner a senior in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university found time to impact lives by co-founding a branch of 180 degrees consulting
1331,180 is an international organization that was founded nine years ago in australia at the university of sydney baumgartner said it now has branches in 31 countries at 74 top-tier universities we are the first university in the heartland of america and in texas to begin serving the organization provides affordable consulting for nonprofit organizations by merging the talent and passion of university students with nonprofits problems to create social impact college students all over the world are trained as consultants to design and implement strategies with the goal of helping organizations run more efficiently one of the groups we are working with is called elijah rising and they are trying to end human trafficking he said they bought this old college campus and are converting it to a restoration home for women the facility is now called kendleton farms this 84-acre farm in houston will provide a safe place for victims to heal physically spiritually and emotionally to serve these women and provide the best resources the staff asked for help from baumgartners team to create effective business models for the women to obtain fiscal independence and re-adjust to society we are building sustainable business models for the women to live and work on the farm he said the six businesses range from a wedding venue to a flower shop to a bed and breakfast in addition to working with elijah rising 180 degrees consulting at texas a&m has completed 16 other client engagements since its founding three semesters ago with nonprofits in the bryan-college station area and houston the idea for establishing a branch of 180 degrees consulting at texas a&m came from callie lowe a graduate student in industrial and systems engineering together they began consulting nonprofit organizations in the area my friend callie heard about 180 degrees consulting during an internship from a co-worker baumgartner said she was really interested and asked me to help her get it started here 180 degrees is the worlds largest pro bono consultancy and offers a broad range of consulting services for nonprofit organizations the companys mission is to create value for both the organizations and the student consultants the mission of 180 is to strengthen the ability of socially conscious organizations to achieve high-impact social outcomes through the development of innovative practical and sustainable solutions he said for baumgartner 180 degrees consulting allowed him to carry out his passion of helping those in need my goal during my time at texas a&m and beyond is to love god and to love people well which i hope is reflected by the things i chose to invest my time in he said besides functioning as president of 180 baumgartner was involved in other student organizations including serving as the community director of the international justice mission founding aggies at all faiths working as a resident adviser in the dorms on campus and performing research in multiple studies in the human factors and cognitive systems lab within the department of industrial and systems engineering while consulting may not be a field that initially comes to mind when industrial engineering is mentioned baumgartner has found many areas in which his education and consulting skills complement his passions my four years in industrial and systems engineering have given me a foundation of skills that can be applied across industries baumgartner said that toolkit has helped equip me for my job after graduation at the boston consulting group where ill be advising a wide range of organizations photos provided by matthew baumgartner
1332,otc heritage award winner yuri makogon (left) with otc chairman joe foster (right) dr yuri f makogon retired tees research engineer in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university received a heritage award recognizing his lifetime scientific accomplishments during the 2016 offshore technology conference (otc) in houston this may the heritage award is one of a few distinguished achievement awards otc gives annually in recognition of personal cooperative and lifelong achievements in the oil and gas industry makogon a world-renowned expert on gas hydrates and an astute research scholar of the water-gas phase behavior in the earths stratum will receive the award at the conference in may he began work for the university in 1993 his career in oil and gas education and research spans 60 years he has authored over 270 scientific papers written eight books and holds 29 patents in 1965 he discovered natural gas hydrate deposits in nature he established the hydrate research laboratory at texas a&m where he expanded the knowledge of a number of important physical gas hydrate properties investigated kinetics morphology and properties of hydrate crystals makogon is a member of ukraine oil-gas academy (2010) and has received many international awards during his career he was one of the founding members of the russian academy of natural sciences (rans) established in 1990 in 2015 he received the presidents star of success award from rans as recognition of his lifetime achievements the award was presented to makogon on his 85th birthday during the anniversary of his 25 years of service to the organization he currently serves as the us section regional secretary of rans
1333,this article was originally published on the texas a&m energy institute website the texas a&m energy institute is joining eight universities to participate in a new six-year $20 million project awarded by the us department of energy's national energy technology laboratory (netl) titled university coalition for fossil energy research (ucfer) the goals of the project will be to identify select execute review and disseminate knowledge from research that will improve the efficiency of production and use of fossil energy resources while minimizing the environmental impacts and reducing greenhouse gas emissions led by penn state university the founding members of the coalition team include the massachusetts institute of technology princeton university texas a&m university university of kentucky university of southern california university of tulsa university of wyoming and virginia tech university the founding members of the texas a&m energy institute team include: dr christodoulos a floudasdirector of the texas a&m energy institute and erle nye ´59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering(primary investigator) dr efstratios pistikopoulosassociate director of the texas a&m energy institute and tees distinguished research professor in chemical engineering (co-primary investigator) dr a daniel hilldepartment head professor and noble chair in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering dr akhil datta-guptauniversity distinguished professor regents professor and lf peterson 36 chair in the petroleum engineering dr carlos a dengoexecutive professor and director of the berg-hughes center for petroleum and sedimentary system in the department of geology and geophysics dr m nazmul karimdepartment head professor and holder of the t michael oconnor chair ii in chemical engineering about the university coalition for fossil energy research – ucfer ucfer will engage in both fundamental and applied research for clean and low-carbon energy based on fossil resources outreach and technology transfer to industry will be important components of the coalition with the aim of reducing environmental impacts and minimizing carbon dioxide emission the coalition will explore both research in coal and in natural gas and oil including carbon dioxide capture storage and utilization ucfer will support the mission of the us department of energy through mechanisms that promote collaboration among netl and the universities that are members of the coalition by the coordination of research and the sharing of data its collaborative research will focus on coal natural gas and oil and will involve expertise in one or more of the following five core competence areas – : geological and environmental systems materials engineering and manufacturing energy conversion engineering systems engineering and analysis and computational science and engineering research in gas and oil will also include unconventional resources such as shale gas and environmental impacts natural gas infrastructure – leak detection and smart sensors deep water technology methane hydrates and enhanced recovery about the texas a&m energy institute the texas a&m energy institute engages undergraduate and graduate students postdoctoral associates research staff and faculty members toward the study and development of innovative technologies and policies for energy production and energy conservation special attention is paid to elucidating the complexity among the interacting components of energy economics law public policy and the environment the texas a&m energy institute focuses on three essential pillars: transformation of the energy research landscape education of the next generation of leaders in energy and establishment of a vibrant external partnerships program in energy with 240 faculty affiliates from nine colleges and schools more than 20 texas a&m university departments two texas a&m branch campuses and two texas a&m university system member institutions along with a unique community of more than 400 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows in the texas a&m energy research society cutting-edge solutions are being realized through true interdisciplinary collaborations that will address the complexity and challenges of the worlds energy future
1334,texas a&m university engineering students brendan cooper jean-claude faa and jeffrey zhao traveled to silicon valley joining more than 200 university innovation fellows (uif) for a four-day intensive experience that included trips to google stanford university microsoft and bay area companies the three were invited to the university innovation fellow silicon valley meet-up as part of their participation in the epicenter-based program they have been fellows since their acceptance in the fall 2015 the students spent a day at google discussing the importance of innovation and creating a space and mindset that encourages thinking big googles head of innovation and creativity programs frederik pferdt and tilek mamutov from x (formerly google x) mentored the students throughout the day the students heard from peter sims author and entrepreneur microsoft executives stanford professors and technology businesses about the importance of innovation creative thinking and leadership from recent graduates the students said the most valuable part of the meet-up was the time they spent interacting with their peers cooper said that being with his peers has allowed them to form a community and they have continued their conversations even after returning to their universities cooper said that the discussions added perspective for how the college of engineering does things compared to other universities the fellows are able to share innovative activities from the texas a&m campus and receive feedback and ideas for things to bring to the campus its really provided us a community of similarly focused peers said cooper its motivating knowing i have these resources at other universities the texas a&m fellows returned from their trip energized to make an impact on campus the fellows are planning ways to bring more multidisciplinary projects to the texas a&m campus they want to work with evans library to create a maker-space for students to start their creative process and to expand the u-ignite video competition all three students are mechanical engineering majors cooper is a sophomore faa is a junior and zhao is a senior carson muscat another fellow who was unable to attend the trip is a senior in petroleum engineering epicenter is funded by the national science foundation and directed by stanford university and venturewell the program has trained more than 450 students from 130 universities
1335,andrew weems a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the whitaker international fellowship as a fellowship recipient weems will have the opportunity to study at the university of warwick in the united kingdom where he will conduct research in the laboratory of andrew dove throughout the spring 2017-18 academic year as a whitaker fellow weems will work on synthesizing degradable shape memory polymers (smps) that will have advanced manufacturing applications weems who works in the laboratory of duncan j maitland stewart & stevenson professor i was previously awarded the nasa h jenkins fellowship to examine the degradation behavior of smps andrew is an outstanding graduate student that will represent us well at both the summer nasa internship and during the whitaker international fellowship maitland said these honors reflect well on andrew our department and texas a&m engineering experiment station andrews whitaker fellowship will enable all of us to benefit from his external research experiences the whitaker international program sends emerging leaders in us biomedical engineering (or bioengineering) overseas to undertake a self-designed project that will enhance their careers within the field the goal of the program is to assist the development of professional leaders who are not only superb scientists but who also will advance the profession through an international outlook along with supporting grant projects in an academic setting the whitaker international program encourages grantees to engage in policy work and propose projects in an industry setting the whitaker international fellows and scholars program was created by the institute of international education with a grant from the whitaker foundation its mission is to promote international collaboration in the growing field of biomedical engineering whitaker international fellows are those who have received a degree in biomedical engineering but have not yet obtained a phd whitaker international scholars are biomedical engineers who have already received a phd within two years of application about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1336,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recognized faculty and staff award winners during the 2016 faculty and staff awards banquet banks presented faculty awards staff excellence awards a new employee award a key contributor award and the engineering team award staff awards key contributor award ninette portales (engineering human resources) new employee award shraddha sankhe (engineering communications) staff excellence award carol broach (engineering academic and student affairs); joshua cook (texas center for applied technology); sarah curylo (civil engineering); barbara mendoza (engineering communications); kaitlin nichols (business services biomedical engineering); brooke schneider (national center for therapeutics manufacturing); carolyn warzon (electrical and computer engineering) engineering team award tees fiscal bam implementation team (dana ethridge; mary williams; tiphany bode; gina gressett; karen gregory; lynn krueger) faculty awards college of engineering teaching awards tenneco meritorious teaching award dr mary preston mcdougall (biomedical engineering) eugene webb faculty teaching award dr robert randall (ocean engineering) william keeler memorial fund teaching award dr sp bhattacharyya (electrical and computer engineering); dr h gene hawkins jr (civil engineering) george armistead jr 23 faculty excellence teaching award dr paval tsvetkov (nuclear engineering) instructional faculty teaching award dr peter england (civil engineering); dr john haglund (mechanical engineering); dr matilda mcvay (mechanical engineering); dr amanda wood (ocean engineering) association of former students college-level distinguished teaching award dr melissa grunlan (biomedical engineering); dr h gene hawkins jr (civil engineering); dr dmitri loguinov (computer science and engineering); dr erick moreno-centeno (industrial and systems engineering) college of engineering service awards charles w crawford distinguished service award dr jerald caton (mechanical engineering) eugene webb faculty service award dr john criscione (biomedical engineering); dr jay porter (engineering technology and industrial distribution) college of engineering contribution awards barbara and ralph cox 53 faculty award for contributions dr satish bukkapatnam (industrial and systems engineering) charles h barclay jr 45 award for contributions dr sergio capareda (biological and agricultural engineering) williams brothers construction engineering award for contributions dr stefan hurlebaus (civil engineering) william o & montine p head memorial research fund for contributions dr alex sprintson (electrical and computer engineering) college of engineering faculty fellows william keeler faculty fellow dr rusty harris (electrical and computer engineering); dr anastasia muliana (mechanical engineering) herbert h richardson faculty fellow dr lin shao (nuclear engineering) william o and montine p head faculty fellow dr jodie lutkenhaus (chemical engineering); dr choongho yu (mechanical engineering) tees fellow awards tees center fellows dr keith biggers (texas center for applied technology); dr dean schneider (texas center for applied technology) tees young faculty fellows dr michael moreno (mechanical engineering); dr partha mukherjee (mechanical engineering) tees faculty fellows dr raymundo arroyave (materials science and engineering); dr mahmoud el-halwagi (chemical engineering); dr anastasia muliana (mechanical engineering); dr victor ugaz (chemical engineering) tees senior fellows dr sharath girimaji (aerospace engineering); dr duncan maitland (biomedical engineering); dr binayak mohanty (biological and agricultural engineering); dr lawrence rauchwerger (computer science and engineering) dean of engineering excellence award assistant professor dr gretchen miller (civil engineering); dr michael moreno (mechanical engineering) associate professor dr elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez (biomedical engineering); dr arum han (electrical and computer engineering) full professor dr mark holtzapple (chemical engineering); dr rosana moreira (biological and agricultural engineering)
1337,"the texas a&m engineering program recently invested 12 new chair and professorship appointments for the 2016-2017 academic year in addition to recognizing current chair holders and professorships engineering faculty who were awarded the new designation of a chair or professorship were presented with bronzed medallions the medallions symbolize the honorees commitment to teaching research and service new honorees: a daniel hill stephen a holditch 69 department head chair in petroleum engineering miroslav m begovic carolyn s & tommie e lohman 59 professorship in engineering education bonnie j dunbar tees distinguished research professor jaime c grunlan linda & ralph schmidt 68 professorship anthony guiseppi-elie tees research professorship eleftherios iakovou tees research professorship duncan j maitland stewart & stevenson professorship i eyad masad zachry professorship in design & construction integration ii prabhakar r pagilla tees research professorship alan b palazzolo tees research professorship robert e skelton tees distinguished research professorship mark h weichold halliburton engineering global program professorship current chair and professorship holders: stuart d anderson - zachry chair in construction integration m katherine banks – harold j haynes deans chair in engineering maria a barrufet – baker hughes chair bill batchelor - rp gregory class of 32 chair jean-louis briaud – spencer j buchanan `26 chair kai chang – ti chair in analog engineering dara w childs – leland t jordan `29 chair akhil datta-gupta – lf peterson `36 chair edward r dougherty jr – robert m kennedy `26 chair christodoulos a floudas – erle nye 59 chair professorship for engineering excellence costas georghiades - delbert a whitaker chair je-chin han – marcus c easterling `30 chair a daniel hill - noble chair david c hyland - royce e wisenbaker class of 39 chair john l junkins - royce e wisenbaker class of 39 chair in innovation m nazmul karim – mike oconnor chair ii michael j king - lesuer chair in reservoir management pr kumar – chair in computer engineering dimitris c lagoudas – john & bea slattery chair gholamreza reza langari – jr thompson (etid) department head chair f barry lawrence - leonard and valerie bruce leadership chair in industrial distribution dallas n little – eb snead 25 chair robert l lytton - fred j benson chair cesar malave - sugar and mike barnes department head chair in industrial and systems engineering mahboobul sam mannan – mike oconnor chair i duane a mcvay – albert b stevens chair professorship in petroleum engineering binayak mohanty - college of agriculture and life sciences chair in hydrological engineering and sciences hisham nasr-el-din - john edgar holt class of 27 chair john m niedzwecki - wofford cain senior chair in engineering offshore technology calvin parnell – endowed chair in cotton engineering ginning and mechanization kr rajagopal - forsyth chair in mechanical engineering jn reddy - oscar s wyatt jr class of 45 chair b don russell jr - harry e bovay jr chair for the history and ethics of professional engineering luis san andres – mast-childs chair in mechanical engineering edgar sanchez-sinencio - t-i jack kilby chair in analog engineering william s saric - george j eppright class of 26 chair marlan scully – tees distinguished research chair chanan singh - irma runyon chair vijay singh - caroline and william n lehrer distinguished chair in water engineering peter p valko – robert whiting chair in petroleum engineering marvin l adams – htri professorship nancy m amato – unocal professorship nk anand - james m class of 12 and ada sutton forsyth professorship kalyan annamalai - g paul pepper class of 54 professorship robin l autenrieth - ap and florence wiley professorship perla b balbuena - gas processors suppliers association professorship in chemical engineering shankar p bhattacharyya - robert m kennedy class of 26 professorship thomas a blasingame – robert l whiting professorship rodney bowersox – ford motor company design professorship i satish bukkapatnam – rockwell international professorship dragomir b bukur – joe m nesbitt professorship mark burris – herbert d kelleher professorship in transportation jerald a caton - gulf oil/thomas a dietz professorship hamn-ching chen – ap & florence wiley professorship i david e claridge - leland t jordan class of 29 professorship gerard l cote - charles h and bettye barclay professorship dilma da silva – ford motor company design professorship ii aniruddha datta - jw runyon jr professorship in electrical engineering yu ding – mike and sugar barnes professorship mehradad ehsani – robert m kennedy 26 professorship i mahmoud m el-halwagi – mcferrin professorship in chemical engineering prasad n enjeti - t-i professorship in engineering sharath girimaji – general dynamics professorship yassin a hassan – sallie & don davis 61 professorship in engineering arul jayaraman - ray b nesbitt professorship daniel f jennings - i andrew rader professorship ibrahim karaman - chevron professorship mladen kezunovic – eugene e webb 43 professorship in electrical engineering yue kuo – dow chemical professorship mark a lawley – tees research professorship victor jorge leon - allen-bradley professorship jenn-tai liang – john e and deborah f bethancourt professorship john mander - zachry professorship in design and construction integration scott miller - debbie and dennis segers class of 75 professorship rabi h mohtar – tees research professorship robin murphy - raytheon company professorship in computer engineering alan needleman – tees distinguished research professor cam v nguyen – ti professorship ii in analog engineering zivko nikolov dow professor in process engineering eric l petersen – nelson-jackson professorship stratos pistikopoulos – tees distinguished research professor andreas a polycarpou - meinhard h kotzebu class of 14 professorship robert e randall - wh bauer professorship in dredging engineering lawrence rauchwerger – eppright professorship in engineering al narasimha reddy - jw runyon jr professorship in electrical engineering helen reed – edward pete aldridge `60 professorship peter rentzepis – tees distinguished research professor william schneider – zachry industry teaching program taher m schobeiri - oscar s wyatt jr professorship jorge m seminario - lanatter and herbert fox professorship in chemical engineering jose silva-martinez - t-i professorship in analog engineering arun r srinivasa – holdredge/paul professorship hung-jue sue – tees research professorship ramesh talreja - tenneco professorship valerie e taylor - royce e wisenbaker professorship hamid a toliyat - ratheon professorship in electrical engineering victor ugaz – charles d holland `53 professorship jennifer welch - chevron professorship steven m wright - royce e wisenbaker professorship ralph a wurbs - arthur mcfarland class of 1905 professorship in engineering ding zhu - lf pete peterson class of 36 professorship behbood ""ben"" zoghi - victor h thompson professorship"
1338,drs lin shao and pavel tsvetkov associate professors in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university were honored at the 2016 texas a&m engineering faculty and staff awards dinner at the annenberg presidential conference center in college station texas shao received the herbert h richardson fellow award and tsvetkov received the george armistead jr 23 faculty excellence teaching award shaos research interests include radiation effects in nuclear and electronic materials and ion beam analysis shao is a part of the nuclear material and fuel cycles group at texas a&m and also manages the ion beam accelerator laboratory one of the largest ion irradiation facilities in the united states with a total of five accelerators shao received his undergraduate degree in nuclear engineering from peking university in china before studying at the university of houston and receiving his doctoral degree in physics in 2001 shao has been a faculty member at texas a&m since 2006 tsvetkovs research interests include system analysis and optimization methods complex engineered systems system design symbiotic nuclear energy systems waste minimization and nuclear sustainability among other areas tsvetkov is a member of the nuclear power engineering group tsvetkov received his masters degree in theoretical and experimental reactor physics from the moscow state engineering physics institute in russia before going on to receive his phd in nuclear engineering at texas a&m tsvetkov has been a faculty member at texas a&m since 2003
1339,dr cable kurwitz and undergraduate researchers aldo sosa juan duran and victor ibarra have completed a successful flight-test program aboard nasas reduced gravity aircraft of the demonstration of a variable heat rejection (dovr) system the experiment served as a demonstration of several fluid handling technologies for an advanced radiator system to be used in future spacecraft kurwitz is a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) associate research engineer and senior lecturer with the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university duran and ibarra are both nuclear engineering majors while sosa is an electrical engineering major according to kurwitz the flight is a major step toward future suborbital testing aboard virgin galactics first research flight kurwitz who is the director of the interphase transport laboratory at texas a&m has been carrying out thermal fluid experiments related to this technology for over 25 years the undergraduate student researchers assisting with this project are part of an undergraduate enrichment program sponsored by the nuclear power institute (npi) the program tasks students with engineering projects that are of interest to industry and government provides them with mentorship opportunities and allows them to develop practical engineering experiences according to kurwitz development of the dovr system will allow future spacecraft to handle a wide variety of thermal loads and conditions the dovr system builds upon many previous technology programs to vary heat rejection from spacecraft radiators through the change in effective radiator area by modulating liquid between selected radiator lines and a gas-liquid separator kurwitz said kurwitz explains like all vehicles spacecraft generate thermal energy from their onboard electronics payloads and other sources in addition to absorbing it from external sources such as the sun and the earth on earth our machines can be cooled with air or liquid but this is not possible in the vacuum of outer space the dovr technology builds upon current pumped liquid spacecraft radiators but controls where the liquid in the radiator is allowed to flow using a set of valves a gas-liquid separator and an ejector pump this allows spacecraft to reject varying levels of waste heat to different sink temperatures preventing the spacecraft from overheating kurwitz says the process of exchanging the liquid in the radiator with the gas in the separator in space is similar to filling an empty bucket with water from a water tank on earth as the tank is emptied out into the bucket air will be displaced from the bucket and will fill the volume in the tank that once held water while this is a simple process that occurs on earth because of gravity the dovr technology will allow this to occur in a zero gravity setting the gas liquid separator technology was developed at texas a&m and has been licensed to advanced cooling technologies inc in addition to being used on a space mission that is currently in orbit the flight testing and suborbital testing that kurwitz and his students participated in aims to test the exchange of fluids between the radiator and the separator in a zero gravity environment which until now has only been tested on earth it's been demonstrated that experiments that fly on the aircraft first have a much higher probability of success when you go to suborbital or orbital testing because something unforeseen or that was assumed to work in a low gravity environment fails kurwitz said since most investigations involving thermal hydraulics are carried out under gravity on earth the relationships that describe fluid flow are developed with the assumption that it is for earth conditions that doesnt take into account the variety of gravity conditions we have to consider however another challenge kurwitz and his students also have to account for are the many changing thermal conditions of space being able to change the radiator capability is very desirable because it allows us to have much more flexibility in the amount of power we have to reject and allows us to work in a variety of different cold and hot environments in space kurwitz said the challenge becomes that traditionally we would build a big radiator to handle the high amount of energy we have to reject in the hot environment in low earth orbit but then the problem is that as we transit out to somewhere like mars where we're not rejecting as much energy and it's much colder it would essentially cause our spacecraft to freeze kurwitz and his group feel that with these tools the radiators onboard spacecraft will be able to operate more efficiently in different thermal environments we're essentially using a lot of technology that we have a lot of experience with in a space environment kurwitz said so we have a high confidence that it will work and that they will be able to work for a long period of time repeatedly
1340,dr dallas little snead chair professor and regents professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the carl l monismith lecture on pavement engineering by the american society of civil engineers (asce) geo-institute the lecture is awarded annually for outstanding research contributions in pavement engineering little will be presented with a plaque and honorarium during the geo-chicago conference aug 14-18 the monismith lecture is to take place on aug 17 little is a senior research fellow at the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) and was the first researcher named to that position he has served as principal investigator over an array of national research projects for such sponsors as the federal highway administration national cooperative highway research program the air force office of scientific research and the national science foundation he has also served as principal investigator on numerous projects for the texas department of transportation and private industry he recently served as principal investigator for texas a&ms role in the $30 million asphalt research consortium (arc) project focused on advancing the state of knowledge in the fundamental and applied design and analysis of asphalt materials and pavements he has published over 200 journal articles and given over 450 invited lectures asce established the lecture in recognition of professor carl l monismith's contribution to pavement engineering and in recognition of his teaching and research career in pavement technology which spans more than 50 years throughout this period he has mentored numerous graduate students who have disseminated advances in pavement technology around the world
1341,dr stephen w searcy professor and department head in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m university has been elected president of the american society of agricultural and biological engineers (asabe) searcy will begin a three-year term at the close of the 2016 asabe annual meeting to be held in orlando florida in july he will serve one year each as president-elect president and past president a member of asabe since 1980 searcy has served as society treasure as a trustee and as a member of a variety of technical and executive committees he was inducted as an asabe fellow in 2008 searcy will succeed maynard herron who begins his tenure as asabe president at the close of the orlando meeting
1342,dr madhav erraguntla and dr mark lawley professors in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university were awarded a $1 million contract from the defense health program in the us department of defense the researchers will work collaboratively with knowledge based systems inc (kbsi) to design and develop a data integration and predictive analysis system (ipas) healthcare workers want protective equipment and protocols that keep them safe and residents want to ride the subway or bus without fear of being infected lawley said this grant will support our ongoing research in designing the global surveillance and response systems of the 21st century with the goal of containing infectious outbreaks at their source the ipas system will enable prediction analysis and response management of infectious diseases the method we have developed in phase i is generic but focuses on predicting influenza-like illness (ili) in the us and health and human services regions erraguntla said phase i also studied the effectiveness of twitter-based flu signal data for predicting the disease intensity the goal of phase ii is to extend the methodology to diseases such as ebola and the zika virus prior knowledge of disease incidents will allow for proactive steps such as the development of medical interventions preventive healthcare for disease hazards and containment of disease paths the timely prediction of disease outbreaks will begin the effective coordination and mobilization of medical human and pharmaceutical resources these features will benefit many organizations such as the center for disease control national institutes of health and other public health officials who can mobilize resources and develop plans and contingencies to respond to global and local disease outbreaks erraguntla said this research is a collaborative effort between the department of industrial and systems engineering and kbsi a company in college station texas specializing in data mining machine learning engineering and systems analysis consulting and systems/software development
1343,the first cohort of texas a&m universitys national research traineeship (nrt) program collaborated with national experts in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) during training at the national science foundations inaugural nrt annual meeting at the university of maryland in college park maryland the meeting brought together representatives of the first cohorts of 18 nsf-funded nrt projects that seek to revolutionize interdisciplinary training in graduate education led by experts in stem training the teams participated in a discussion to develop strategies to efficiently coordinate this national challenge the following day texas a&ms team showcased its nrt project data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) at the future stem leaders workshop held in the ronald reagan building and international trade center in washington dc dr raymundo arróyave principal investigator and an associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering and dr joseph ross co-principal investigator and a professor in the department of physics and astronomy attended the event additionally graduate students luke johnson (materials science and engineering) emily conant (physics and astronomy) anish patel (chemical engineering) and erick braham (chemistry) attended the event in the fall of 2015 texas a&m received a five-year $3 million grant from nsf for graduate training and research the d3em project will provide approximately 40 nrt fellowships over a period of five years to graduate students from six different departments –– materials science and engineering mechanical engineering chemical engineering electrical and computer engineering and computer science as well as physics and chemistry to learn more about d3em visit its website
1344,dr jorge l alvarado associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university recently gave an invited lecture at the university of california riverside on multiple droplet impingement dynamics during the lecture alvarado revealed his most recent findings about the hydrodynamic behavior of impinged thin liquid films under the effects of multiple droplet impingement events he and his team have been able to conduct microscale experiments and numerical simulations to understand the physical mechanisms of multiple droplet impingements on heated surfaces as they relate to electronic cooling and biomedical applications his research efforts are part of a project funded by the qatar national research foundation in which he and his collaborators at texas a&m at qatar including dr reza sadr and dr anoop kanjirakat are conducting fundamental research in the area of impinged liquid films alvarado was invited by the dr guillermo aguilar department chair of mechanical engineering at riverside who is also active in the field of droplet impingement and sprays for biomedical applications during his visit alvarado also had the opportunity to meet with graduate students to talk about rewards and challenges of pursuing an academic career
1345,twelve aggies including three graduates of the college of engineering at texas a&m university have been selected as the 2016 recipients of the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of texas a&m university the distinguished alumnus award receiving the honor from the college of engineering were: dr william m barnes 64 is a former rockwell international executive and accomplished engineer; spending 33 years with rockwell he became senior vice president and chief financial officer he was named an outstanding alumnus of a&ms college of engineering in 1992 and an outstanding alumnus of the department of industrial engineering in 2002; received a lifetime award in 2009 from the texas council of industrial engineering department heads; and in 2001 received the leonardo da vinci annual award given by rockwell to its outstanding engineer he endowed a chair and a professorship in industrial engineering and has funded a&m professorships and labs through the rockwell foundation served as a charter member of the chancellors century council and has been a member of the engineering advisory board he has also raised funds for texas a&m and texas a&m athletics as well as for san antonios witte museum and supported the united way of san antonio he received his bachelors and masters degrees in industrial engineering and a phd in operations research all from texas a&m van h taylor 71 retired as president of network services for the southwest region of at&t after a 34-year career with southwestern bell/sbc/at&t during his time as president and ceo of technology resources inc the research subsidiary of sbc communications from 1994 to 1997 he relocated the entire organization from st louis to austin on the texas a&m foundations board of trustees from 2010 to 2007 he served as chairman in 2014-15 serving on the association of former students board of directors from 2000 to 2007 he was president of the board in 2006 he served on the college of engineering advisory council from 1997 to 2012 and is an emeritus member he is a trustee of the community foundation of the brazos valley; has been a board member and volunteer for habitat for humanity; and served on the boy scouts of america circle ten executive council he received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering ray rothrock 77 has backed many innovative firms as a longtime venture capital investor he was managing general partner for 25 years of venrock a diversified early stage venture capital firm and lead investor for 53 startup companies he is a past chair of the national venture capital association and his investment track record has earned him multiple listings on the forbes midas list he was chairman and ceo of redseal a $25 million cyber-security analytics company he has been a trustee of the texas a&m foundation and a board member of the association of former students served on development councils for the college of liberal arts and college of engineering and was named a distinguished engineer in 2013 and distinguished nuclear engineer in 2011 mits nuclear engineering and science department named him a distinguished alumnus in 2012 he led efforts that raised $25 million for woodside priory school in portola valley california he received his bachelors degree in nuclear engineering from texas a&m additionally dr charley v wootan who served as director of the texas a&m transportation institute from 1976-1993 was honored posthumously dr charley v wootan '50 built the texas a&m transportation institute into the top university-affiliated transport research organization in the united states he was the institutes director from 1976 to 1993 and director emeritus from 1993 to 2001 the year he passed away in 2003 he was inducted into the texas transportation hall of honor he received awards from the texas department of transportation the american road and transportation builders association and the transportation research board he founded the council of university transportation centers he chaired the board of the texas guaranteed student loan corporation which in 2001 named the charley v wootan grant program for him in 2012-13 the program awarded grants of $5 million to 1 500 students he served in the us marine corps from 1944 to 1946 and later in the us air force reserve he was involved with the greater east texas higher education authority college station united way and college station noon lions club
1346,the texas a&m university chapter of the health physics society (hps) attended rock prairie elementary schools science and technology night and taught students from kindergarten to the fifth grade and their parents about the process of radioactive decay the main message we were trying to get across is that nuclear [concepts] such as radioactivity do not mean [nuclear processes] are dangerous said anna laura licon president of the texas a&m hps chapter hps volunteers used m&m candies to demonstrate the process of radioactive decay to the students by focusing on the relationship between radioactive half-life and population the volunteers took bags of 35 m&ms and designated the candies as isotopes of the element candium the students were told that the candies had a half-life of 6s and they would shake the bag of m&ms and pour them out those candies that came out without the trademark m showing had decayed and were discarded the students then placed the remainder of the candies back in the bag and repeated the process until they were all discarded and then graphed the results of the experiment in order to see the exponential relationship the kids seemed to enjoy it and actually understood what was happening and why licon said if you implant this idea at an early age they will grow up with an open mind [and] by bringing m&ms into the teaching of radioactive decay they receive an understanding of the basic concept while relating it to something they also enjoy according to licon outreach events such as these cater to one of the goals of hps to educate the public about the discipline of health physics and how it benefits the world by reaching out to young students who are not engineers and who may have no familiarity with the discipline of health physics the chapter hopes simple experiments such as the candium half-life experiment will help demonstrate how nuclear engineering can be applied in many different ways the chapter also provides resources for students at texas a&m interested in the field of health physics twenty students from the chapter recently participated in the mid-year conference for hps in austin where students were given the opportunity to network with professionals in the discipline for licon who will be starting a four-year doctoral program at the university of texas health science center in san antonio after graduating this may events such as the mid-year conference and outreach at local high schools allow her to see the larger impact of hps i believe events like this especially when involving young children open the minds of those who participate to become more educated towards concepts people are afraid of approaching licon said i spoke to a kid about what his parents thought of nuclear and at the end without me asking he said ‘im going home and telling my parents that nuclear can be safe and fun and very useful hearing him say that made me realize that it is really about the way you approach the situation
1347,the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was well-represented at the annual college of engineering project showcase four teams and 30 students participated in the event explaining their research and solutions to industry leaders the 2016 engineering project showcase featured the work of 145 teams comprised of more than 750 students two teams with students from the department of industrial and systems engineering received top awards at the showcase our students are constantly learning and researching ways to better our world said dr césar malavé head of the department the engineering project showcase is a great opportunity for them to present their research as well as learn from other teams in other disciplines notifying caretakers families with loved ones taking prescription medication have a hard time reassuring themselves that their medication is being taken consistently and correctly a team of students is developing technologies that remind users to consume their medication as prescribed by their doctor then send notifications to their loved ones by doing this we are attempting to solve prescription compliance problems that are currently a burden to national healthcare systems and kill an estimated 125 000 individuals annually in the us said dylan begnaud a junior industrial and systems engineering major begnaud works with sanjay nair a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering and jason sieben a senior computer science major we establish a healthy form of communication again between family members instead of treating our elders like children begnaud said every day we get notifications from facebook why not have notifications when your loved ones have taken their medication measuring performance edp renewables (edpr) primarily uses wind turbines to generate electricity with renewable energy as an energy wholesaler edpr recently made a strategic shift to perform maintenance on its wind turbines rather than contracting out maintenance work with the equipment manufacturer while the company takes on more risk by handling its own maintenance work it can be certain the work is done correctly and efficiently the objective of our project was to update edprs set of key performance indicators (kpis) to accurately measure and describe their wind farms performance in detail said mitchell mesenbrink a senior industrial and systems engineering major the metrics must align edprs new self-perform maintenance model and focus on driving value by achieving maximum equipment reliability and performance while minimizing cost the team is comprised of senior industrial and systems engineering students jake klahs joel betancourt kevin hsieh and mesenbrink with the potential to grow the renewable energy industry mesenbrink and his team is excited to present its report to the representatives at edpr helping make renewable energy sources more viable on a large scale is better for our planet and future generations of people mesenbrink said the most beneficial part of this experience was working with the edpr representatives to create something that is meaningful and useful predicting seizures the national institute of neurological disorders and strokes states that two million people in the united states have experienced an unprovoked seizure or been diagnosed with epilepsy during the past 30 years several algorithms for predicting seizure onset based on eeg recordings have been developed but with limited success our system aims to detect predict and notify the patient before the seizure occurs and text the location of the patient to their loved ones upon predicting a seizure said sheril loke a senior industrial and systems engineering major additionally the caretakers can consistently and reliably monitor the patients epilepsy condition on a daily basis the placement of the sensor to perform an eeg requires an invasive technique as of today the team will develop and design a lessinvasive and comfortable device to perform the same tests the outcome of the project would provide a non-invasive and comfortable wearable headset device coupled with an effective detection and prediction algorithm with over 90 percent accuracy said ashif iquebal a graduate student in the department of industrial and systems engineering this device will be integrated with a mobile application that can allow point of care and real-time monitoring of the seizure the multi-disciplinary team has students working in four main groups to ensure the timely achievement of the project goals as students the most beneficial part of this project was getting the chance to work on an interdisciplinary project among many different nationalities and of all different levels of education loke said the team was one of two teams to be selected as winners of the shell award at the engineering showcase last month this award is presented to the highest scoring non-capstone team project by the college of engineering at texas a&m creating interest with a declining interest in areas of science technology engineering and math (stem) in elementary school children the stem space team has developed a game to reverse the trend the way we get kids hooked on learning is by making the app social said julian franklin a junior industrial and systems engineering major our research showed that a gaming aspect helped promote kids to compete and collaborate with each other in order to have the highest score the younger students were not the only ones learning from this project the engineering students also learned to work off of each others strengths and weaknesses the most beneficial part of this experience has been learning how to play to the strengths and weaknesses of an individual in a team franklin said the team was comprised of franklin nivedhan manavalan a graduate student in the department of information and operations management; mohammad sagor a sophomore computer science major; thomas rockwood a sophomore biological and agricultural engineering major; murphy young a graduate student in the department of teaching learning and culture; and austin verrett a junior industrial and systems engineering major optimizing a new ups hub as a part of the senior capstone design course a team of four industrial and systems engineering students were tasked with planning a united parcel service (ups) facility that will be built in 2018 in houston when planning the facility ups asked the team to balance the workload per center determine the number of drivers and vehicles needed on the first day of operation and suggest an implementation process as the area continues to grow our project will help ups better service hundreds of thousands of customers in the houston area said robin hall a senior industrial and systems engineering major we also strove for a solution that would create an ideal work situation for hundreds of ups employees the team was excited to have the opportunity to apply their undergraduate education to a real-world situation the most beneficial part of this experience was getting the chance to work collaboratively with a company we respect hall said most of our education has been theoretical and it has been a great experience to apply our knowledge to a real-world problem hall and her team members charles bentz cody keller and sarah valero worked all semester to design a plan for ups and help its customers in the houston area our planning will now help ups get their packages to the publics door as efficiently as possible hall said hopefully it will allow ups to maintain low prices and excellent customer relations the team competed against other capstone design teams in the engineering showcase last month its project was selected as the winner of the capstone – other majors category bringing home the gold the engineering showcase gives our students an opportunity to showcase their work practice critical skills and get recognized for what they have done – its the trifecta of opportunities said josé vazquez lecturer in the department of industrial and systems engineering in our case one of our teams has won in each of the past two years so now we have a tradition to build on that motivates students
1348,dr zachary grasley associate professor and peter c forster faculty fellow i in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was selected as a first year faculty fellow in the dwight look college of engineering this new program was designed to attract the most talented tenured and tenure-track engineering faculty educators to teach freshmen engineering students and contribute to improving the freshmen engineering experience the program aims to foster exemplary undergraduate teaching skills and commitment to excellence in fundamental engineering courses faculty are selected through a nomination process that includes an application that provides evidence of the individuals teaching excellence such as innovative programs or teaching strategies initiated effective use of technology in the classroom and awards received nominations also address the nominee's experience and skills working in teams and potential to assume a leadership role in facilitating the educational transformation of the freshmen year grasley has been with texas a&m for eight years and is also a faculty member in the materials science and engineering department
1349,dr scott socolofsky professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and his colleagues at ecole polytechnique fédérale de lausanne and woods hole oceanographic institution have published a new paper in environmental science & technology which was selected for the american chemical society editors choice the paper describes the behavior of oil and gas in the deep gulf of mexico as it was released during the 2010 deepwater horizon click here to read more
1350,we call it the ‘thrill of victory and the ‘agony of defeat said dr joseph morgan professor in the department of engineering technology & industrial distribution at texas a&m university as he observed his undergraduate students race the robotic cars they each built for a class project more than a dozen two-person student teams recently flooded the product innovation cellar of thompson hall for a competitive demonstration of their work from hardware design programming and circuitry work the pairs were each responsible for creating two cars one student would create the car for a drag race characterized by a long straight path ideal for fast speed while the other student would develop a car for the road race which is longer has sharp turns and traditionally slower travel participants were from the digital electronics course in the electronic systems engineering technology program a sophomore-level course that among other objectives intends to prepare students for their senior-year capstone project this course involves analog electronics digital electronics algorithms integration optimization and more all things engineers must know how to do said morgan in this project like the capstone project their design has to work first place honors went to david james and avery tijerina and they received a $250 check from xilinx the race sponsor second place went to ty blackstock and juan carlos urguidi recipients of $150 sherman wilder and dylan goins received $100 for third place james added balsa wood propellers to his militia-inspired robot a marine veteran the race champion said he was intentional in making the blades appear as realistic as possible noting that he was inspired from his work on similar equipment while serving on active duty caleb stewart junior was a student in the department of electrical and computer engineering before recently joining the program and enrolling in the digital electronics course here we have a lot of hands-on experience stewart said its been about designing an actual product where the solution is unknown at the beginning this is something we build from the ground up
1351,through projects like this the eset program provides students with a transformational education through experiential learning opportunities said dr jay porter associate etid department head and eset faculty member two hours after the races dvdt an eset capstone team won the mays business school ideas challenge netting them $3 000 this recognition follows the teams first place performance at last weeks college of engineering showcase if you are an innovator/entrepreneur and are interested in a hands-on education that leads to a rewarding and challenging career take a look at eset said porter photo (top): students assemble with their robotic cars photo (middle): team air force one runs the race photo (bottom): david james race champion presents his robot for the road race
1352,rana soltani and amin zeiaee both second-year phd students in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are developing an intelligent rehabilitation device that will provide automated therapy to stroke patients to expedite their recovery sungtae shin a fifth-year phd candidate in the same research group is working on using biosignals to recognize human hand gestures this technology has various applications in entertainment systems robotics and rehabilitation devices soltani and zeiaee recognize that treatment for stroke victims or others with limited mobility is very expensive and inadequate due to limited number of therapists and short therapy sessions also treatment is only available outside of the home at a medical or rehabilitation facility therapy must be very repetitive and intensive to be effective and we want to develop a robot that can improve the quality of training for patients and assist the therapists said zeiaee the device would train the arm for activities of daily living such as brushing ones teeth eating brushing hair cleaning a surface and more as motor abilities of a patient improve the robot adaptively adjusts the provided support said soltani it will be a robot collaborating with a human the two also intend to involve virtual reality and gaming into a patients utilization of the device making therapy a more engaging and pleasant activity a year-out early project goals include fabrication of the device obtaining patents and testing the device on stroke patients in qatar clinics device ergonomics and intelligence are expected to rival any competition with the ultimate goal of making this an in-home system that is affordable to anyone the team is searching ways to make the device more compact and lightweight a future goal of the team is the incorporation of intention detection methods into the device shins current research on processing biosignals is a possibility for this goal to demonstrate the viability of using biosignals for the control of robots shin has developed a system collected biosignals and orientation information of the forearm from the myotm armband are used to manipulate the robot arm moreover hand gestures such as finger snapping can be recognized by interpreting the biosignals and can then be used to control a robot arm said shin while performing a demonstration with the apparatus he has developed dr reza langari professor of mechanical engineering and head of the department of engineering technology & industrial distribution leads the research group soltani and zeaiees work is sponsored by qatar national research fund and includes collaborators from texas a&m university-qatar (dr reza tafreshi) the department of health and kinesiology at texas a&m (dr john buchanan) california state university at fullerton/uc irvine (dr nina robson) and hamad medical center in doha qatar (drs al-yazidi and loganathan)
1353,two teams from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received awards at the texas a&m engineering project showcase the dwight look college of engineering hosted the fourth-annual engineering project showcase april 29 in hall of champions during the event more than 150 engineering teams participated with posters and prototypes representing the work from senior capstone design courses aggie-challenge projects technical electives undergraduate research projects startup aggieland companies freshman design teams and others the departments ericsson drone signal survey team with braeden levine nicolas bain kyle sparrow and yinwei zhang and the tactical data system team with kevin wilkens raul de la fuente benito ramirez and randy neal each won in the capstone $500 category for more information about the project showcase visit its website
1354,smart grids big data was the focus of the fourth annual smart grid workshop held at texas a&m universitys memorial student center on april 28 big data is characterized by its properties of volume variety velocity and veracity and it is generated in many domains associated with power system operation (generation transmission and distribution customers services and markets) as well as other related domains such as weather other energy commodity markets (gas and oil) and environment dr mladen kezunovic director of the smart grid center and eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering gave the opening remarks and introduced the theme at the workshop as invited speaker dr alireza ghassemian from the office of electricity delivery and energy reliability department of energy (doe) outlined the research needs identified by and opportunities provided by doe a panel on current uses of and technologies for big data smart grids was chaired by john mcdonald and dr miroslav begovic mcdonald is the smartgrid business development leader – north america global smartgrid strategy group at ge grid solutions begovic is the head of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m the panel consisted of dr alberto del rosso (electric power research institute) brian baldwin (esri) dr deepjyoti deka (los alamos national laboratory) and rodolfo bialecki leandro (federal university of santa catarina brazil) future uses of big data in smart grids was discussed in another panel chaired by dr tom overbye from the electrical and computer engineering department at the university of illinois at urban-champaign and dr dilma da silva head of the computer science and engineering department at texas a&m panelists included dr pr kumar (electrical and computer engineering texas a&m) jim orouke (osisoft) dr bri-mathias hodge (national renewable energy laboratory) and dr haitham abu-rub (electrical and computer engineering texas a&m-qatar and managing director smart grid center-qatar) research results were showcased in a posters session presented by graduate students on the south big data regional innovation hub dr renata afi rawlings-goss (co-executive director south bd hub gatech) presented an overview in focus groups the following topics were discussed: • big data types and sources in smart grids led by baldwin and dr yu ding (texas a&m) • big data analytics and technology for smart grids led by dr mark rice (pnnl) and dr nick duffield (texas a&m) • solving the t&d challenges with big data led by jim orouke (osisoft) and dr anita rapp (texas a&m) • solving the customer challenges with big data led by dr haitham abu-rub (texas a&m -qatar) and dr le xie (texas a&m) overall more than 100 people attended the workshop including participants from the texas a&m university system the department of energy centerpoint energy ge grid solutions esri knowledge based systems national instruments osisoft the national renewable energy laboratory los alamos national laboratory pacific northwest national laboratory and the electric power research institute as well as 58 students and representatives from universities in brazil and qatar the workshop was sponsored by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the tees smart grid center the office of the vice president for research at texas a&m the department of electrical & computer engineering at texas a&m and the electrical power & power electronics institute at texas a&m
1355,dr bruce wang and dr ivan damnjanovic professors in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university took time to speak with the engineers of the future wang made a visit to a first grade class at rock prairie elementary in college station texas and damnjanovic visited the dolphins and seahorses class at the becky gates children center on the texas a&m campus to talk to the children about civil engineering wang introduced students to civil engineering and more specifically what his career entailed wang explained his international journey from china eliciting questions and piquing the interests of the children after the presentation the children were excited to receive souvenirs for remembering the two areas of civil engineering that wang spoke to them about transportation and water resources damnjanovics guest lecture to the preschool class introduced the children to his job as an engineer his presentation centered on building a paper bridge to show the children how to use the same materials in different ways to build stronger bridges damnjanovic built simple span arch prestressed and suspension bridges although the suspension bridge did deviate from the paper to include some lego towers the department is proud to support early introduction to stem education no matter how early contributing author: ryan terry
1356,"more than 100 new engineers received their diplomas during texas a&m university at qatars annual commencement exercises held on the education city campus on may 5 eighty-nine aggie engineers earned bachelors degrees in chemical engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering 43 of those to qatari nationals this is the largest graduation ceremony for texas a&m at qatar the branch campus also awarded its largest batch of masters degrees in chemical engineering with 20 handed out since 2007 texas a&m at qatar has awarded a total of 725 degrees including 43 masters degrees texas a&m at qatars interim dean dr ann kenimer said ""texas a&m university at qatar is exceedingly proud of this year's graduates commencement is not the end of their journey but the beginning and we are confident this class will become leaders in their field and dedicate themselves to lifelong learning while they have accomplished a great deal in the past four years it is important for them to remember why they came to study here; they want to make a difference by finding new ways to solve problems and creating new knowledge to improve qatar the region and the world we expect remarkable things from them"" his excellency dr mohammed bin saleh al-sada minister of energy and industry was the invited speaker for the ceremony in his remarks he dr al-sada congratulated the graduates for their achievements recognizing the pressures and challenges the students faced during their academic years we all have gathered to celebrate your accomplishments and we are very proud of you he dr al-sada said tonights ceremony is an affirmation that you have the skills determination and vision to go forth and make a difference for qatar the region and the world now that you will be stepping out into the multifaceted world which has its own challenges i urge you to always uphold the ethics professionalism and moral character you have developed at university; and always keep in mind your obligations to yourself to your family and to your country qatar is looking to you graduates to lead ahead the decades of growth development and prosperity he continued you need to dream to contribute to the achievement of qatar national vision 2030; qatar is here to help you to realize your dreams texas a&ms president michael k young making his inaugural visit to the branch campus also spoke to the graduates congratulating them on their successes and wishing them all the best in their future endeavors texas a&m university is known worldwide as a leader in engineering education young said and never has this been more evident than tonight in this place looking out at this class of outstanding aggie engineers these students represent the future not only for our university but also for the state of qatar and the rest of the world the impact these aggies will have adds to texas a&ms legacy as these graduates carry on the traditions that are the heart and the hallmark of a world-class aggie education congratulations graduates we look forward to big things from each of you"" the may 2016 graduating class is diverse with 20 graduate and 17 undergraduate chemical engineers 24 electrical engineers 30 mechanical engineers and 18 petroleum engineers the graduating class is 35 percent female and represents 24 countries vip student speakers included meera mohammed amin abu soufah a class of 2016 chemical engineering graduate; student speaker jassim khalifa a a al-sowidi a class of 2016 graduate in mechanical engineering; and loganathan lokesh a class of 2017 chemical engineering major who led the aggies in singing spirit of aggieland dr mark h weichold former dean and ceo of texas a&m at qatar from 2007 through 2015 formally inducted the graduating aggies into the texas a&m university association of former students which now comprises more than 436 000 graduates of the university worldwide weichold is a class of 1978 electrical engineering graduate of texas a&m"
1357,dr pushkar lele assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is developing novel insights in cellular mechanics with bacteria to aid in the design of superior biomedical implants capable of resisting colonization by infectious bugs leles group also focuses on unraveling the fundamental principles underlying interactions in biological soft-matter to build bio-nanotechnology-based molecular machines leles lab currently focuses on a unique electric rotary device found in bacteria the flagellar motor according to lele it is well established how motile bacteria employ flagellar motors to swim and respond to chemical stimulation this allows bacteria to search for nutrients and evade harmful chemicals however in his recent work lele has now demonstrated that the motor is also sensitive to mechanical stimulation and identified the protein components responsible for the response sensing initiates a sensitive control of the assemblies of numerous proteins that combine to form the motor control over motor assemblies facilitates fine-tuning of cellular behavior and promotes chances of survival in a variety of environments what is the sense of touch in a bacterium it is likely that they employ appendages such as the flagella to detect solid substrates analogous to our use of fingers lele said how they recognize the substrate using the flagellum has been a long-standing question in biology with tremendous biomedical significance our findings have provided a handle on this important problem we now know [how] the motor-components [are] involved in sensing the substrate [and] would like to know how these sensors trigger signaling networks that ultimately cause infections lele and his group seek to understand how flagella enable cells to adapt to and interact with their environments the groups current focus is on explaining at a molecular level the mechanisms that aid colonization and invasion on substrates such as biomedical implants we are building a set of tools and a level of understanding that will help us explain how cells recognize cues adapt and ultimately survive repeated environmental challenges lele said our emphasis is not necessarily on the destruction of the bug with antibiotics because that is an assured way of promoting resistance rather we want to approach this problem by tricking the cell into not recognizing the substrate thereby indirectly camouflaging the substrate according to lele this could be achieved by interfering with cell-signaling and preventing the pathogens from getting a foothold the body must then rid itself of the pathogens remove one of the important components in the signaling network lele said you can think of it in terms of 100 people communicating in a chain if you remove a group of people then that signal is interrupted if the components can be deactivated great; else we manipulate the incoming signal we are not killing the cell but the bug can no longer turn on the genes required for colonization these efforts by lele and his group target an ever-growing public health concern antibiotic resistance swarms of bacteria or bacteria encased in biofilms are prone to developing resistance to the most potent antibiotics currently in use this research lele says could potentially save lives in an industry where deaths resulting from catheter-associated urinary tract infections number from 10 000 to 13 000 each year the applications though are not limited to the healthcare industry apart from the obvious implications for public health a variety of industries stand to benefit from this type of work lele said bacteria will cause mischief wherever they can bio-fouling of engineered materials is an old and expensive problem that costs industries billions of dollars each year the research lele is doing is also related to the field of bio- nanotechnology using biological structures as a template lele and his collaborators aim to direct the self-assembly of artificial motors at these length-scales a good reason to study such structures is that these are model systems for understanding complex phenomena at the nano-scale lele said how best can we emulate nature and direct the assembly of objects at the nano-scale considerable advances have been made in top-down as well as bottom-up techniques for building useful features at the tiniest length-scales but the precision and functionalities that nature achieves [are] still beyond our reach: try building a smart electric device that can sense a variety of signals act as a feedback controller repair itself on demand and at the same time deliver an uninterrupted supply of power with ecofriendly fuel lele credits his interdisciplinary training in chemical engineering soft-matter and biophysics for being able to do this kind of work there is something about movement at a molecular scale that is truly fascinating whether you are an engineer a physicist or a biologist lele said once you have witnessed it you want to explain it we would like to go a step further and exploit our understanding to develop technologies that will hopefully make life a little easier
1358,imagine a cake as large as a billionth of a meter or nanometer you may end up with a disaster if the layers of frosting are too warm or not spread with precision the precision properties and fundamental structure of each layer of frosting would be difficult to measure much less see or weigh thin film coatings are the layers of frosting in industrial applications across multiple manufacturing sectors environmentally sustainable water-based solvent-free thin film coatings are the future of high performance materials dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor and william and ruth neely faculty fellow in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has received a $405 000 grant from the national science foundation to research ultra-thin films of polymers containing bound ions known as ‘polyelectrolytes lutkenhaus organic thin films and nanostructures lab seeks to evaluate the ‘glass-melt or softening transition of these films using a suite of analytical techniques that will probe it on a molecular level if successful this project will shed new light on the role of water and salt in the thermal transition the nanocomposite coating is a thin film of polyelectrolyte multilayers or layer-by-layer assembly of desired material such coatings are commonly used in solar cells optic and antibacterial biomedical and temperature-responsive materials common layer-by-layer assemblies are made by processing by immersion spinning spraying electromagnetic or fluidic deposition of desired material on a variety of application surfaces any application you can dream of for these coatings i assure you someone has tried it said lutkenhaus at one point researchers were talking about depositing it into hair as a beauty product although thin films have been developed for a while their exact structure is still not known this project places a unique emphasis on salt type where a broad range of salts with varying size charge and water interactions are examined lutkenhaus seeks to investigate the unified relationship between temperature water and salt as it governs the transition of the thin films this will be of significant importance because this new knowledge will allow fine-tuning of the transition temperature and the physical properties associated with these materials ultimately leading to possible new advanced applications said lutkenhaus she explained the phenomenon of thin film glass transitions on a macroscopic scale with an example of a rubber ball she demonstrated how the ball when dipped in liquid nitrogen solidifies and cracks when dropped on the ground in real world applications it is important to know if the film is rubbery or glassy continued fundamental research on the structure of the coatings will help lutkenhaus engineer thin film coatings that adapts to the material to be coated dr maria sammalkorpi professor of polymer chemistry from aalto university in finland actively collaborates with lutkenhaus lab her molecular models explain some of the properties in thin films yangpu zhang doctoral student in the chemical engineering department is assisting lutkenhaus and will be visiting sammalkorpi for a month in finland to conduct related research in polyelectrolyte complexes a cousin of layer-by-layer assemblies four undergraduate students in lutkenhaus research group are currently assisting with the research lutkenhaus says this research is a good platform to introduce them to lab research as the process is water-based and therefore safe you can pretty much use any material to create a thin film coating which is adaptable environmentally safe and stimuli-responsive said lutkenhaus these coatings are so versatile the consumer wouldnt and shouldnt know theyre there
1359,oryx gtl organized a ceremony on april 21 to recognize the research contributions of dr nimir elbashir (second from left) associate professor in the chemical and petroleum engineering programs and chair of the oryx gtl gas-to-liquid excellence program and dr reza tafreshi associate professor in the mechanical engineering program the event celebrated the completion of a project that evaluated the potential and impact of introducing ultra-clean diesel fuels in qatar and across the region the study evaluated the properties emissions and performance of 10 school buses using oryx gtl diesel fuels in comparison to 10 other school buses using conventional diesel texas a&m qatars fuel characterization lab and the engine research and testing lab provided detailed assessments on the properties of the fuels and lubricants and their combustion and emissions behaviors
1360,photo of an autonomous underwater vehicle developed by dr mohamed gharib dr mansour karkoub and dr huiwei wang in the smart system laboratory at texas a&m university at qatar more than 45 experts participated in a workshop on autonomous underwater vehicles (auvs) recently hosted by texas a&m university at qatar in education city the oil and gas industry in qatar represents the vital source of income to the country with most of its infrastructure being offshore said dr mansour karkoub professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m at qatar and workshop organizer karkoub also directs the smart system lab at texas a&m at qatar at the smart system lab we have been developing solutions for the oil and gas industry in the area of autonomous systems and asset integrity for the past six years karkoub said this workshop was a valuable opportunity to share the latest research discoveries and expertise in the area of auvs and their application in the oil and gas industry as well as environment monitoring and protection the workshop called the consortium for o&g asset integrity and environmental monitoring in qatar featured noted auv scientists and speakers from local industry including maersk oil research & technology centre qatar petroleum siemens shell rasgas and qatar computing research institute; the qatari navy; and top universities in the us europe and the middle east including mit georgia tech rice university the university of illinois at urbana-champaign texas a&m and texas a&m at qatar kaust kuwait university qatar university hamad bin khalifa university university of porto (portugal) and national technical university of athens (greece) featured speakers were all experts in control optimization ocean engineering underwater robotics sensor technology computer science and industry and government guests also invited to attend the objective of the workshop was to develop priority research and technology development areas for environmental monitoring search and rescue and asset integrity for the oil and gas industry participants explored emerging trends and opportunities for advancing innovation in o&g asset integrity environmental monitoring and protection and related technologies through intelligent application research and development of innovative autonomous systems sensors and communication technologies karkoub also said the workshop aimed to help lay the foundation for the first consortium for advancing auv research for the purpose of offshore infrastructure sustainability in qatar and in the region in line with qatar national research strategy and qatar national vision 2030 the experts who were invited to present their work also assisted in developing a roadmap to establish a research program and training facilities in auvs that will put the state of qatar among the leading nations in subsea asset integrity and environmental monitoring and protection i am happy with the turnout and the enthusiasm of the participants karkoub said the workshop was a total success and a follow up meeting will be held soon at kaust
1361,texas a&m university president michael k young is visiting texas a&m at qatar and will attend its commencement ceremony on may 5 president young toured labs at the texas a&m engineering building in education city doha qatar and was the guest of honor at a campus-wide meet and greet with faculty and staff it is his first visit to the branch campus since becoming president of texas a&m university in may 2016
1362,dr b don russell distinguished professor and regents professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been recognized by the national academy of engineering (nae) for his two-year service as vice chair and chair of membership in this capacity russell has been responsible for the annual election process of nae the most prestigious engineering organization in the united states the academy serves and provides advice to the president congress and government agencies on all matters of science and engineering membership in the academy is one of the highest professional honors an engineer can receive russell has previously served nae as chair of the electric power and energy section he has also served as liaison from the academy to the national research council russell has been a faculty member in the electrical and computer engineering department for 41 years russell is a fellow of six technical societies and most recently was elected to the national academy of inventors he serves the university as chair of the executive committee of distinguished professors
1363,aggie stem a joint program between the college of engineering and the college of education was selected as the recipient of the 2016 texas distance learning association (txdla) award for outstanding commitment to excellence and innovation by a 4-year higher education institution the award was based on the teams innovation in providing both synchronous and asynchronous online stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) professional development for teachers this includes access for teachers in locations across texas to view experienced instructors working with secondary students to facilitate stem project-based learning at texas a&m university these opportunities for teachers complement aggie stem's work in face-to-face venues on the university campus and on individual k-12 campuses aggie stem began in 2006 as a partnership with texas a&m and the dallas isd it has since expanded its services to reach numerous public school districts and charter schools across texas aggie stem is dedicated to providing texas educators with the tools necessary for advancements in science technology engineering and mathematics
1364,dr darren hartl tees research assistant professor at texas a&m university and a team of researchers is using extensive data on avian biological systems in the hopes of creating unmanned aircraft with wings that morph and change during flight much like a bird a five-year $6 million grant sponsored by the air force office of scientific research teams hartl with engineering researchers from the university of michigan stanford and ucla in hopes of dramatically transforming aerodynamic performance dr daniel inman chair of the department of aerospace engineering at the university of michigan will serve as the principal investigator for the project by delving deeper into avian neurology and musculature the team hopes to create unprecedented efficiency and flight longevity in small aircraft and uavs to this end the team will work closely with bird biologists from the united kingdoms royal veterinary college the university of british columbia and stanford to closely examine the complex systems birds use to alter their wings for flight control research will delve into multiple aspects of bird flight: control aerodynamics structure and adaptive structures looking at the muscular-skeletal structures and how bird wings move and adapt in flight although previously studied morphing wings have been inspired by avian biology the grant will be the first to examine the biological systems in such depth modern airplanes use drag-inducing flaps and slats for control but birds manipulate individual feathers or clusters of feathers on their wings adjusting them to create a fluidly morphing reduced-drag surface suited to their needs it has long been a goal to recreate such a flight system and cutting-edge technology has been developed to examine these mechanisms of flight extending the paradigm of the muscular-skeletal structure of birds the grant will also focus on using distributed multifunctional materials to drive morphing hartl will leverage years of experience in shape memory alloy (sma) aerospace actuators to develop new muscular architectures focusing on the active material that could be used to affect the morphing henry sodano (university of michigan) will explore new piezoelectric material forms and functions piezoelectric materials generally move at higher speeds with lower strengths and smaller motions while smas are slower and have higher strength and larger motions both systems will be needed depending on whether the wing needs to morph slowly versus when it needs to move quickly new distributed sensing systems (fu-kuo chen of stanford) and neuromorphic computation for control (yong chen of ucla) will also be part of the discovery and implementation process a parallel effort on bio-inspired evolutionary structural design approaches has also been initiated within the air vehicles division of the aerospace systems directorate at the us air force research laboratory where hartl also holds a position as a contracted research scientist it used to be that a biologist would just go out in the field with a pair of binoculars said inman but the technology has advanced drastically in recent years hartl added we plan to go far beyond simple qualitative imitation; we will quantify effects at the platform scale and muscular-skeletal configurations at the structural scale to develop new solutions to the morphing aircraft problem while inman works on the whole bird or the plane hartl will drill down into the bone and muscle and focus on the structure of the wing particularly the parts needed to move the structures using new kinematics and dynamics data from avian researchers the engineering team aims to make small airplanes and uavs lighter faster and more efficient enabling longer flights drawing on bird biology and recent advancements in active materials the team will research a morphing wing structure with distributed actuation and sensing that is capable of independent deflections throughout the wing hartl will start with ideas that are bio-inspired including looking at novel energy circuits for active material actuation much akin to the supply of energy via the bloodstream to the muscles in birds were looking at supplying electrical energy to shape memory alloy muscles using liquid metals and then using that same liquid metal to flow the waste heat away said hartl well start researching that concept as we await the quantitative data corresponding to observation of the birds research will officially begin with a meeting in ann arbor michigan on may 13 hartls research begins in the fall when he joins the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m as a tenure-track assistant professor his team at texas a&m will include two graduate students and three undergraduate students hartl is in the process of building a dedicated space for the project including a new experimental wind tunnel test section in the basement of the hr bright building on the texas a&m campus the test section will allow the team to test the muscular solutions with some kind of wing-type structures before integrating them with testing to be done at michigan ultimately the team of collaborators hopes to create a new morphing wing structure capable of dramatically altering aerodynamic performance allowing for planes that should be lighter faster and dramatically more maneuverable than todays stiff-winged aircraft
1365,wei dai and hyunho choi graduate students in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university were each awarded scholarships from the houston section of the society of tribologists and lubrication engineers (stle) to study tribology dai has been conducting fundamental investigation in tribofilms and choi has focused on physical principles of liquid-solid interfaces their research would benefit energy savings in mechanical systems such as engines and turbines and the protection in the surface of material systems beside research both students have been actively involved as leaders in the texas a&m student chapter of stle-houston and organize monthly webinars they are currently putting symposiums together for the stle annual meeting to be held in may on the topics of tribology and manufacturing at the annual conference they will present research and also chair technical sessions
1366,the work of more than 700 students was represented at the engineering project showcase on april 29 in the hall of champions at texas a&m universitys kyle field the engineering project showcase provides students an opportunity to demonstrate and display their engineering projects highlighting the ingenuity of engineers solving real-world problems the showcase has become a college signature program for industry students and prospective students said magda lagoudas executive director for non-profit partnerships it is an amazing feeling to be there and see the wide range of innovative projects on display and students excited to discuss their work these are the leaders of future technological innovations and we are excited about their positive impact on our world the showcase has become a pinnacle event of the year with more than 700 students and 150 engineering projects represented the event brought industry representatives and judges from nearly 40 companies to campus providing students an opportunity to network and discuss potential collaborations for their innovations the benefit to us is to be able to present a years worth of work to an audience said senior biomedical engineering student robert faries its great to see all the other teams and their projects and be able to brag on each other the awards ceremony at the end of the showcase recognized the top teams with more than $13 000 in prize money awarded shell and emerson sponsored the showcase seeing the amazing work by each student team is truly inspiring said rodney boehm director for aggies invent everyone who came to visit was impressed by the technical quality of each project but more importantly the passion students had about their work the industry representatives told me how much the showcase allowed them to see how the college of engineering is preparing students for the workplace two teams cinching dual anchor and mitigation methods for accidental offshore oil spillages tied for the overall engineering project showcase award each team received a $2 000 prize cinching dual anchor is a biomedical engineering capstone team under john hanks and sponsored by texas childrens hospital team members include sarah gates altieri jacob heiner rebecca sehnart faries and berkay basagaoglu mitigation methods for accidental offshore oil spillages aggie_challenge team under dr zhengdong cheng in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering team members include monica cuerno andrew nguyen chang-hyun choi khuong le matthew carlin ehab abo deeb magy avedissian and nian wei tan the $1 000 emerson award for the highest placing capstone team went to tsat communications: a cubesat to earth communications development its team members included trent tate dakotah karrer vince rodriguez david smith and faculty advisor mike willey it was sponsored by tsat the $1 000 shell award for the highest placing non-capstone team was a tie between the texas a&m hyperloop teamand point of care health informatics for proactive epilepsy seizure alert the hyperloop team was under the direction of dr adonios karpetis and dr moble benedict from the department of aerospace engineering team members included ashley harris matthew connely dean ellis lucas mussina christian sotello brian hubbard michael bayern sreekanth reddy and daniel mullen point of care health informatics for proactive epilepsy seizure alert an aggie_challenge team was under the direction of dr satish bukkapatman from the department of industrial engineering team members included ashif sikandar iquebal matthew aquirre arwah al-kahtani cihan barnett elnihum lujain heran guan ngan le loke binti nur sheril zimo wang kahkashan afrin iskander el amri christina sheldon advait parulekar nguyen ngan and nguyen my duyen in addition to the large overall awards 10 awards of $500 each were given for best capstone projects in various departments aggie_challenge ennovator (which includes aggies invent epics and startup aggieland) small design team and large design team (10 or more students) biological and agricultural engineeringaquatics robotics – sara san antonio river authority sponsor dr gregory stark faculty advisor team members: lauren nemec spencer corry james veselka and hunter teel biomedical engineeringnoninvasive hypoglycemia monitoring system dr john hanks and dr ellen friendman sponsors team members: andrew sutter kelsey hicks utashya shah andrew lipinski and visesh keerty cinching dual anchor texas childrens hospital sponsor dr john hanks adviser team members: sarah gates altieri jacob heiner rebecca sehnart robert faries and berkay basagaoglu electrical and computer engineeringericsson drone signal surveying ericsson sponsor dr sam villareal adviser team members: braeden levine nicolas bain kyle sparrow and yinwei zhang tactical data system dr sam villareal adviser team members: randy neal renito ramirez kevin wilkens and raul de la fuente mechanical engineeringimprovement of consumer ice chest igloo sponsor dr noushin amini adviser team members: hunter strickland fengyi fi tyler buffington keven kleppe and joshua lockhart smart valve monitoring system bray controls sponsor dr noushin amini adviser team members: joel sam samuel luedeker maxwell snodgress shyla escobedo jesse yancy and alex schoening industrial and systems engineeringoptimizing delivery territories and vehicle balance plan for new ups hub ups sponsor dr erick moreno adviser team members: sarah valero charles bentz cody keller and robin hall engineering technology and industrial distributiontsat communications: a cubesat to earth communications development ennovatorlite alert infant monitoring detector an aggies invent team working with texas childrens hospital team members: maximiliano ortiz kristen calhoun jessica brezicha and jessica hanson aggie_challengemitigation methods for accidental offshore oil spillages small design teamthe nanowell: a novel approach to water generation team members: coleman fincher jeffery ott jeffy ho and geoffrey garner large design teamtamu hyperloop team
1367,students from the department of engineering technology & industrial distribution at texas a&m university recently participated in an event that featured displays of student entrepreneurial ventures and a panel of industry speakers semester coursework for the class idis 454: new directions in distributor competitiveness includes the student startup exhibit with subject areas ranging from food delivery services to outdoor adventure guides many professionals across the industrial distribution field visited with students throughout the semester and several gave remarks on this occasion on the subject of pursuing success bob borsh former president of house of forgings inc said those that want to make it go for it students were encouraged to represent their business models as they might in the real world several teams are considering continuing with their project after graduation team grizzly south is a figurative company that proposes a business plan to offer the texas hill country community affordable means by which to explore nature through a variety of guided trips some of us are more involved in it than others and would like to take it forth but it will depend on popularity if we start to do merchandising mckenzie hall a junior said of her group fellow team partner eugene richards class of 2016 said that knowing how to create a business plan is valuable adding its been a wonderful treat going through this experience this whole exercise was aimed at providing students an exposure to what it takes to start a business on their own said dr malini natarajarathinam associate professor and honors program coordinator it became a rich experience for the students mainly because of the participation of the many mentors photo (top): grizzly south team members (from left): eugene richards mckenzie hall michael nguyen and ricky hill not pictured: benjamin stumpf and yongjun kwon photo (right): bob borsh former president of house of forgings inc gives advice to students
1368,madison cooper an undergraduate student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university participated in the 2016 engineering project showcase on april 29 over 150 engineering projects from every discipline within the dwight look college of engineering were on display the team the guatemala project competed in the engineering projects in community service division of the showcase that focuses on projects completed by multidisciplinary and multi-level student teams as part of a technical elective course these projects are focused on engineering design span several semesters and are usually sponsored by nonprofit organizations the team which includes cooper 18 chemical engineering students joe hall 17 and ben hall 17 and general engineering student isabel hegedus 19 sought to provide a solution for the texas a&m conflict and development centers guatemala project to enhance the livelihood and incomes of rural women by building facilities for women to bring their home grown vegetables to be washed and packaged the women can then sell their washed and packaged produce to make money for their families these facilities only have one sink to wash with and a high volume of produce to be washed which is the problem that cooper and her team hope to solve with its project they developed a human powered mechanical device operated by a foot pedal which spins a mesh basket that is partially submerged in the sink the vegetables inside the basket are agitated by the motion which cleans off the dirt like a washing machine cleans clothing in june 2016 the center will take the 3-d model and engineering drawings of the project to guatemala where a local engineer will fabricate a full sized prototype to be tested in the facilities if all goes well with the testing phase more will be manufactured and one will be delivered to each of these facilities if each facility receives one of these devices cooper and her teams project will impact the lives of over 2 000 guatemalan women for more information on texas a&m conflict and development center: http://condevcenterorg contributing author: ryan terry
1369,the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) held an event on april 25 to celebrate its 10th anniversary nsspi students faculty and staff joined with administrators and collaborators from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university the bush school of government and public service and various other departments across the texas a&m university system to mark this milestone as part of the program current nsspi director dr sunil chirayath along with founding nsspi director dr william charlton and nuclear engineering department head dr yassin hassan spoke about the history of nsspi and its success over the past 10 years the texas a&m university system board of regents established nsspi as a joint institute of texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) in march 2006 nsspi was the first university-based institute with a higher-education mission in the united states to focus specifically on the technical aspects of nuclear security and the interface between nuclear security science and national and international policy nsspi's earliest activities focused on promoting graduate-level education and research in nuclear material safeguards and enhancing national security against nuclear terrorism this was done largely in collaboration with the bush school more recently nsspi has also become very involved in nuclear security workforce development abroad in countries such as india indonesia brazil jordan and nigeria in the past 10 years nsspi students in the department of nuclear engineering earned 49 master of science degrees three master of engineering degrees and 18 phd degrees through sponsored research in nuclear security and related topics these students have gone on to jobs in various national laboratories federal agencies academia and the nuclear industry nsspi research projects have also supported numerous graduate students in other research areas within nuclear engineering as well as other departments across campus including the bush school mathematics industrial and systems engineering electrical engineering political science computer science chemical engineering and statistics not only do nsspi students learn about nuclear security through traditional classes and laboratory exercises on campus but they also get to experience nuclear security through hands-on short courses at national laboratories international and domestic nuclear facilities experiences interactions with other young nuclear security professionals around the world through international workshops and meetings and research projects in nuclear security topics texas a&m also founded the first student chapter of the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) which is advised by nsspi faculty and has led to the creation of similar student inmm chapters in the united states and around the world as part of the celebration nsspi compiled a video of interviews from people who were instrumental to the founding and continued success of nsspi as an organization as well as videos from former students current students and collaborators
1370,the professional association for industrial distribution (paid) at texas a&m university recently hosted its annual crawfish boil nearly 300 students participated in the event that allows officer candidates to announce their candidacy and provides members an opportunity to interact with others socially additionally members have the opportunity to philanthropically support various charitable organizations industry partners who sponsored the event chose charities they wish to see benefit from member participation more than $4 100 was donated by members to the salvation army the muscular dystrophy association the american cancer society sky high for st jude and the raise the roof foundation paid is the third largest student organization at texas a&m and is the only student organization to host two career fairs for a single major paid serves as a link between industrial distribution students and industry the industrial distribution program at texas a&m is the oldest and largest program of its kind in the united states with 60 years of excellence in teaching and research
1371,"with honest advice and a genuine smile jeana goodson is changing the lives of students goodson an adviser in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the presidents award for academic advising by the office of the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs the award honors five academic advisers from across the university for their dedication to the success of the students a+ dedication she knows our potentials and is not afraid to give the tough love to push her students to success said katherine klassen a senior industrial and systems engineering major ""many people respect her and take her advice to heart due to the fact that her love is easy to see in every action her compassion and intentionality is always displayed through a friendly smile and giant hug jeana has been our undergraduate academic advisor for over 11 years and prior to that an adviser in agriculture engineering for almost 10 years said dr natarajan gautam associate department head for undergraduate affairs in the department in the beginning of fall 2015 we had 777 undergraduate students in our department and just one adviser jeana for many students she is the first person they meet when thinking about pursuing a degree in industrial and systems engineering mitchell mesenbrink 16 recalls his first experience with goodson i distinctly remember when she gave me an industrial and systems engineering lanyard he said it was far before i was able to transfer in and she told me ‘i know you are going to get in ill see you when the semester starts the senior enjoys now looking back on the motivation jeana has given him during his time as a student here i am about to graduate in may of 2016 and i still keep my keys attached to the lanyard mesenbrink said i cannot thank jeana enough for all she has done for me goodson treats every student in the department as her own she takes pride is seeing them succeed and achieve their dreams jeana always has an open door treating all of her students equally paola gutierrez 16 said if youre in trouble jeana will step up if you need to enroll in a class she will make sure to get you in if you need guidance she will direct you to the right people faculty members in the department are impressed with her dedication and enthusiasm she shows toward the students her first priority is the students gautam said jeana would not hesitate to stand up for a student even if that would jeopardize her own situation she is extremely selfless in hindsight over the past decade she has built strong relationships with her students which led to her being chosen as a fish camp namesake in 2014 jeana had a great impact in getting me to where i am now said mariam al-zubeidi 15 a procurement associate at exxonmobil i am truly forever grateful for jeanas skill care and mastery of undergraduate advising when the department began building a study abroad program to puerto rico goodson immediately stepped up to make sure the program would succeed in providing the best experience for the students she was instrumental in building the stage for the study abroad to puerto rico said dr césar malavé mike and sugar barnes professor and department head of the department of industrial and systems engineering every year she continues to recruit students for the program and travels with us while developing these relationships goodson is always available to help complete with a caring and helpful attitude jeana routinely monitors student progress and regularly keeps in touch with them even if she has not been asked to do so by the college or department gautam said she is the first person the students go to whenever they have any issues to deal with serving the future due to a growing department and meeting university requirements two additional advisers were hired during the 2015-2016 academic year up to this point goodson has handled the advising of all undergraduate students diego alvarado a former student of the department recently joined goodsons team of advisers now that i am a fellow adviser i am additionally grateful for how supportive jeana has been as a mentor and a friend alvarado said advising students is a challenging task and i have always admired her for how well she handles it goodson enjoys the potential impact she has on the lives of her students i have always said that being an academic adviser is the next best thing to being a high school teacher because you are still involved in guiding and shaping the lives of young people then seeing their success she said i have been fortunate to have received so much support from this department what i do is not just a job or career it is a passion"
1372,students from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university recorded three first-place finishes and one second-place finish at the gulf coast north america student paper contest karin gonzalez (phd division) hanyu li (masters division) and melissa leroy (undergraduate division) each placed first while isaac zhukovsky (masters division) placed second (in photo left to right) li zhukovsky leroy gonzalez and roger hite regional director of the society of petroleum engineers gulf coast north america region pose with certificates from determining estimated ultimate recovery with wave propagation models to optimizing water floods in thin bed sandstone the students covered and demonstrated exceptional knowledge of a wide range of topics gonzalezs presentation adaptive grid refinement improves gas injection modeling introduced work on a new method for creating adaptive mesh refinements and coarsening in compositional reservoir simulation her methodology targeted individual cells for refinement based on forecasted compositional fronts and quad tree grid-size analyses application of the new approach optimized spatial discretization across the simulation grid resulting in improved computational performance and better representation of complex fluid phase behavior lis presentation wave propagation models capture pressure diffusion behavior in heterogeneous unconventional reservoirs discussed how determining estimated ultimate recovery (eur) using information from the boundary-dominated flow regime was not a practical achievement in unconventional (low permeability) resources the objective of his research project was to determine the eur of horizontal wells with multistage fractures using only information obtained after wells reached interference between adjacent fractures it took the first step toward achieving this objective by simulating the boundary condition in heterogeneous reservoirs using the reflection and transmission mechanism of electromagnetic wave propagation to capture the pressure diffusion behavior he explained how accurate eur determination can optimize well spacing and limit the number of unnecessary wells drilled saving millions of dollars in capital investments the objectives of leroys presentation pattern realignment optimizes waterflood in thin bed sandstone were to determine the remaining waterflood potential for a deep thin-bed sandstone reservoir with an existing waterflood and to propose a plan to maximize the economics of future field performance the solution was to realign existing patterns by converting selected current producers to injectors which allows for the production of hydrocarbons not initially contacted by the waterflood the dominant benefit of this approach to increasing recovery is it does not require drilling new wells to increase production these recommendations are currently being implemented in the west verden hoxbar unit in caddo county oklahoma where studies show that these conversions are economic at oil prices as low as $29 a barrel
1373,dr yue kuo professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is continuing ongoing research in the field of microelectronics and semiconductor microchips that is evolving everyday technology such as cellphones televisions computers and more through the use of light emitting diodes (led) kuos research group focuses on the development of semiconductors for micro and nano electronic uses this has entailed working with technologies from television screens to devices like universal serial bus (usb) flash drives to make them faster smaller and more power efficient kuo and his research group have developed a new type of led known as a solid state incandescent light emitting device (ssi-led) this device would emit light for an extended lifetime at a very low energy cost kuo currently has one of these leds his group has deployed that has been continuously emitting light for in excess of 18 000 hours the development of these led devices has progressed from the same kind of technology that powered the first incandescent light bulb developed by thomas edison the chips used to make electronic devices work [come] from the vacuum tube kuo said it was invented in 1907 and this tube was big the first computer ever invented was made of thousands of these tubes however these vacuum tubes are not very reliable and the power consumption is very high and they burn out easily kuo explains that technology has leaped from the vacuum tube to transistor to the modern microchip which enables scientists to fit billions and billions of transistors into a single chip beyond microchips are the semiconductors that kuo primarily works with that form the essential computer hardware components of electronic circuits while advanced similar issues that plagued traditional vacuum tubes such as a short life span and energy inefficiency still effect modern day semiconductors according to kuo what i and my group have done is invented a new light bulb that is very similar in comparison to the leap from a vacuum tube to a computer chip kuo said we make a small chip with no vacuum that can emit light but is so small smaller than your fingernail that it will not burn out after even 20 000 hours of use for comparison current larger incandescent light bulbs have a maximum lifespan of around 2 000 hours of use meaning that kuos ssi-led is both more energy efficiency and has greater device longevity than conventional technology in addition to being no bigger than a human fingernail the ssi-led that kuo and his group have developed has many uses one of which includes potentially using the light emitting technology to transfer electrical signals within computing devices kuo believes that a development of this magnitude would change the way everyday computer users are able to communicate with one another the computer chips we have today are very fast but as you know nothing satisfies us and no matter how fast we have we want faster kuo said weve come in terms of the modern design for computer chips almost near the limit the current speed is limited by how fast the signal is transmitted by metal what we want to do is to transmit signals by light the led kuos group has invented is made out of silicon giving it the potential to transmit signals in machines by light this method would send signals tens of thousands of times faster than current transmission methods allow ssi-leds are an extension of edisons technology in a way kuo said inside each are many many small dots that emit light each one is like edisons lamp the engineers in my group use chemical engineering training to make computer chips and transistors that we make into things like your lcd tvs that affect the lives of all people every day and that kind of potential is limitless
1374,fueled by its focus on people biomedical engineering is a discipline unlike any other continuously improving the human condition across numerous areas of health care and poised to make an even greater impact in the near future said carl knowlan president of the knowlan foundation at the inaugural awards banquet of texas a&m universitys department of biomedical engineering i truly believe that biomedical engineering is the one interdisciplinary science – or one area of interdisciplinary study – that will truly result in our lifetime in improvement of the human condition in solutions for diseases in alleviation of human suffering and in practical solutions to help people as disease hits them knowlan said knowlan who heads a foundation that provides innovative programs to help improve individual lives and communities expressed his belief in biomedical engineerings ability to positively impact lives and lauded the vision of tees professor and department head anthony guiseppi-elie to students faculty staff and supporters of the department in attendance the inaugural banquet which is slated to become an annual event was organized to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of the department and its people guiseppi-elie noted i have the distinct honor and pleasure to serve a distinguished group of accomplished faculty a very talented and motivated student body of graduates and undergraduates and a dedicated and hard-working staff as their head of the department as part of the events award ceremonies students erica gacasan and andrea locke were named the departments undergraduate researcher of the year and graduate researcher of the year respectively graduate student haley marks was named teaching assistant of the year and the student team of berkay basagaoglu sean faries sarah gates jacob heiner and rebecca sehnert received the senior design award for its project placental membrane anchor for fetoscopic surgery concepts developed by the team will be implemented by texas childrens hospital noted balakrishna haridas professor of practice and master of ceremonies for the event in addition six standout students from the department were formally awarded scholarships joshua burress received the dr william hyman scholarship; kendal ezell and james gentry each received the peter chaplinisky memorial scholarship; cassidy gobbell and christopher vega each were named holders of the brian j & victoria ozimek scholarship; and bryan lindsey received the roger j mcnichols ‘98 memorial scholarship also addressing the crowd that evening martha parker president of m-erg an ergonomic consulting firm based in houston emphasized the power of a biomedical engineering education to enable students to pursue various and interesting career paths extolling the disciplines focus on people as the key factor in setting it apart from other degrees and careers biomedical engineering can be a stepping stone; you can take it anywhere you want parker said we start off knowing enough about a lot of things and once we figure out what our passion is we delve into that and narrow that niche down the key the thing that is in the middle of that niche is people those people look like your families they look like employees theyre patients theyre soldiers theyre people with disabilities but theyre still people and the people as the middle of what we do sets us apart from every other engineering discipline at this university its the people that make the difference joining the department in honoring its individuals two student-led organizations formally presented awards to four recipients kristen maitland associate professor and associate department head received the faculty of the year award from the biomedical engineering graduate student association (bmegsa) carl johnson technical laboratory coordinator was honored by the organization with the staff of the year award in addition holly gibbs research scientist and lecturer received the faculty commitment to students award from the biomedical engineering society texas a&m university chapter (bmes) emily dykes senior academic adviser i received the bmes staff commitment to students award concluding the evening the 2016 graduating class represented by sehnert kicked off what it hopes will become a new tradition for subsequent classes presenting the department with a framed senior class photo members of the class are scheduled to graduate next month with their degrees in biomedical engineering while the diploma that they will get will signify their accomplishments in a rather technically rigorous program of preparation what will matter in their lives are the universal values that they acquired here at texas a&m – that commitment to excellence integrity leadership loyalty respect and selfless service noted guiseppi-elie about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1375,students from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university collaborated with a student from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering to develop a new way to fight clean water access issues facing the world today with over 700 million people currently suffering from inconsistent access to clean drinking water coleman fincher and his team saw the need for consumers to be reached almost anywhere previous research achieved a low-cost solution with technical simplicity; however these solutions are not accessible by consumers everywhere the team hopes its project the nanowell will provide a solution to accessibility problems while remaining inexpensive we believed that we could render a design that maintains simplicity and low-cost and meet the challenges for consistency while remaining user friendly explained fincher a junior mechanical engineering student and the team leader our design draws inspiration from plants which use capillary action to draw water through their roots similar to the functions of a plant the idea was modeled after a leaf with high surface area this allowed the team to design a condenser 10 times smaller than those produced by earlier researchers the nanowell has a dew collection surface or collection leaf woven from hollow microfibers fincher said by stacking these collection leaves we can obtain a large amount of dew collection with an area slightly smaller than a standard drum geoffrey garner a junior mechanical engineering student and jeffy ho a junior petroleum engineering student have worked with fincher for the last several months our overall goal is to provide safe drinking water to residents particularly those in remote and low-resource regions fincher said we hope to act as a stepping stone toward solving water insecurity the team worked with dr tanil ozkan visiting assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering to develop a prototype of its project this entire concept is the brainchild of fincher ozkan said since my graduate research has also been on polymer nanocomposites i immediately noticed the immense potential of the project pursued by the group when the time came to develop a prototype the team used the new 3-d printing lab in the department of mechanical engineering students are encouraged to use their innovation and technical creativity to develop products to the furthest possible extent with the opening of the 3-d printing studio the entire student body has the opportunity for many success stories like coleman and his team through the creative means provided during their engineering education ozkan said the team earned second place with the nanowell prototype at the global water technologies competition earlier this month the competition and the award our students received are very prestigious ozkan said the competition was held for the first time this year and was hosted by the national science foundation at rice university the students competed against 17 other teams from 13 universities across the united states for this particular competition we submitted an initial abstract and design video fincher said upon participating in the finals at rice university we presented a technical poster and pitch to judges from academia and industry teams were judged on their ability to explain the water challenge their submission seeks to address and on the technical and social feasibility of their proposed solution for us receiving the in person feedback from experts in affordable water systems and in water distribution was invaluable fincher said the pragmatic insight provided by the judges based upon their experience was invaluable fincher and his team is also participating in the shell ideas 360 contest with this idea and has already made it to the second stage of the contest the team hopes to continue to the final stage in london this summer
1376,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university recently launched a new student organization specifically geared toward students who have an interest in the vital field of cybersecurity the texas a&m cybersecurity clubs mission is to promote an increased understanding of cybersecurity and related topics among the student population while also exposing students to people in the industry who can provide examples of what cybersecurity looks like in practice additional meetings are planned to also allow organization officers to present topics that will be useful in cybersecurity competitions the club participates in competitions such as the national collegiate cyber defense competition nsa codebreaker challenge the national cyber league competition and the cyber security awareness week (csaw) competition because of the overwhelming amount of data that is now stored online and on vulnerable machines cybersecurity is becoming a more prominent subject to study my interest in cybersecurity is linked to my desire to fully understand the digital infrastructure that i use every day said ryan gates speaker organizer it's fascinating and there is a growing need for people to understand and secure this infrastructure faculty advisers for the student organization are dr daniel rags ragsdale director of the texas a&m cybersecurity center; dr philip ritchey instructional assistant professor in computer science and engineering; and dr trez jones clinical assistant professor in the department of education and human development cybersecurity is a vast and exciting field ritchey said it is something that everybody can and should get involved with regardless of their technical background learning more about cybersecurity will help you and others to stay safe in our digital world
1377,staff member sarah curylo and drs peter england h gene hawkins jr stefan hurlebaus and gretchen miller of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded college of engineering excellence awards curylo administrative coordinator received the staff excellence award she joined the department in may 2013 and has since received two departmental excellence awards before joining the department she worked in engineering human resources england instructional associate professor was awarded the instructional faculty teaching award england began his teaching career teaching composition and literature in a college english program but soon realized that technical writing and engineering communication were far more interesting he has been promoted twice within the department england now spends most of his efforts making sure civil engineering students work on writing and speaking situations that reflect what they will be doing after graduation his most recent research deals with identifying characteristics of effective educational screencasts hawkins associate professor and williams brothers construction development professor received the william keeler memorial fund for teaching he holds a joint appointment as a research engineer with the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) and serves as an associate director of the southwest region university transportation center he received three civil engineering degrees from texas a&m before joining the texas a&m faculty in 2004 hawkins worked at tti for 18 years hurlebaus professor received the williams brothers construction engineering fellow award for outstanding engineering contributions he joined texas a&m in 2005 he worked for three years as the head of the adaptive structures group at the institute of applied and experimental mechanics at the university of stuttgart germany his research has directly impacted the safety and reliability of infrastructure through better diagnostic techniques novel mitigation measures to prevent failures due to fatigue and fracture and smart structures to prevent damages from extreme events miller assistant professor received the dean of engineering excellence award she teaches fluid dynamics and groundwater engineering she specializes in ecohydrology and groundwater sustainability focusing on the interactions between groundwater soil moisture and vegetation and their implications for managing water resources in semi-arid climates her current work aims to better understand groundwater dependent ecosystems and their response to changes in groundwater availability and to improve methods of artificial groundwater recharge such as aquifer storage and recovery systems recipients received their award at the annual banquet on may 3
1378,update: april 28 2016:the space technology engineered by two undergraduate students and startup company texas space technology applications and research (t star) was successfully activated by astronaut tim peake on board the international space station the collaborative project named strata is investigating the behavior of regolith the powdery substance found on the moon and other terrestrial objects such as asteroids we are up and running said dr kristen johns nasa postdoctoral fellow and strata deputy project manager overall project manager lee graham said tell vince and dakotah they did a great job t star is ecstatic about activation of our first on orbit flight article said matt leonard president of t star this is just another example of the power of the partnership with texas a&m original article published november 12 2015: students in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university in partnership with texas space technology applications and research (t star) a bryan-based space company are developing an integrated hardware and software system that assists nasa scientists in identifying properties of an unfamiliar substance recovered from space using this tool the students will help shed some much-needed light on the final frontier electronic systems engineering technology (eset) students within the mobile integrated solutions laboratory (misl) are bridging the gap for a team of scientists who are creating strata-1 developed in a collaborative effort the embedded intelligence of strata-1 will function as the hardware and software subsystem that will monitor and control the experiment developed by a team of geoscientists from nasa and the university of central florida surveying an element called regolith regolith is the fine impact-shattered material on the surface of airless bodies like the moon asteroids and comets strata-1 the first regolith experiment is scheduled to leave earth on spacex-9 and will run for more than a year on the international space station (iss) dr joseph a morgan professor and director of misl mentored the strata-1 undergraduate team of dakotah karrer (hardware developer) vince rodriguez (software developer) and gustavo ordonez (documentation) in meeting all nasa requirements on schedule and on budget the misl team was initially approached by t star to work in collaboration with them to meet the engineering needs of nasas astromaterials research and exploration science (ares) division geoscientists from johnson space center and the university of central florida the goal is to monitor the regolith and study how it reacts in a micro-g environment little is known about regolith more commonly known as moon dust and the public private academic team seeks to find out how it impacts different space systems unable to test it on earth with a full g of gravitational pull the experiment will be taken to the iss and will be tested in a near weightless environment the nasa strata-1 team is partnering with t star and the eset students who provide the engineering while t star provides the expertise in space hardware development and other valuable tools to complete the project meeting nasas demanding requirements necessary for operation on the iss the strata-1 system has undergone three major revisions to accommodate the space-qualification process the students stick to a standard of keeping it simple while meeting the customers requirements a great deal of unknown factors come into play when working on projects going to the iss documentation on everything is key and gives the students many opportunities to brief nasa engineers on how their system functions nasa individuals across the nation are reviewing the end product with a significant amount of testing to insure the viability of strata-1 to withstand all aspects of transport to and operation on the iss strata-1 will open doors to other similar and more challenging projects based on past performance and proven capabilities t star and the eset program continue to be incorporated in the development of embedded systems for nasa projects eset students are gaining real-world experience that sets them apart and results in companies eager to hire them based on their experiential education and capabilities when they graduate by moving from theory to practice and then delivering products that have to meet demanding standards of organization such as nasa and t star eset students are taking their education to a new level motivation is key to learning and what better way to motivate young men and women than to offer them the opportunity to design and deliver a system destined to be flown on the iss as a final demonstration of nasa and t stars confidence in this undergraduate team nasa and t star have asked the eset team to be in the nasa mission control center for the deployment of the strata-1 experiment the team will be in the nasa mission evaluation room (mer) and provide real-time support for the nasastrata-1 team and the on-orbit iss crewmembers
1379,mark dehart a graduate of the department of nuclear energy at texas a&m university has been recognized as an american nuclear society (ans) fellow dehart is the deputy director for reactor physics and modeling simulation at idaho national laboratory (inl) and serves in the reactor physics analysis and design department of inl dehart was recognized during the national ans conference in june the designation of fellow is the highest honor ans is able to bestow upon its members and acknowledges the recipients for qualities that include outstanding leadership professional accomplishment and service to the profession of nuclear engineering dehart also serves as the principal investigator and research director for development and validation of modeling and simulation capability for the transient reactor rest facility (treat) a program under the us department of energys (doe) nuclear energy advanced modeling and simulation program (neams) dehart came to texas a&m in 1981 and received his bachelor of science and his master of science in nuclear engineering respectively before receiving his doctoral degree in nuclear engineering in 1989 he was active in alpha nu sigma tau beta pi and the texas a&m ans chapter as a student after graduating he began his professional career at the westinghouse savannah river company as a senior engineer before becoming a member of the senior research and development staff at oak ridge national laboratory (ornl) where he was responsible for the development application and teaching of lattice physics neutron transport and fuel depletion and characterization methods among other responsibilities dehart later began his career at inl in 2010 and has crafted an established career in nuclear industry that spans more than 27 years
1380,the texas a&m university student chapter of the institute of transportation engineers (tamuite) is a high-achieving organization in addition to being one of the largest ite student chapters in the nation the chapter hosted 11 guest speakers and signed six contracts with three different clients creating an income of around $16 000 for the organization based on the high-level activity the chapter was recently recognized as the 2016 best student chapter of the texas district the organization recently won the 2016 texas district ite collegiate traffic bowl an annual competition amongst ite student chapter teams using transportation planning and engineering topics for the clues questions and answers with this win the team will proceed to the international competition in anaheim california on aug 14-17 along with transportation students the organization includes members from other engineering and planning specialty areas such as construction management geotechnical engineering and construction sciences and its membership is open to all texas a&m students a significant percentage of tamuite members are women including the current president maryam shirinzadeh dastgiri who is the third female president in a row tamuite is completely student-operated where undergraduate and graduate students work together to fulfill the organizations goal of promoting the advancement of transportation engineering for a better transportation tomorrow tamuites activities include the big event and aggieland saturday monthly general meetings with speakers from academic and professional backgrounds and the txdot adopt-a-highway program for more information visit: http://wwwtexiteorg/tamu for more information on the ite collegiate traffic bowl competition visit: http://wwwiteorg/trafficbowl
1381,the texas a&m university at qatar chapter of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) has been named outstanding student chapter in the middle east-north africa region for the second year in a row in addition a team of spe members (pictured above) won first place in the regional petrobowl qualifier and will advance to the international contest all 2016 outstanding student chapter recipients from around the world will be recognized and the international petrobowl finals held during spes annual technical conference and exhibition (atce) in dubai 26-28 sept the prestigious outstanding student chapter award recognizes spe student chapters with exceptional programs in industry engagement operations and planning community involvement professional development and innovation elsiddig elhafyan a class of 2016 petroleum engineering graduate of texas a&m at qatar served as president of the spe student chapter during academic year 2015-2016 he said winning the award in 2015 was a surprise that raised expectations for his own term as president but with about 80 members last year elhafyan said he believes a large part of the chapters success is being part of such a close-knit community especially with an active student body and outstanding support from the petroleum engineering faculty i honestly believe the fact that we have a smaller university helps our chapter be as successful as it is he said we try to be as involved as we can with the university and with students spe is an organization not only for petroleum engineers; anyone who wants to work in the oil and gas industry can be in spe and with a small campus we have a smaller community therefore connections really matter we can reach out quicker for events we can reach out quicker to our members its easy to promote our events to the campus community so we have big turnouts for our events in 2015-2016 those events included the networking-oriented spe week which allowed spe student members from texas a&m at qatar to interact with young professionals in the qatar spe section the students also hosted a lecture series featuring professionals working in industry as well as a saturday workshop on intelligent fields organized by the dutch oil and gas company tno all the organizations activities last year were sponsored by oxy texas a&m at qatar places great emphasis on involvement in student organizations such as spe which gives students experience in leadership management and planning essential skills needed for success in the workplace the branch campus also encourages students to participate in international competitions and conferences such as petrobowl elhafyan who has also participated on texas a&m at qatars petrobowl team said the international experience of competing has allowed them to represent the branch campus and its values on the world stage we really do wear the aggie name with pride and we really do try to represent the university as best we can the international experience of petrobowl is a challenge because we are competing with universities that are more established than us because texas a&m at qatar is quite a new institution but so far we have been doing well so were pretty happy about that
1382,dr hassan s bazzi professor of chemistry and assistant dean for research at texas a&m university at qatar has received a us patent for a catalyst that makes a widely used type of chemical reaction more efficient the patent is the second patent issued that involves texas a&m at qatar faculty bazzi developed the catalyst in collaboration with dr dave bergbreiter professor in the department of chemistry at texas a&ms main campus in college station texas usa bazzi and bergbreiter began working together in summer 2006 on the catalyst a molecule that kickstarts a chemical reaction in this case that chemical reaction was metathesis which is a type of catalysis used in chemistry to make small molecules or chains of molecules called polymers metathesis is an important chemical reaction involving carbon-carbon double bonds that can be used to make cyclic compounds which are very important in pharmaceuticals and in building polymers bazzi said the importance of metathesis is that it builds on building double bonds he said its like legos youre having building blocks coming together once you form the polymers the polymers can have several applications and there are applications in industry such as in coatings in bulletproof windows even water-soluble polymers the field is huge metathesis has garnered so much attention in the past two decades after three people robert h grubbs from caltech (who is also an adjunct professor of chemistry at texas a&m at qatar) richard schrock from mit and yves chauvin from france were awarded the nobel prize in chemistry in 2005 for making metathesis into one of organic chemistrys most important reactions the problem with metathesis though is that a small amount of the metal-based catalyst remains in the end product in the pharmaceutical industry for example you dont want patients ingesting the metal left in the drug in other applications such as materials the metal in the polymer may color the material or alter its properties bazzi said he and bergbreiter decided to try to modify the ruthenium-based metathesis catalyst to make the whole catalytic operation more efficient and easier to remove the metal from the final product one of the drawbacks of this reaction is the amount of metal that is left in the product bazzi said our example was the first to use a nonpolar tag a polymer called polyisobutylene that we attach to the catalyst and then at the end of the reaction we use it as a handle to pull the metal out and that reduces the metal leaching or the metal remaining in the product quite extensively
1383,muna al-mohannadi a senior reservoir engineer in the reservoir depletion studies section of rasgas company and a class of 2010 petroleum engineering graduate of texas a&m university at qatar has been named the branch campus first-ever alumnus of the year al-mohannadi joined rasgas companys reservoir engineering section in july 2010 after earning a bachelors degree in petroleum engineering from texas a&m at qatar during her first two years at rasgas she successfully completed rotational assignments in geoscience & petrophysics production engineering drilling & completions and business support as part of her development plan in 2014 she moved into the reservoir depletion studies section to enhance her skills in reservoir modeling al-mohannadi was nominated and chosen for the award for her workplace success and for her contributions to texas a&m at qatar since graduating from texas a&m at qatar she has been an active and visible member of the local society of petroleum engineers community she also has been proactively supportive of the petroleum engineering program at texas a&m at qatar through her involvement in the petroleum engineering industry advisory board as well as her contributions to senior student design projects and poster presentations she has been invited to speak at spe events in the past has given papers at the annual international petroleum technology conference (iptc) and plays an active role in supporting women and their professional development in the region i see myself as leading she said not a leader just by acting in a leadership role but by showing other qatari ladies that if i can do this they can do this as well its not impossible im lucky to work for a very supportive company and if you know that what you do is appreciated you will keep doing it and thats key qatari ladiesany other ladiesif they see the support they will rise and they will shine al-mohannadi was recognized at texas a&m at qatars alumni suhoor at the ritz-carlton doha on 23 june more than 150 faculty staff and former students of texas a&m at qatar attended the event which aimed to encourage graduates to connect and stay involved with the branch campus interim dean dr ann l kenimer congratulated former students on being fine examples of texas a&m at qatar aggie engineers are uniquely positioned to help qatar achieve the goals set out in the qatar national vision 2030 kenimer said aggie engineers are starting businesses breaking down gender barriers developing the sustainable technologies of the future devoting themselves to community service and so much more we celebrate each and every one of your successes as you work to make a difference in qatar and around the world organized in collaboration with the texas a&m at qatar alumni council the alumni suhoor also focused on the newly established al shaheen scholarship fund which provides scholarships to students studying at texas a&m at qatar this scholarship fund creates an opportunity for current and former employees of the qatar campus as well as former students to contribute directly to the education of young people in qatar
1384,the electronic systems engineering technology program in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university recognizes three students for their outstanding achievements odera eneugwu arman gonzalez and francis nguyen were selected as recipients of the safety engineering certificate from the mary kay oconnor process safety center the certificate prepares students for positions in several areas of safety engineering that will enhance their qualifications as they begin their careers these students excelled beyond their required course load and are the first students in the program to receive this certification said wei zhan electronic systems engineering technology program coordinator and associate professor in the department we congratulate odera arman and francis for their efforts to acquire this certification
1385,while families across the united states are celebrating the fourth of july nasa will be playing its own version of catch in the cosmic backyard and an aggie is playing a critical role in the mission if all goes as planned nasas juno spacecraft which is about the size of a basketball court and launched almost five years ago on august 5 2011 will complete its jupiter orbital insertion maneuver at about 10:30 pm cst on monday locking juno into orbit around the solar systems largest planet sammy kayali texas a&m class of 87 in electrical engineering and a mission assurance manager for juno at the nasa jet propulsion lab (jpl) said this is an exciting week after almost a decade of preparation most of us here have been working on this for quite a while he said we launched it in 2011 (pictured right) and its taken five years to get there we worked on it for five years before that so its been 10 years since we really got started on this mission were really excited kayalis role as a mission assurance manager is to ensure all of the different parts of the spacecraft pass the requirements of the mission and dont introduce any additional risk he and his colleagues review and test the designs to make sure mission objective and science goals are met its an important role on any mission but particularly this one because of some of the challenges that jupiter poses to incoming spacecraft most obviously jupiter is a long way from earth so far that junos radio signal takes 48 minutes to arrive on earth if anything in the system goes wrong there will be nothing anyone on the ground can do about it the biggest challenge to this mission is the radiation environment at jupiter he said its a massive planet with a very prominent magnetic field the radiation environment is orders of magnitude higher than weve seen on any mission in the past its like having to survive through a nuclear blast on the surface getting into orbit around a planet that has 67 moons might not seem that difficult but it isnt quite as simple as just getting close the spacecraft has to do a lot of things in preparation of the jupiter orbit insertion maneuver kayali said it has to slow down to a speed that allows it to be captured by jupiters gravity field from there it will orbit jupiter for a little over a year and collect a lot of meaningful science that will help us understand the origin of the planet and the solar system the weather patterns on jupiter have a lot in common with the weather patterns on earth so theres a lot of exciting science to understand and benefit from in the future the mission aims to answer a number of questions about the massive planet including what exactly is hiding beneath its swirling clouds that question is actually how the mission got its name according to roman mythology jupiter used clouds in order to hide when he was causing trouble but his wife juno was able to see through them as a nasa mission juno is an american spacecraft and kayali said that having such a critical part of the mission come on the fourth of july is special but also emphasized the international cooperation that it takes for such a mission there are contributions from all over the world he said we have scientists involved from england italy france germany switzerland and all over the world essentially a number of contributions came from foreign countries so this is really an international mission that shows you how scientists can work together regardless of nationalities and borders before attending texas a&m kayali grew up in houston and also holds a degree from sam houston state university he said hes far from the only person from the lone star state working at the nasa jet propulsion lab in pasadena california i certainly enjoyed my time at a&m i had an excellent education and im very proud to be an aggie there are a few texas aggies here and there are also a few ut graduates and some other alumni of texas schools at the jpl they recognize the education system in texas is very good its a place we continue to recruit from and get great candidates its always good to have people who know what the history is all about in aggieland for more information on juno check out the mission website: https://wwwmissionjunoswriedu/
1386,two graduate students and their adviser in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the honorary mention best paper award from the 2016 ieee international symposium on circuits and systems (iscas) qian wang youjie li and their thesis adviser dr peng li received the award for their paper titled liquid state machine based pattern recognition on fpga with firing-activity dependent power gating and approximate computing at iscas which was held in montreal canada this award was conferred by the neural systems and applications technical committee of ieee circuits and systems (cas) society for a very long time the human brain has been a great inspiration for building efficient intelligent systems nevertheless mimicking the information processing capabilities of the brain in vlsi-based computing systems is a completely nontrivial task and entails the development of efficient processor architectures and hardware-friendly learning mechanisms the researchers paper demonstrates how the liquid state machine (lsm) a biologically plausible recurrent spiking neural network model can be used to enable brain-inspired neural processors an lsm processor architecture with integrated on-chip learning capability has been demonstrated on the reconfigurable fpga platform for pattern and speech recognition applications this work also investigates novel firing activity-based low power and approximate computing techniques to boost system energy efficiency wang and li are part of dr lis research group and have recently passed their phd and ms thesis defenses respectively dr li is a professor in the department a faculty member of the texas a&m institute for neuroscience and texas a&m health science center and an ieee fellow in addition to this award dr li has received five other best paper awards from premier ieee/acm conferences iscas is the worlds premier networking forum of leading researchers in the highly active fields of theory design and implementation of circuits and systems
1387,dr robert e randall has been honored with the 2016 lifetime achievement award by western dredging association (weda) for his service to the dredging and marine industry for more than 50 years randall is the w h bauer professor in dredging engineering and director of the center for dredging studies in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university weda is a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental awareness technological applications and efficiency in the marine and dredging industry dr randall has made available information of far reaching consequences in the areas of navigation dredging beneficial uses of dredged material capping and marine construction to the dredging industry said dr ram mohan president and chair of weda he is an internationally recognized authority in dredging and marine engineering randall began his career in the marine industry as a submarine officer serving the united states navy from there he earned his ms and ph d in ocean engineering from the university of rhode island he worked at harbor branch oceanographic institute a private oceanographic institution before starting his academic career at texas a&m in 1975 over the years randall has taught courses such as ocean engineering design underwater systems and mooring design underwater acoustics and marine dredging he has been a member of wedas board of directors and editor of the organizations annual conference proceedings since 1994 he is also an associate editor of wedas journal of dredging engineering since its initiation in 1999 and has contributed to the journal actively the entire worldwide dredging industry is thankful to dr randall said mohan dr randalls unselfish ability to share insights in dredging and marine engineering has been of tremendous value to not only members of weda but also to dredgers and engineers worldwide
1388,dr maria barrufet professor and director of distance learning in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university was recently appointed to the council for academic technology and innovative education (catie) she is one of 32 members named by texas a&m provost karan watson all members are currently employed by the texas a&m university system barrufet is one of two members from texas a&m in college station texas she will serve a three-year term the purpose of catie is to support the education mission of system members in technology use when designing developing delivering and assessing courses and programs it advises the vice chancellor for academic affairs and works in close collaboration with other system-level councils and committees to ensure all academic technology needs are met barrufet is familiar with the use of technology in education as she oversees the largest distance learning program within the college of engineering the program uses remote logins recorded live lectures for video streaming recorded powerpoint presentations downloaded smart board notes and document annotations and a range of other venues to provide 24 hour access this allows students from all over the world the opportunity to pursue a masters of engineering degree in petroleum engineering the students work at the same pace and use the same curriculum as students on campus with the exception of lab work and thesis requirements barrufet began her catie appointment by attending the chancellors summit on academic technology (csat) on june 22-23 at the annenberg presidential conference center in college station
1389,students from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university returned from a two and a half week trip to khalifa university within united arab emirates (uae) participating in a study abroad program that is designed to both educate students on the technical aspects of global nuclear energy while immersing the students in the culture and lifestyle of the city of abu dhabi and its people this trip has opened my eyes to what is out there in the world nuclear engineering student arturo cabral said i would encourage students to go the people you meet are unique and i feel that is how you learn from different cultures by talking to them the places we saw took my breath away with the different types of architecture and landscapes and the class itself was really helpful in addition to the students coursework instructing them on nuclear energy systems methods of system design and safety considerations students also toured the sheikh zayed grand mosque in abu dhabi as well as participating in a desert safari and touring the barakah nuclear power plant assistant professor dr mark kimber who traveled with the students said the students were able to take more than just an educational experience away from the classroom many of our students have never been outside the united states and many of them have never even been outside the state of texas kimber said its a wonderful opportunity just to experience another culture regardless of what the instruction might be a strong relationship between texas a&m and khalifa university has allowed the department to collaborate with their nuclear engineering department to provide working knowledge regarding nuclear engineering concepts and writing joint research proposals the department faculty have also assisted the texas a&ms nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) khalifa university and sandia national laboratories (under the guidance and support of the us department of energys national nuclear security administration and the us state departments partnership for nuclear security program office) in establishing the gulf nuclear energy infrastructure institute (gneii) the mission of this internationally-recognized regional institute is to immerse future emirati nuclear program decision makers in safety safeguards security and nonproliferation concepts and to familiarize them with how these concepts apply in a regional and international context initiatives like nsspi's gneii and the department's collaborative efforts with khalifa university serve as important educational tools for establishing nuclear power capabilities in countries seeking to enter the nuclear industry these also provide a knowledge base to countries like the uae whose four pressurized water reactors at barakah nuclear power plant are part of a newcomer nuclear program that will be operated by the emirates nuclear energy corporation beginning in 2017 this newcomer nuclear build is the first program build to be completed in more than 30 years since china embarked on its own nuclear power program according to kimber for this reason such global experiences are important to students of any engineering discipline because many engineering endeavors extend beyond national borders experiences such as this study abroad allow students to understand and experience the social differences of cultures firsthand and prepare them for the possibility of working internationally it is important for anyone in an industry that is globally extended to appreciate the nuances of the culture to what is important and even things such as the proper greeting kimber said that's a huge foot in the door and being culturally aware of things like that is a huge benefit 11 students shared their coursework with four students from khalifa university and were able to interact with them on a personal level one of the students from khalifa university invited the texas a&m students and kimber into her home a rare experience that according to kimber showed him and the students the emphasis on family within the emirati culture to give you an appreciation for how rare this is most of the expatriates who have been living there for six or seven years have never once been in the home of an emirati kimber said they prepared food for us and we got to see firsthand what the culture looks like: mainly the overwhelming emphasis on family the students and faculty who took part in the trip all agreed that the experience was educationally beneficial but was heavily enriched by the cultural experiences they took part in its a once in a lifetime experience nuclear engineering student tiffany lee said not that i wouldn't go back but everything is just so amazing i think this trip has helped me appreciate more how different cultures live and to be more open minded about their lifestyle
1390,spencer hawkins a doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university recently had his research collaboration with the national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) highlighted in the may 2016 edition of helping to facilitate the creation of tomorrows stem workforce the publication of the southern regional educational board (sreb) included excerpts of research conducted by the recipients of nasas harriett g jenkins pre-doctoral fellowship in 2013 hawkins was among 30 graduate students from 16 states and the district of columbia to receive the competitive fellowship to address nasa's mission-specific needs to develop a future stem workforce through the increased number of master's and doctoral degrees awarded to women ethnic minorities and disabled people in stem disciplines dr hung-jue sue professor in the materials science and engineering department supervises hawkins research it focuses on nasas need for equipment with reduced weight improved fracture toughness and conductive properties he is currently studying multifunctional epoxy nanocomposites that can be used as interleaves a thin layer of material placed between two plies of carbon fiber to improve the mechanical fracture and electrical performance of cfrcs for use in the aerospace automotive and sporting good industries last fall hawkins attended the 2013-15 institute on teaching and mentoring the largest gathering of minority doctoral students in the country students like mr hawkins continue to inspire us and we are grateful for his participation said dr ansley abraham director of sreb-state doctoral scholars program
1391,"the american geophysical union has highlighted an article in the journal of geophysical research – oceans written by texas a&m university civil engineering postdoctoral scholar binbin wang and dr scott socolofsky professor in the zachry department of civil engineering along with colleagues from the woods hole oceanographic institution the article ""observations of bubbles in natural seep flares at mc 118 and gc 600 using in situ quantitative imaging reports results of the july 2014 research cruise in the gulf of mexico on the e/v nautilus the cruise was part of the gulf integrated spill research consortium (gisr) funded by the gulf of mexico research initiative to read more and view video footage from the ocean floor visit: https://eosorg/research-spotlights/the-fate-of-hydrocarbons-seeping-from-the-ocean-floor for a video summarization on what the research team learned about bubbles emanating from natural gas seeps visit: http://blogsaguorg/geospace/2016/06/20/observing-bubbles-underwater-gas-seeps-video/"
1392,jean-louis briaud distinguished professor and holder of the spencer j buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was selected by the geo-institute (gi) to receive the 2016 thomas a middlebrooks award briaud was selected in recognition of the outstanding contribution of his geotechnical engineering paper scour depth at bridges: method including soil properties which is published in the journal of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering briaud will be presented with the award during the 2017 geo-congress twenty-five years ago one in 20 bridges collapsed due to scour the removal of sediment from around bridge supports said briaud we have contributed to the improvement of that number to one in 120 research truly does pay off a distinguished member of asce and a registered professional engineer briaud received his bachelors degree from the ecole speciale des travaux publics in france in 1972 and his doctorate from the university of ottawa in canada in 1979 his expertise is in foundation engineering and more generally geotechnical engineering over the last 35 years briaud has conducted about $10 million in research most of which was on foundations and retaining walls
1393,"from left to right: dr miladin radovic diyar dhannoon amy bolon dr fernando soto yenny cubides-gonzalez kevin holder and dr michael demkowicz the inaugural materials science and engineering awards at texas a&m university honored eight graduate students one recent graduate and a post-doctoral researcher for their exceptional research teaching and entrepreneurship graduate students luke johnson and yenny cubides-gonzalez were each awarded the best ms thesis award johnson was recognized for his thesis a computational framework for the prediction of multistage heat treatments in age hardened alloys"" his work pioneered new methods for alloy design using high-performance computational techniques cubides-gonzalez received the award for her thesis ""performance of zinc-rich epoxy primers containing carbon nanotubes of the corrosion protection of carbon steel in simulated concrete pore environments her work led to a first-authored publication in the scientific journal corrosion dr liangfa hu received the best phd thesis award for his outstanding performance in the phd program his doctoral thesis fabrication and characterization of interpenetrating metal/ternary carbide composites led to the creation of a new class of damage-tolerant materials due to his outstanding research and service in materials science and engineering he was asked to speak at the 2015 graduate commencement ceremony at texas a&m he graduated in spring 2015 and joined ames research laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow kevin holder received the best paper graduate student award for his first-authored paper ""carbon nanotube multilayer nano coatings prevent flame spread on flexible polyurethane foam "" published in macromolecular materials and engineering this paper detailed the development and testing of a coating that prevents residential fires by reducing the spread of flames on common home furnishings this paper was also selected by the editors to be the cover article for the june 2016 issue of the journal there is no one more deserving of this best paper award said dr jaime grunlan professor and holder of linda & ralph schmidt 63 professorship in the department of mechanical engineering and an affiliated faculty member in the department of materials science and engineering the subject of safe flame retardant treatments has a very high impact and kevin is a research powerhouse dr fernando soto received the best paper post-doc award for his outstanding peer-reviewed publication ""formation and growth mechanisms of solid-electrolyte interphase layers in rechargeable batteries "" published in chemistry of materials sotos research explained the mechanisms by which batteries degrade when subjected to repeated charge/discharge cycles amy bolon was awarded the excellence in outreach award to recognize her community service and outreach activities since 2014 she has been the president of the materials advantage student chapter at texas a&m and women in materials science a student organization in the department bolons outreach however was not restricted to materials science and engineering she was also active in several organizations within the college of engineering and the college of science diyar dhannoon received the outstanding teacher award for his work as co-instructor in msen 602 a graduate-level class focusing on the fundamental physical properties of solids dhannoons commitment to one-on-one instruction earned him the appreciation and respect of his students finally the trifusion devices team won the 2016 entrepreneurship award the team includes materials science and engineering students blake teipel and brandon sweeney along with britton eastburn a student at the texas a&m health science centers college of medicine and the mays business school together they co-founded trifusion devices in 2016 the company produces medical devices through additive manufacturing (3-d printing) the team won the 2016 rice business plan competition and the 2016 baylor new ventures competition brandon and blake constantly push themselves to do excellent work that touches upon both cutting-edge science and real-world technological needs said dr micah green associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and an affiliated faculty member in materials science and engineering"
1394,julie hammett phd student in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive a 2016 national science foundation (nsf) graduate research fellowship program (grfp) fellowship the nsf grfp is a prestigious award providing recipients with three years of financial support of the 17 000 applicants in 2016 hammett was one of 2 000 to receive an offer with rising patient demand the supply of health care providers must be increased or providers must effectively serve more patients hammetts research focuses on improving chronic illness care management with remote monitoring tools that support medical decisions and provide patient engaging interventions the goal of this project is to develop a remote patient monitoring system that provides support using smart algorithms and facilitates timely communication and decision-making between the chronically ill patient and the primary care practitioner hammett said the research also addresses the problem of participant engagement leading to high dropout rates a fundamental barrier to the success of remote health systems this technology must be interchangeable to suit the varied needs and characteristics of many patients hammett said hammett is studying under dr mark lawleys supervision and will graduate in may 2019
1395,"texas a&m university is planning to create an innovative engineering medical school at houston methodist hospital to educate a new kind of doctor pending appropriate approvals who will invent transformational technology for health care officials announced today fifty physician engineers would begin their studies in fall 2017 at the new texas a&m university engineering medicine school (enmed) at houston methodist hospital enmed would be an integrated educational and research medical school with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship and a part of the texas a&m college of medicines md program and the college of engineering enmed would initially hire 25 faculty members and utilize 75 000 square feet of instructional and research space in the texas medical center the medicine of tomorrow will not be practiced in the way that it is today medicine is not just about biology it requires technology development said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system this school would not only train doctors but allow them to invent new products and take their inventions to the marketplace enmed would expand the health care technology market at the texas medical center the potential economic impact to the region would be huge responsive to the rapid advances in technology this new type of medical education would prepare professionals with the clinical skills to diagnose symptoms and treat patients along with the engineering mindset to solve problems invent new technologies and rapidly move these innovative ideas to practice in patient care as a physician who has long been interested in engineering im particularly excited that enmed will train a new kind of medical doctor who will be able to design technology to tackle the most complex problems in medicine said marc boom md president and ceo of houston methodist this new collaboration could quickly impact the future of health care an innovative translational research program in medical technology at houston methodist research institute would also will be part of enmed everything we do should be translational with the end goal of bringing new solutions to our patients in a timely fashion said mauro ferrari phd president and ceo of the houston methodist research institute i have every confidence that our joint program will create the engineering-based ideas necessary to cure the most challenging diseases enmed would blend translational research and commercialization opportunities with an innovative medical education model said michael k young president of texas a&m university the presence of a hands-on innovation center combined with an office of technology commercialization is another example of texas a&m creating dynamic solutions to the great global challenges we face in health care today he said this interdisciplinary learning environment would lead to research and discoveries that would impact the state nation and the world but most importantly would create new transformational educational opportunities for our students"" and this focus said texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean of engineering m katherine banks is what would make this school unlike any other this is a paradigm shift the major health care challenges of the future will not only depend on bioengineering but also require mechanical chemical electrical and computer engineers she said there are other programs that link medicine with bioengineering but this is different all students in enmed will be expected to invent something transformational before they graduate these innovators or physicianeers will radically change the way that health care is delivered visit enmedtamuedu contacts: marilyn martell979-777-8188mmartell@tamuedu stefanie asin713-857-7836slasin@houstonmethodistorg"
1396,a newly developed method for detecting glucose based on how it absorbs a specific type of light could spell the end of the painful invasive finger-prick tests diabetics rely on to monitor their condition says a texas a&m university biomedical engineer who is developing the technology using optical technology that essentially sends a twisting directional type of light at a glucose-containing sample a team of researchers led by vladislav yakovlev professor in texas a&ms department of biomedical engineering has been able to accurately detect glucose concentrations by measuring how glucose absorbs this light at a molecular level his findings may translate into a more effective means of diabetes management for the millions suffering from the disease the research which was spearheaded by undergraduate student carlos tovar under the guidance of yakovlev and graduate students brett hokr and zhaokai meng was presented at this years spie photonics west conference authorities on biophotonics nanophotonics and biomedical optics from throughout the world convene annually at the high-tech conference to discuss their cutting-edge work each year the conference attracts more than 20 000 people who want to see learn about and purchase the latest devices components and systems that are driving trends such as state-of-the art medical technologies smart manufacturing and autonomous vehicles yakovlev an authority on biomedical diagnostics and imaging instrumentation says standard glucose-monitoring techniques such as finger-prick methods are somewhat of a guessing game because they cannot achieve continuous monitoring of a patients blood-glucose levels whats more patients are advised to self-administer these tests at least three times a day but because of the painful and awkward nature of the tests many people dont comply with this instruction he notes the result is inadequate and at times ineffective management of the disease he says and its a growing problem given that diabetes is reaching epidemic levels in the united states alone the disease affects 291 million people and is the seventh-leading cause of death sobering statistics such as these yakovlev notes demonstrate a clear need for a noninvasive pain-free and accurate technique to monitor blood-glucose levels that need could be answered by the optical detection technology being developed by yakovlev and his team at texas a&m though its still in its infancy this technology might one day be implemented in devices such as smart watches and bracelets where it would provide patients with hassle-free continuous monitoring and alerts when their blood-glucose levels slip to dangerous levels for now the technology is being refined in the laboratory with the hopes of one day moving to human trials if results continue to be positive yakovlev says the technology basically works by measuring how individual glucose molecules absorb a specific wavelength of light that is characterized as right and left circular polarized yakovlev explains in very simple terms this is light that twists to the right and light that twists to the left he explains by measuring the specific manner in which glucose molecules vibrate and absorb this light yakovlev is able to differentiate the molecules from their surroundings and calculate glucose concentrations its a small but measurable effect he says that is due to a geometric property of the glucose molecule known as chirality glucoses chiral structure which is a result of its arrangement of atoms means that its molecule cannot be superimposed over its mirror image for non-engineers that concept may be difficult to imagine but think of a pair of shoes the left shoe is a mirror image of the right shoe but they are not interchangeable that same property exists for certain molecules such as glucose and it results in the molecule absorbing light in a specific way yakovlev explains this specificity he notes enables him to discriminate glucose molecules from other surrounding biological molecules – something that historically has proven difficult with other detection approaches for example yakovlev explains the large presence of water in tissue has typically created a problem when it comes to attempting to detect glucose with optical technology because water also absorbs light and in doing so masks the presence of glucose in addition protein molecules can appear similar necessitating the factoring in of additional variables into detection technology in order to obtain reliable data these issues are known as calibration problems he says however yakovlevs technology overcomes these obstacles by reaching the proper penetration depths and producing a unique measurable effect that in a sense removes the background noise from the picture leaving behind the glucose signal this technology has the potential to separate the presence of glucose from its surroundings avoiding the calibration problem while circumventing the huge absorption of water in the fundamental vibrational region of the spectrum allowing for clinically relevant penetration depths in biological tissue yakovlev says spie the international society for optics and photonics was founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies serving more than 264 000 constituents from approximately 166 countries the not-for-profit society advances emerging technologies through interdisciplinary information exchange continuing education publications patent precedent and career and professional growth about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences contact: professor vladislav yakovlev at (979) 458-2326 or via email at yakovlev@tamuedu or ryan a garcia at (979) 9798475833 or via email at ryangarcia99@tamuedu
1397,five faculty members and one student from the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university were recognized during the 2016 institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) annual conference and expo at disney land in anaheim california the largest industrial and systems engineering event of the year provides educational and networking opportunities through sessions receptions town halls and keynote presentations individuals from the department were recognized at the honors and awards ceremony on the last night of the conference frank and lillian gilbreth industrial engineering award dr g kemble bennett iie fellow award dr satish ts bukkapatnam iie fellow award dr césar o malavé george l smith award dr hamid r parsaei outstanding early career ie in academia award dr erick moreno-centeno james barany student award matthew aguirre the 2017 iise annual conference and expo will be held in pittsburgh
1398,researchers in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university are working to better the world with their latest projects in energy information and biological systems they are dedicated to tackling these large-scale problems as well as the variability and uncertainty that may arise advancing optimization dr sergiy butenko donna and jim furber 64 faculty fellow in industrial and systems engineering is working to develop mathematical global optimization techniques while taking advantage of other network representations of complex systems by exploring structural properties we aim to characterize and optimize the corresponding network representations of the complex system butenko said currently supported by the national science foundation and the office of naval research butenkos team works to solve these problems in social networks biological systems and financial networks our goals include solving several important classes of hard discrete optimization problems in networks butenko said as well as applying the developed methods to various areas ranging from social network analysis to materials operating efficiently dr natarajan gautam associate department head for undergraduate affairs is conducting research on efficiently adding renewable energy to the power grid in an effort to maintain great performance with minimal waste and low cost his team is looking for ways to generate and transmit power more efficiently this is particularly challenging when the environment has significant uncertainty and is constantly varying over time said gautam the ultimate objective is to improve the quality of life the amount of solar power generated has a pattern of variability that usually occurs on a daily or weekly basis when researchers look for this pattern often described as riding the wave the variability and uncertainty becomes a bit easier to handle in turn decisions are made effectively when looking at the design and control of the system we usually have some historic information with which we build a model to simplify a randomly evolving process gautam said then at each time instant when the environment is revealed we need to make a decision that is best for the long run some challenges are simplifying the large amount of information collected to develop algorithms that run as fast as possible on a computer gautam and his team work in sensor networks healthcare and smart manufacturing researching reliability and uncertainty analyzing efficiently as director of the mathematical optimization and data analysis lab (modal) dr kiavash kianfar leads a team in analyzing large bodies of data and optimizing large systems the goal of this research is to develop and implement faster and more efficient computational methods the research done in modal is funded by the national science foundation qatar national research fund and the texas a&m college of engineering kianfar said the research in modal can be categorized under three initiatives the first looks for ways to develop faster and efficient algorithms to solve problems from a set of feasible solutions we have a project working on improving the efficiency of a systems production by putting together modules of various sizes and capacities kianfar said this kind of planning arises in power generation data storage and manufacturing systems the second initiative studies the reliability of large systems of sensors these systems are used to control the operation of manufacturing and service settings our underlying question is ‘what are the best methods to determine the robustness of a particular system design against failure of its individual sensors he said the final initiative develops fast and resource-efficient algorithms to process biological data the data is generated by genome sequencing technologies in research and clinical settings next-generation sequencing has revolutionized the research and treatment of complex diseases kianfar said the research has resulted in enormous volumes of data which need to be processed and analyzed to answer various biological and medical questions our research aims at developing algorithms for this purpose achieving accuracy dr erick moreno-centeno and his team are looking to more accurately calculate answers to algorithms when calculations are made they are often rounded up or down after any number of decimal places proceeding with calculations and using the rounded off answers creates errors these errors may accumulate and create a snowball effect therefore the final results obtained may be dramatically incorrect this is troublesome in applications that require completely accurate solutions our goal is to eliminate the inaccurate solutions and invalid solver output in an efficient manner said moreno-centeno adolfo escobedo phd student has supported morenos efforts to develop a process that guarantees completely accurate solutions in algorithms we have eliminated round-off errors in two of the core subroutines the renowned lu and choleksy factorizations of linear optimization algorithms escobedo said now we are trying to collaborate with other researchers who can implement our contributions into a commercial-grade optimization solver this research will greatly impact any industry where inaccurate results can have dire consequences one example is the $300 billion energy industry where inaccurate solutions can cost millions and even lead to disastrous blackouts moreno-centeno said another example is the healthcare industry where practitioners must be certain that the recommendations given by the software are accurate because inaccurate results can have serious health and consequently financial liabilities sensing the breeze dr lewis ntaimo marilyn and l david black faculty fellow in industrial and systems engineering is using sensors installed in wind turbines to find the best way to gain preventive maintenance policy for turbine systems under random weather conditions this policy decreases the expected average cost of wind turbines this work is important because wind farm managers are faced with a very difficult problem said ntaimo they must decide when to perform maintenance on wind turbines and before the components fail to minimize downtime and maintain production if the components fail they must be replaced as soon as possible to keep production losses low performing maintenance requires a maintenance crew and very expensive equipment such as a crane to allow the crew to reach the wind turbine ntaimo said these can be located hundreds of feet above the ground ntaimo and his team have begun applying policies such as the one used for wind turbines to the healthcare energy and space industries impacting the world the research these faculty members are conducting will make the world we live in a better place while operating efficiently and maintaining the quality of the products and services we deliver the department of industrial and systems engineering continues to focus on positively impacting the world for future generations the main impact of our research is to make the goods and services faster better and cheaper in terms of quality and environmental impact gautam said
1399,the research of dr samuel ma and his colleagues was recently published on the sciencedaily website ma's research has found that plants are more vulnerable to toxic nanoparticles if their parents were grown in contaminated soil according to the first multi-generational study on the safety of cerium oxide nanoparticles in agriculture to read the entire article visit the sciencedaily website
1400,"three graduate students from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university have been recognized for their poster presentations at the 2016 texas biomaterials day hosted by the university of texas at san antonio faraz jivan kristen means and lindsay woodard each notched honors at the symposiums poster competition for their respective research projects texas biomaterials day is an annual one-day symposium that includes keynote lectures by national-level biomaterial scientists and engineers the event provides academic and industrial researchers the opportunity to showcase ongoing research in the region facilitate the exchange of knowledge and promote scientific collaborations among institutions and industries in texas in addition students present their work through rapid-fire presentations and poster sessions jivan who works under the direction of assistant professor daniel alge was recognized for his research poster titled bioorthogonal conjugation of bioactive proteins to thiol-ene click microgels the method he is developing for incorporating proteins into injectable polymer particles could be broadly useful alge says noting that future applications will focus on delivering therapeutic proteins to stimulate and guide tissue regeneration means who is advised by associate professor melissa grunlan won a poster award for her research titled ultra-strong thermoresponsive double network membranes for implanted glucose biosensors the membranes she is helping develop exhibit key properties such as high glucose diffusivity high strength cytocompatibility and ""self-cleaning"" capabilities – all of which are essential for creating a long-term implantable glucose biosensor woodard who also is advised by grunlan was recognized for her research poster titled self-fitting shape memory polymer scaffolds for cranial bone defect repair"" working in grunlans lab woodard is developing a shapeable biomaterial that can serve as a fitted scaffold to aid in the repair and healing of cranial defects – gaps in bone occurring in the head face or jaw areas that are caused by injuries birth defects or surgical procedures such as the removal of tumors about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences"
1401,texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will lead the new gulf coast regional manufacturing center one of five regional centers located across the country as part of the $140 million clean energy smart manufacturing innovation institute (cesmii) announced june 20 by the white house the smart manufacturing leadership coalition headquartered in los angeles california will lead cesmii in partnership with the department of energy the coalition brings together a consortium of nearly 200 partners from across academia industry and non-profitshailing from more than 30 statesto spur advances in smart sensors and digital process controls that can radically improve the efficiency of advanced manufacturing in the united states we are very pleased to have the opportunity to lead this regional center said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system it is a testament to the excellence of texas a&m engineering being part of such a large initiative gives us the opportunity to help revitalize the nations manufacturing industry by providing innovative technologies and solutions chancellor sharp thanked the university administrators researchers and faculty as well as lawmakers such as us rep bill flores who recognized the benefits of smart manufacturing it is exciting for us to be part of such an important nationwide initiative said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering and director of tees with this regional center we will work to help industry implement new smart manufacturing technologies and help train their workforce the work underway at these five regional centers will dramatically change and modernize the current us manufacturing industry the five regional manufacturing centers are each focused on local technology transfer and workforce development tees and the texas a&m energy institute will lead the gulf coast center assisted by industry partners and the university of texas at austin and tulane university and focus on the chemical oil and gas sectors ucla will lead the california regional center in partnership with the city of los angeles harnessing the ability to tap the largest manufacturing base in the us and rensselaer polytechnic institute will lead the northeast center where glass ceramic and microelectronic manufacturing has a strong presence pacific northwest national laboratory will lead a hub in the northwest and nc state university will spearhead a regional center for the southeast we are very excited to lead the gulf region and begin partnering with industry to transform the future of smart manufacturing said professor christodoulos a floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute co-pi and the new director of the gulf coast regional manufacturing center within cesmii combining our efforts with the university of texas at austin and tulane university texas a&ms expertise in multi-scale modeling simulation optimization and control – particularly as it relates to smart manufacturing and clean energy – stand to have a significant impact on the needs of industry and will lead to innovative theories advanced methods practical applications and robust test beds that will benefit society for more information see the white houses fact sheet view president obamas remarks about the institute (starting at 39:50) view the department of energys video on smart manufacturing
1402,dr je-chin han distinguished professor and holder of the marcus c easterling chair in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been named the winner of the 2016 aircraft engine technology award the award which is presented by the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) recognizes sustained personal creative contributions to aircraft gas turbine engine technology han was honored for outstanding contributions to the field of air breathing propulsion through inspiring leadership education and research having major impacts on operations capability performance and design han received the award during the asme international gas turbine institute (igti) asme turbo expo which was held in seoul south korea on june 13-17 during the expo han also delivered the 2016 aircraft engine technology award lecture turbine blade cooling research at texas a&m 1980-2016 han joined the mechanical engineering faculty at texas a&m in 1980 as an assistant professor he received his bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from national taiwan university in 1970 he earned his master of science in 1973 from lehigh university and his scd from mit in 1976 both in mechanical engineering han has been working on turbine blade cooling film cooling and rotating coolant-passage heat transfer research for the past 40 years and he has co-authored 220 journal papers he is the lead author on the book gas turbine heat transfer and cooling technology and he has served as editor associate editor and honorary board member for eight heat transfer related journals additionally han served as asme k-14 gas turbine heat transfer committee chair from 2004-2006 and asme k-3 heat transfer honors and awards committee chair from 2005-2006 han received the 2002 asme heat transfer memorial award the 2004 international rotating machinery award and the 2004 american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) thermophysics award he is a fellow of asme and aiaa
1403,texas a&m university at qatar and qatars reconnaissance and surveillance center (rsc) signed a memorandum of understanding on june 16 to enhance collaboration and explore mutual opportunities for strategic partnerships the five-year agreement aims to provide scholarships and internships for engineering students at the branch campus; increase opportunities for custom-designed training and seminars to support the rscs operations and workforce; strengthen links between texas a&m at qatar and the qatar armed forces to facilitate exchange of knowledge and expertise; and establish collaboration in research and discovery to support the centers mission the center which is part of the ministry of defense protects qatars borders and energy reserves and participates in humanitarian and peacekeeping missions with its fleet of high-tech drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) the technology is used for airborne surveillance needs in maritime border control missions and for supporting operations to secure qatars hydrocarbon resources signing on behalf of the rsc was center director general khalid bin ahmad al-kuwari who said the new partnership represented a significant step forward in contributing to qatars national vision of being a knowledge-based economy and helping to secure the continued safety and prosperity of the state of qatar al-kuwari emphasized that a major aspiration of the qatar armed forces was to develop capabilities to establish military-industrial structure to support the uav program which is a key project for the nation development of the drone platform started in 2014 and now is in advanced stages that require expertise in control systems drone systems and software engineering he said such projects rely on cooperation with prestigious universities that are proud to collaborate and exchange knowledge al-kuwari said texas a&m university has engineering expertise that can be applied toward research training and development necessary for the long-term success of our uav program qatar has invested significantly in advanced drone technology to help secure our homeland and our valuable energy resources through our partnership with texas a&m university at qatar we will work to develop the human capital and enhance the knowledge base needed for sustainable and effective deployment of these tools the partnership grew out of the rscs contributions to the engineering heroes drone camp a stem program for qatari students hosted in april by texas a&m at qatar and maersk oil qatar al-kuwari spoke with qatari students who participated in the program and encouraged them to study hard to attain the knowledge needed to support technology for qatars national defense saying that engineering is a calling for qatar he and other officers from the rsc also gave the students a preview of drone technology recently adopted by qatars military forces dr ann l kenimer interim dean of texas a&m at qatar said the new partnership represented the essence of what texas a&m at qatar strives to be: a valued resource to qatar by partnering to share knowledge conduct research and provide training in leading-edge technologies such as drones texas a&m at qatar and the reconnaissance and surveillance center are directly supporting human capacity-building economic development and the safety and security of the state of qatar kenimer said we look forward to expanding this collaboration with our partner the reconnaissance and surveillance center and to the opportunities this partnership provides to our students and our faculty and staff researchers
1404,kathryn tippey phd student in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the outstanding student researcher award from the partnership for enhancing general aviation safety and sustainability (pegasas) program while accepting this award tippey was also announced as the federal aviation administrations (faa) sole nominee for the us department of transportations outstanding student researcher award i am excited to have accepted this award and to have been nominated for the department of transportation award tippey said it is nice to be recognized for my hard work these honors recognize her work with dr thomas ferris assistant professor in the department and the faa this is a project investigating how general aviation pilots receive information via current cockpit technology said ferris katie played a prominent role in the design of flight simulator scenarios installing them at the faas william j hughes technical center and the conduction of human subjects experiments
1405,over 30 high school students worked alongside faculty members from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university during the engage summer camp held on campus faculty members who mentored the students included: instructional assistant professor dr philip ritchey associate professor dr bruce gooch and department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii dr dilma da silva the culmination of the week-long camp was a showcase where the students were able to display the projects they had worked on throughout the week the students who worked with ritchey and da silva focused on creating smartphone applications two of the projects instead and envez were created with the idea that you can save money while also donating to charity the apps provide a mechanism for the user to accept a given modification such as brewing ones own coffee for a week instead of buying out and also donating a portion of that money saved to those in need dont eat alone allows those seeking friends to dine out with a convenient solution to begin one takes a personality quiz and the application then compares the results with others on the app; once you have a match the phones maps will guide you and your match to a restaurant choice near you gooch also worked with several groups of students who presented projects including printed quadcopter with direct brain interface design and build a card game design and build a board game which used 3-d printed game pieces and build a music scanning workstation printed quadcopter with direct brain interface incorporated both aerospace engineering and computer science into a single endeavor the students worked together to create the mind-controlled aircraft called a quadcopter by using rapid prototype software and makerbot hardware the students who worked on the smartphone applications said the most rewarding aspect of their project was when the program became a working reality after several unsuccessful attempts the engage summer camp is designed for high school students from underrepresented groups in texas who are strong in science technology and mathematics the camp provides students with hands-on memorable experiences while inspiring them to pursue higher education as well as a career in engineering during the camp students stayed in residence halls on campus where they engaged in discussions with student and faculty panels visited engineering laboratories and research centers and worked on their projects current engineering students served as camp counselors
1406,texas a&m university recently recognized 70 engineering undergraduate and graduate students who earned business management certificates the business management certificate program (bmc) provides students an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills associated with business to complement their technical engineering skillset the program covers accounting finance marketing supply chain management and communications through an intensive 70 hours of instruction the bmc program has been a great success since its inception because of the value it provides to engineering students by immersing them for two full weeks in the business world said magdalini lagoudas executive director for industry and nonprofit partnerships every year we have students who just graduated and are about to start their professional careers but [they] invest in the program because they value that experience established in 2005 the bmc is a joint program between the texas a&m university college of engineering and the center for executive development in the mays business school that allows engineering students to receive in-depth instruction on business principles to complement their engineering degrees the program occurs during a two-week period every may while in the program students are required to work on an engineering team project and apply all the knowledge acquired during the program such as market assessment findings from customer interviews and business plans to give comprehensive final presentations to a panel of business and engineering faculty judges overall the students worked on seven projects: automated lawn mower cycle fit tactical data system space race pediapod wrist-hand-finger orthosis and a smart valve monitoring system the teams competed for more than $2 000 in awards the top two awards were awarded to: team tactical data system a (jonathan gaw lian ma alaina eoff and andres barrios) and team tactical data system b (jusung lee sarin apisaksirikul jose marino and duo sean qui) as one participant said this is a great program for all students and i'm very impressed with the dedication of all the faculty and staff the assigned project has given a good hands-on experience i really enjoyed the program and i am very thankful to all the people behind it students who complete the course are awarded a business management certificate from mays business schools center for executive development this year there were 47 undergraduate and 23 graduate students representing 10 different engineering majors certificates are awarded on the final day the competitive program received more than 170 applications this year the program is offered to students at a significantly reduced cost through the generous support of halliburton
1407,photo courtesy of texas a&m university athletics lisa bratton a junior in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university will be among 1 700 swimmers competing for a spot on the us olympic swim team during the us olympic team trials participants will be trying to earn spot on the team for the 2016 summer games which will be held in rio de janeiro bratton a backstroke specialist is a member of usa swimming national team at age 16 she made it to semifinals of the 200-meter backstroke at the 2012 us olympic trials with a time of 2 minutes 1653 seconds from her backyard pool to the olympic trials bratton has come a long way she began her competitive swimming career when she was only 8 years old i was a hyperactive kid said bratton i had to do everything to keep myself busy i picked swimming and decided that this is a sport i want to pursue that is when i took off; making new meets and went to olympic trials that was my high she graduated from delta high school in richland washington as salutatorian and made the decision to come to texas a&m i came all the way down here for swimming and engineering because texas a&m is a great school for both said bratton i have been practicing with the texas a&m swim team after last summer i was ranked third in the nation we have a little bit of a shot at the nationals while swimming was a priority for bratton being in a strong academic environment was next on her list growing up she knew she wanted to pursue engineering her father and both grandfathers are civil engineers in fact one of her grandfathers jimmy bratton is an aggie who got his masters degree in civil engineering from zachry department of civil engineering in 1963 my grandpa still lives in brady texas she said this helped me make the big move from washington i have family four hours away bratton said she is still figuring out college she believes freshman year in engineering is the most challenging she relies on tried and tested principles of time management and setting priorities she attributes her success in math and hard science courses to the tutors at texas a&ms nye academic center who help student athletes excel in classwork as they work toward their athletic goals i do all my work and spend an hour with the tutors figuring out what i dont know she said that helps besides the olympic trials bratton has big plans for the summer i plan to go to germany with my grandpa who speaks german fluently he will be my very own tour guide she said this is the only summer i can do that come next summer i will have more international meets bratton also plans to try to qualify for the 2020 olympics which is when she plans to stop swimming competitively and pursue her goal of being an engineer i will be done with my swimming career after 2020 she said i want to get my masters degree or start working im open to an overseas opportunity related to ocean engineering bratton describes her experience in taking an ocean 201 class which is taught by dr john niedzwecki the class was scheduled during her swimming practice two days a week monday is the hardest day of the week she said dr niedzwecki worked with me during his office hours and made sure i was caught up on notes ive had no conflicts so far and that means a lot to me bratton attributes her athletic success to her coaches fellow athletes and most importantly her parents never-ending support they recognized her talent at a young age and encouraged her at every step the amount of energy i have after a workout amazes me she said growing up my mom asked me ‘do you still love swimming i replied mom can you image how it would be if i wasnt swimming right now i would be bouncing off the walls!
1408,the department of mechanical engineerings senior capstone design courses utilize industry-based team projects and professional interaction to provide future engineers with valuable design communication and presentation experience capstone courses are the culmination of the texas a&m engineering experience as seniors apply their four years of classroom knowledge to solve real engineering problems the courses prepare our engineering students to use advanced technology to analyze and design engineering elements and systems according to industry standards the mechanical engineering senior capstone design project program is a two-semester course sequence in which students learn synthesize and develop the skills of engineering practice in the lecture portion of the course students learn the design process and are equipped with the tools that encourage successful innovation in the studio section of the course students apply what they have learned over the last several years to a real design project student teams generally consist of four to eight students some of whom hail from other engineering disciplines working in concert with the sponsor and a professor who advises the team the capstone experience successfully prepares future engineers by bridging the gap between classroom and industry employers value graduates with capstone design experience because these students are capable of applying their extensive knowledge base to solve complex engineering problems as a team students are required to use their knowledge and skills to complete an engineering design project equivalent to the assignments they will soon receive as aspiring professional engineers senior tanner parten noted that the year-long project not only teaches us the detailed design process but also helps students encounter and overcome the problems associated with large-scale collaborative projects that we will experience in industry upon graduation the nature of the design projects is broad as mechanical engineering is broad the projects can include exploratory studies conceptualization analysis and simulation prototyping and validation of design solutions projects can be products parts or systems typical results include several written reports that document the design exploration design refinement and analysis and prototyping process students are also required to give design presentations to their project sponsors previous sponsors have expressed appreciation for the innovative solutions developed by the students and voiced interest in putting the designs into production we are always looking for new project sponsors please see https://engineeringtamuedu/mechanical/capstone-design for more information about project sponsorship for more information contact dr joanna tsenn (joannatsenn@tamuedu) caption: in the past year one of the senior capstone design projects was the design of a high speed transportation pod that travels at mach 1 through a low pressure tube to transport passengers from los angeles to san francisco in under 40 minutes the mechanical engineering hullabaloop team developed two pod designs for the spacex hyperloop pod competition
1409,texas a&m university advisors and counselors recently awarded chris cantrell senior academic advisor for general engineering program students the new advisor award the award recognizes novice professional advising staff who embody the spirit of caring compassionate skillful advisement and genuine concern for the welfare of individual students cantrell fulfills each of these qualifications cantrell who graduated from texas a&m in 1992 began working as a general engineering adviser in june 2015 he previously served as an instructor and adviser for the air force reserve officer training corps (afrotc) detachment at the university i wanted to continue working with college students after i completed my assignment as an afrotc instructor and adviser cantrell said as a general engineering adviser for engineering academic and student affairs (easa) cantrell helps recent high school graduates navigate their first year of college while also assisting them during the entry-to-a-major process the academic advising job with easa was a perfect fit to enable me to continue pursuing my passion of helping students he said brittaney bartley sophomore engineering student said cantrell helped her exponentially mr cantrell is always there to help answer questions and give advice she said from day one he has always expressed interest in knowing me as a person rather than just by my uin this has helped him to advise me in the best way possible instead of giving me a generic answer dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs said cantrell has been a great asset to easa mr cantrell demonstrates his dedication to helping engineering students daily taylor said he goes out of his way to make sure recent high school graduates transition effectively to the rigors of the engineering program by helping them with the selection of courses identifying needed resources and getting engaged with the college of engineering when it comes time for our students to select a major he is very conscientious about informing engineering students about the entry-to-a-major process mr cantrell is an excellent adviser and very much deserving of this prestigious award cantrell said he is humbled and grateful to have been selected for the award i could not have accomplished anything during the past year without the tremendous help and support from the remarkable team of easa academic advisors he said
1410,"from may 15-20 the texas a&m engineering experiment stations nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) led the 2016 nuclear facilities experience (nfe) in japan for graduate students from us universities and young professionals from us national laboratories the event was coordinated in conjunction with the integrated support center for nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear security (iscn) which is part of the japan atomic energy authority support for nsspi's coordination of the nfe was granted by the next-generation safeguards initiative (ngsi) of the office of nonproliferation and arms control in the defense nuclear nonproliferation programs office of the national nuclear security administration participants of the 2016 japan nfe included students and staff from six universities and five national laboratories the nuclear engineering graduate students were selected based on their specialization in nuclear nonproliferation-related topic areas and included students from texas a&m university the university of tennessee at knoxville western michigan university the university of cincinnati the university of utah and pennsylvania state university the texas a&m students included two nsspi students and two students from the bush school of government and public service who had previously taken nsspi classes the ngsi sponsors selected the six national laboratory employees which included early-career research staff members from sandia national laboratories los alamos national laboratory lawrence livermore national laboratory pacific northwest national laboratory and argonne national laboratory nsspi research engineer claudio gariazzo and dr sunil chirayath director of nsspi and research assistant professor in texas a&m's department of nuclear engineering led the group on tours of facilities and historically significant sites throughout japan the event kicked off with a series of visits to the historically significant hiroshima peace park and the peace memorial museum where hiroshima survivor ms keiko ogura gave her account of the events of august 6 1945 the students and staff members engaged with ms ogura by asking her numerous questions regarding her experience of that fateful day ""we got to speak with a bomb survivor keiko and hear her account of what she experienced that day and also the stigmas she and other bomb survivors have had to cope with their entire lives as a result of surviving "" texas a&m nuclear engineering student lainy cochran remarked ""this was something i had never considered before"" the visit to hiroshima offered participants a living testament to the importance and gravity of the nuclear nonproliferation challenge the world faces today ian schwerdt a graduate student from the university of utah said ""visiting the hiroshima peace memorial definitely put my research efforts and career goals in context hiroshima provided the 'why' behind our nuclear nonproliferation and safeguards efforts it was a humbling experience and demonstrated what can happen if the world community fails to utilize nuclear materials for peaceful purposes"" for the duration of the week the nfe participants visited several advanced nuclear fuel facilities in japan including two reactor facilities one nuclear power plant two reprocessing facilities one mox fuel fabrication facility one uranium enrichment plant and two national research laboratories katrina koehler a los alamos national laboratory staff member who is also pursuing a phd in nuclear physics at western michigan university remarked that there ""are few academic opportunities to fully understand the fuel cycle the nuclear facilities experience provided me with much of the background i was lacking"" according to bush school student kerrie ford one of the main things that she took away from this experience was ""how much care must be taken with security measures in each facility as well as how each facility prepares for iaea safeguards and inspections before entering each facility and between various facility checkpoints we passed through various security systems and badging processes once in the facilities one can see cameras and other security measures in place from a safeguards perspective many facilities had visible iaea cameras seals and equipment storage cabinets allowing us a greater glimpse into how the iaea interacts with these facilities"""
1411,"participants were able to both see the safeguards measures in place first hand as well as discuss applied material control and accounting measures with actual practitioners and facility operators as well as staff members from the international atomic energy agency (iaea) and the japanese atomic energy agency's (jaea) integrated support center for nuclear security and nuclear nonproliferation (iscn) ""this trip was an incredible opportunity to view the safeguards technologies we've learned about at nsspi in action on some of the most famous facilities in the world "" said current bush school student and nsspi graduate steven horowitz ""we've always talked about the reprocessing facilities in japan and how intensive the safeguards were on them so to talk to the japanese individuals directly responsible for this was an irreplaceable opportunity"" beyond their purely educational value programs like the nfe also give students and young professionals entering the area of international safeguards and nuclear nonproliferation essential international travel experience and contact with peers in their same field ford echoed this when she stated ""professionally the japan nfe trip was beneficial because we were traveling with a mix of students and national lab employees whom we were able to network with and ask questions to about their professional experiences"" the nfe program directly supports the ngsi mission of training and retaining the next generation of safeguards professionals through unique experiences zoe gastelum is an early-career professional who works in the international safeguards & engagement group at sandia national laboratories ""this opportunity came at a time when i was feeling like i had reached a plateau in my safeguards education "" she reflected ""though i continue to follow the latest research and news in this area and participate in professional organizations focused on international safeguards activities i had felt as if my understanding of safeguards had stagnated this was a fantastic learning experience for me and i felt as if my safeguards knowledge was both refreshed and greatly expanded"""
1412,maura cadigan an engineering honors senior in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the 2016 astronaut scholarship which is awarded by the astronaut scholarship foundation the astronaut scholarship foundation was created by the mercury 7 astronauts to ensure the united states retains its position of leadership in science and technology by encouraging students to pursue advanced educations and careers in the science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) fields this is done by awarding scholarships to the best and brightest minds and by building a mentoring network that allows the astronaut scholars to connect with astronauts each other and innovative technology leaders throughout the nation cadigan is the first aggie to be selected as a technical consultant for the stanford us-russia forum she was the mechanical team lead for the women in engineerings vex robotics team and a teaching assistant for engr 112 she plans to continue her education with a phd and will pursue a career with nasa or a government research laboratory the prestigious astronaut scholarship is known for being among the most significant scholarships awarded to undergraduate stem students cadigan joins aerospace engineering graduates emily boster and daniel araya as individuals who have received this honor
1413,gov greg abbott has appointed dr dan hill head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university as one of nine members of the technical advisory committee to the bureau of economic geology at the university of texas at austin the committee will oversee the spending of $447 million for the purchase and deployment of seismic equipment maintenance of this seismic network and modeling of reservoir behavior for systems of wells in the vicinity of faults in texas the committee will advise the bureau on the use of the funding in conjunction with the texnet seismic monitoring program and collaborative research relationships with other universities and education entities in texas including the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the committee is also responsible for the preparation of a status report to the governor and legislature regarding possible induced seismicity in simple terms induced seismicity is man-made earthquakes said hill this is not about hydraulic fracturing per se where tiny seismic events occur routinely but cannot be felt on the surface instead this study will focus on whether or not water injection most commonly disposal water injection into deep aquifers potentially causes earthquakes that could be felt at the surface the map shows texas seismic activity from 1973 to feb 2016 green triangles represent existing seismic stations brown dots are recorded earthquakes base image courtesy of national geographic society the bureau of economic geology established in 1909 is the oldest and second-largest organized research unit at the university of texas at austin and is part of the jackson school of geosciences it not only functions as the state geological survey of texas the bureau also conducts research regarding energy the environment and the economy the bureau often works with federal state and local agencies academic institutions industry nonprofit organizations and foundations to conduct high-quality research and disseminate the results to the scientific and engineering communities as well as the general public
1414,"microprocessors are at the heart of devices such as computers smartphones and ipads in the texas architecture and compiler optimization (taco) lab at texas a&m university dr daniel jiménez professor in the department of computer science and engineering has revolutionized the way research on this technology is conducted microprocessors execute programs by reading instructions written in machine language decoding them carrying out their objective and storing the results similar to an assembly line they process instructions through a channel called a pipeline where many instructions are processed at the same time in different stages some commands such as branch instructions cause the pipeline to temporarily stop until the instruction can complete branch instructions can change the source of subsequent instructions creating the potential for a type of problem know as a control hazard; when a control hazard occurs no other work can be performed jiménez works to address these hazards with microarchitectural prediction some instructions load values from the computer's main memory which is usually made from a high-capacity but slow technology called dynamic random-access memory (dram) when a load instruction has to access the main memory it can take up to 300 times longer than an instruction that does not use the main memory a delay caused by the slow memory is called a data hazard and can also reduce performance microprocessors rely on a cache to avoid the cost of accessing the slow memory however most processors' caches have a limited capacity to keep the right data jiménez has developed many algorithms for performing branch prediction which allows the processor to predict whether a branch instruction will cause a change in the flow of control in a program most of his algorithms are based on neural learning – the same form of information processing method neural networks such as the biological nervous system use jiménezs branch predictors are among the most accurate in the literature and industry and are used in a range of computing platforms such as high-performance computers desktop and laptop as well as mobile computing recent microprocessors from advance micro devices (amd) oracle and others feature branch predictors based on those designs he was awarded the nsf career grant for his work in this area jiménez and his team in the taco lab have developed several dead block prediction algorithms as well as improved cache replacement policies for data hazards dead block predictors give a prediction as to whether a block of data will be used again in the near future with this information the cache controller can decide whether to keep a block or remove it in favor of a block that is more likely to be used soon; this improves the storage capacity of the cache and in turn efficiency when i first started working on the idea of using neural learning in branch prediction i didn't realize that the idea was totally impractical jiménez said once i proposed it i learned that the tight timing constraints in a microprocessor make neural learning almost impossible to implement for branch prediction i spent several years as an assistant and associate professor at rutgers turning ‘totally impractical and ‘almost impossible into reality by inventing various techniques to solve the timing problem as well as improve accuracy jiménez and his students have introduced several improved dead block predictors and cache replacement policies including their most recent paper which was presented at the 2016 hpca conference that paper minimal disturbance placement and promotion introduced a policy that uses very little hardware overhead to do cache replacement that results in performance competitive with state-of-the-art policies with higher overheads they recently submitted another paper that merges neural learning with dead block prediction to outperform all other state-of-the-art policies several microprocessor manufacturers have expressed interest in using these cache replacement algorithms jiménez first began studying microarchitectural prediction while completing his doctorate at the university of texas at austin in 1999; his first neural branch prediction paper was a collaboration with graduate adviser dr calvin lin jiménezs research on branch prediction was featured in the 2009 issue of ieee micros ""top picks from computer architecture conferences""; this research was conducted in collaboration with dr doug burger and dr renée st amant from the university of texas at austin he has also collaborated with dr gabriel loh of amd research on branch prediction and other microarchitectural prediction"
1415,andrew nemec a recent graduate from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university held several prestigious distinctions during his undergraduate career including participation in engineering honors honors in science honors in mathematics honors fellows and undergraduate research scholars his participation in these programs is a credit to his dedication and willingness to surpass the expectations for his education in summer 2015 nemec began working alongside dr andreas klappenecker a professor in the department on quantum error-correcting codes over finite frobenius rings frobenius rings are arithmetic structures that allow one to perform addition and multiplication quantum computing is significant because it allows one to have the ability to solve problems much more quickly than traditional computing this is because classical computing simply uses ones and zeroes for construction; instead of being restrained into using one number or the other quantum computing sanctions the addition of those zeroes and ones together this superposition of ones and zeroes allows for more efficient computing previously unavailable in quantum computing the information is stored in the state of quantum mechanical systems since these systems interact with their environment it is unavoidable that the stored information will be altered over time quantum error-correcting codes allow one to correct such errors nemec made rapid progress in this area despite the fact that quantum error-correcting codes in this generality were largely unexplored territory the following semester nemec delved deeper into this research among other things he generalized the famous gleason-prange theorem klappenecker said nemecs theorem allows him to deduce that the quantum code has the same minimum distance as the classical code this result is very impressive as even the simpler original theorem of gleason and prange is considered difficult and rather inaccessible klappenecker said nemec plans to pursue a graduate degree from the department and credits much of his success to his professors and mentors in the department my time at texas a&m has helped me shape a path towards my career goals nemec said along the way i have been given a lot of support from the faculty who through classes research and advising showed me the wide range of what i could do with computer science this helped me find a field of research i was interested in quantum error correcting codes and spurred me to pursue a graduate degree image: andrew nemec and engineering honors senior director dr nancy amato
1416,researchers in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are working on a project for the defense threat reduction agency (dtra) dr eric petersen and dr waruna kulatilaka will spend the next five years studying chemical reaction rates and developing techniques to counteract weapons of mass destruction (wmd) when dtra expressed a need for more information in this area kulatilaka and petersen responded with a proposal for their solution their answer was a project titled high-temperature chemical kinetics and combustion of chemical agents in a counter wmd environment we will better understand how the chemistry of wmd agents react in a fire with and without the presence of countermeasure agents intended to speed up the destruction of the compounds petersen said this will lead to a more effective countermeasure strategy to maximize the safe and rapid destruction of the agent these chemical wmd's can be dangerous to society especially in the hands of terrorists during the first year we will refine our techniques and generate information to understand the simulant combustion chemistry petersen said in years two and three we will improve the kinetics models and explore the effect of the counteragents on the combustion chemistry the final two years will focus on expanding the study to higher pressures and more counteragents full realization of the project objectives will take five years petersen said the methods will provide a framework to study the chemistry of more agents and test the success of countermeasures beyond the current work the research will take place in the new ultra-high-speed optical diagnostics and imaging facility at texas a&m kulatilaka is the director of the facility that was made possible by the texas a&m research development fund this enables the development of more effective countermeasures for wmd kulatilaka said thereby protecting the general public from threats of terrorists planning to use those weapons
1417,three former students and one current student of the texas a&m university college of engineering are building partnerships worldwide to benefit the college former students andrew west (petroleum engineering) brian socha (industrial and systems engineering) and drew blanchard (biological and agricultural engineering) and senior josh burress (biomedical engineering) traveled to pontifical catholic university of chile (uc) in santiago chile for a week of discussion and collaboration with their peers and administrators of the university the college of engineering and uc are encouraging their students to work together and exchange ideas to better each university and learn more about their programs there is a lot to learn from other universities and how they work with their students west said we learned an incredible amount and saw so many similarities with how both universities encourage entrepreneurship and innovation to their students the students spent their time in santiago touring the campus interacting with local students and meeting with administrators from the university the goal of their visit was to learn how another engineering school functions and to share what makes the texas a&m engineering program competitivethe students spoke about 25 by 25 the student engineers council (sec) the engineering innovation center (eic) aggies invent and the culture of innovation throughout the campus while the puc students talked about their makers club a rapid prototyping lab the bridge a work abroad trip to silicon valley and the clover 2030 initiative to make their engineering program competitive on the global market one of the biggest takeaways west had was the level of innovation throughout the uc curriculum and students applying their engineering skills to help the community with local projects he was impressed by how students of all levels were engaging in projects and wants more texas a&m students to feel comfortable engaging in extracurricular activities throughout their schooling west said one of the most valuable parts of the trip was the cultural exchange the four students did a homestay with two of the local students and got to experience what it would be like to be an engineering student there they were immersed in their culture for the five-day trip living with local students and experiencing their day-to-day engineering life helped break down their preconceived perceptions of other cultures west said the experience helped them understand and respect another culture and provided global mindset that will be especially useful as they enter the workforce i see how important study abroad is now said west it makes the world seem a lot smaller now that i have friends at a university in another country (photo credit: andrew west and the clover 2030 uc)
1418,dr patrick shamberger assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has received the first open education champion award from the texas a&m student government association in partnership with the texas a&m university libraries he was recognized for demonstrating a compelling and positive impact through open access materials shamberger has developed an entire course lecture for msen 201: introduction to materials science on his youtube channel his online videos have more than 2 800 current subscribers and have been viewed more than 350 000 times or a cumulative 13 million minutes this lecture series has a global impact having been viewed from 187 countries on six continents in addition to youtube the lecture series is currently under production to be adapted as a course on nanohuborg – a website for open access lectures tutorials and demo modules shamberger has actively promoted the adoption and creation of open access resources among his peers he has presented workshops discussing video analytics to improve the effectiveness of open access resources among students at events such as the annual texas a&m teaching with technology conference and the mid-year engineering education conference open educator awards were created in 2016 to reward and promote a culture of utilizing free academic resources and knowledge sharing in order to broaden the scope of scholarship available as well as to lessen the financial burden on students according to the university library website the plan for these awards was born at the 2015 sec academic collaboration workshop the workshop paired librarians from all 14 sec universities with representatives of their own student governments to build strategic plans advancing open access and open educational resource initiatives at each sec university
1419,jim and becky wilkes are pictured above going to college is often a difficult transition for first-generation students who dont have family members to show them the way it can be tougher thats why texas a&m university former student jim wilkes has decided to lend a hand the president director and co-owner of texland petroleum lp in fort worth texas has provided a $500 000 endowment to support regents scholars participating in the engineering success program at texas a&m the program provides additional resources to regents scholars students who were selected to receive a university scholarship based on certain eligibility requirements including family income good academic standing and being a first generation student paying it forward wilkes was once a first generation student at texas a&m himself he and his wife becky worked hard to pay their way through college and succeed through scholarships and paid internships they were able to walk across the stage in 1978 with engineering degrees and little debt but times have changed and tuition has risen since regents scholars have already received scholarships that help with tuition wilkes said he and becky wanted to provide a different kind of support the kind of academic and personal support that retains engineering students i think for me doing this kind of thing is just giving back for what somebody did for me wilkes said engineering success program access and inclusion is a program in the dwight look college of engineering that focuses on recruiting and retaining quality students from underrepresented groups the engineering success program is under access and inclusion and dr sonia garcia senior director is grateful for the support wilkes has provided the engineering success program provides students with engaging workshops that we hope will help them with the transition into college and academic life garcia said this incredible and generous financial support will enable us to develop further programming and opportunities for the students the funding will provide additional company visits workshops peer mentors and peer tutors who can work specifically with students in the program it will also help provide funding for students who wish to participate in the engineering learning community introduction to research (elcir) program the one-credit research course led by an engineering faculty member includes a 10-day study abroad research experience to merida yucatan in mexico where students take intense research classes visit various research sites and tour culturally rich areas in the region garcia hopes to also host etiquette dinners where students learn the basics of table manners how to network and how to do an effective elevator pitch its about retention but its also about preparing them for the workforce garcia said many of these students come underprepared they cannot fathom the radical changes of being in college why the engineering success program before the wilkes family made the decision to donate to the engineering success program they wanted to meet with some students from their area who had gone through the program garcia helped connect them with luis ramirez and julio resendez both sophomore engineering students who now serve as peer mentors in the engineering success program resendez said the engineering success program benefited him in many ways it provided me with a peer mentor who gave me great wisdom and advice throughout my first year at texas a&m he said resendezs parents did not attend high school or college so getting help from another student who has gone through the transition into college was helpful ramirez said he and resendez were able to share their personal success stories about the program with the wilkes we also discussed the elcir program julio and i were involved in in the summer and talked about our current research in energy harvesting and how we came about the collaboration with on-campus professors after our study abroad trip in merida yucatan mexico ramirez said during our trip we learned about the research processes and networked with research professionals in the stem fields all of these experiences have really enhanced our college experience and have provided us with greater motivation to continue to pursue an engineering degree here at texas a&m retaining students like resendez and ramirez is the reason the wilkes donated money success wilkes said can change the course of a familys history they can break the cycle of poverty and thats not an easy thing to do wilkes said the retention of these first generation students is something that we feel real strongly about getting them to succeed so they can break that cycle our donation is purely motivated by that to find out more about the engineering success program email accessengineering@tamuedu
1420,students faculty and industry partners of the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university attended the 2016 joint meeting of the marine technology society (mts) and society of naval architects and marine engineering (sname) this spring graduate and undergraduate students presented their capstone design projects to faculty mts houston section members sname texas section members and industry representatives based on their cumulative gpa and class rank three ocean engineering undergraduate students parker buss carson pepper and hanmo zhang were inducted into omega epsilon an honor society in the department robert cresap martina garcia austin grieger chase lucia and amanda massingill received department of ocean engineering service awards lauren a waldron was named the recipient of the mts outstanding ocean engineering student award jasper r janssen received the abs graduation award colin ocker 97 project manager at anadarko petroleum discussed the heidelberg spar project which is located 140 miles southwest of port fourchon louisiana and 390 miles southeast of corpus christi texas it is estimated to hold between 200 and 400 million barrels of oil knut ekenberg owner vice president and chief technology officer of ultra deep talked about subsea umbilicals and advanced engineering support for development of deepwater umbilical riser systems more pictures of the events can be found here
1421,the college of engineering at texas a&m university and the school of engineering at the university of cyprus recently co-organized the workshop recent engineering advances in cyber-physical systems advanced materials for energy applications and water/wastewater/environmental management systems in limassol cyprus the workshop was the result of an mou between texas a&m and the university of cyprus under the leadership of m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m the workshop brought together researchers from the university of cyprus texas a&m texas a&m university at qatar and other cyprus universities to discuss the latest research advances in the areas of smart grid systems advanced materials for energy applications and energy/environment attendees represented institutions that have proven strengths in these areas additionally the workshop aimed to establish and strengthen collaborations among the participating researchers/universities and explored venues in which to further advance these collaborations keynote speaker for the event was dr pr kumar distinguished professor and engineering chair in computer engineering at texas a&m kumar spoke on cyber-physical systems workshop chairs included dr andreas polycarpou holder of the james j cain chair in mechanical engineering meinhard h kotzebue 14 professor and head of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m and dr christoforos hadjicostis dean of engineering at the university of cyprus the advisory committee for the workshop included: dr robin autenrieth (civil engineering); dr miroslav begovic (electrical and computer engineering); and dr narasimha reddy (electrical and computer engineering)
1422,aerospace engineering graduate students mauricio coen benjamin morrell austin probe and julie read won the best student paper award at the aiaa 14th international space operations conference (spaceops) in daejeon south korea dr greg chamitoff professor of practice in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and dr george james structural engineer at nasa's johnson space center were co-authors on the paper the paper future mars exploration operational simulation: research outcomes and educational benefit highlighted lessons learned from a human spaceflight operations class directed by chamitoff and dr rao vadali professor in the department experts from various nasa centers across all disciplines gave lectures throughout the semester with the final class project involving a planning-based simulation for a future mars human exploration mission the lessons learned during the class simulation and the basis for the paper were the need for close feedback between technology development and operational capabilities for future missions as well as flexibility in operations scheduling the paper also showcased the educational and research benefits derived from these types of simulations which are complex in scope but simple to perform in a group setting coen and morrell attended the spaceops conference and presented the paper hosted by the korea aerospace research institute (kari) and sponsored by the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) spaceops 2016 was a technical forum of the space operations community that addressed state-of-the-art operations principals methods and tools with the best student paper award both coen and morrell received kari scholarships to cover the registration fee for the conference
1423,venture capitalist ray rothrock and professor emeritus stephen a holditch both honored as distinguished alumnus of texas a&m university have been appointed to serve on investment boards critical to the texas a&m university system the texas a&m system board of regents last month appointed rothrock partner emeritus at the capital venture firm venrock to the board of directors for the university of texas investment management company (utimco) the university of texas systems board of regents appointed holditch the former head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and director of the texas a&m energy institute as texas a&m systems representative on the university lands advisory board these two fine graduates of texas a&m are uniquely qualified to represent the interests of the texas a&m system on these important investment boards said cliff thomas chairman of the texas a&m university systems board of regents we are grateful for their service rothrocks areas of investment expertise and interests span the globe and include energy information technology infrastructure and cyber security as a venture capitalist for more than two decades rothrock personally discovered created and guided more than 50 companies in the venrock portfolio among numerous other accomplishments he previously served as trustee of the texas a&m foundation and chaired the investment committee of its $1 billion endowment in 2016 he was honored as a distinguished alumnus of texas a&m university rothrock earned his bachelor of science degree in nuclear engineering from texas a&m in 1977 an sm in nuclear engineering from massachusetts institute of technology and an mba with distinction from harvard business school holditch who received his bachelors masters and phd from texas a&m joined the faculty of his alma mater in 1976 rising through the ranks of the petroleum engineering department while also working as a consultant to the oil and gas industry schlumberger ltd purchased his consulting company sa holditch & associates inc in 1997 though holditch continued to advise schlumberger executives in 2014 holditch was honored as a distinguished alumnus of texas a&m university utimco is a 501(c)(3) investment management corporation whose sole purpose is the management of investment assets under the fiduciary care of the board of regents of the university of texas system utimco is governed by a nine-member board of directors that includes three members of the ut system board of regents and four other members appointed by the ut system board and two members appointed by the texas a&m system board the university lands advisory board provides strategic direction to the ut system board of regents on the operations and management of university lands which include the activities on 21 million acres of land that stretch across 19 far-west texas counties in the oil-rich permian basin and serve as a valuable resource for the ut and texas a&m system institutions revenue from oil and gas production on university lands flows into the permanent university fund which supports capital projects at the institutions of the ut and texas a&m systems revenue from surface leases and activity generates income for the available university fund (auf) in addition a small percentage of the puf is distributed annually to support ut austin texas a&m and prairie view a&m university about the texas a&m university systemthe texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $42 billion through a statewide network of 11 universities seven state agencies two service units and a comprehensive health science center the a&m system educates more than 140 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year system-wide externally funded research expenditures exceed $932 million and help drive the states economy
1424,twenty-four texas a&m university students are spending their summer working toward launching innovations and businesses through the summer lean startup program with texas a&m engineering and startup aggieland the program participants include students working on their own ideas developed as part of programs such as aggies invent and u-ignite and also students working on faculty-led innovations from the aggie_challenge program the program provides tremendous value to our engineering students by engaging them in the process of understanding that a technical product is successful when it creates value by addressing a need in the market said magda lagoudas executive director for industry and nonprofit partnerships the 2016 summer lean startup program supports the college of engineerings efforts to promote entrepreneurial mindsets among engineering students program participants were selected based on the maturity of products and their commitment to complete the program requirements the summer lean startup program is a 10-week program structured around evidence-based entrepreneurship methodologies and modeled after the successful national science foundation i-corps program twelve teams of two students per team were selected these student innovators had a product that has moved out of the ideation phase and is ready to undergo intensive customer discovery and groundwork for commercialization the program is designed to guide students through market segment identification customer discovery risk assessment financial analysis and much more throughout the summer at the close of the summer lean startup program each team will pitch its findings to a panel of industry experts and entrepreneurs the presentations will take place on aug 11 from 1-6:30 pm at rudder forum students and faculty are invited to attend the 2016 summer lean startup projects are bioindent bitgrange dehydratect gifther lift assist life alert infant movement detector miniature autonomous pipeline robots quadcomm stem space the powered heart rate sensor vibration-added haptics and well mitigation methods for accidental spillage
1425,dr malini natarajarathinam the principal investigator of a proposal to help texas food banks has been named a recipient of the 2016-2017 texas a&m university tier one program (top) grant over the next three years natarajarathinam and her team will receive about $300 000 to implement its multidisciplinary service-learning project ‘famine to feast: engaging texas food banks natarajarathinam is an associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m she is joined by co-principal investigators dr robert jones from the department of educational administration and human resource development and dr mary campbell from the department of sociology top grants are awarded by the university to promote hands-on multidisciplinary learning experiences to qualify the program must be a joint effort between faculty members of two or more texas a&m colleges and impact at least 100 undergraduate or 50 graduate students the initiative aims to unite a diverse group of students to help texas food banks in multiple ways according to the proposal a learning community devised of at least 500 (over three years) undergraduate students within the disciplines of industrial distribution engineering sociology and technology management will work together to enhance the ability of local regional and statewide texas food banks to understand and meet clients needs improve efficiencies and better achieve their overall missions to help the residents of texas students and faculty will be working with feeding texas and various food banks in the state this partnership will allow food banks to request help and be linked with the relevant disciplinary at texas a&m to find solutions and improve efficiency whatever supply chain engineering agriculture or other problems are presented will be solved together with a multidisciplinary service-oriented approach undeterred by the scope of this project natarajarathinam says ‘famine to feast is only one aspect of a brand new cooperative structure between texas a&m and nonprofit organizations we are going to develop a portal where nonprofits can come post whatever challenges they are facing natarajarathinam explained and that portal can be a resource for projects for teachers the portal will be a support structure allowing faculty and students from a variety of disciplines to access work on and complete service projects for nonprofit agencies in need of help selfless service is one of the six core values at texas a&m and natarajarathinam hopes this initiative will make it easier for students to strengthen it service [learning] is one of the high-impact practices at texas a&m and its one of the core values that we want to instill in all aggies; learn by serving and serve by learning she said
1426,dr paul v gratz associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2016 association of former students (afs) distinguished achievement award in teaching college level he is one of four faculty members in the college of engineering selected to receive the award since 1982 the afs teaching award has been presented to faculty members who are renowned for their expertise and exemplary dedication to the education of their students dr miroslav begovic electrical and computer engineering department head said gratz deserves the award because he has been an early adopter of blended learning within the department and college having restructured ecen 350 as a blended learning class the restructured class features live recorded lectures published online and online quizzes replacing traditional homework among other enhancements those efforts have yielded two benefits a two to three week increase in material covered during a semester as well as improvements in student retention from a traditionally high drop-rate class gratz has also been a leader in the department's efforts to develop a distance learning masters program his ecen 676 class during spring 2016 served as the pilot class for the distance learning masters program based on his experiences he is developing a set of distance learning training sessions for faculty gratz is a member of the computer engineering and systems group he received his phd in electrical and computer engineering from the university of texas at austin in 2008 his research interests include energy-efficiency reliability and performance in processor microarchitectures memory systems and on-chip interconnection networks he has received a teaching excellence award from the texas a&m university system and a best paper award from the asplos'09 conference the afs teaching award will be formally presented to all recipients in spring 2017 at the annual college awards banquet
1427,tyler wooten was a freshman engineering student at texas a&m university when he came up with an idea that could have a lasting impact on students with visual impairments eight months later his idea a three-dimensional tactile map with braille has come to fruition wooten who will be a sophomore in mechanical engineering this fall took a 3-d printing class at the engineering innovation center (eic) during his freshman year he began thinking about different ways he could use his newly acquired 3-d printing skills to help others then it came to him create a three-dimensional map with raised buildings and braille for visually impaired people to use to orient themselves on campus the idea seemed simple enough but he needed help to do it right wooten reached out to kaitlyn kellermeyer a texas a&m student who had worked on other advocacy projects on campus for the visually impaired kellermeyer who is blind was the perfect person to provide insight for wooten he emailed her and within two hours they met to discuss the project she said ‘just go do it wooten said it took a lot of trial and error but these tactile maps could become available on the texas a&m campus for students and visitors who are visually impaired tracey foreman assistant director of disability services at texas a&m said tactile graphics are used to aid people with visual disabilities to better understand graphs maps and other diagrams she said most tactile maps are created using braille embossers thermoform images or swell paper having access to a tactile map allows a visually impaired individual to better understand the scale size and proximity that cannot always be gathered solely by walking around or having something verbally described to the individual foreman said kellermeyers story kellermeyer a senior economics student became blind in march of 2014 when she was a freshman at texas a&m the double oak texas native lost sight in her left eye when she was a toddler doctors attempted many risky surgeries to prevent her from losing sight in her right eye the last of which left her completely blind it was very hard at first she said i lost my sight in the middle of the spring semester but kellermeyer did not drop out of school my friends created this little network of support she said theyd walk me between classes theyd read me things theyd go to class with me and in some cases help me take notes that was really awesome even though kellermeyer had seen campus before she didnt realize how difficult it would be to find her way around i had memories of where everything was relationally she said with all the open space on campus and with the lack of auditory cues i didnt realize how hard it would be to get around kellermeyer describes that semester as frustrating and upsetting she felt alone and stuck to a very strict path around campus never veering off course for fear of getting lost when wooten approached her about the maps kellermeyer was delighted she missed being able to look at a map to get a birds-eye view of an area when i lost my sight i lost the ability to use a map she said this has been awesome for me to have that ability again now kellermeyer has more freedom to explore shes even used the map to help her sighted friends find buildings on campus wanting to make a difference what started as an idea to help others may now be an opportunity for wooten to become an entrepreneur i had never met a visually impaired or blind person before in my life he said but i recognized the problems those people could be faced with and i wanted to make a difference after speaking with kellermeyer wooten went home and downloaded solidworks the software used to design 3-d-printed items wooten got to work right away printing the first of many maps that week she shrieked the first time she held it he said of kellermeyer it was awesome to see it transform from an idea to something that could actually help each map takes roughly 10 hours to complete wooten would drive to college station twice a week over the summer working long hours in the eic his persistence paid off wooten has also designed 3-d-printed tactile maps for westbrook intermediate school in league city texas and the brazos valley center for independent living in bryan texas he recently taught his friend how to use solidworks and said hes preparing for an increase in demand without really trying wootens 3-d printed maps have become a small business one with far-reaching benefits
1428,dr ray and beverly mentzer have established the nathan a mentzer 11 scholarship in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university the endowed scholarship will provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering the scholarship is named in honor of their son nathan who received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m ray mentzer is currently a senior lecturer in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering he and beverly both retired from distinguished careers with exxonmobil the couple has two children both graduates of texas a&m nathan 11 and rebecca who earned her degree in economics in 2015 they reside in the woodlands texas
1429,barbara and bill shepard 61 have established the guilford cunningham shepard 34 scholarship in mechanical engineering to be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university the scholarship was established in memory of bills father guilford shepard a 1934 graduate of texas a&m the elder shepard received a bachelors degree in electrical engineering the montgomery texas couple has developed a legacy of giving that includes contributions to the the college of engineering department of mechanical engineering and the association of former students and spans nearly 30 years bill serves as the president of wls drilling products inc an international drilling manufacturing company that produces rock bits and other drilling products for use in oil and gas mining industrial use exploration and water well and under utility drilling industries he earned his degree in mechanical engineering in 1962 from texas a&m
1430,researchers in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university are making cars smarter and driving safer through cutting-edge technology and research dr thomas ferris assistant professor in industrial and systems engineering and his students in the human factors & cognitive systems laboratory are collaborating with principal investigator robert wunderlich researchers at the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) the university of houston the university of michigan and texas tech university this mega-team is investigating possible human- and vehicle-driven causes of unintended vehicle acceleration motor-vehicle accidents are a complex problem with many potential causal factors including driver errors ferris said humans are not very good at problem-solving when the vehicle does something they arent expecting especially when under high stress high workloads or while multi-tasking so we are trying to use the computational power of the vehicle to detect when drivers exhibit particular stress patterns if the car knows that the human driver is under the influence of a particular stressor it can provide support that is more appropriately tailored to the drivers cognitive state the ‘super-group as ferris has termed the group of transportation research collaborators has a goal of developing a system that can be installed in an advanced vehicle to detect when a drivers cognitive state turns problematic this could be a high workload in the driving task or attempting to conduct a secondary task such as texting and driving ferris said imagine the number of lives that could be saved if the vehicle automation could detect when these distractions pose a problem and then take action to improve safety such as by guiding the drivers attention back to the roadway the research is being conducted in a simulation facility at tti as well as a test track at texas a&ms rellis campus participants spend time driving in a simulator in the lab or in a real vehicle on a controlled course while being monitored using biometric sensors researchers monitor heart rate galvanic skin response thermal imagery and the amount of sweat a person produces to determine different patterns in changing levels of stress by using the simulator researchers are able to explore additional driver conditions as it allows safely simulated unintended vehicle acceleration or distracted driving what we are actually able to detect is a pattern in sympathetic autonomous nervous system arousal ferris said when a surprising mentally challenging or strongly emotional experience occurs the driver is feeling their sympathetic nervous system preparing to fight or flight – to assess a potential threat and to focus cognitive efforts on that threat this is helpful to the person if they are trying to flee an attacking tiger but can impair the ability to maintain control of a complex system such as a modern vehicle in addition to distractions a drivers cognitive state could also be impacted by stress from an emotional response being overworked or lack of sleep the researchers have explored several concepts to deploy after the system determines that the driver is operating under a problematic state such as disengaging the transmission or removing distractions like the radio the researchers are testing how indicators of driver stress level can be effectively communicated back to the driver and whether this can help the driver achieve a calmer state explained ferris although the industry is some distance away from installing this device in all new cars the group is currently testing a prototype device developed by members of the research team a number of upcoming studies will test this and other potential solutions in simulation studies on the controlled test-track and maybe even in vehicles on active roadways the idea is to ultimately test research participants in a realistic setting with real distractions and real emotional responses encountered in traffic the super-group published the first article earlier this summer in scientific reports an online open-access research journal from the nature publishing group the article ‘dissecting driver behaviors under cognitive emotional sensorimotor and mixed stressors received an altmetric score of 303 only five days after being published online this score is based on the number of downloads amount of press coverage and social attention the article has since been covered by numerous media outlets including medical daily reuters and gawker while the current funded project will be completed at the end of the calendar year the group has already begun exploring funding to continue this work its desire is to have the system installed in all new vehicles to save the lives of many drivers this work was funded in part by the toyota class action settlement safety research and education program the conclusions being expressed are the authors only and have not been sponsored approved or endorsed by toyota or plaintiffs class counsel to learn more about the super group's work read their article
1431,this week 15 educatorsfrom elementary to high school teachers library and technology specialists and a local girl scout stem specialistgathered in the texas a&m engineering innovation center to learn how to make designs created in engineering software come to life at the easy as 1 2 3-d print workshop prek-12 engineering education outreach part of the texas a&m college of engineering and the texas a&m engineering experiment station created the weeklong workshop experience to equip educators with the technical and cad software design skills necessary to teach others how to incorporate 3-d printing into their learning environments fourteen years ago brenda matthews worked in the computer labs of barrow elementary school in brazoria texas showing students how to use technology while at barrow elementary i saw a tremendous need to become an educational technology teacher said matthews that led me to teaching technology briefly at columbia high school while training teachers on technology integration today matthews is the director of student and staff services at columbia-brazoria isd (cbisd) where she is responsible for instructional technology educational technology professional development and k-12 technology applications we received a grant from phillips 66 and were asked if wed like 3-d printers said matthews we responded with an enthusiastic ‘yes! matthews is excited to bring the skills she learned during the workshop into the cbisd learning environments where each campus will be equipped with 3-d printers a laptop and ipad minis sofia darcy a library services specialist with houston isd (hisd) who supervises 125 of the 250 hisd library staff is also excited about the endless possibilities 3-d printing will bring to the hisd libraries i can imagine scenarios where students are able to 3-d print a books characters or objects or they can create visual alternate endings to the stories what the students envision can become reality by incorporating the engineering and technical skills 3-d printing requires said darcy 3-d printing brings reading to life the easy as 1 2 3-d print workshop concludes friday july 29 with participant presentations showcasing the 3-d printing projects from the week and highlighting the lessons learned during the workshop
1432,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was accepted for participation in the prognostic and health management (phm) societys symposium dehghanian was among 10 awardees nationwide whose application was approved for the phm symposium scheduled for oct 2 in denver the doctoral symposium provides an excellent opportunity for graduate students to present their research interests and plans the students will receive structured guidance from a panel of distinguished researchers as well as comments from conference participants and fellow students in a collegial setting the phm society will cover all his expenses dehghanian who is advised by dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department is the current leader of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the ieee pels-pes-ias he received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications his recent honors include being selected as a potential future leader by ieee receiving the sigma xi grant-in-aid-of-research receiving a 2nd place prize for best poster award at the 2016 ieee power and energy society (pes) transmission and distribution (t&d) conference and exposition a research grant scholarship from the american public power association under the demonstration of energy and efficiency development (deed) program being awarded the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship for the 2016-2017 academic year and being selected as the ieee industry application society electric safety workshop 2017 student program chair the phm society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of phm as an engineering discipline the phm society has three basic principles to provide free and unrestricted access to phm knowledge to promote interdisciplinary and international collaboration in phm and to lead the advancement of phm as an engineering discipline
1433,the 12th mantaray team (from left to right): jake taylor mckenzie griffith martina garcia aaron rambo jose lacal ben torrison and kevin ariyanonthaka the 12th mantaray texas a&m universitys human-powered submarine completed eight out of 15 attempts with a top speed of 44 knots at the 2016 european international submarine races (eisr) at the qinetiq ocean basin in gosport england based on speed it was the fourth fastest submarine out of the 11 subs in the competition the 12th mantaray also received the qinetiq prize for the most dramatic event when the submarine went from being horizontal to vertical but the student piloting the sub was able to recover and complete the race the races involved teams of university students who design build test and race human-powered submarines around a slalom course the basic design and build process of the submarine consisted of five components: hull propulsion transmission pilot safety and ergonomics and control this year teams from the united states new zealand the netherlands denmark canada and the united kingdom competed in the races texas a&ms team was made up of kevin ariyanonthaka (pilot) martina garcia (co-team leader) ben torsion (co-team leader) jake taylor mckenzie griffith aaron rambo and jose lacal earlier this year it was the first team to officially qualify for the races ariyanonthaka was the sole source of propulsion for the submarine as he pedaled the fully submerged submarine wearing scuba gear the turns and slalom gates at the races presented a new challenge for the team especially the pilot said dr robert randall w h bauer professor in dredging engineering in the department of ocean engineering kevin did an outstanding job and that is not possible without the support from everyone on the team since 1991 ocean engineering students have participated in the human-powered submarine races the students have built both two-person and one-person submarines powered by scuba certified student drivers the texas a&m team was sponsored by the houston chapter of the marine technology society texas section of the society of naval architects and marine engineers baumann propellers oceaneering baxter and knoll great lakes dredge and dock mcclure and associates intermoor deep down classic collision and restoration tasco auto color machine works diab duna department of ocean engineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station offshore technology research center and the haynes coastal engineering laboratory
1434,from the healthcare industry to wind energy the oil and gas industry and manufacturing researchers from the system informatics group in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university are developing data-driven methods to improve the systems and processes involved with each area we take in data and solve engineering systems by developing sophisticated data analytics methods while considering engineering domain knowledge and models said dr yu ding professor and senior member of the group system informatics fuses system knowledge into data modeling and analysis it is a key area in addressing the challenges of big data serving efficiently as a result of the affordable care act the call for improved access to primary care for all americans has reached an all-time high additionally there has been a nationwide trend amongst healthcare providers to transform their practices to become patient centered medical homes (pcmh) with the primary emphasis on improving quality of care a key function of pcmh is accessible service that requires improving accessibility of primary care for patients with 90 percent of patient care delivered through out patient services appointment schedules must be improved to ensure the success of all patients dr amarnath banerjee associate professor is working with his phd student yu fu to develop models that will enable a clinic to serve the right mix of traditional patients and same day request patients which will improve timely access to primary care the objective is to develop a balanced schedule that tends to minimize both the waiting time for patients as well as idle time for physicians banerjee said the waiting time increases if there are too many patients that are scheduled while the idle time increases if there are not enough patients this problem becomes difficult to solve in a one size fits all manner banerjee and his team use stochastic factors estimated using advanced statistical techniques to account for each clinics individual characteristics these factors include patients arriving late or early for their appointments patients not showing up for their appointments the variability associated with the encounter time between a patient and the physician and not completely knowing how many same day requests to expect on a given day the model uses existing clinic-specific information available for the previously scheduled traditional patients and the stochastic factors to develop a daily schedule for the clinic banerjee said in the process the model also determines the value of the available information and the extent it helps in developing the appropriate schedule for the clinic this research will help practice managers develop better appointment schedules for their clinic using the clinics own data and will improve accessibility and quality of care for its patients understanding wind speed according to a report from the renewable energy policy network for the 21st century countries worldwide invested $286 billion in renewable energy and about 77 million jobs around the world were associated with the industry in 2015 wind energy is a type of variable renewable energy which means the primary energy source the wind and other influencing environmental factors air density humidity and atmospheric stability cannot be controlled by people therefore the wind power output of a turbine is constantly changing as a result of this variable nature the big data-driven predictive analytics is needed by wind energy producers and wind farm operators for decision making these analytics allow the producers and operators to understand how the wind field is changing or if the turbines are performing to the design standards dr yu ding and his research group are improving the reliability of wind power production to enhance the markets competitiveness our group has been working closely with practitioners in the wind industry and received over 100 gigabytes of wind farm operational data ding said the large amount of data provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to address some critical technical challenges in wind energy predictive analytics dings team is developing statistical and machine learning models to understand the local wind field and its dynamics to help farm operators forecast wind speed more accurately in the future we also use the in-field measurements of both power outputs and environmental inputs wind speed included to understand how a turbine performs ding said answering these predictive analytics questions helps the operators plan maintenance actions to counter turbine degradation justify costly retrofitting turbine upgrades or optimize turbine control for better production capability or a longer service life the group has received grants from the texas a&m energy institute and the national science foundation to perform research in this field developing success almost 20 million barrels of oil are used each day in the united states therefore extracting oil from the earth is a process that must occur in a timely manner dr andrew johnson associate professor is working to develop a manufacturing system for national oilwell varco (nov) this system will allow it to be the worlds leader in the manufacturing of complex highly engineered oil extraction equipment this project is in collaboration with researchers from the university of wisconsin-madison and pennsylvania state university constructing land or subsea drilling systems is a very lengthy and expensive process additionally the industry is ever changing a year and a half ago the demand for drilling was very high but today there is very little demand novs manufacturing processes are making significant improvements johnson said the goal of this project is to develop an integrated manufacturing system for nov to build complex highly customized products that will allow them to be as successful as toyota was with the mass production of cars to accomplish this goal the researchers have identified three critical areas for development these areas are manufacturing organization measuring manufacturing performance and manufacturing processes johnson said texas a&m is leading the research in measuring manufacturing performance the texas a&m team is comprised of johnson and four graduate students over the past five years 11 students have worked with six different plants and saved the company millions of dollars through improved communications and efficiency in operations we have focused on improving the integration of shop floor metrics with the overall objectives of the plants and company johnson said while the oil industry is currently in a downturn this is the right time to apply improved measurement and operational practices to continue to allow nov to be the worlds leading provider of equipment and components used in oil and gas industry building quality control dr li zeng assistant professor analyzes and monitors manufacturing and healthcare delivery systems for improvement and quality control the concerns on energy and environment during the past two decades have led to improvements in house and building design zeng said this is made possible through the use of energy efficient windows made of low-emittance glass low-emittance glass can reduce unwanted heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter by reflecting up to 90 percent of infrared radiation one study suggests that if all windows are made of such glass the collective annual energy bill of our nation could be reduced by 25 percent per year zeng said this has made low-emittance glass manufacturing an important sector of the glass industry the current quality control methods are unreliable because of the simple use of quality measurements such as the measurement of optical properties at different locations of the glass surface essentially the low emittance glass industry is a data-rich environment due to the application of advanced information and sensing technologies in recent years unfortunately the traditional quality control system is not able to integrate the data collected with the process monitoring and root cause diagnosis efforts i am developing a method that will make full use of the information in the measurements thus being able to provide more reliable results zeng said for example when quality problems occur current methods may still report false information that the manufacturing process is running normally my method will generate a signal of process change zengs work on process control in glass manufacturing was awarded the best applications paper award by the institute of industrial and systems engineers the paper titled bayesian hierarchical modeling for monitoring optical profiles in low-e glass manufacturing processes was featured in the industrial engineering (ie) magazine changing the world drs banerjee ding johnson and zeng are conquering processes in their respective industries to improve the life we know today as a result of their work patients will get care when they need it and avoid costly emergency room visits and hospital admissions wind energy will become more available resulting in cheaper energy rates with decreased effects on the environment the oil and gas industry will be capable of producing highly customized equipment at a lower cost and in a timely manner making them more accessible to consumers quicker by creating a higher quality low emittance glass the home or business owner will benefit from big savings in energy use whether directly or indirectly every project will impact our daily lives for the better
1435,a team of undergraduate students in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was among the top finalists in the 2016 texas instruments (ti) innovation challenge the ti innovation challenge contest is designed to encourage engineering students to submit design projects that utilize ti technology it is an open challenge to any area of innovation that an educational institution wants to target one hundred seventy-nine universities participated the electrical and computer engineering team consisting of nathaniel glaser joe loredo rafael salas and david cuevas submitted its elbow orthosis capstone project which was awarded second place their project was developed over a period of two semesters it consisted of electromyography (emg) sensors that are placed on the upper and lower arm in order to detect muscle contractions in response to the muscle contractions which are detected filtered and analyzed using dsp ics it powers a motor that assists the upward or downward movement of the elbow which enables individuals with muscular dystrophy to accomplish everyday tasks like picking up a glass of water and lifting a plate the entire system including 3-d printed arm attachments is powered by a small portable battery pack that makes it portable and enables it to be applied to other joints like the knee their design also earned the best overall capstone award in the departments capstone invitational demo day
1436,dr yue kuo professor and holder of the dow chemical professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the american vacuum society (avs) the fellow designation is the highest level of membership in avs and recognizes members who have made sustained and outstanding scientific and technical contributions in research engineering technical advancement academic education or managerial leadership founded in 1953 avs is an interdisciplinary professional society that supports networking and collaboration between academic industrial and governmental sectors avs members come from a wide variety of disciplines including chemistry physics biology mathematics engineering and business this is just the latest in a long line of achievements for kuo in february of 2015 kuo was awarded the gordon e moore medal for outstanding achievement in solid state science and technology by the electrochemical society (ecs) also in 2015 kuo was elected vice president of ecs in addition to these honors kuo has authored or co-authored two separate articles that are among the top 5 most-cited solid state articles in the journal ecs transactions
1437,texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment stations institute for engineering education and innovation (ieei) will lead the educational outreach component for the xxxii association of space explorers (ase) planetary congress to be held in houston texas in october 2019 the 2019 congress the largest international gathering of space explorers in the world will honor the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing during the weeklong event the ase planetary congress will engage local educators students and leaders in business science and research in critical discussion on issues of broad interest to the international space community government agencies around the world and the public the only professional association for astronauts and cosmonauts in the world ases event will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon as well as to help inspire the future of space exploration since its founding in 1985 the ase has held its planetary congress in the united states only three times texas a&m and tees will organize a statewide community day during the congress other participants include space center houston the lone star flight museum rice university and the university of houston ase members will make visits to schools universitiesincluding texas a&m university system member campusesand communities throughout texas to generate public awareness for the importance of human space flight and its past and future technological contributions to mankind including the development of computers health technologies; navigation communication agricultural environmental and weather satellites; new materials; solar energy; and much more k-12 and university students/teachers throughout the state will also be invited to participate in various congress activities as part of its ongoing stem education outreach we are thrilled to be part of such an important milestone event said dr bonnie j dunbar director of ieei and tees distinguished research professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m the planetary congress gives us a wonderful opportunity to reach out to students and the public and to share with them the science and engineering behind space exploration we hope to generate excitement and interest not only in space but also about all other stem related careers this prestigious global event gets underway this fall with a three-year stem education outreach initiative designed to engage local students and educators in discovering the challenges opportunities and benefits of space exploration leading up to the congress information will be available through ieei for more information on the ase and its planetary congress visit http://wwwspace-explorersorg/
1438,"dr nancy m amato director of engineering honors and co-director of the computer science and engineering track of engineering honors at texas a&m university was selected program chair of the 2016 robotics: science and systems conference (rss) held in june at the university of michigan as program chair amato was responsible for the technical program of the conference as well as appointing the area chairs and the other members of the conference organizing committee she administered the review process of the papers that are in the area of robotics researchers from around the world working on algorithmic and mathematical foundations of robotics robotics applications and analysis of robotic systems gather at rss annually the conference features invited talks oral and poster presentations of refereed papers and workshops rss 2016 was very successful said amato regents professor and unocal professor we accepted 47 papers from 228 submissions which was the second largest number of submissions and the second lowest acceptance rate in rss history we also had a near record number of attendees at 640 several former students and faculty members from computer science and engineering at texas a&m were also involved with rss 2016 in various capacities former student dr jyh-ming lien and associate professor dr dezhen song served as area chairs lien who was advised by amato during his time at texas a&m is currently an associate professor at george mason university workshop co-chair lydia tapia publications co-chair sam jacobs short talk co-chair marco morales and review process co-chairs sam rodriguez and shawna thomas each worked under amato during their tenures as phd students in the computer science and engineering department at texas a&m tapia is currently an assistant professor at the university of new mexico and was recently awarded the denice denton emerging leader abie award; jacobs is currently a computer scientist at lawrence livermore national laboratory; morales is now an assistant professor at the instituto tecnologico autonomo de mexico (itam); rodriguez and thomas are currently postdoctoral students with amato however rodriguez will be starting as an assistant professor at texas wesleyan university in august associate professor dr dylan shells paper titled set-labelled filters and sensor transformations was accepted at rss the paper was co-authored by fatemeh zahra saberifar shervin ghasemlou and jason m o'kane in addition shell served on a panel at rss on ""surprises in robotics in the next 3-5 years "" with three other high profile robotics researchers in april 2016 the area chair meeting was held on campus at texas a&m to select the papers that would be presented at the upcoming conference in conjunction with the area chair meeting the department hosted a workshop during which the area chairs gave talks along with her title as program chair amato is also co-director of the rss foundation board rss was started in 2005 by a group of robotics researchers who believed a high-quality selective single-track conference was needed the conference is managed by the rss foundation which is governed by the foundation board and the advisory board"
1439,a pair of teams from texas a&m universitys college of engineering took the top two spots at the 2016 texas instruments (ti) innovation challenge design contest in north america dvdt a team comprised of dakotah karrer vince rodriguez david smith and trent tate from the department of engineering technology and industrial distributions electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program took first place with its project tsat rf satellite communication the team of david cuevas nathan glaser joe loredo and rafael salas from the department of electrical and computer engineering won second place for its project powered programmable elbow orthosis dvdt worked with texas space technology applications and research (t-star) to create a prototype of a space communication system which will be used to conduct low-earth orbit research a crucial need for growing space exploration efforts the critical long-range wireless communication for the satellite is provided by tis sub-1 ghz cc1120 rf transceiver with the cc1190 rf front-end amplifier that provides reliable communication and data from the t-star satellite to an earth station cuevas glaser loredo and salas created a brace-like device that uses a ti ultra-low-power msp432™ microcontroller (mcu) to stabilize limit and assist elbow movements to restore upper arm functionality to users suffering from a range of injuries or disorders which weaken muscles and muscular activity with a growing demand for problem-solving technology the pressure is on for engineering students to be industry-ready upon graduation to aid in student readiness ti hosted the contest where future engineers were tasked with using ti technology to create solutions tackling challenges faced by our world today ti continually seeks ways to bring theoretical science technology engineering and math (stem) subjects to life for students said peter balyta phd president of ti education technology one of the many ways we do this is by hosting the ti innovation challenge to give students practical engineering design experience when students marry engineering education with hands-on creativity they have the potential to turn their innovative prototypes into the next big technology that will change the world of the nearly 180 teams entering technology solutions three final teams were recognized at the annual award ceremony on july 19 in the ti engineering and innovation hall at the perot museum of nature and science in dallas their inventions addressed problems in the medical space and health and wellness industries after a day of touring a ti manufacturing facility and innovation center the students presented their projects to ti business leaders and contest judges with the winning project being out-of-this worldliterally
1440,students and faculty from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university recently attended the 2016 american nuclear society (ans) annual meeting in new orleans the meeting focused on topics supporting nuclear powers continued status as the leading supply of clean carbon-free energy students attended professional development workshops plenary and technical sessions and special lectures that covered a variety of nuclear engineering related topics nuclear engineering students lane carasik landon brockemeyer matt barret and ans student program co-chair james bunsen represented texas a&m at the meeting the conference focused on the current contribution of nuclear energy to the total national energy mix and sought to open discussion about the opportunities and challenges ahead in maintaining nuclear energys leadership role as the largest single contributing energy source of non-greenhouse gas emitting power additional topics at the meeting included advances in next generation reactor designs the status of prototype generation four nuclear reactors and how to effectively dispose of and possibly recycle spent nuclear fuel through the practice of reprocessing and taking the used nuclear fuel and converting it back into a usable fuel source one of the things that personally interested me the most was the issue of nuclear waste and how we want to deal with that policy-wise bunsen said for example we had a site known as yucca mountain where all the nuclear waste was going to be stored but loss of federal funding for the site damaged those efforts now they store it on site where its not ideal because these sites are not designed to store waste according to bunsen the session discussed how the waste could be reprocessed by removing from the waste the majority of fission products that would prohibit the reactor from generating power effectively apart from the guided sessions students and industry professionals alike benefit from other social aspects of the conference these meetings give people a venue to showcase their research and its a good way to collaborate between universities and labs bunsen said there are more professionals at the summer and winter meetings and it ends up being a good way to kind of share ideas and learn new things one of the primary reasons i go to these conferences is for the networking especially on the student to student level
1441,on march 11 2011 japan was rocked by an earthquake and tsunami that caused the shutdown of the fukushima daiichi plants active nuclear reactors disabled all sources powering core cooling systems and caused three of the reactor cores to overheat the resulting meltdowns caused the release of radioactive material into the surrounding area a disaster that has spurred investigations and research into the performance of the safety systems installed in these reactors despite the effects of the disaster the reactor core isolation cooling (rcic) system performed much better than expected within reactor units two and three operating in unit three up to eight times longer than intended in those conditions understanding the cause behind the rcic systems performance and applying it to us reactors is where sandia national laboratories and the department of nuclear engineerings dr karen vierow come in i'm looking at the system from a couple of viewpoints vierow said one being how did it run for so long without power and two can we take credit for the system in our us reactors to operate for extended times without power the two times the safety system was called upon it operated far beyond what we currently take credit for the rcic system in the fukushima daiichi unit two and three reactors use a steam-driven turbine to power a pump that returns water to the reactor core and cools it the system needs power to regulate the turbine to cool the reactor but can run on battery power for four to eight hours during what are called isolation conditions conditions present during the fukashima incident where the reactor was isolated from its primary power source however during the incident two of the reactors continued to be cooled on the rcic system for 20 hours and 70 hours respectively despite exceeding the four to eight hour window to battery power the system understanding why the system performed as well as it did can benefit the 25 boiling water reactors in the united states that also operate the rcic system we do not completely understand why the rcic system operated for this long even though it is a good thing vierow said we'd like to know how it performed under these conditions and how we can assure that the same system in our national reactors would operate as well
1442,vierow is collaborating with researchers at sandia national laboratories on this project which was initially funded by the us nuclear regulatory commission until vierow later received a grant from the us department of energy (doe) vierows particular research application to discovering the secret of the rcic systems performance lies in studying the cooling of the system in relation to thermal mixing in the containment vierow began to look at the thermal mixing and the condensation of steam in the reactors suppression chamber to see where the thermal energy is distributed and how it effects the rcic system vierow and her team are also gathering new scientific data on the reactors turbomachinery and are convinced that steam and water enter the turbine during its operation despite the fact that turbines are designed for gas-phase intake only if we can understand the system better and how the turbine behaves when it ingests the steam and water two phase flow we can use that information to predict how the system would operate in our us bwrs vierow said this will help provide guidance to whether the rcic system in our bwrs can be used for longer than the duration that we currently allow them to be used for vierow and her team will use this data to develop detailed numerical models of the steam-water two-phase flow behavior in the turbine which will give them the knowledge to suggest changes to the rcic system design or other improvements to ensure that the system can be counted on for extended periods of time the data vierow has gathered on thermal mixing in this rcic system could also be used in other reactor applications it's a system designed for isolation events but we saw that it has a large potential for a loss of power situation which we call station blackout vierow said the fukushima reactors were under station blackout for several days and if this rcic system is already in place for 25 of our reactors for isolation events [then] it could also have a very important role in station blackout events it then gives this system a whole new role and needs to be evaluated for how long it can be used
1443,"acceleration is defined as an increase in the rate or speed of an object specifically the rate of change of velocity per unit of time for four students in the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program at texas a&m university dvdt is not only the formula for acceleration but also a capstone project moniker created from each of their names: dakotah karrer vince rodriguez david smith and trent tate on tuesday evening dvdt accelerated past nearly 180 teams from around the nation to win the 2016 texas instruments innovation challenge ""they are the gold standard "" said dr joseph morgan professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and capstone course director in [eset] what we're trying to do is create an experiential education so our undergraduate students learn by doing"" by working in a team environment with every member having a leadership role students are able to gain tangible industry experience for its eset senior capstone project which must find a solution to a real industry problem dvdt successfully created and launched a communications platform for cube satellite technology (tsat) in low-earth orbit not only did the team solve the problem it was able to create a system that can transmit communications over 10 times the largest distances tested by other manufacturers matt leonard t star president and dvdt's industry client says that the project will go well beyond an experimental demonstration ""we're going to be able to take this capability move it into the commercial sector and launch tsats into low-earth orbit that i think are going to be amazing based on what [dvdt] has done eset's home department engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) prides itself in both fostering a hands-on environment and helping students find successful careers with its variety of industry connections part-time eset professor and chief technology officer of paragon innovations h michael wiley who also serves as dvdts technical adviser shared his thoughts shortly after dvdt was presented with the winning $10 000 check from texas instruments ""[etid] doesn't take it (education) just as an academic exercise wiley said this department really is serious about making sure that the students we graduate have an understanding of what the real world is like for engineers giving them a great background in it"" since the project began in summer 2015 dvdt has been selected as the highest placing capstone team at the 2016 engineering project showcase the winner of mays business schools 2016 raymond ideas challenge and now the best design project in the national texas instruments 2016 innovation challenge for each of the members on the team this win highlights a successful transition from texas a&m to the beginning of their respective careers tate project manager for dvdt graduated in may and is now a part of the technical sales rotation program for texas instruments and may join the group permanently in early 2017 smith the project test engineer also graduated in the spring and is currently pursuing a commission with the united states air force hoping to work in satellite communications rodriguez the software engineer and a may graduate accepted and started a position with texas instruments' application rotation program in june karrer the hardware engineer and currently a senior planning to graduate in december is now an intern with texas instruments and hopes to join full time once he finishes school each team member expressed gratitude not only for the advisers and sponsors who helped along the way but also for the opportunity etid and eset were able to provide tate encouraged future students to look at all of the materials provided throughout the capstone experience and ""pursue working with your advisers and [sponsors]"" smith stressed the importance of etid's industry relationships saying ""the connection between etid and ti was a very strong one; we knew that we could contact ti and get immediate help"" for rodriguez being able to bring eset into the spotlight brings him great satisfaction ""not a lot of things are known about our major and i feel like this has brought to light the sort of things that our students are capable of "" he said karrer had similar feelings about the program ""the opportunities that there are in eset are just phenomenal he said they set the bar high and you have to shoot above that"" read more about the teams journey and witness the entire saga via their online documentary"
1444,chad haga has been a bicycle enthusiast most of his life the texas a&m university mechanical engineering graduate wasted no time before before joining the university cycling team as a freshman in 2006 ten years later hes racing professionally for the giant alpecin team in europe its been a long road filled with triumph and defeat but its one that has helped forge his passion and zeal for life as he looks to the future haga hopes to combine his love of cycling with his degree in mechanical engineering from the classroom to the blacktop haga was president of texas a&ms cycling team an experience that gave him a foundation for which he could continue to grow the friends i made on that team are still close friends today he said it was a really valuable experience in the classroom haga studied hard being an engineering student is challenging enough being an engineering student while also traveling all over texas racing is even more challenging but haga learned a lot in the classroom he learned how to work as a team and learned that hard-fought dedication pays off in the end racing to the top it was hagas father chris haga who encouraged his son to pursue his cycling hobby professionally the elder haga was diagnosed with lung cancer six years ago a surprise considering he had never smoked cigarettes chris haga told his son to follow his dreams and enjoy life while he could knowing he could always be an engineer later in life chad haga heeded his fathers advice joining the professional kelly benefit strategies-optumhealth team based in colorado in 2011 by 2014 haga had joined the european cycling team giant alpecin of which he is still a member that same year he raced in the vuelta a espana an annual 23-day race that primarily winds through spain known in english as the tour of spain the race is on par with the world famous tour de france in 2015 haga competed in another popular european race the giro ditalia the tour of italy spans more than 2 000 miles and passes through italy france and switzerland taking 23 days to complete haga raced the giro ditalia again in may someday he hopes to race in the tour de france an accident in spain the 27-year old lives in girona spain the majority of the year where he spends roughly 25 hours a week on his bike it was the start of the year and we were training in spain haga said the weather was great it was just a good time to get the team rolling at the start of the season while training with his team haga was leading the pack around a curve when an elderly english driver hit them head on haga and five of his teammates suffered injuries as a result haga was immediately taken into surgery photos posted to social media show the gruesome aftermath 98 stitches to close wounds on his face neck and chest i got airlifted and had extensive wounds to my face and neck that needed quick stitches he said against all odds haga survived the ordeal without any real long-term effects to his health i was very focused and wasnt going to let it hold me back he said haga was back in the saddle exactly two months later im eager for the chance to earn attention for my racing rather than my ability to bounce off a car ready to attack races with a vigor that can only be attained by nearly losing the privilege altogether haga wrote in his blog looking ahead haga is back in the united states now spending time with his family at the end of june hagas inspiration in life his father succumbed to cancer a photo on twitter shows haga and his brother shane riding their bikes with their arms extended holding on to their fathers bike between them they were taking their fathers bike for a final ride the roller coaster called life has been indescribably tumultuous this year he posted along with the photo haga said he owes his racing career to his father he told me ‘youve got a chance to spend time racing so do it the younger haga said haga heads back to spain soon to continue training hes hoping to race in the vuelta a espana again if hagas past is any indication of his future he wont let anything stand in the way of his dreams
1445,about 350 million tons of dredged sediments are excavated annually in us waters nearly all major ports in the world have at some time required dredging one of the most efficient and versatile types of modern dredges is the cutter suction dredge which uses a cutter located at the entrance to the suction pipe to excavate the sediment bed at the bottom of a ship channel a centrifugal pump transports the excavated material consisting of gravel sand silt clay and water to a desired placement location often debris such as unexploded ordnances roots large rocks and logs enters or blocks the suction inlet causing safety concerns delays or loss of production dr robert randall w h bauer professor in dredging engineering in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university conducted laboratory experiments using a model dredge at the haynes coastal engineering laboratory to research this problem he studied the effectiveness of a steel screen attached to the suction entrance of a model cutter dredge to keep debris from entering the dredge pump system if a pencil is caught in a vacuum cleaner it will break up and possibly jam the machine said randall similarly the cutter at the suction inlet of a dredge is meant to excavate sand debris such as unexploded ordnances can get caught inside the suction pipe or pump and could explode the placement of screens over the suction mouth during dredging in certain areas suspected to have buried ordnance per government regulations is mandatory generally the screens affect production said randall we have to sacrifice production if the dredging operations are undertaken where hazardous ordnance are suspected to be present an ideal screen would protect the dredge against debris and maximize production and reduce delays randall experimented with various sizes and shapes of screen openings by creating a model dredging operation at the haynes coastal engineering laboratory randalls model dredge was designed for up to a 1:10 scale model of a real dredge the model dredge has a four inch suction pipe and three inch discharge pipe and the cutter is 13 inches in diameter at the back ring overview of the model dredge at the haynes coastal engineering laboratory if we made the screen opening size too small sand would block it and suction pressure would decrease he said this would make the pump cavitate and stop the pump cavitation is when the pressure is reduced in the water such that the water boils or vaporizes the pump is not designed to handle vapor three graduate students joe girani josh lewis and paulo de oliveira jr and haynes laboratory staff members john reed and kirk martin assisted randall in this research they used different parameters such as cutter head rotational speed ladder arm swing speed pump flow rate screen opening area ratio and screen opening shape to measure energy loss coefficients pressure and production efficiency this established the expected production rate and projected the time to complete dredging with the screen opening for a given area of the screen they found that an opening of around 60 percent worked well it kept the debris and ordnance out and allowed the sand to get through in a previous project at the laboratory ropes were put in the sand and the area was dredged to see when the screen would plug up testing was conducted with a screen on the suction inlet to keep the ropes which were simulating tree roots from entering the suction inlet ropes clogged the screen and eventually choked off the pump randall and the students measured the pressure drop between the inlet to the suction pump and the screen in front of the suction inlet of the pump as rope clogged the inlet according to the department of defense environment safety and occupational health network and information exchange (denix) munitions (unexploded ordnance) are present along the eastern shore of the united states and the gulf of mexico managing the explosive hazards in dredging operations is a critical safety concern a screen with an optimum shape and size would not only maximize production but also protect the people onboard the dredge said randall it can help prevent catastrophic accidents
1446,dr yu ding mike and sugar barnes professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the highest level of membership of asme ding was nominated by jianjun shi the carolyn j stewart chair and professor of the h milton stewart school of industrial and systems engineering and the george w woodruff school of mechanical engineering at the georgia institute of technology ding studied under shi while working on his phd at the university of michigan i earned my phd in mechanical engineering so being elected as a fellow of asme is like hitting a home run ding said i deeply appreciate this recognition from fellow mechanical engineers i owe my whole career to professor shi and i am grateful of him for always keeping me in mind for these many years since our michigan time ding is also a fellow of the institute of industrial & systems engineers (iise) and a senior member of the institute of electric and electronics engineers (ieee) his research focuses on system informatics and quality and reliability engineering with applications to wind energy and nano manufacturing yu is an outstanding scholar and educator and fully deserving of the asme fellow award said dr mark lawley interim department head of the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m he is also a humble and compassionate person and a treasure for our department and university
1447,dr tiffani williams associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2016 association of former students (afs) distinguished achievement award in teaching college level since 1982 the afs teaching award has been presented to faculty members who are renowned for their expertise and exemplary dedication to the education of their students williams has been a faculty member in computer science at texas a&m since 2005 in 2011 she was awarded the denise denton emerging leader award and graduate faculty teaching excellence award; in 2012 she was named a poptech science fellow her research interests include computational biology phylogenetic tree inference high-performance computing experimental performance studies of algorithms and reproducible research the afs teaching award will be formally presented to all recipients in spring 2017 at the annual college awards banquet
1448,the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program at texas a&m university will be offering two professional engineering workshops: lean six sigma (green belt/yellow belt) and bridge to test (session iv) these workshops are designed to help engineers develop a wide array of practical and professional skills lean six sigma training specializes in waste elimination process improvement robust design and statistical analysis skills dr wei zhan associate professor and program coordinator for the eset program and a six sigma master black belt will teach two short courses the first yellow belt provides an introduction to lean six sigma the dmaic process and project execution the green belt course covers the same material but offers advanced instruction to better prepare those who will be leading or playing a major role in lean six sigma projects bridge to test is an intense 12-day program that provides engineers complete immersion in test engineering this non-stop training will provide extensive understanding of the test process transforming those with little to no experience into capable contributors spending eight hours each day in the lab with homework at night students will demonstrate understanding via hands-on written and oral challenges registration information lean six sigma yellow belt: aug 11 2016 – registration green belt: aug 15-19 2016 – registration discounts for former students and group registration will be provided for additional information go to http://sixsigmatamuedu/ bridge to test session iv: july 25-aug 5 2016 – registration registration ends soon
1449,dr césar o malavé has taken his post as dean of texas a&m university at qatar malavé was previously professor and head of the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the sugar and mike barnes department head chair he was named to his new post earlier this spring texas a&m university at qatar is educating the next generation of engineering leaders innovators and entrepreneurs in the state of qatar and i am honored to have been selected to serve in this capacity malavé said i look forward to the opportunity to work with the faculty and staff as they continue to educate world-class engineers and conduct relevant impactful research that addresses qatars grand challenges malavé succeeds dr mark h weichold who stepped down as dean and ceo to become executive director for the halliburton global engineering program in texas a&ms college of engineering dr ann l kenimer has served as interim dean since weicholds term ended in december 2015 as dean of texas a&m at qatar malavé is responsible for administrating and managing the academic research and outreach programs of the branch campus as well as for providing vision and direction for the engineering-oriented branch campus in qatar the branch campus offers bachelor of science degrees in petroleum engineering chemical engineering mechanical engineering and electrical engineering and a master of science and a master of engineering in chemical engineering before his appointment as department head malavé served in a variety of administrative positions in the college of engineering at texas a&m these included assistant dean for international programs assistant and associate director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and associate dean for recruitment and international programs in this latter role he was responsible for all international collaborations and undergraduate recruitment programs internationally recognized for his contributions to engineering education malavé brings more than 30 years of service with texas a&m to his new role under his leadership the department of industrial and systems engineering has recruited new faculty at both the junior and senior levels developed a new advanced manufacturing initiative and launched major initiatives to revitalize the undergraduate curriculum and graduate program in addition as lead principal investigator for texas a&ms participation in a 10-year national science foundation-funded foundation coalition grant to revamp engineering education malavé coordinated all activities related to curricula development implementation and outcomes assessment across partner institutions and disseminated the resulting educational model through workshops in the united states and abroad he is a registered professional engineer and fellow of the institute of industrial and systems engineering earning his bachelor of science in chemical engineering and his master of science in operations research from the georgia institute of technology and his phd in industrial engineering from the university of south florida
1450,texas a&m university is the top beneficiary in a major new initiative announced recently by gov greg abbott that has resulted in attracting 10 distinguished researchers to the state five of the renowned faculty members recruited through the governors university research initiative (guri) will join texas a&m three will join the university of houston and two will join the university of texas at austin the grant awarded to texas a&m total more than $20 million three of the researchers heading to texas a&m will join the college of engineering dr richard b miles (aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering); dr thomas j overbye (electrical and computer engineering); and dr george m pharr iv (materials science and engineering) texas is the home of innovation and with the addition of these world-class scholars to our university faculties we will continue to lead the nation in cutting-edge research said gov abbott this strategic investment in higher education will further elevate future generations of students and faculty at texas universities while spearheading new breakthroughs in the fields of science technology engineering mathematics and medicine all of which are crucial to the long-term success of the texas economy the guri program was one of gov abbotts priorities in the most recent legislative session aimed at bringing the best and brightest researchers in the world to texas the programs goal is to attract transformative researchers who will in turn serve as economic catalysts to the texas economy for years to come guri is patterned in part by a similar initiative for the texas a&m university system established under the leadership of chancellor john sharp i hope all texans will join me in thanking gov abbott for the leadership and vision demonstrated through his university research initiative chancellor sharp said the states ability to attract new companies to grow our economy bring in top scholars to educate our students and develop new concepts and technologies to improve our quality of life will all depend on the innovative research conducted at our universities these generous awards which will bring five nationally and internationally renowned researchers to texas a&m university are smart strategic investments that will have a huge pay off for the people of texas gov abbott clearly understands the value of our research mission and i applaud his commitment to it texas a&m president michael k young joined in thanking gov abbott and in underscoring the significance of guri this is great news – for higher education in texas and for the global impact of texas on the world president young said we at texas a&m thank gov abbott for his leadership and vision in making the guri initiative a reality these new additions to our faculty will unquestionably help us in our quest to address pressing problems facing the state nation and world through world-class research and innovation and will help us do an even better job of preparing leaders for the future the guri grant awards total $34 292 550 with one-to-one matching grant commitments from each university applications to the grant program are accepted on a rolling basis and eligible institutions can apply for matching grants of up to $5 million per distinguished researcher grant funds will be used for recruitment costs including the purchase of research equipment and construction or renovation of facilities necessary to support the distinguished researchers the recipients of the grants feature researchers hailing from across the nation and world each of whom are members of national honorific societies including the national academy of sciences the national academy of engineering and the royal society in the united kingdom i look forward to joining the esteemed texas a&m university engineering program in january as a result of this initiative and to working with colleagues and students to advance research in nanomaterials said pharr dr richard b miles who will establish and lead a center of excellence in interdisciplinary optical and laser detection systems for national security and safety at texas a&m will join as a faculty member in the departments of aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering on feb 15 2017 he is currently a senior scholar at princeton university and is a member of the national academy of engineering one such application of his innovative research is the development of state-of-the-art instrumentation for remote detection that will identify hazardous gases and dangerous contaminants such as anthrax or the ebola virus hidden explosives such as ieds and/or greenhouse gases and pollutants his teaching of undergraduates and graduate students will begin in the fall of 2017 on optics spectroscopy and thermodynamics texas a&m has been awarded a guri grant totaling $5 000 000 dr thomas j overbye is currently the fox family professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign and is a member of the national academy of engineering his research interests are in the domains of smart grid cyber security renewable electric energy systems power system visualization power system analysis by computer methods power system stability and power systems operation and control he will join the texas a&m faculty beginning jan 1 2017 in the fall of 2017 he will begin teaching in the department of electrical and computer engineering on topics related to power distribution and generation texas a&m has been awarded a guri grant totaling $4 500 000 dr george m pharr iv currently serves as the chancellors professor and mckamey professor of engineering at the university of tennessee and is a member of the national academy of engineering his research will be in the creation and testing of nanomaterials he will join the texas a&m faculty beginning jan 1 2017 in the fall of 2017 pharr will begin teaching in the department of materials science and engineering at both graduate and undergraduate levels on nanomaterials and properties of materials texas a&m has been awarded a guri grant totaling $5 000 000 to read the governors official announcement about the guri program visit http://govtexasgov/news/press-release/22500 more information on the guri grant program is available at: http://govtexasgov/guri
1451,"texas a&m university nuclear engineering faculty and former students participated in and served as session leaders at the 2016 international conference on nuclear engineering (icone24) icone24 is a global conference focused on nuclear reactor technology and features sessions and workshops beneficial to nuclear engineering industry professionals the conference was co-sponsored by the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the japanese society of mechanical engineers (jsme) and the chinese nuclear society (cns) dr yassin hassan department head of the department of nuclear engineering and chairman of asmes nuclear engineering division served as the conference chair as well as on the conferences organizational committee hassan additionally participated in a plenary session at the conference entitled future of nuclear power- us perspective where nuclear venture capitalist and texas a&m alumnus ray rothrock discussed the impact of the silicon valley innovation model on the nuclear energy industry rothrocks message to conference attendees gave insight on the growth and ongoing changes happening within the nuclear industry as well as possible challenges ahead the presentation highlighted the leadership of individuals in the private sector who have worked with government legislative bodies to propose solutions that will help bring new reactor designs to the public market in a faster safer and more cost efficient manner regardless what model were using at the end of the day none of this should be built if not economical rothrock said rothrock who has long been a proponent of nuclear innovation in the private sector currently serves as the chief executive officer (ceo) of cyber security corporation redseal previously he served as a general partner at venrock he holds a bachelor of science in nuclear engineering from texas a&m a master of science from the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) and graduated with a master of business administration with distinction from the harvard business school the things that i have observed being a venture capitalist for 30 years is that you have to keep changing and learning and growing rothrock said in regards to entrepreneurs the people in government and those in doe (department of energy) there is a new team on the field if we can get the government to craft policy and be more open and accepting of innovation we will solve the greatest climate problems we have"""
1452,dr karen vierow associate department head and associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed by dr ernest moniz to serve on the department of energys (doe) nuclear energy advisory committee (neac) vierow will serve on the committee and provide advice on reactor safety and design severe accident codes for advanced reactors high temperature fast reactor thermal hydraulics and reactor physics the committee was established in 1998 and serves in an advisory role to the does office of nuclear energy which in turn advises the doe on policy issues long-range energy plans and other considerations related to nuclear energy usage and its applications vierow received her bachelor of science degree in nuclear engineering from purdue university before receiving her master of science in nuclear engineering at the university of california berkeley and her doctoral degree in quantum engineering and system sciences at the university of tokyo japan before coming to texas a&m in 2006 to serve as a faculty member vierow was an assistant professor for the school of nuclear engineering at purdue university vierow has also crafted an established career in nuclear industry serving as the assistant chief engineer with the nuclear power engineering corporation (nupec) in tokyo and as an engineer for the general electric corporations nuclear engineering division during her time at texas a&m vierow has conducted research in the areas of two-phase flow and heat transfer establishing the laboratory for nuclear heat transfer systems to investigate condensation heat transfer mechanisms develop new reactor designs and safety systems and advance methodologies in reactor safety analysis
1453,prerna jain is a go-getter the graduate student in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was recently selected for the lawrence f guseman award for her outstanding contributions to the success and prosperity of the graduate and professional student council and the graduate student body she also won second place for her research in the engineering and architecture subject area during student research week 2016 her research focuses on resilience analysis framework for process design and operations jain is involved in multiple organizations including the women in engineering program (we) the society of women engineers and she serves as chair of multicultural and diversity committee for the graduate and professional student council she has also contributed toward establishment of the texas a&m energy research society for which she currently serves as vice president jain received her undergraduate degree in civil engineering in her home country of india and has a post graduate diploma in health safety and environmental law shes worked for about five years in the oil and gas industry for reliance industries limited during this time i have worked as an environmental engineer and primarily as process safety and risk manager she said i witnessed the significance of this industry and its products for society and also appreciate the fact that controlling and reducing the associated risk is so critical thats why jain decided to return to texas a&m for her graduate degree and work with dr sam mannan director of the mary kay oconnor process safety center holder of the regents professorship and the t michael oconnor chair i in the department of chemical engineering getting involved jain said getting involved in programs and extracurricular activities greatly enriches an engineering students academic experience and can help pave the way for a future in leadership i am a peoples person and like to meet and work with new people she said i believe working with others on disparate subjects in various student organizations helps me to look at things from a different angle and hence provides an immense learning platform jain said her involvement with programs and student organizations has also helped her gain team building and leadership skills i feel accomplished when i see that i have grown with every role while being involved in all of these activities she said women in engineering jain is an active member of women in engineering a college-wide program that focuses on fostering an environment of inclusivity in engineering activities we has given me a unique platform to voice my concerns interact with other women engineers learn about both technical and social aspects and seek guidance when required she said shawna fletcher director of women in engineering said jain is a leader among graduate students because she is so involved with women in engineering as well as other activities the more students become involved the more they feel a sense of community as a member of the aggie family fletcher said i admire students like prerna that are able to balance her education and research while gaining other skills that will assist her in developing as a professional fletcher said those attributes will set jain up for future success looking to the future jain hopes to one day work for a company that challenges her i want to develop my skills and work with people she said i am driven to deliver my best and would like to have a career in research and engineering in industry to future engineering students jain has a little advice network be innovative and keep it simple she said
1454,oil spills can be catastrophic impacting health the ecosystem and the economy the severity of an oil spill's impact depends on the amount and source of oil what courses of action responders choose and the physical properties of the oil research at texas a&m university has resulted in stronger prediction models that will play a critical role in assessing the pros and cons of tactics used in future spills the presence of oil in the ocean affects surface and subsurface organisms and resources linked in a complex way including humans damages include that which we see directly impacting wildlife such as coating birds or mammals with a layer of oil and the toxicity of the oil itself which may be poisonous at high enough concentrations oil spill research at texas a&m seeks to mitigate the effects of future spills predict the hazard conditions under future spill scenarios and help with decision support in future spills for the response effort it takes into consideration the solubility of oil something previously ignored in past models which allows for different predictions of impact on the ecosystem with the texas a&m oilspill calculator tamoc we are able to demonstrate the best choices for a blowout model and help to improve model prediction said dr scott socolofsky professor in the zachry department of civil engineering better predictions will save resources during the next major subsea blowout by helping to direct the response a blowout occurs any time an operator loses control of the flow rate in an oil well pipeline blowouts are most likely to occur during drilling of a new oil well since less is known at that time about the characteristics of the oil reservoir only in extreme cases do blowouts result in oil spills as occurred during the deepwater horizon accident droplet size is one of the most important parameters to consider when viewing spill magnitude as droplets are transported differently through the vertical plume and encounter the layered density structure of the ocean smaller oil droplets are affected by inner ocean turbulence and can become trapped in an intrusion layer and degraded by bacteria in the water column larger oil droplets rise to the sea surface because the internal ocean turbulence is not strong enough to keep them in an intrusion layer to truly understand the transport it is necessary to study the characteristics of the turbulence said chris lai phd student i measured these velocities and used equations of fluid mechanics to study them the outcome is a better understanding of the transport mechanisms while it didnt set out to prove one way or the other the model confirmed that subsea dispersant use is likely to be an effective mitigation strategy during the phase of the spill before the blowout is contained the study relies on an assumption about how the dispersant will act which is based on laboratory experiments in another paper (brandvik et al 2013) the conclusions are based on the predictions from several mainstream models hence if dispersants are effective as they were in the brandvik laboratory experiments then mainstream models predict that subsea dispersant injection is an effective mitigation strategy during the early phase of a blowout while containment equipment is being mobilized and installed dispersant is a surfactant and acts a lot like soap it helps the oil to stick to the water allowing it to break up into smaller droplets which are more easily dispersed in the environment it is pumped directly into the oil and gas flow at the blowout source ideally about 6 to 12 feet down-hole in the pipeline it should be applied as soon as a leak to the water column is detected some new wells are likely being constructed with the capability to inject dispersant built into the well when that is not the case a remotely operated vehicle must be used to inject the dispersant from a pipeline from a supply ship when considering trade-offs one has to remember that an oil spill is already a bad event for the environment the choice to use dispersants is made whenever they will reduce exposure of toxic oil compounds to people people usually encounter oil through fumes in the air oil on the coast or oil on the sea surface subsea dispersant injection reduces oil residue in the air coast and surface the epas first line of decision making is to protect human health said socolofsky dispersant injection did do that during the deepwater horizon accident and would still be selected today if human health would be protected an unfortunate trade-off is that the oil still enters the environment and in the case of subsea dispersant injecting impacts more of the ocean water column and seafloor than if dispersants were not used the group conducted the model intercomparison study built the model conducted extensive laboratory experiments and participated in two major field experiments to study natural seeps each of these aspects has been published in different papers the tamoc model is being used by the us national oceanographic and atmospheric administration (noaa) in its oil spill model gnome (general noaa operational modeling environment) the team is also working with noaa to predict what might happen for an accidental blowout in the arctic since publication of this research in may 2015 the article has been downloaded or viewed nearly 700 times
1455,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was recognized recently for his academics and leadership dehghanian was selected as the top graduate student among all engineering disciplines in texas and received the 2016 jimmy h smith phd pe graduate scholarship from the texas engineering foundation he was nominated by the texas a&m college of engineering and was the only representative from texas a&m he was also selected as a potential future leader by ieee and received the support from ieee region 5 to attend the ieee-usa future leader forum 2016 dehghanian was the only representative of texas a&m selected for this recognition dehghanian was one of two recipients in all engineering disciplines to receive the sigma xi grant-in-aid-of-research he was selected out of more than 130 awardees nationwide in all various fields of science dehghanian whos under the advisement of dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department is the current leader of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the ieee pels-pes-ias he received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications his recent honors include receiving a 2nd place prize for best poster award at the 2016 ieee power and energy society (pes) transmission and distribution (t&d) conference and exposition a research grant scholarship from the american public power association under the demonstration of energy and efficiency development (deed) program being awarded the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship for the 2016-2017 academic year and being selected as the ieee industry application society electric safety workshop 2017 student program chair
1456,alexandra heinimann a junior undergraduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been named a recipient of the 2016 aerospace states association (asa) scholarship each year asa presents two scholarships nationwide to students who are pursuing study in the fields of aeronautics and aviation rockwell collins sponsors the scholarship the asa scholarship award of $2 000 is available to sophomores and juniors in an undergraduate degree program pursuing study in the areas of physical sciences engineering or aviation or aerospace-related fields rockwell collins is a provider of aviation and information technology systems and services heinimann is interested in flight testing she has participated in vehicle systems & control laboratory (vscl) research on unmanned air systems under the direction of dr john valasek professor of aerospace engineering through vscl she has also worked on general aviation flight safety for the faa she has done a great job on all of it and is a tremendous asset to the laboratory and the aerospace engineering department said valasek we are fortunate to have her after participating in the departments study abroad india program in early summer heinimann is now interning with the boeing companys engineering accelerated hiring initiative she is also pursuing the international engineering certificate and hopes to have the opportunity to live and work abroad my main goal is to find a job and career that i love said heinimann asa is a nonpartisan organization of lieutenant governors governor-appointed delegates and associate members from aerospace organizations and academia asa represents states interests in federal aerospace and aviation policy development an integral part of asas mission is to support initiatives that enhance student and teacher education in space and aeronautics
1457,a team of texas a&m university engineering students spent its semester working to provide safer cleaner drinking water for rural communities in mexico the students were paired with the world wildlife fund (wwf) and the gonzalo rio arronte foundation to improve water quality without creating complications for wildlife as part of a biological and agricultural engineering global design team (gdt) course being able to travel to oaxaca and work with the wwf in mexico really opened my eyes to their culture and to their way of life said keeley wagner a team member from the gdt project it is so rich and different from our own that you have to visit in order to truly experience it and appreciate it there are many in oaxaca and around the world that do not have access to clean water sanitation systems and sturdy homes and we can help them in many ways if only we put in the time and effort the wwf requested assistance in designing and implementing inexpensive technologies for wastewater treatment and improving water quality in the copalita-zimatán-huatulco (czh) river area of mexico by the end of the semester the team provided specifications manuals and reports for a rainwater harvesting system and effective filtration method as well as suggestions for wastewater management alternatives since entering university i have wanted to help people worldwide with their water conservation and sanitation needs said sonja loy a team member from the mexico gdt project this project really let me see and experience a practical way that this desire can be realized in my future studies and vocation the texas a&m biological and agricultural engineering gdt course spans the academic year to provide real-world engineering challenges from the private and public sectors global design teams which are part of a biological and agricultural engineering capstone course have three to five students per team who work with their sponsors to develop practical solutions to proposed challenges the goal of gdt is to address specific challenges within the community for mutual benefit while working together the projects are real world full-cycle design experiences in which teams travel to their project site whether in texas or abroad to work on the design and foster global awareness through utilizing the technical skills and competencies of the students employees and volunteers involved in each project a sustainable solution can be achieved projects are selected based on the relevance of community-identified needs and their ability to offer the students a creative effective sustainable problem solving opportunity quality control accountability measures logistics and financial and engineering support are all provided and monitored to ensure project success support is provided by the partner organizations texas a&m and the students themselves global design teams offer experiential hands-on learning that develops skills useful for future careers family life and community students and community partners give and receive time energy knowledge and creativity while accomplishing the requirements of their senior capstone these experiences meet the capstone design criteria we seek provide the environment for service learning which makes engineering more relevant to society and allow engagement with real world problems said dr rabi mohtar a texas a&m engineering experiment station endowed professor in the biological and agricultural and civil engineering departments they also provide global learning opportunities and help bridge cross-cultural barriers thus providing a holistic experience and enhanced technical personal and professional skills the mexico water project is just one of nine projects that are part of the 2016 gdt course the other projects included a mobile unit for remote sample collection for the san antonio river authority; a low cost locally sourced off-grid system for improved water quality and heavy metal removal for progressive vellore india; crop layouts and irrigation installation plans for community supported agriculture; a streamlined process to maximize profits for cardamom post-harvest processing in guatemala; sustainable an effective and budget-friendly storm water mitigation plan for a texas community; an effective cost-efficient water storage and distribution system in nicaragua; an improved design operation and maintenance plan for a small wastewater treatment facility in ecuador; and an environmentally friendly natural food-growing method combining the best attributes of aquaculture and hydroponics wasting no water and adding no chemical fertilizers for information about sponsoring a global design team contact gdt@tamuedu
1458,study abroad programs allow students the unique opportunity to not only learn about a new culture but be immersed in one the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university offers a study abroad trip to india led by dr rabi mahapatra professor and head of graduate admissions where students are given the opportunity to broaden their global perspective and deepen their critical and comparative thinking skills on offshore software development because almost all software industry giants from the united states have offshore development centers in india students are able to experience first-hand the current dynamics of these centers and gain an understanding as to why so many companies have begun outsourcing this past may 14 undergraduate research students joined mahapatra on this study abroad trip this study abroad has helped to broaden my global understanding of the it industry said lauren voight who attended the trip i have a better insight into the process of building software products and how onshore/offshore development is handled this study abroad has given me experience that i could not have gotten in a classroom setting the knowledge and experience that i received from this trip can most definitely help me in my future career these high impact experiences challenge students outlook on their own lives and offer a glimpse into a world previously unknown to them this cultivates individuals who have a well-rounded perspective on business life and adventure while on the trip voight and fellow student gilbert cruz leveraged the opportunity to go beyond the course requirement to advance their undergraduate research work to present two papers which were completed in collaboration with matthew dillard meagan mccright-morrow and jacob jones at the international conference on smart electronic systems (icses) held at kle technological university associate professsor dr bruce gooch advised the students on these projects in addition to leading this study abroad experience mahapatra was also a keynote speaker at the conference
1459,mike mcshane professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected president of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) sensors council as president mcshane will serve a two-year term followed by a four-year past-president service commitment he will help direct a council that comprises 26 ieee member societies working together to form a community aimed at promoting the development and use of sensors in a variety of scientific fields sensors are relevant to a wide variety of applications and are ubiquitous in todays high-tech world mcshane said most of us are using and depending upon sensors almost continuously whether we realize it or not while my personal interest is in biological and chemical sensors for use in medicine those represent only a small part of the field of sensors the sensors council field of interest covers every type of sensor relying upon all forms of energy and physical phenomena and therefore our reach is very broad research development and uses of sensors involve individuals with expertise spanning all hard science and engineering disciplines and we have strong participation from academic industry and government groups the council mcshane says engages in a number of activities to accomplish the goal of promoting the development and use of sensors including publications conferences educational products awards and standards the council also collaborates with member societies and other entities to sponsor other sensors-related projects such as cosponsoring journals and conferences in addition the council participates in various ieee initiatives of direct relevance to its constituents such as the internet of things initiative where sensors represent one of the critical components of the initiative he says mcshane joined the department of biomedical engineering in 2006 his research and educational activities cover many areas of biomedical engineering including biomaterials molecular biology biomedical optics biotransport bioinstrumentation signal processing and medical device design his laboratory produces and tests sensor systems using microscale and nanoscale fabrication approaches of self-assembly and photolithography as well as develops strategies for deploying these in vitro and in vivo ieee is the worlds leading professional association for advancing technology for humanity through its 400 000 members in 160 countries ieee is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering electric power and consumer electronics for more information about ieee visit wwwieeeorg and for more information on the ieee sensors council visit wwwieee-sensorsorg about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative engineering medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1460,dr eduardo gildin associate professor and the cj craft faculty fellow in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university recently taught the petroleum engineering numerical methods class (pete 301) to 18 students in only three weeks most of it while they were staying oversees in aberdeen scotland the oil capital of europe the three-week class from may 16 to june 3 is known as a maymester study abroad trip this experience was a huge benefit to the future careers of these petroleum engineering undergraduates petroleum engineering is a global industry an oil rig part a computer program or a production method used in the united states might have come from the uk brazil or norway a petroleum engineer sitting in a houston office might be managing a site in another part of the world hands on experience with other cultures helps students learn to work anywhere and with anyone this experience taught me that i am entering a global industry that defies country borders said one student three-week maymester classes cover the same material a normal 15 week course does making them a huge challenge but they also offer small class sizes and individual attention from the professor the direct benefit is interaction with the faculty said gildin there is no other class where a student has 24 hour attention from the faculty and i say 24 hours because i would get email messages at midnight asking questions about the coursework gildin taught the first week of this class on the texas a&m campus the next two weeks were taught in aberdeen this saved the students the cost of staying an extra week overseas and allowed much of the material to be covered in a familiar classroom gildin was on hand to guide any students who had never traveled outside of texas before i was responsible for them said gildin i was with them during the regular class hours i sent them my travel itinerary and they were welcome to join me many savvy students knew the travel websites and made their own way to aberdeen one student who had never left texas before bought a ticket and flew with me i had a list i knew where the students were and what times they would arrive and leave gildin and the students stayed two weeks in the halliburton facilities in aberdeen while there they continued the petroleum class and also did technical visits they attended a half day of lecture on well cementing and the next day visited the halliburton cementing simulator and the cementing lab the students mixed cement and saw the properties change under different conditions the students had a free long weekend for tourist adventures they shopped and ate local food they visited edinburgh st andrews links and stonehaven they also learned english words and customs in scotland are very different from the united states i felt like my eyes were opened to a new culture but also to a new general way of thinking said another student it was hard to know exactly what i was getting myself into but this trip exceeded my expectations by far if i had the opportunity i would definitely do it again for more information about the department please visit the harold vance department of petroleum engineering page to learn about other study abroad opportunities visit the study abroad programs website
1461,dr walter w buchanan professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2016 ieee educational activities board meritorious achievement award in accreditation activities buchanan was recognized by the ieee educational activities board (eab) for leadership in accreditation activities that inspire professional career paths for graduates of engineering technology programs and the impact on accreditation processes the award was established by the ieee eab to provide recognition for efforts to foster the maintenance and improvement of education through the process of accreditation of engineering engineering technology computer science and applied science programs buchanan will receive the award at the 2016 ieee eab award presentation ceremony during the ieee meeting series in new brunswick new jersey in november buchanan joined the texas a&m faculty in 2005 he received his bachelors degree in mathematics/languages and his juris doctor both from indiana university his bachelor of science in engineering and master of science in engineering from purdue university and his phd from indiana university
1462,the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university recently contacted dr john hill senior group manager for cloud and mobile technologies within national instruments research and development group about working with 14 students in the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program on a new technical elective focusing on internet of things (iot) hill had one condition the project-based course had to include robotic systems as a result the eset created the robotic iot systems or riots experiential learning opportunity during the first summer session the project in part defined by the students employed the eset small form factor dstr (pronounced disaster) robot powered by the texas instrument sensortag as the primary edge device dstrs bigger brother asep powered by the national instruments myrio embedded controller was used as a gateway device for the iot system the project also incorporated ptcs thingworx cloud development environment and data analytics proposed by sparkcognition national instruments (ni) took on the industry leadership role and worked closely with the eset faculty and students its contributions made the course an exciting and relevant learning experience for everyone hall was not only able to bring in a number of subject matter experts from ni but was also able to identify and introduce the program to several other companies involved in the development of iot technology and systems included in this group were representatives from cisco systems ptc and sparkcognition leveraging other industry contacts eset was able to arrange for presentations by industry experts from texas instruments denso and schneider electric although a small number of the guest lectures were made using video conferencing many were made in person at texas a&m to kick off the course ni invited the entire class to spend the day interacting with its iot experts and touring the labs where iot development is in progress learning from a textbook just doesnt compare to interacting with practicing engineers who are developing the technology now said one of the eset students to give the course focus a mission statement was created as part of the day-long visit to ni the ni engineers and students decided the goals of the course would be: the dstr robots controlled by ti sensortags as edge devices would sweep a minefield to detect mines the dstr robots would then determine their position and report the location of the mine to an asep robot controlled by an ni myrio over bluetooth low energy wireless communications the asep robot would receive information from the swarm of dstr robots and move this information to the cloud over 80211 wireless communications using both a mysql database developed by the students and a mashup created using ptc thingworx the information was received stored and analyzed to determine the safest path for the asep robot to negotiate the mine field an android cell phone app was also developed that allowed for the real-time display of dstr robots and the mines they had detected the app allowed the user to start pause and stop the operation of the robots over the 4g cellular network via the cloud service document the work done by the student group in a final report because of time and budget constraints the students were not able to complete the entire mission but each team was able to contribute value to the overall defined mission in addition to the technical work the students prepared and delivered two design reviews to the ni subject matter experts several students are continuing to work on the project over the remainder of the summer to fully develop a demonstrable robotic iot system
1463,texas a&m universitys college of engineering is no 1 on best college values ranking of the 50 best value bachelors in engineering ranking ahead of the university of california berkeley and georgia institute of technology which ranked second and third respectively texas a&m is the only university in texas among the top five we are pleased to be named at the top of this years list said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering part of the ranking criteria compares early career salaries to the cost of an engineering education we are proud to continue offering the best investment value in engineering education available anywhere the college of engineering is the largest college on the texas a&m campus with 14 departments and more than 16 000 engineering students and it is consistently ranked among the nations top public programs the best college value ranking highlights programs of study that represent the best values in education for your dollar best college values selected 50 regionally accredited colleges and universities of reputably high quality according to us news & world report (usnwr) texas a&m was 15th (eighth among public institutions) in usnwrs latest ranking of best undergraduate engineering programs this ranking is special because it takes into account not just one but multiple metrics that measure overall excellence said michael k young president of texas a&m university the result of a transformative learning and research environment for students and faculty alike after selecting 50 regionally accredited colleges and universities best college value ranks the schools according to its weighted formula that utilizes publicly available data from a variety of sources to produce an overall score of 1-100 the data includes us news scores tuition rates return on investment according to payscalecom graduation rates and cohort default rates the ranking aims to help aspiring engineers choose a high-quality program that balances reasonable tuition reputation quality and a high return on investment this ranking analyzes the objective factors so that prospective students need not put so much time and energy into research that accompanies choosing an institution of higher learning to view the entire ranking visit the best college values website
1464,"four texas a&m university electronic systems engineering technology (eset) students took their dstr (pronounced disaster) robot to stephenville texas as part of the mobile integrated solutions laboratorys (misl) stem outreach and recruiting initiative alexis crandall colby ryan jennifer jordon and roger casas were part of a two-day workshop that allowed private and home-schooled students to design build integrate test optimize document and race a four-wheeled mobile platform the teams competed in a relay race where each team had to pilot its robot around a track using a cell phone handing off control on each lap to the next team member avoiding other robots on the racetrack was an important aspect of the race the final race consisted of an obstacle course requiring the pilot of the robot to negotiate a number of hazards including ramps sand pits and weaving between cones once fully integrated the teams were able to download an android app that linked to the dstr robot to control its operation each team accrued points for quality of construction of its robot how well it documented its stem learning experience by using twitter and competing in two races the event was hosted by parnassus a new private school being established in stephenville texas instruments a sponsor of the dstr robot provided sensortags to misl for stem teaching and outreach activities we really enjoyed working with such motivated students said crandall it makes a big difference if everyone on the team is working together to combine the control communications electronics and mechanical aspects of dstr added ryan we as eset students benefit significantly by being part of this type of outreach activity and working with the next generation of aggies"" the mobile integrated solutions laboratory plans to work with other private and home school groups in the upcoming year to move its new dstr robot into experiential stem learning at the secondary education level"
1465,for more information on the dstr robot contact dr joseph a morgan jmorgan@tamuedu 979-575-0128
1466,entrepreneur researcher professor software designer federal task force director vice chancellor and dean all titles held by dr g kemble bennett during his unusual yet rewarding career over the course of his career bennett was active in the institute of industrial engineers now the institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) in may he was honored with the frank and lillian gilbreth industrial engineering award the highest and most revered honor given by iise the award recognizes the contributions recipients have made in the field and to the welfare of mankind i was both honored and humbled to receive this award bennett said to be listed among those who have achieved this award is just unbelievable bennett is the vice chancellor and dean emeritus of the texas a&m university college of engineering and a senior professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering from creating efficient work systems to assisting with the first lunar landing to serving on numerous public safety and health taskforces bennett has led a life of service to education and the public a successful foundation i honestly did not have a dream job bennett said i went into the military right out of high school and then i went to florida state university to study mathematics upon graduation bennett was offered an engineering position with the martin company in his hometown of orlando florida bennett soon decided to pursue higher education moved across the country to california and began working for the lockheed missiles and space division when i was about halfway through my masters degree they placed me in the research labs for lockheed bennett said this was pretty exciting because just about everyone in the lab had their phd except for me and a few others i would look at my paycheck and i would look at their paycheck and think well maybe i need to get even more education after some persuasion from a colleague at lockheed bennett moved to lubbock texas and began running a computing center at texas tech university while earning his phd while writing his doctoral dissertation bennett worked in houston at the nasa manned spacecraft center now known as the johnson space center we were there to provide advice to the engineering group if they needed other eyes to review computations or some high level modeling bennett said it was like being in an internal consultant group while at nasa bennett had the opportunity to work on software that was implemented during the first lunar landing that was really exciting for me and i was definitely hooked at that point bennett said prior to finishing his phd bennett was offered a job at virginia polytechnic institute (vpi) by dr paul torgersen the department head of the department of industrial engineering and operations research hooked on continuing his involvement in academics and research bennett took the position at vpi where he stayed for four years before moving back to florida i became a faculty member in the industrial and management systems engineering department at the university of south florida and eventually became the department head he said in his spare time in addition to actively teaching and conducting research bennett and two other professors combined their expertise to develop a hardware and computer system to automatically record the results of blood tests back then they had to hand-record the results bennett explained there are a lot of places to have errors with people manually recording numbers we developed a way to record the data electronically bennett and his colleagues a computer scientist and an electrical engineer ran the small company out of the bedroom of an apartment we formed this company because several hospitals and laboratories were interested in our solution he said it was one of those situations where a company said ‘if you can do that can you do this for us so we would add to our software and hardware package the next thing you knew we were buying big computers ourselves tying in our hardware putting all of our software packages on them we had to get it all done in 30 days so they could pay us and we could pay off the bank soon smith-kline a large pharmaceutical company asked bennetts team to implement its programs in 77 different offices around the united states this request would require the trio to open offices in each city quit their day jobs and commit to the business full-time we were not ready to become full-time businessmen nor were we willing to leave education bennett said so we sold them the company and they got a good deal aggies are calling a few years later bennett was asked to apply for the department head position in industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m while he was reluctant at first aggieland won his heart i came to college station and really liked what i saw bennett said the potential in the department was clear and there was a very strong faculty needing leadership with the blessing of his wife bennett accepted the position and began his career in administration at texas a&m in 1986 at my first job paul torgersen told me that academically i could touch more lives through management than i could in the classroom bennett said he said it would not be as visible but it would have greater impact as department head i found this to be true a fire ignites known as an outstanding researcher bennett quickly became the associate dean for research and oversaw three state agencies: the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) and the texas a&m engineering extension service (teex) impressed with his work the texas a&m board of regents then appointed him the director of teex i went to teex in 93 and found the worlds best people he said they were so dedicated to their job-skill training mission serving the state and helping people get jobs it was infectious during his early time at teex bennett saw a need for more work in emergency response the state emergency management plan gave teex the responsibility to respond to and coordinate urban search and rescue disasters for the state bennett said as the director i had to be sure we were prepared to respond when called upon the biggest wake-up call for bennett came with the oklahoma city bombing in 1995 i realized that i was responsible for getting people to respond if something like that occurred in texas but i didnt know what to do he explained bennett recognized the need for a state urban search and rescue team and began talking with other leaders in the field to create such a team with the closest federal emergency management agency (fema) team a few states away in tennessee bennett immediately realized two goals for his developing group i knew number one we had to be a state team bennett said and number two i wanted to become a federal team using blueprints mandated by the state of texas and federal guidelines texas task force 1 was established to provide trained recovery and medical assistance in response to natural and man-made disasters in the state and around the country bennett also developed the idea of disaster city a 60-acre training facility that simulates various disasters this facility has become a premiere destination for emergency and disaster training for rescuers from around the world bennett pressed on to achieve his second goal of the task force becoming a federal team he met with us sens kay bailey hutchison and john cornyn to support his efforts they joined me and agreed that we should have a national team here bennett said fema finally came down and certified us today we are one of the most experienced and elite teams in the federal system they had never seen an operation like ours an inevitable threat in his efforts to establish texas task force 1 bennett made numerous contacts with leaders and government officials who were working to prevent a terrorist attack on us soil bennett and the group of forward thinkers began looking for opportunities and facilities to train personnel in biochemical counterterrorism fire and explosive response efforts in case there was an attack we formed the national preparedness consortium and i became the chairman bennett said we developed curriculum and training materials that were transferred to the states it was amazing how quickly the curriculum was adopted and communities recognized their need for specialized equipment seeing the level of preparedness grow was definitely rewarding with new equipment came the need for new knowledge the consortium developed training teams across the country at texas a&m we were responsible for the medical and incident management training bennett explained we pioneered the use of human patient simulators that were programmable to demonstrate symptoms of various biological and chemical illnesses unfortunately bennett had the right hunch when it came to a terror attack on american soil as a result of his efforts texas task force 1 and other national response teams were prepared to fly to new york city and aid in recovery efforts on sept 11 2001 we spent roughly nine days in new york city bennett said later president bush came to dallas to thank us for our service and the texas senate passed a proclamation recognizing our contributions at ground zero in new york texas task force 1 also responded to the bonfire collapse in college station texas in november 1999 and many other disasters throughout the state fema is knocking shortly after the hurricane katrina disaster congress called for the creation of an advisory council for fema the newly named fema director david paulison called on bennett to chair the committee he wanted a council that would evaluate what fema was doing listen to testimonies from people and really clean up our national response system bennett said we did that after serving for two years under paulison and the george w bush administration craig fugate stepped into paulisons shoes as director of fema under president obamas first administration i served under two presidential administrations as the chairman bennett said when craig came in i said i would do it for one more year for continuity while he was getting his feet wet meanwhile in aggieland… bennett was instrumental in developing the college of engineering as it exists today in 2003 bennett became vice chancellor and dean of the college i became dean under president [robert] gates who later announced he was going to increase the faculty at the university by 400 bennett said fortunately we were able to make the case that 100 needed to come to the college of engineering i had to work to implement that program allocate the positions and hire a strong faculty i also wanted to expand our facilities so i needed my full attention here per the request of gov rick perry bennett also served on the texas state board of engineers for six years serving as chairman for two of those years i saw this as a way to give back to the profession that has given me so much bennett said keys to success a servants heart and the desire to succeed are among the many qualities bennett exuded throughout his career although he claims it was the people supporting him along the way that led to his opportunities and accomplishments i have always had a sense of service and i like using my skills to design and build systems that work and add value to peoples lives bennett admitted i have always surrounded myself with really good people particularly in the areas i feel weak there are a lot of hands holding you up and a lot of people doing the work bennett believes a bit of luck and happenstance played a large role in his successful career quoting advice once given by gates ‘a little serendipity is a good thing i now have come full circle in my career doing what i enjoy most teaching and learning bennett said while he never had a dream job in mind bennett believes everything worked out exactly the way it was supposed to its kind of a strange background for an industrial engineer he said i never really had a dream job instead i have lived a dream job
1467,making the transition from high school to college can be difficult for many students for first-generation college students the transition is often even more challenging a new five-week summer program helped bridge the gap from high school to college for 51 first-generation students at the texas a&m university college of engineering this fall the summer bridge program sponsored by the at&t foundation allowed these students who are also university regents scholars the opportunity to live on campus while getting a head start in their course credits with an engineering fundamentals class the students also went on tours of campus and learned about tutoring and other resources available to them on aug 4 friends and family came together for a graduation ceremony at texas a&m where those 51 students were honored for their hard work with a certificate im a first-generation college student said carmelo bustos an incoming freshman from houston who spoke during the ceremony being a first-generation student is a pretty big deal because your parents expect a lot from you bustos said he appreciated the opportunity to get one math course out of the way and he added that he hopes future first-generation students will be afforded the same opportunities we learned how to apply our calculus into engineering activities with the help of our professor he said college is pretty different from high school and this program has helped me a lot nathan cuellar an el paso texas native who came from a high school where the graduating class had only 36 members said he was very nervous about transitioning to a university with almost 60 000 students when i learned about the summer bridge program i realized that this was the answer he said this program was everything i could have ever asked for or wanted or needed cuellar said he enjoyed the opportunity to meet other incoming freshman before classes begin we all want to be engineers so that brings us together he said we all have different majors different ambitions but were all trying to change the world in one way or another thats a goal we all share houston native estefany martinez said she feels confident to begin college this fall as a first-generation student i feel this program helped me become more aware of the resources on campus she said the different sessions we attended throughout the weeks provided us with information about clubs and organizations as well as other resources corey anthony senior vice president of global emerging services at at&t spoke during the ceremony telling the students that companies like at&t are interested in hiring talented engineers anthony class of 1994 said at&t hires more graduates from texas a&m than from any other university for you to have a viable and successful career you could not have started in a better place studying science technology engineering or mathematics at texas a&m anthony said dr nk anand executive associate dean of engineering pointed out how the summer bridge program reflects college of engineerings 25 by 25 initiative the colleges controlled growth initiative seeks to offer a transformational educational experience to address the national and state need for more engineers and to better prepare these students for the changing needs of the engineering workforce the college is providing an opportunity for more qualified students to pursue an engineering education at texas a&m by enrolling 25 000 engineering students by 2025 the students will include undergraduate and graduate students on the college station galveston and qatar campuses as well as students pursuing online graduate degrees we want to see all of you graduate with an engineering degree in four years anand said as regents scholars these students are also required to participate in the engineering success program first-year seminars under the access and inclusion program in the college of engineering the 51 students who took part in this program begin classes as freshmen engineering students aug 29
1468,a multidisciplinary team of researchers at texas a&m university has been awarded an early concept grant for exploratory research from the national science foundation to study the viability of collecting infrastructure monitoring data by volunteer resident scientists from the general public the principal investigator is texas a&m engineering experiment station researcher dr nasir gharaibeh an associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering collaborators on the project include dr philip berke and dr shannon van zandt professors in the department of landscape architecture and urban planning in the college of architecture; dr jennifer horney an associate professor at the texas a&m school of public health; and dr michelle meyer an assistant professor of sociology at louisiana state university currently data regarding infrastructure at the neighborhood scale is limited compared to the data available on large-scale infrastructure to solve this the goal of the project is to develop capabilities for collecting infrastructure monitoring data at the neighborhood level by volunteer resident-scientists the study will focus on two questions to achieve that goal first what factors influence reliability of resident-generated data at the neighborhood level second can understanding those factors lead to developing protocols for producing high quality data im hopeful that this research will improve the safety and reliability of infrastructure systems in our communities gharaibeh said these systems are essential for people's quality of life and for the resiliency of communities to future natural disasters and environmental hazards it is eye opening to work on multidisciplinary research that has both technical and social components and involves a truly multidisciplinary team this team is currently working on urban infrastructure and other related issues as part of texas a&ms resilience and climate change cooperative project (rcccp) the study will focus on storm water infrastructure in neighborhoods in the houston metropolitan area this site was chosen because it contains vulnerable neighborhoods with a long history of flooding and environmental issues
1469,"this graduate fellowship is given in memory of dr christodoulos a floudas by his friends and family dr floudas the earl nye 59 chair professor for engineering excellence and professor of chemical engineering was the director of the texas a&m energy institute and a member of the national academy of engineering in august 2016 the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university lost a true visionary of the field when dr christodoulos ""chris"" a floudas passed away while on vacation in greece with his family floudas the earl nye '59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the chemical engineering department was a member of the national academy of engineering a texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) fellow and eminent scholar an american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) fellow a society for industrial and applied mathematics (siam) fellow a fellow of the national academy of inventors and corresponding member of the academy of athens floudas was instrumental in the growth of both the energy institute and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m floudas took the helm as the director of the energy institute on feb 1 2015 during his 18 months as director the energy institute took a prominent position in two major us department of energy (doe) initiatives the number of faculty affiliates of the energy institute also grew significantly during floudas time as director growing from around 70 associated faculty members to more than 245 prior to joining texas a&m floudas spent nearly 30 years at princeton university to honor the legacy of dr floudas the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has established a graduate fellowship in his name the dr christodoulos a floudas graduate fellowship is designed to prepare chemical engineers for leadership roles in industry academia or government and will be awarded to a student pursuing a graduate degree in the department give to the dr christodoulos a floudas graduate fellowship"
1470,dr john valasek professor in the department of aerospace engineering and director of the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) chaired the third intelligent systems workshop for the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) the three-day workshop is organized by the aiaa intelligent systems technical committee which valasek has been an active member of for nine years the purpose of the workshop is to develop a roadmap for advancing intelligent systems technologies into the aerospace domain the theme of this years workshop was enabling future autonomy and the objective was to identify key technology gaps and research needs for enabling autonomy in future aerospace and multidisciplinary systems this years workshop was held from held from 3-5 august and brought together 165 experts from the government industry and academia as well as from outside the aerospace domain in addition to serving as chair valasek presented on uas for precision agriculture in the emerging autonomy applications panel discussion and aerospace engineering phd student joshua harris who is also a member of the aiaa intelligent systems technical committee served on the workshops organizing committee dr robin murphy from the department of computer science & engineering served as a plenary speaker and dr anthony filippi from the college of geosciences served as a panelist
1471,the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) texas a&m agrilife research and extension (agrilife) and the center for geospatial sciences applications and technology (geosat) at texas a&m university have joined together to work on a multidisciplinary project titled unmanned aerial systems (uas) remote sensing at the texas a&m farm the project led by dr john valasek professor in the department of aerospace engineering and director of canvass dr seth murray quantitative geneticist with agrilife research and dr michael bishop professor in geosciences and director of geosat uses uas intelligent systems and state-of-art sensors in precision agriculture research uas is the term used to encompass what are commonly referred to as uavs or drones precision agriculture is defined as the application of technology that seeks to understand a situation (site specific management) and assist in implementing decisions thus the value of precision agriculture is timely actionable information for better management decisions and improved efficiencies not more data the use of uas enables and enhances precision agriculture for continuously monitoring crops inventorying animal herds and managing irrigation there are three teams involved in flying the uas for this project the main one being led by valasek the canvass team is comprised of four pilots and 24 engineers conducting flight operations using fixed-wing uas typically one pilot and four engineers are needed for any given mission missions are flown on a twice-weekly basis during the crop-growing season and usually consist of three data collection flights of between 20 to 45 minutes each to date 132 flights have been conducted at the farm the engineers involved in flight operations include undergraduate and graduate students from the department of aerospace engineering as an undergrad this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity said ezekial bowden a senior in the aerospace department i am able to work in a field that i am passionate about and also gain valuable flight test experience we continue to learn and understand how different sensors can be integrated into new vehicles in order to achieve the best results possible its amazing to be able to gain hands-on experience with aviation each time we conduct a data collection flight the federal aviation administration (faa) approved a certificate of authorization (coa) that grants texas a&m researchers permission to fly uas over the 3 200 acre texas a&m brazos bottoms farm located near college station texas the farm supports an array of projects for agricultural scientists the uas project leverages existing research and extension activities that will benefit from uas collected data the goal of the project is two-fold: to investigate and develop new technologies that will take precision agriculture to the next level; and enable breeders to accelerate crop improvements by using uas for high-throughput phenotyping utilizing an airborne hyperspectral imaging sensor multispectral imaging sensors a thermal infrared camera a visible imaging camera and a light detection and ranging (lidar) system the researchers collect systematic surface imagery and sensor data over the farm agricultural field scientists work closely with aerospace and electrical engineers and remote-sensing and geographic information-processing scientists to aid in making timely and informed decisions regarding crop yield prediction weed detection irrigation management and high throughput phenotyping the value precision agriculture brings is not more data but actionable information valasek told attendees at the national academies government-university-industry research roundtable meeting on unmanned aircraft systems: use & regulation information to farmers must be timely because they need to act quickly crop blight and insect infestations for example require a same-day response in the short term uas can contribute to precision agriculture by helping with research on better methods better processes in particular automated data processing to provide actionable data faster and better vehicles in the long term the commercial aspects crop dusting and spraying irrigation and handling risk management will become increasingly important the main objective for valasek and canvass researchers dr gregory huff and dr jean-francois chamberland professors in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m is to research new computational intelligence algorithms long range communication and ground control techniques for autonomous uas in addition to new data processing techniques valasek has prescribed three goals for uas use in precision agriculture moving forward the first is to leverage existing uas technology and turn it into timely actionable information to enable new science precision agriculture currently uses either ground-based vehicles or satellite imagery the ground vehicles lack the height advantage of uas and satellite coverage is usually several days apart and often not at the resolution needed for the science of precision agriculture the second goal is to develop payload directed flight techniques in which the sensor communicates directly with the autopilot and tells it when the uas needs to be flown differently in order to collect high quality data or to collect it more efficiently a new airborne system that canvass is developing will combine a high power lidar sensor with a hyperspectral sensor to generate 3-d images of crops that are displayed to the user with their visible and non-visible light signatures such as infrared these techniques promise to transform precision agriculture and enable new significant science to be conducted finally because there is a long history of manned aircraft in precision agriculture there is a need to address safety issues and competition concerns by developing uas operational procedures and policies right now there is uncertainty about how uas will operate with manned aircraft but it is clear that in the future both types of aircraft will be needed at certain times and sometimes together this project is working with the faa to develop a good database and establish trust in these systems each agency/institution is essential in successfully completing this project and by producing valuable intellectual property and preliminary data that will aid in procuring additional research funding from governmental institutions and private industry the project started in june 2015 and will continue until december 2016 captions for photos from top to bottom: anaconda uas at the texas a&m university brazos bottoms farm aerospace engineering student ezekial bowden preparing anaconda uas with uas pilot john bowling multispectral image of sorghum fields taken june 18 2016 (sentek gems lakeville mn) courtesy of nithya rajan department of soil and crop sciences texas a&m university aerospace engineering students damon printz cameron rogers and ezekial bowden operating the ground control station near infrared image of an experimental field established with multiple weed and crop species taken in july 2016 (sentek gems lakeville mn) courtesy of muthu bagavathiannan department of soil and crop sciences texas a&m university thermal image of a cotton field taken june 10 2016 (9640-p series infrared cameras inc beaumont tx) courtesy of haly l neely department of soil and crop sciences texas a&m university aerospace engineering professor john valasek and students
1472,the research of dr jaime c grunlan the linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been featured on the cover of three prestigious journals advanced materials; macromolecular materials and engineering; and macromolecular rapid communications grunlans work on biomimetic materials manufacturing was featured in advanced materials which is one of the highest impact factor journals in the field of materials science the abstract in the journal states: through billions of years of evolution and natural selection biological systems have developed strategies to achieve advantageous unification between structure and bulk properties the discovery of these fascinating properties and phenomena have triggered increasing interest in identifying characteristics of biological materials through modern characterization and modeling techniques in an effort to produce better engineered materials scientists and engineers have developed new methods and approaches to construct artificial advanced materials that resemble natural architecture and function grunlans flame retardant work using carbon nanotubes to protect polyurethane foam was featured in macromolecular materials and engineering and his gas barrier work using clay to make high barrier thin films for polypropylene packaging film was featured in macromolecular rapid communications
1473,it does not require a force as powerful as the sun to get texas a&m university and the university of texas at austin to work together but it certainly helps the institutions along with texas a&m university-central texas and the texas a&m engineering experiment station are officially collaborating on a major solar research initiative following the awarding of a new grant from the national science foundation (nsf) the three texas a&m university system members were recently awarded a four-year $400 000 grant from nsf to address the technical and non-technical challenges in the widespread adoption of solar energy this texas a&m collaboration will form a research site in the nsfs center for next generation photovoltaics an existing research and development center that is led by ut austin and includes other university and industry partners the nsf grant also requires a minimum of $800 000 in private funds to help support the research our system is strongest when our members join forces and this project is a great example of that said texas a&m system chancellor john sharp this same principle holds true for our state and all of its public universities so this collaboration is important and very encouraging this center for next generation photovoltaics is one of only 80 industry/university cooperative research centers (i/ucrc) supported by the nsf which established the i/ucrc program in 1973 to encourage collaboration and develop partnerships among industry academic and government entities it is the only such center focused on solar research in addition to the texas a&m and ut austin research sites it includes a site located at colorado state university colorado school of mines also supports the center as a partner university this is a perfect trifecta said dr robert balog a co-director of the texas a&m site and associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university faculty and students benefit from working closely with industry on application-specific problems; industry benefits from the expertise and research capabilities at the university that add value to their organization; and ultimately society benefits because the collaboration accelerates the cost-effective commercialization of renewable energy technology and enhances education opportunities photovoltaic (also known as solar) technology produces electricity directly from the sun which is a free source of energy the last few years have seen a drastic drop in the commercial cost of photovoltaic cells balog said however the industry is still nascent and requires additional research and development to move the needle on solar-energy conversion technologies from an alternative to a mainstream energy source the research conducted by the center is focused in four areas: photovoltaic materials devices and manufacturing; balance of systems and photovoltaic implementation; photovoltaic integration with storage and electric vehicles; and education and societal impact of photovoltaics despite their long-standing rivalry in athletics texas a&m and ut austin often work together on research papers and projects they have numerous synergies when it comes to renewable energy and the collaboration leverages the vast expertise from institutions the center for next generation photovoltaics has become a world-leading international portal for solar research fostering close collaboration between academic researchers and industry partners to speed innovation adoption of emerging solar cell technology economic development and job creation said dr brian korgel director of the center and the edward s hyman endowed chair in engineering and t brockett hudson professor of chemical engineering at ut austin its fitting that our states powerhouse universities should work together in this way to benefit texans and others for generations to come this is an astonishing center with five universities a texas state agency over 100 faculty members and over 300 students at the postdoctoral doctoral masters and bachelors levels all working on solar energy research said texas a&m-central texas vice president for research and economic development russell porter a co-director of the texas a&m site and we have over 20 private companies non-governmental organizations and government organizations providing funds to support the research it is truly an honor to be a part of such an important collaborative effort
1474,the zero robotics middle school summer program held its final competition on board the international space station (iss) with texas teams meeting at the johnson space center in houston on aug 12 zero robotics (zr) is a computer programming competition for middle school students where they develop programs to control spheres (synchronized position hold engage reorient experimental satellites) inside the iss the zr middle school program is a five-week summer program with curriculum designed to cultivate interest in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) to compete a team must be comprised of eight to 20 middle school students along with a primary mentor this year seven teams from texas participated in the competition: bach springs middle school boys and girls club of edinburg rio grande valley (rgv) boys and girls club of mcallen the mighty tacos from fort bliss indian spring middle school jbsa lackland youth program and ymca of greater san antonio the students created edited shared saved simulated and submitted programming code in order to accomplish a given task after several rounds of competition within the class and then within the region the boys and girls club of edinburg rgv was selected to compete against other teams across the nation in the final championship an astronaut aboard the iss used the teams codes to conduct the championship competition in microgravity with a live broadcast this years competition was spyspheres according to the final rules and game guide provided by mit matches were played between two spheres satellites one controlled by code written by the team and enemy spheres developed at mit the objective of the game was to use the robotic satellite to collect data from a defunct satellite and spy on the opponents satellite players had to take into account fuel and energy consumption when planning their code the winner of the round was the spheres that received the most points from taking the best and most pictures while avoiding pictures being taken of it my favorite part of the competition was when something would happen that would make us all laugh – sometimes it would mean more work for us but it was also more fun for us said joaquin rodriguez a member of the boys and girls club of edinburg rgv team zero robotics seeks to inspire the next generation of great minds by allowing them unprecedented access to space at the high school and middle school level by making the benefits and resources of the space program tangible to students zero robotics aims to cultivate an appreciation of science technology engineering and math through healthy immersive collaborative competition i really liked writing programs for the international space station it was really fun said ghya salinas a sixth-grader on the boys and girls club of edinburg rgv team salinas wants to be a doctor or scientist someday dr greg chamitoff and dr david hyland from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university were co-directors of the statewide program and katharine leysath from the pk-12 engineering education outreach office was the statewide program manager aerospace engineering students from texas a&m who served as mentors for the texas teams included mauricio coen vinicuis goecks brandon allred kimberly barraza and kaycee dillon texas a&ms pk-12 engineering education outreach the astro center from the department of aerospace engineering and the texas partners for out of school time were the statewide sponsors for this third year of participation in the state of texas supporting sponsors from the state included the texas space grant consortium and fluor corporation national sponsors included massachusetts institute of technology mit space systems laboratory aurora flight sciences and innovation learning center national supporting sponsors included northrop grumman foundation the center for advancement of science in space the european space agency and nasa applications for the 2016 zero robotics high school tournament are now open to learn more about this international programming competition aboard the iss for ninth through 12th grades visit http://astrocentertamuedu/zerorobotics/
1475,dr guofei gu and dr jyh-charn liu in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university are developing game-changing defense approaches to beat cyber attackers in two very different but important aspects of cybersecurity proactive cyber defense gu associate professor and director of the secure communication and computer systems (success) lab at texas a&m has developed techniques to automatically uncover unknown vulnerabilities in existing software so that defenders can detect the problems ahead of cyber attackers this technique has identified more than two dozen serious vulnerabilities in widely used software from vendors such as google adobe and microsoft most current cybersecurity solutions are passive and reactive focusing on known attacks gu said the situation is becoming worse because the economic engine of profit-driven cyberattacks is quickly transforming the threat and defense landscape to favor more on attackers as they enjoy many fundamental advantages over defenders to combat this issue gu and his team developed peerpress a prototype system with new analysis techniques that automatically extract intrinsic and harmful behaviors from malware and then use them for active robust and scalable malware detection the team has also developed cyberprobe and autoprobe two new techniques that can automatically learn and extract malwares control logic so that defenders can perform accurate and active detection of global malicious cyber infrastructures in the whole internet ipv4 space in just a few hours gu is also heavily involved in the investigation of potential security implications of software-defined networks (sdn) which are being proposed by researchers and vendors alike as a way to serve the demand for highly flexible network infrastructures to support dynamic services on the internet or for cloud computing one of the fundamental advantages of sdn is its centralized control plane which provides visibility of the entire network he and his team have designed the first security constraint enforcement kernel for sdn controllers fortnox; fresco the first security application development framework for sdn; and avantguard the first scalable and vigilant switch flow management solution in sdn to defend against control plane saturation attacks sdn controllers are designed to provide a centralized management system for the network gus research in this area also revealed and helped fix several previously unknown serious topology poisoning vulnerabilities in almost all widely used sdn controllers protecting gps signals liu professor and director of the real time distributed systems lab is currently working on developing algorithms to detect incorrect signals of the global navigation satellite systems (gnss) not only recognizing them but finding a way to combat these errors due to spoofing or natural interference is a central focus in the efforts he and his collaborators are pursuing to achieve cohesiveness in gnss signals liu and his team are working to create an experimental environment which supports the development of computing algorithms that are able to detect spoofing that occurs in the real world in turn this will allow for more reliable information to be provided by location-based applications such as google maps on smartphones that we use daily liu began studying the subject when gps spoofing emerged as a cyber physical security issue he works alongside his students in the rtds lab as well as dr mladen kezunovic eugene e webb professor and alex sprintson associate professor from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m the most challenging aspect of this topic is figuring out a way to guard the unprotected data at the unknown place and time we formulated the problem into an integrity checking problem and we aim to develop distributed computing algorithms on the basis of the well-established theories in distributed computing liu said we also aim to develop software based solutions so that they can be more easily disseminated to the massive consumer market in defending against various data errors man-made or natural causes in order to validate the defense algorithm designs liu and his team have replicated the gps spoofing in a faraday cage where a radio frequency software defined radio coupled with open source gps simulator manipulates a smartphone gps receiver this research has a large scope of impact including consumer general navigation such as gps mapping industry control power grid sensing and control and autonomous vehicles
1476,awards and honors the research conducted by liu and his colleagues on campus and in industry has led to an award from the department of energy for the development of next generation cybersecurity technologies and tools this award is given to projects that will enhance the reliability and resilience of the nations energy critical infrastructure through innovative scalable and cost-effective research development and demonstration of cybersecurity solutions gu and his team in the success lab have published their results in top computer security conferences such as the ieee symposium on security & privacy the acm conference on computer and communications security and the annual network & distributed system security symposium their vulnerability detection work won the best student paper award at the 2010 ieee symposium on security & privacy fresco won the finalist for 2013 at&t best applied security paper award and their research has also won the 2013 afosr young investigator award additional research done by the team won the best paper award at the 2015 international conference on distributed computing systems which also resulted in a us patent and technology transfer to a commercial partner
1477,xin zhan (left) dr peng li (center) and dr edgar sánchez-sinencio (right) researchers in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the prestigious 2016 dac best paper award from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) association for computing machinery (acm) design automation conference (dac) dac is the worlds premier conference for design automation and methodologies for integrated circuits and electronic systems in 2016 dac received almost 700 paper submissions from which 16 were selected as best paper award candidates through a rigorous review process the paper from the texas a&m team distributed on-chip voltage regulation: theoretical stability foundation over-design reduction and performance optimization received one of the two best paper awards at the conference placing multiple voltage regulators on the chip facilitates distributed on-chip voltage regulation and offers significant benefits in power supply noise suppression and energy efficiency as an example an ibm power8 microprocessor integrates more than 1 000 on-chip voltage regulators the complex interactions between the active voltage regulators and the large passive sub-network however may render the power delivery network (pdn) unstable leading to design failures while traditional stability measures such as phase margin are not applicable to regulated pdns with a huge number of loops a brute-force analysis of network stability is computationally intractable in their paper zhan li and sánchez-sinencio developed a groundbreaking approach for designing large on-chip power delivery networks with distributed voltage regulation their approach is based on a new hybrid stability margin concept and the associated stability-checking method for pdns with multiple distributed active regulators they systematically investigated the theoretical foundations underpinning a localized design methodology in which the stability of the entire network can be efficiently examined and ensured through a hybrid stability constraint that is defined locally for individual voltage regulators they developed powerful design techniques to reduce pessimism in stability analysis which overdesigns and maximizes system performances such as load regulation and energy efficiency while ensuring the stability of the complex pdn system this work is expected to enable distributed on-chip voltage regulation an emerging power delivery architecture for a broad range of energy-efficient electronic systems including microprocessors embedded systems and smart sensors li a professor in the department received his ph d in electrical and computer engineering from carnegie mellon university he is also a faculty member of the texas a&m institute for neuroscience and texas a&m health science center his research interests are in integrated circuits and systems electronic design automation computational brain modeling brain-inspired computing and vlsi-based machine-learning systems he has authored and co-authored more than 180 publications and edited two books lis work has received four ieee/acm design automation conference best paper awards an honorary mention best paper award from the ieee international symposium on circuits and systems a prestigious ieee/acm william j mccalla iccad best paper award two src inventor recognition awards two marco inventor recognition awards a national science foundation career award the dac best paper hat trick award the dac prolific author award and the dac top 10 author in fifth decade award at texas a&m he received the departments outstanding professor award and was named a tees fellow and a william o and montine p head faculty fellow by the texas a&m college of engineering li graduated 13 phd students and 22 master of science students his former associates have obtained faculty and research positions in academia and industrial labs (michigan tech cornell medical college/cornell university intel strategic cad laboratories) and r&d positions in the us high-tech industry he has served on the editorial boards of ieee transactions on computer-aided design of integrated circuits and systems and ieee transactions on circuits and systems ii li currently serves the ieee council on electronic design automation as vice president for technical activities has consulted for two silicon-valley startup companies and intel corporation and is a fellow of ieee sánchez-sinencio university distinguished professor and the ti jack kilby chair professor in the department earned his phd in electrical engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign sánchez-sinencio is a preeminent scholar in the areas of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits and radio-frequency circuits and systems his seminal contributions to the field include pioneering work in switched-capacitor circuits continuous-time filters and current-mode filters and research on radio frequency integrated receivers he is interested in energy harvesting power management and sleep medical electronics sánchez-sinencio has co-authored five books and co-edited another he has been co-author on more than 400 technical papers and is a life fellow of ieee his awards include: the ieee guillemin cauer award; the ieee darlington award; the ieee circuits and systems society golden jubilee medal; the ieee circuit and systems charles desoer technical award; an honorary doctorate from the national institute for astrophysics optics and electronics in mexico; and texas senate proclamation no 373 for outstanding accomplishments zhan received his bachelors degree in electronic science and technology and his masters degree in microelectronics and solid-state electronics from huazhong university of science and technology wuhan china in 2011 and 2014 respectively he is currently pursuing his phd in electrical and computer engineering from texas a&m under the advisement of li his current research interests include computer-aided design of very large-scale integrated circuits and optimization of on-chip regulated power delivery networks
1478,shiyan hu a former student from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named editor-in-chief of the institute of technologys (iet) newly launched journal cyber-physical systems: theory & application cyber-physical systems (cps) include smart washing machines self-driving cars medical devices and smart grid meters as the digital world becomes more than handheld researchers seek to get a better understanding of the interface between cyberspace and the tangible elements hu is an expert in cps and cybersecurity and is director of center for cyber-physical systems at michigan tech institute of computer and cybersystems as founding editor hu will lead a team of associate editors who are leading experts worldwide including several from carnegie mellon stanford the university of illinois national taiwan university and the university of tokyo in the journal they will address the close interactions and feedback loop between cyber components (such as embedded sensing systems) and physical components (such as energy systems) in a system the cps research topics include smart energy systems smart home/building/community/city connected and autonomous vehicle systems and smart health cyber-physical systems: theory & application is dedicated to all aspects of the fundamental and applied research in the design implementation and operation of cps systems considering performance energy user experience security reliability fault tolerance flexibility and extensibility its scope also includes innovative big data analytics for cyber-physical systems such as large-scale analytical modeling complex stochastic optimization statistical machine learning formal methods and verification and real-time intelligent control which are all critical to the success of cps developments as an elected fellow of iet hu leads this journal and also chairs the ieee technical committee on cyber-physical systems (wwwieee-cpsorg) an authoritative constituency overseeing all cps related activities within ieee he has published more than 100 research papers (about 30 in the premier ieee transactions) received numerous awards recognizing his research impact to the field and served as associate editor or guest editor for seven ieee/acm transactions iet is the largest engineering society in europe with more than 180 000 members visit cyber-physical systems: theory & application
1479,"paul taele phd student in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently elected to serve as the 47th president of the graduate and professional student council (gpsc) for the 2016-2017 academic year previously taele served as the communications officer for the computer science and engineering graduate student association (csegsa) he will be the first computer science and engineering graduate student and also the first engineering graduate student to serve as president of gpsc since 2009 gpsc serves as the university-sponsored government for the graduate and professional student body in his role as president taele will lead the executive committee consisting of four vice presidential officers 10 standing committee chairs and the general assembly of graduate student leader delegates spanning over 70 departments programs and non-departmental organizations during his term he will also assist with high-level meetings and events alongside the university administration and his presidential counterparts in the faculty senate university staff council and student government association taele recognizes several computer science faculty members for their lasting impact on his education including his adviser dr tracy hammond dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna and dr aakash tyagi ""dr hammond has been an inspirational role model to our research lab and to the department in promoting the importance of leadership taele said she has encouraged our lab members to actively seek service roles as student leaders such as within our department's csegsa ""dr gutierrez was a tremendous guide to us when he served as our csegsa adviser and taught me and the other officers how to be effective and respectful leaders dr tyagi has also been very pivotal as a wonderful mentor and taught me the importance of compassion and selfless service"""
1480,parisa khodabakhshi a phd student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the oh ammann research fellowship from the american society of civil engineers (asce) this fellowship is given to a member of asce to promote the creation of new knowledge in the field of structural design and construction this award includes a stipend of $8 000 toward khodabakhshis research which focuses on two distinct topics: nonlocal continuum mechanics and reformulation of conventional finite element method for the study of damage khodabakhshi studies under the supervision of dr j n reddy distinguished professor regents professor and holder of the oscar s wyatt jr chair who holds a joint appointment in the civil and mechanical engineering departments at texas a&m khodabakhshi earned her bachelors and masters degrees in civil engineering at sharif university of technology in iran she currently conducts research in the fields of applied mechanics continuum mechanics and structural mechanics after completing her doctoral work at texas a&m khodabakhshi plans to pursue a career in academia as a university professor she is currently participating in the graduate teaching fellowship program at texas a&m which gives her the opportunity to instruct an undergraduate course in civil engineering contributing author: ryan terry
1481,when 80 motivated and innovative students from five universities work together novel ideas will emerge the first [u] invent produced 12 solutions to combat the spread of the zika virus through educational and conceptual solutions more than $4 000 in award funds and an opportunity for two students from a winning team to meet with the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) was presented to the students innovate against zika is the first [u] invent program implementing the highly successful aggies invent model which gives students 48 hours to collaborate in teams solving identified design challenges related to a specific topic the students have complete access to the engineering innovation center (eic) and topic experts throughout the innovation competition it was great having other universities participate in the first [u] invent said rodney boehm associate professor of practice all of the students blended into tight teams and it allowed us to show how we innovate at texas a&m university the texas a&m university college of engineering and the zika foundation partnered to host innovate against zika with the goal of applying new discoveries about the zika mosquito using trans-discipline expertise to halt the spread of the zika virus through the rapid development and implementation of low-cost sustainable solutions student teams chose from one of three tracks for their needs statement: vector (mosquito) control immune households or community resiliency and sustainability this weekend opened my eyes to the ability for people to pull themselves together for a common cause said garrett harmon its really motivating to me to think more about my education and what im doing now so i can have a great effect of people in the future innovate against zika was stacked with 20 of the brightest researchers in the fields of public health entomology chemistry architecture engineering and biotechnology to guide and advise the students throughout the weekend some of the mentors and presenters included dr r ulrich bernier the acting national program leader and research chemist with the usdas agricultural research service whose efforts are focused on surveillance and control of the vector(s) responsible for pathogen transmission; dr michael callahan a physician scientist board certified in internal medicine infectious disease tropical medicine (dtm&h) and mass casualty care and a clinical and research faculty member at massachusetts general hospital/harvard medical school; and josue young a researcher in the medical entomology department at the gorgas memorial institute in panama city panama control of zika is a problem-rich issue said callahan we therefore are compelled to bring this challenge to a solution-rich setting where new answers can be identified this is the first time engineers architects and urban planners have been given complete access to zika-mosquito experts we believe this event has identified new solutions to this growing global problem the first-place team awarded $1 000 was swateam the team developed an app that engages young people in games to find mosquito areas provides education and allows the community to learn more about zika the team consisted of two texas a&m students kendra mack from biomedical sciences and ankita brahmaroutu from the college of medicine and five university of texas students jason he electrical engineering; annabel wang ishani chakravarty and justin zhong chemical engineering; and zhra biabani economics the bucket list team took second place and was awarded $750 this team developed a zika protection kit that is contained in a mosquito trap to form a multi-dimensional solution the members of this team included kedar balakrishna diego garcia austin lu liana polikaitis and ashley tucker biomedical engineering; jessica lee biomedical science; and megan rodriguez nuclear engineering the third-place team awarded $500 developed an education program in a pictogram that would be attached to rain barrels currently being distributed by non-governmental organizations worldwide the persistent pictogram team consisted of three texas a&m students mo adesanmi chemical engineering clare elizondo biomedical science and jane frederick biomedical engineering; two wichita state university students hannah hund biomedical engineering and larissa lawrie strategic communications; and stephanie strong chemistry and biology from east carolina university in addition to the top three teams receiving award money the texas a&m university system awarded $200 to each of the remaining nine teams due to their high quality and innovative designs all teams are encouraged to continue developing their prototypes and business models for implementation or distribution the cdc showed its interest in innovate against zika by offering to bring two members from the winning team to atlanta to present the teams innovation to the zika response team speak with its technology transfer experts and tour its insectary its been really great to have such a wide variety of mentors available and bringing them all together allows us to learn about the whole picture and not just one niche of the research said strong i was excited to come here and be a part of the solution this has been a life changing experience
1482,the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) smart grid center has received a new grant from the department of energy (doe) that will further the centers mission to strengthen and protect the nations power grid the grant is one of 12 given to projects across the united states as part of $34 million in federal funding through the does office of electricity delivery and energy reliabilitys cybersecurity of energy delivery systems (ceds) program the goal is to develop the next generation of cybersecurity solutions and enhance the reliability and resilience of the nations critical energy infrastructure the $44 million project is timing intrusion management ensuring resiliency (timer) and the research group led by smart grid center director dr mladen kezunovic will address vulnerability concerns in the synchrophasor systems of the electrical grid the synchrophasor systems are the new technology for power systems monitoring control and protection that has been recommended for installation after the major northeast blackout that occurred in the united states in 2003 this technology relies on the use of precise time synchronization of the sampling of power system waveforms and as such is vulnerable to any timing issues that may result from the system being compromised by attacks or design errors the timer project will focus on detection of deterioration of the quality of the timing precision requirements texas a&ms specific objective on the project is to develop timing intrusion modules (tims) to detect inaccurate timing signals from the global positioning system (gps) of satellites and whether or not those inaccuracies are being intentionally introduced into the system by detecting the timing intrusions the synchrophasor systems will be kept operationally robust which will contribute to the improved monitoring control and protection if such detection is not available the synchrophasor systems can experience erroneous control actions which in turn can lead to the damage or a major blackout in the power system securing the nations power supply is a critical component of modernizing the power grid said kezunovic part of the smart grid centers mission is to foster collaboration among researchers from different disciplines with this project we have brought together an outstanding team of experts in power systems computer science communication cybersecurity and synchrophasor applications to solve this problem kezunovic will serve as project director and principal investigator of the project the interdisciplinary team includes co-pis dr jyh-charn (steven) liu professor department of computer science and engineering and dr alex sprintson associate professor department of electrical and computer engineering texas a&m university; michael mylrea jeff dagle paul skare chris bonebrake and dr mark rice pacific northwest national laboratory-pnnl; dr milorad papic idaho power company-ipc; and dr manu parashar alstom/general electric grid solutions-alstom/ge grid solutions
1483,according to a recent study by the american college health association more than 30 percent of college students experienced severe depression 50 percent struggled with anxiety and nearly 55 percent reported feeling aloneinstead of standing by while her peers struggled sneha chawla graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university decided to take actionchawla actively sought out organizations in college station texas to serve the local community after considering several options she found the student counseling helpline an organization through the student counseling services at texas a&m staffed by fellow aggies the helpline is a telephone service providing peer support information referrals and crisis intervention for the texas a&m community available from 4 pm to 8 am weekdays and 24 hours on weekends the helpline provides support for aggies who need someone to talk to the students manning the helpline have undergone an intensive training and selection process to handle any situation a caller may be dealing with these situations can range from requiring directions around campus to needing someone to talk to about a recent breakup to thoughts of self-harm and suicide aggies who dedicate days nights and weekends to be available to their fellow students staff the helplinewhen she is not volunteering at the helpline chawla dives into her graduate research guided by her advisor dr mohammad naraghi assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering and an affiliated faculty member in the materials science and engineering department i am studying the fabrication of polymer nanofibers and their conversion to carbon nanofibers said chawla i am also altering the molecular properties and orientation to give me carbon nanofibers with higher mechanical strength and moduluschawla says her research is currently on a laboratory scale with scalability studies being performed carbon fibers are increasingly being used in composite materials but have inherent drawbacks causing improvements in their properties to plateau she is working on downsizing the carbon fiber manufacturing technology to fabricate carbon nanofibers which will possess properties exceeding those of their macroscale counterparts carbon nanofibers are used in various applications such as filler materials in epoxies electronic devices and micro uavsas i do my research i like to process my thoughts i like to think out loud said chawla having good listeners in my life has always helped shape my understanding of things having someone who will listen to you allowing you to process your thoughts without interruptions and judgment while asking the right questions is very importantchawla says that her passion for listening comes from her mother who would lend an ear to her whenever she needed it watching her mother chawla discovered the importance of being a good listenerhelpline has helped me to stop judging the people in my life and truly listen to them said chawla i may never really know the entire story or experiences in their life so judging someone would be unfair chawla and her fellow volunteers underwent extensive training before they could ever pick up the phone they practiced proper voice inflection and tone modulation to make each caller feel comfortable though chawla has grown during her time with helpline there have been many challenges along the way during her first week at helpline chawla underwent 40 hours of training during this time chawla was prompted to talk about uncomfortable topics the training also included role playing to ensure she was comfortable handling difficult situations because dont know beforehand what the caller will want to talk about when you answer the phone this process can be mentally and emotionally draining said chawlanot only did it teach volunteers like chawla how to handle intense situations in a calm and understanding way it also created an environment where volunteers could open up and learn more about themselves so that they could help themselves and their fellow aggies better the hardest thing about helpline is when the caller has finished talking to you and they hang up said chawla after that you have no idea what happensin addition to volunteering at helpline chawla has volunteered at the sexual assault resource center in bryan texas she volunteered there from the fall of 2013 to the fall of 2015 she assisted as a helpline advocate as well as an accompaniment advocate on hospital visits to support survivors of sexual assaulta student who recognized chawlas helpline t-shirt recently approached her to thank her she held my hand and thanked me said chawla it was the first time i met someone who had used the helpline and thanked me for my service i was stunned after balancing helpline my graduate research and managing the other aspects of my life for four years that one moment made everything worth itchawla will be graduating in december and joining intel corporation in portland oregon contributing author: haley posey
1484,"individuals from the texas a&m university college of engineering recently completed a 10-week research for undergraduates (reu) program that was coordinated by the college of engineering and penn states college of engineering the students and faculty members in the program spent five weeks at texas a&m and five weeks at penn states university park campus conducting research in teams based on mutual areas of study penn state public relations specialist stefanie tomlinson wrote the following story university park pa -- the university park campus is perceived to be somewhat quiet during the summer months but for six groups of engineering undergraduates it was academics as usual except for one thing they got to be involved in some pretty intense – not to mention super cool – research projects the students were part of a new research experience for undergraduates (reu) coordinated by penn states college of engineering and texas a&ms dwight look college of engineering the program aims to promote mutual awareness and collaboration between faculty and students at both universities as well as provide opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in research early in their academic careers in order to broaden their engineering education engineering students and faculty from the university park campus were matched with engineering students and faculty from texas a&m to form research teams based on mutual areas of study the students spent the first five weeks of the reu at texas a&m followed by five weeks at the university park campus conducting their research for many of the students including mason decock a rising biomedical engineering junior from texas a&m this was their first foray into the world of research decock said one of the benefits of undergraduate research is the opportunity to apply what he learned in the classroom to real-world applications using a hands-on approach i just completed a course on signals and processing of signals and i was able to see how progress is made in the field i studied he said decock and his penn state research partner jack zheng a rising junior in mechanical engineering worked on a project titled understanding soft tissue and bone cutting mechanics for advanced surgical device design the pair who were advised by jason moore assistant professor of mechanical engineering at penn state and bruce tai assistant professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m said the goal of their research is to perform experiments to validate a new model that will mimic how tissues are cut moore said traditionally people have had a difficult time trying to model the cutting of bone and tissue inside the body but the work mason and jack are doing is so clever because it uses a unique system of a new type of model because it creates small particles rather than small fragments it allows us more freedom to model things scaling all the way down to extremely soft tissue to very hard bone their research could help advance almost any kind of medical procedure another student research duo included rising civil engineering juniors ross luna from texas a&m and robert gowisnock from penn state they were advised by aleksandra radlinska assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at penn state and zachary grasley associate professor of civil engineering at texas a&m their project the effect of leaching on material and transport properties of concrete aims to understand how leaching affects the mechanical properties of cement mortar basically we are testing the strength and durability of concrete it is very broad and there are many applications for which this could be useful including bridges and roads said gowisnock they completed much of their work at penn states civil infrastructure testing and evaluation laboratory gowisnock said he appreciated working with other students and faculty in the field and gaining different perspectives everyone approaches research differently and this has been a good opportunity to share ideas he said luna said he has always wanted to attend graduate school and participating in this program will be a valuable stepping stone toward achieving that goal students werent the only reu participants to weigh in on the benefits of the penn state-texas a&m partnership tai said the reu offers a great opportunity to find experts in the peer schools for potential future collaborations grasley added that the program may help recruit reu participants to the universities graduate programs once the students discover the opportunities for creativity and discovery that graduate research affords although the students spent a majority of their time working with their advisers to advance their research efforts they also had ample opportunities to explore the culture in the states they visited while in texas zheng traveled from college station to spend one weekend in dallas and another in houston luna took advantage of his free time in pennsylvania to check out the city of brotherly love including visiting independence hall and the liberty bell and finding a good cheesesteak at the end of the reu students participated in a symposium during which they networked with peers and faculty in their fields and explained their research projects and the progress they made during the course of the 10-week program reflecting on his first experience as an reu adviser moore said it was interesting to see an equal investment from both universities into making the program a success ""sometimes it can be challenging to find projects that will kindle relationships but this reu has given us an opportunity to do just that working with the engineering students and faculty at texas a&m was unique and special and i look forward to collaborating with dr tai beyond the reu "" he said"
1485,texas a&m universitys college of engineering is no 2 on best college values ranking of the 50 top value masters in engineering the university of california berkeley was the only program to rank higher than texas a&m georgia institute of technology (third) the university of texas at austin (fourth) and brigham young university (fifth) round out the top five in order to meet our nations critical need for more engineers we must provide the highest quality education while keeping the cost affordable said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering we are pleased to be recognized as second in the nation and first in texas for best value in masters in engineering the college of engineering is the largest college on the texas a&m campus with 14 departments and more than 16 000 engineering students and it is consistently ranked among the nations top public programs the best college value ranking highlights programs of study that represent the best values in education for your dollar it is limited to schools that are regionally accredited by one of the six regional accrediting bodies and each school also ranks high in engineering according to us news & world report (usnwr) texas a&m was 11th (seventh among public institutions) in usnwrs latest ranking of best engineering schools after selecting 50 regionally accredited colleges and universities best college value ranks the schools according to its weighted methodology that aggregates publicly available data including us news scores tuition rates return on investment according to payscalecom graduation rates and cohort default rates to produce an overall score of 1-100 the ranking aims to help aspiring engineers choose a high-quality program that balances reasonable tuition reputation quality and a high return on investment this ranking analyzes the objective factors so that prospective students need not put so much time and energy into research that accompanies choosing an institution of higher learning to view the entire ranking visit the best college values website
1486,hannah pearce a biomedical engineering student at texas a&m university was selected to participate in the amgen foundations prestigious amgen scholars program pearce spent 10 weeks this summer conducting hands-on cutting edge research at the university of california los angeles (ucla) pearce is one of nearly 360 students globally this year accepted to the program from more than 5 000 applicants the program partners with 17 leading educational and research institutions across the united states europe and japan to host scholars in research labs since 2006 the amgen scholars program has provided hands-on research opportunities under world-renowned faculty mentors to more than 3 100 undergraduate students more than 95 percent of the programs alumni who have completed their bachelors degree are currently pursuing an advanced degree or career in a scientific field the amgen foundation believes that an intense summer research experience can play a pivotal role in shaping future scientific careers said eduardo cetlin president amgen foundation we are excited to welcome 359 talented students as this years amgen scholars and to have them join our growing body of program alumni in addition to her individual research experience pearce along with the other ucla amgen scholars attended the us summer symposium hosted at ucla and amgen in july this invaluable opportunity allowed pearce the opportunity to meet fellow scholars at other institutions discuss research projects learn about biotechnology and hear from leading industry and academic scientists about the amgen foundation the amgen foundation seeks to advance excellence in science education to inspire the next generation of innovators and invest in strengthening communities where amgen staff members live and work to date the foundation has donated more than $250 million to local regional and international nonprofit organizations that impact society in inspiring and innovative ways the amgen foundation brings the excitement of discovery to the scientists of tomorrow through several signature programs including amgen scholars amgen biotech experience and amgen teach
1487,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr ignacio rodriguez-iturbe a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor the distinguished research professorship appointment was effective aug 1 rodriguez-iturbe is a distinguished university professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university he also holds a joint appointment in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m he earned his master of science from the california institute of technology and his phd from colorado state university his research interests include: coastal ecosystems; hydrogeomorphology; ecohydrology; river basin functioning and organization; and stochastic modeling of natural phenomena
1488,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr bjorn birgisson a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor the distinguished research professorship appointment was effective aug 15 birgisson is a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and is the director of the center for infrastructure renewal a shared facility of tees and the texas a&m transportation institute birgisson earned his master of science in civil engineering from cornell university and his phd in civil engineering (geomechanics) from the university of minnesota
1489,"dr christodoulos a chris floudas director of the texas a&m energy institute passed away sunday (aug 14) while on vacation with his family in greece floudas the erle nye '59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was a member of the national academy of engineering a texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) fellow and eminent scholar an american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) fellow a society for industrial and applied mathematics (siam) fellow a fellow of the national academy of inventors and corresponding member of the academy of athens floudas was awarded countless honors for his work in both 2014 and 2015 floudas was named to the thomson reuters highly cited researchers list this list includes 3 125 researchers who have contributed markedly high numbers of top-cited papers over a recent 10-year period according to thomson reuters these papers rank in the top 1 percent most cited for their subject field in 2015 floudas was awarded the constantin caratheodory prize from the international society of global optimization for fundamental contributions to theory algorithms and applications of global optimization in 2013 he was awarded the national award and gold medal of the hellenic operational research society (helors) which recognizes outstanding research contributions in the field of operations research in 2006 floudas was presented the aiche computing in chemical engineering award and in 2001 he was presented the aiche professional progress award for outstanding progress in chemical engineering floudas authored two graduate textbooks was the chief co-editor of the encyclopedia of optimization authored over 325 refereed articles and delivered more than 320 invited lectures seminars and named lectures including the bayer lecture at carnegie mellon the professor roger wh sargent lecture at imperial college and the george t piercy lecture at the university of minnesota floudas was instrumental in the growth of both the energy institute and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m floudas took the helm as the director of the energy institute on feb 1 2015 during his 18 months as director the energy institute took a prominent position in two major us department of energy (doe) initiatives in may it was announced that a nine-university coalition which included the energy institute would participate in a six-year $20 million fossil energy research project in june the energy institute was selected to lead the gulf coast regional manufacturing center one of five regional hubs established as part of the $140 million smart manufacturing innovation institute through the doe the number of faculty affiliates of the energy institute also grew significantly during floudas time as director growing from around 70 associated faculty members to more than 245 floudas joined the chemical engineering department faculty after nearly 30 years at princeton university he was recruited through the chancellors research initiative (cri) a program to recruit exceptional faculty to the texas a&m university system in his 2015 state of the state address texas gov greg abbott cited floudas as one of the great minds that had been recruited to the university through the cri there has been an outpouring of grief and praise from the university's leadership regarding the sudden passing of floudas in an email alerting faculty and staff texas a&m university president michael k young stated we are deeply saddened to have learned that our dear colleague passed away he was an amazing scholar who demonstrated leadership in discovery in innovative teaching and practice and in serving his discipline and all of society our thoughts and prayers are with his wife fotini and his family at this difficult time texas a&m system chancellor john sharp remarked im saddened to hear of the sudden passing of dr floudas i had the opportunity to meet chris through his recruitment in the chancellors research initiative he was a true scholar and gentleman and hell be missed by the aggie family our thoughts are with his family here and in greece katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering remarked chris was an exceptional scholar and a true visionary in his field this is an immense loss for texas a&m university and the entire engineering community our deepest sympathies are with fotini and the family"" dr m nazmul karim professor and head of the department of chemical engineering provided a statement that succinctly describes the feelings of the department needless to say this is a loss of unimaginable proportion for the department the college the university and the whole chemical engineering community in the country and around the world karim said he was a giant among us i have lost a very personal friend a funeral will be held in greece on wednesday (aug 17) with a memorial service on campus to be held in his honor at a date and time to be announced"
1490,metal additive manufacturing service bureaus are located in many regions over the world but the middle east is not one of them dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university jumped at the opportunity of a lifetime to participate in founding the first metal 3-d printing service bureau in this region there are many in the united states a few in europe but there are none in the middle east elwany said we are based in dubai united arab emirates and are absolutely the first service bureau offering metal 3-d printing service in the middle east julian callanan is the founder of the new company sinterex callanan has vast experience in consulting services in the middle east he worked on forming a strong multi-disciplinary management team for the new business and reached out to elwany and dr paul smith a research fellow from the glasglow school of art institute of design innovation in scotland to serve as technical directors he wanted to build a team with expertise that spans design manufacturing optimization and business development elwany said dr smith and i go there every four to five months to hold a meeting for the directors discuss business development activities meet with potential clients and participate in technology events sinterex will provide two main services to those interested in 3-d printed parts first is the consulting services elwany said basically when there is a manufacturing or service company in the region that is not sure what metal 3-d printing has to offer we help them understand the value proposition of metal 3-d printing and how it can contribute to time and cost saving compared to traditional manufacturing technologies such as cnc machining the second benefit sinterex will provide is manufacturing services with a newly acquired metal 3-d printer on site the team will hire an engineer and a technician to operate the machine and provide metal 3-d printed parts for interested businesses in the region they plan to begin production in november 2016 in the beginning the entrepreneurs are targeting a small biomedical sector in the middle east to begin building their reputation and brand of services we would like to be true leaders in additive manufacturing services for the biomedical sector with a focus on dental applications elwany said so we will be manufacturing customized crowns for dental labs and focusing on establishing our names as leaders in the entire middle east that list includes 22 countries such as the united arab emirates egypt jordan saudi arabia tunisia and lebanon in the future the trio plans to target the production of tooling for manufacturing companies with the purchase of a larger machine tooling is a major cost component for companies in the manufacturing and oil and gas sectors and sinterex plans to offer additive manufacturing services that can help in significantly reducing cost and lead time one big application for additive manufacturing is to not make the end-part itself but to make the tool or mold that will be used to produce the part elwany said this is a big sector of the additive manufacturing market and we would like to target this sector moving forward recently featured in major news outlets such as metal additive manufacturing magazine and al- arabiya english the leading 24-hour news station in the arab world the group is looking forward to what the future has in store for the new company we are a relatively young business and were not even hopeful that we would be able to start production in the first year but our business team secured funds from the region to begin production in november elwany said so we are happy with our progress thus far
1491,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr b don russell holder of a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research chair professorship the distinguished research chair appointment is effective sept 1 russell is a distinguished professor and regents professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university he is also the harry e bovay jr chair professor he received a bachelor of science and master of engineering both in electrical engineering and both from texas a&m he received his phd also in electrical engineering from the university of oklahoma russell has been a faculty member in electrical and computer engineering for 41 years he is a fellow of six technical societies and most recently was elected to the national academy of inventors he serves the university as chair of the executive committee of distinguished professors
1492,dr early and noel denison 66 have established the noel and early denison 66 scholarship in mechanical engineering the scholarship will provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university early is a retired consultant in offshore drilling he previously worked for shell oil company and for the exxonmobil corporation he received a bachelors of science in mechanical engineering from texas a&m in 1966 and his masters and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from purdue university early and his wife noel have three children and live in houston his sons early 96 and marc 99 both received degrees from texas a&m the denisons have been long time supporters of the university with a history of giving to both the department of mechanical engineering and the association of former students
1493,tony and neera bansal 87 talbert have established the tony and neera basal 87 talbert scholarship which will be used to provide for one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at texas a&m university neera received a bachelor of business administration in management information systems from texas a&m in 1987 she is currently the director data science and si partner programs at microsoft tony is a senior program manager at ibm the scholarship will be funded through the texas a&m foundation with matching funds contributed from microsoft corporations and ibm
1494,a paper titled system identification of a robotic hummingbird authored by david coleman and dr moble benedict won the best paper award in the advanced vertical flight session at the 2016 american helicopter society annual forum coleman a second-year phd student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university presented his paper amongst 11 other presenters in the session which session focused on novel revolutionary concepts to achieve vertical flight colemans paper was recognized for being the most important technical contribution to the field the paper focused on identifying a linearized model of the vehicle dynamics of a robotic hummingbird in hovering flight through systematic flight testing this is the first time such a model has been created through experiments for a two-winged hover-capable flapping wing robot
1495,coleman works under the guidance of benedict assistant professor in aerospace engineering and director of the advanced vertical flight laboratory at texas a&m
1496,dr zhijian (zj) pei has joined the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) as a professor and researcher pei brings years of experience from working in industry academia and government environments he earned his phd in mechanical engineering in 1995 from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign working under dr placid m ferreira prior to joining texas a&m pei was a professor in the department of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering at kansas state university and holder of the carl and mary ice industrial engineering professorship he also served as the program director of the manufacturing machines and equipment program at the national science foundation (nsf) from 2012 to 2016 pei holds three patents and has published more than 140 journal articles and 90 articles in peer-reviewed proceedings he has received the nsf directors award for excellence program director and nsf career award pei served as an associate editor for three journals and as an editorial board member for seven journals he also initiated and developed the career proposal writing workshop in 2004 and organized this workshop annually with more than 1 400 young faculty members from across the nation in attendance during his first year with texas a&m pei will be working as the assistant director for research partnerships in the national institute of standards and technology (nist)-hosted advanced manufacturing national program office
1497,taking the class out of the classroom is becoming increasingly popular among summer courses students in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university studied 2 017 miles from the usual classrooms this summer to learn about engineering economics and real-time control the four-week journey included tours of a pharmaceutical company and a biomedical device manufacturing facility a visit to the department of marine sciences at the university of puerto rico – mayagüez (uprm) as well as hands-on research experiences jeana goodson senior academic advisor in industrial and systems engineering traveled with the group of 22 students during the first portion of the trip study abroad trips are an excellent way for students to gain invaluable experiences that are not available in the traditional classroom setting goodson said the puerto rico trip is a phenomenal opportunity for our students to observe research topics that are different from what we have available at texas a&m students also enjoyed trips to the cities of ponce and old san juan to take advantage of being in the unique culture and location while making friends with other students from texas a&m and uprm joseph clegg a junior industrial and systems engineering student would repeat the experiences given the opportunity the best part of the trip was definitely the scenery puerto rico has and making memories with some new friends clegg said the only thing i would change is my ability to speak more spanish study abroad opportunities provide students with a first-hand experience of how others live around the world steven houston a senior industrial and systems engineering student was originally born in colombia while he has grown up with an in-depth understanding of cultural differences between latin american and the united states he was enlightened from the moment he landed in puerto rico the best way i can explain my thoughts and perception of puerto rico is that the island has the best of both worlds the convenience of being tied to the united states and the great culture of latin america houston said houston recommends students participate in a study abroad program as early in their collegiate career as possible i wish i could have gone on this study abroad earlier houston said while i was there it felt as if i was at home both in the united states and colombia i recommend that a student either do it after their freshman year or ideally between their sophomore and junior year
1498,dr terry s creasy associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to the editorial board of the society for the advancement of material and process engineering journal (sampe) creasy begins his new role in the fall creasy has advised the texas a&m sampe student chapter since it was founded in 2011 and was recently elected to chair the south texas chapter of the society the sampe journal is a key publication that helps industrial development engineers and academic researchers interact with advance materials and processes in every application said creasy creasys synthetic multifunctional composites group studies polymer processing for property control hybrid multifunctional materials nastic materials for active structures nanoscale and microscale properties of materials and equal channel angular extrusion of polymer matrix composites the society for the advancement of material and process engineering (sampe®) is a global professional member society that provides information on new materials and processing technology either via conferences exhibitions technical forums publications or books in which professionals in this field can exchange ideas as the only technical society encompassing all fields of endeavor in materials and processes sampe provides a unique and valuable forum for scientists engineers and academicians
1499,the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) hosted the first leg of the four-week nuclear security training series (nsts) at texas a&m university from july 2-10 twenty-seven students and six faculty members from seven universities in india and one brazilian university participated in the 2016 nsts which was sponsored by the us state department's partnership for nuclear security with logistics coordination by crdf global the nsts aims to further the study of nuclear security best practices at universities in india and brazil and to promote academic research in this field while at texas a&m the nsts participants attended lectures on nuclear security and nuclear security culture by nsspi professional staff members dr sunil chirayath dr craig marianno and claudio gariazzo and took part in various practical training exercises these included an in-class table-top exercise on nuclear security and insider threats a radiation detection exercise a radiation portal monitor exercise a lost source search exercise and an outdoor radiation source recovery exercise at the texas a&m engineering extension service's disaster city facility the participants enjoyed the hands-on activities and tours which exposed them to a number of facilities across texas a&m nsspi graduate students and recent graduates mohammed hawila dr evans kitcher dr manit shah and jeremy osborn also presented four thesis and dissertation topics to the group in order to demonstrate the breadth of research in nuclear security being done at texas a&m to complete their experience in texas the participants also took a tour of the nasa johnson space center in houston which was sponsored by texas a&m and attended the us independence day celebration at the george bush presidential library and museum at the end of their week at texas a&m the participants traveled to albuquerque accompanied by nsspi program assistant kerrie ford for the next part of the nsts at sandia national laboratories from there they traveled to oak ridge national laboratory with gariazzo for the last formal part of the series the us tour culminated with the nsts group participating in the 57th annual meeting of the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) in atlanta
1500,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr krishna narayanan holder of the eric d rubin 06 professorship in the department of electrical and computer engineering the endowed professorship was effective aug 1 narayanan is a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university he earned a bachelors degree from coimbatore institute of technology india a masters degree from iowa state university and his phd from georgia institute of technology all in electrical engineering narayanans research interests include: the role of structures codes in multi-terminal information theory; joint source and channel coding for wireless communications; design and analysis of codes and decoders for applications in wireless communications; data storage and optical communications; information forwarding in wireless networks; design of message passing algorithms for solving lagrangian dynamics problems; the design lattice codes; genomic signal processing bioinformatics and systems biology; and spatially coupled ldpc codes and graph-based codes with high throughput decoder architectures
1501,researchers in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university are studying memory limitations in high-workload environments weather alerts for general aviation pilots and remote health monitoring to save the lives of veterans dr farzan sasangohar dr thomas ferris and dr mark lawley are improving the lives of people around the world our work is focused on using emerging technologies to improve human welfare by making complex tasks and chronic diseases easier to manage in noisy evolving environments said lawley interim department head of industrial and systems engineering improving intensive care many people experience lapses in memory when the workload at the office becomes a bit heavier than usual these lapses can be dangerous if the work involves time sensitive safety-critical decision making sasangohar assistant professor is working to make hospitals safer by applying his expertise on human decision-making interruptions and memory limitations to the demanding environment of intensive care according to the patient safety movement more than 200 000 deaths occur each year due to preventable causes under the care of a medical professional costing $126 trillion per year to treat these medical errors the mission of the patient safety movement aligns with that of sasangohars research: decrease mistakes made by medical professionals humans in high-workload environments are especially prone to memory limitations sasangohar said my research investigates the design and evaluation of memory aid tools in safety-critical settings this will help intensive care unit nurses manage their duties during high-workload or interruption episodes he uses displays that provide smart checklists and visual timelines of important events to achieve reliable workload management and efficiency interactive graphical representations of events could also help personnel in safety-critical settings recover from interruptions in an efficient and effective manner he said sasangohar was recently honored with a best paper award sponsored by lockheed martin from the houston human factors and ergonomics society the paper is titled systematic management of interruptions to nurses in an intensive care unit alerting general aviation pilots general aviation includes all civil aviation except passenger airline services often referred to as the ‘wild west by those in the aviation world it has seen a number of pilots flying into dangerous weather resulting in death in 2015 384 people lost their lives due to crashes while aboard general aviation aircraft weather being the cause the federal aviation administration (faa) is investing in research to determine the cause of these decisions ferris assistant professor has joined the faas efforts on this project its some combination of did not receive the right weather information did not receive it in time received and did not believe it or the pilots were overconfident in their ability to handle the weather ferris said one interesting factor we are looking at now is that often the weather data arrives but it is not unusual for the data to arrive late referring to weather that is a half-hour old or even more latent he and his team are working to not only determine why these pilots flew into dangerous situations but also identify the best and most effective alert system to assist the pilots in decisions about whether or not to fly into the area we are looking for this project to define the minimum effective way that weather updates could be given to pilots while they are flying ferris said the reason we say minimum is because it is the wild west and anything that has the potential to be airborne could be airborne you cannot make assumptions that everyone has a nice gps or that they have one of the dozens of products out there that allow them to get the key data during the most recent study ferris observed how a pilot in the air received and reacted to alerts via the apple watch the apple ipad and a cellphone we chased thunderstorms in small aircraft to see if the software would give us the types of alerts it was designed to do what that would feel like and look like and what the attentional aspects of it were ferris said after a couple years of simulation and in-flight studies the team has found some answers regarding the best way to notify pilots of the weather ahead we found that the vibrating aspects of smart watches were really useful ferris said even in a vibrating aircraft the vibrations were received and responded to every time excited for the next phase of the study ferris believes this is a good application area to test attention-based problems this next study will build a bit upon what we found useful in vibration cuing and we are focusing our methods to be testing vibration patterns more directly ferris said its a cool problem to work on there will definitely be more flight testing next year saving veterans lives lawley is the deputy director of the tees center for remote health technologies and systems whose mission is to develop breakthrough remote health technologies algorithms and information systems to address the critical needs of patients and providers globally and enable healthy living as part of this center he is actively involved in several projects related to using remote health technologies to improve the care of patients with chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease lawley is collaborating with sasangohar and dr hye-chung kum of texas a&m and dr justin benzer of the veterans health administration to develop technologies and smart phone applications for the remote care of veterans with post traumatic stress syndrome (ptsd) over 20 veterans take their own lives every day due to depression anxiety and other mental health challenges lawley said for our veterans ptsd is foremost among these our hope is to develop technologies and systems that will enable remote monitoring and care interventions that can save these lives the key to this work is to develop effective smartphone apps for daily ptsd monitoring although some ptsd apps have been developed they are standalone and do not remotely monitor the patients biometrics essential for remotely gaging emotional state essential biometrics could be changes in the patients heart rate or voice characteristics the groups hypothesis is that key mental state change indicators can be monitored through mobile sensors to identify episodes of heightened ptsd symptoms this will allow the daily tracking of the patients emotional state and implementation of timely interventions to save lives the team is taking a user-centered design approach to systematically derive key functional and informational requirements from stakeholders in order to develop an easy-to-use and efficient ptsd information system and to collect sufficient preliminary data to support the central hypothesis the system developed could be a mobile app used by veterans and a set of displays to support clinicians workflow the system will help veterans to communicate key mental state changes to healthcare professionals and enable clinicians to monitor patients by presenting them with information that supports their work and meets their expectation lawley said the team has obtained seed funding from texas a&m to develop the initial prototypes and will be seeking longer term resources to carry the project to full fruition if we are successful this research will save veterans lives lawley said we feel privileged to work on the behalf of those who have suffered and sacrificed for our freedom benefitting the future the research conducted by sasangohar ferris and lawley showcase the dedication they have to improving the quality of life for current and future generations as a result of their work personnel in high-workload environments will benefit from memory aid technologies to more efficiently serve their patients general aviation pilots will benefit from low-cost technology to receive alerts when approaching dangerous weather situations veterans will receive the appropriate care they need as a result of remote health monitoring technologies overall we are concerned with human welfare lawley said our research is about helping people live longer and better lives
1502,sungtae shin a doctoral student in texas a&m universitys department of mechanical engineering has been researching myoelectric interfacing reading the electrical signals from muscles as part of a project designed to create exoskeletons for physical rehabilitation purposes in an important step toward that goal shin has successfully used a myoelectric controller worn like an armband to operate a robotic arm people have seen automatic prosthetics with basic static motion like hands closing or hands opening and thats a good first stage but thats not good enough for typical human activity shin said dr reza langari the head of the laboratory for control robotics and animation (lcra) which is developing the exoskeleton and head of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution explained the overall goal for the project is for the system to be able to figure out what a person is trying to do and assist where needed you would be able to use the myoelectric signal to detect what the intended muscle activity is langari said even if the person cannot necessarily achieve that you still extract the information and assist the person in moving though the full implementation into a working exoskeleton is farther down the road langari believes that people will be able to see the potential for the technology in the early success shin has had even if the robot is not a true exoskeleton and it isnt attached to the persons arm it can still show that we are successful in interpreting the human motion intent and activating an electromechanical device to operate on that basis langari said
1503,the concept of using myoelectric signals to interface is simple enough the armband reads the electrical signals the brain sends to the muscles to figure out what it is that the muscles are trying to do however developing a system capable of doing that is an extremely complicated process the electromyographic signal is if you look at it just a huge mess said langari it just looks like a bunch of noise he compared it to standing in the middle of a loud factory with a supervisor giving you instructions nearby but in a language you dont understand its taken sungtae almost two years to get to the point where he can command the robot relatively smoothly langari said thats a fairly significant achievement nobody else has been able to do that at this point you have to really use some sophisticated noise-cancelling algorithms to eliminate all the unwanted information how you decipher what they say even after you have eliminated all the background noise is not trivial how do you make sure that what youre eliminating is noise and not important information shin did his undergraduate work at sejong university in seoul in his home country of south korea it was there that he first learned about texas a&m from some of the faculty who are former students he also spent some time at the korean institute of science and technology and a year at texas a&m university at qatar before coming to college station now two years into the project shin believes the potential for the technology extends far beyond the original idea he sees the armband-like accessory as a potential input device for a number of systems and says that while there has been significant research into virtual and augmented reality systems not as much work has been done on input devices for those systems i think in five or 10 years this type of technology will be really big shin said i think virtual reality and augmented reality needs an interface device like dynamic motion this system could be used instead of a computer mouse or a controller a system that tracks dynamic motion has several advantages over many input systems most commonly used now they are smoother and more precise than commonly used controllers and have wider capabilities than typed commands some dynamic motion technologies are currently on the market but they rely on visual tracking using cameras like an xbox kinect a myoelectric system would eliminate some of the challenges that those systems have a myoelectric interface comes from the gesture itself shin said all gestures involve muscle activity so if we can catch this signal and recognize this pattern its more valuable than using a vision system vision systems have obstacles you have to use a terminal the lighting can make a difference the size of the hands matters the point of view of the camera matters…but with myoelectric signal you dont have those limits gesturing is universal in addition to being used for input devices and human assistance langari also sees potential in dynamic motion being used to teach new tasks to robots if you teach a child to do something you dont just tell them how to do it you also actually show them how to do it he said we want to have the capability for a robot to do that in factories you might want to show a robot how to do new tasks that have been done by humans to translate what the human does you first have to understand what the human is doing with their arms and hands and then program the robot to do it this way were going directly from human physical motion to robotic physical motion note: as shin is developing the control side other members of the lcra's exoskeleton project are working on the exoskeleton itself click here to read a story about their work which was featured recently in the conversation
1504,jordan evans (third from left) at the 2016 nuclear engineering student delegation (nesd) in washington dc all commercial nuclear reactors in the united states use water as a coolant a technology that is more than 50 years old new technologies are available but necessary research and development is needed before they can be commercialized jordan evans graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university recently advocated for development of advanced reactor technology when he met with lawmakers at the 2016 nuclear engineering student delegation (nesd) in washington the nesd offered training on how to communicate with lawmakers to change nuclear research funding education and growth evans completed his bachelors and masters in nuclear engineering from texas a&m and is currently pursuing a doctorate of philosophy in materials science and engineering with a focus in nuclear nanomaterials his research is focused on the development of advanced nuclear reactor materials such as fuels cladding and structural materials evans along with the other delegates supported their application to the nesd by showcasing their proficiency in american politics nuclear technology policies and communications skills i have never encountered such an impressive collection of students before said evans the delegation included a broad spectrum of nuclear backgrounds including students studying policy (both energy and nonproliferation) nuclear medicine and of course energy technologiesin recent years the united states has fallen behind on advanced reactor technology not only is my phd research on this very topic but there is an urgent need for federal action to develop advanced reactor technologies with great hasteaccording to evans foreign governments and global industrial giants have been developing new technology for advanced reactors with environmental concerns on the rise there is a need for alternative energy sources advanced nuclear energy is a cheaper and more reliable source of energy and is on the brink of massive implementation said evans in chinas molten salt reactor program their test reactor will come online in 2020 with commercialization to follow these reactors cannot melt down according to the laws of thermodynamics and cost half the price to build and to operate in comparison to current water-cooled reactors evans focused primarily on this issue during his time with the nesdwe are falling behind on a transformative technology that will soon be a major asset to society said evans it is my belief that we would benefit if we developed and owned a portion of it rather than remained dependent on foreign entities the nesd is an independently-funded student organization founded in 1994 to immerse nuclear science and engineering students into political policy contributing author: haley posey
1505,most of us have seen the not enough storage message on our smart phone or tablet cloud computing services provide a way to alleviate this overwhelming need for space by letting programs store their data on remote servers instead of locally cloud computing is just one example of distributed storage a general concept that captures the idea of providing a shared data service for geographically dispersed computer systems distributed storage or shared data is a vital mechanism for communication among processors in distributed systems the use of shared memory allows for better structured and easier-to-verify distributed applications this shared service facilitates the development of higher-level applications including collaborative editing systems multiplayer games and scientific data repositories although having shared data has quickly become a necessity it is not provided off the shelf in large-scale distributed systems instead processors must keep individual copies of the data these processors communicate by sending messages to keep the replicas consistent dr jennifer welch regents professor and chevron professor ii in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university studies consistency conditions for shared data in distributed systems including those supporting cloud computing she is currently exploring how relaxing the specifications of the shared data can improve the performance of distributed systems as an example consider the classic queue data structure which supports two operations – one that adds an element to the queue and one that removes and returns the oldest element in the queue this definition assumes that the queue is accessed sequentially with only one operation taking place at a time when considering distributed systems it is possible that several users can be trying to access a shared queue at the same time when this occurs it is important to define what kind of behavior we want when there are simultaneous overlapping operations said welch co-director of the computer science and engineering track of engineering honors this is called a consistency condition linearizability the most common consistency condition requires that the return values of operations be the same as if the operations occurred one after the other on the classic queue in an order that is consistent with the order of non-overlapping operations there are two ways to relax this set-up one way is to have a more relaxed consistency condition which allows more flexibility in the return values by not requiring the return values to be consistent with a sequential execution another way is to continue with the linearizability consistency condition but define it with respect to a more relaxed sequential data structure than a classic queue for example the queue can be defined so that even in the sequential case the remove operation returns one of the oldest elements not necessarily the absolute oldest element welch and her group are developing algorithms to implement relaxed data structures with provably optimal time performance with the growing reliance on distributed computing systems establishing correct and optimally efficient algorithms for implementing shared data will significantly benefit society through improved software that has the ability to run on multiple processors; these distributed applications will be able to utilize greater storage space using cloud computing additionally understanding the inherent limits of these systems allows for better exploration of the design space welchs interest in distributed storage began in 1989 when she and colleague dr hagit attiya professor at the technion in israel noticed that the computer architecture papers written at the time neglected to present a clear distinction between two different consistency conditions they wanted to understand if there were any inherent efficiency gaps between different conditions i have returned to the topic recently motivated by the growth of cloud computing and interest in relaxing conditions and/or specifications to improve performance welch said
1506,richard j matus has established the richard j matus 80 scholarship in aerospace engineering the gift funded through the texas a&m foundation will to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from texas a&m university matus is the current vice president of sales and marketing at pointwise inc a company that creates software used for grid generation and preprocessing for computational fluid dynamics to be used by engineers and scientists in manufacturing and research organizations matus received both his bachelors and masters degrees in aerospace engineering from texas a&m and received his doctorate in aerospace engineering from the university of texas at arlington he is a member of the american society of mechanical engineers the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and the society of automotive engineers he currently resides in forth worth texas
1507,john mihalick 61 has created the beverly and john mihalick 61 scholarship in mechanical engineering to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university mihalick has two daughters kimberly mihalick bernstien and sheila m mihalick shelia received her bachelors degree in psychology from texas a&m in 1991 mihalick and his wife beverly now deceased have been long time contributors to the association of former students
1508,ray rothrock chief executive officer of red seal inc and nuclear venture capitalist delivered a seminar on 21st century innovation within the nuclear industry to the students faculty and staff of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university the seminar discussed lessons rothrock learned as a leader in the venture capital arena and how to apply them to the nuclear innovation sector detailing how in his own view a small group of individuals can and have changed the way the us government views the nuclear industry a nuclear engineer turned venture capitalist rothrock earned his bachelors degree in nuclear engineering from texas a&m in 1977 and later became a partner in the venture capital firm venrock a firm dedicated to creating and financing technology solutions rothrock has long remained a proponent of clean nuclear energy his co-production of pandoras promise in 2013 a film that made the case for nuclear power as a clean and safe energy source helped to reinitiate a national conversation about where nuclear power fits in the clean energy universe in his current work rothrock and his associates work with legislators the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) and the department of energy (doe) to promote an environment that will foster the development of advanced reactors by nuclear startups and encourage the use of nuclear energy power sources
1509,the texas a&m university college of engineering and texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees)-led research team has been awarded a $1 million award from the national science foundation (nsf) to create an organization that will develop the framework for utilizing vast amounts of data emerging in the nations smart grids the teams project smart grids big data is one of 10 big data spokes announced recently by the nsf the spokes support the four big data regional innovation hubs which reflect the unique priorities and capabilities of the us geographic regions they service the texas a&m team and its collaborators are part of the south big data hub since the american recovery and reinvestment act (arra) of 2009 billions of dollars have been invested to develop new technology for electric power grid monitoring control and infrastructure protection the arra created overwhelmingly abundant big data in smart grids but without a system in place to fully utilize it developing a fundamental framework for extracting knowledge and integrating big data for power system applications is the goal of the smart grids big data spoke this action-oriented organization will enable the south big data hub to meet the societal grand challenge of creating technological solutions that can fulfill the economic potential inherent in big data analytics in the electric utility industry which is expected to reach an annual value of close to $4 billion by 2020 the principal investigator is dr mladen kezunovic director of tees smart grid center and eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m co-pis from electrical and computer engineering are dr pr kumar engineering chair in computer engineering and distinguished professor; and dr le xie associate professor; from the department of computer science and engineering is dr dilma da silva department head and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii; dr zoran obradovic temple university; and dr santiago grijalva georgia tech being part of this initiative gives us the opportunity to contribute to the great engineering challenges facing the world in terms of securing and modernizing the power grid utilizing unprecedented amounts of data characterizing different aspects of the grid operation said kezunovic the big data hubs announced last year are one way the nsf is addressing this need the nsf established four hubs one each in the midwest northeast south and west regions of the country to foster multi-sector collaborations among academia industry and government each hub is helping to bring together a wide range of big data stakeholders in order to solve regional challenges each big data spoke will work on a challenge that requires big data approaches and solutions in given domains like the big data hubs the big data spokes will take on a convening and coordinating role as opposed to directly conducting research each will gather important stakeholders; engage end users and solution providers; and form multidisciplinary teams to tackle questions no single field can solve alone however unlike the big data hubs which aim to span the full range of data-driven challenges and solutions in a geographic region each big data spoke will have a specific goal-driven mission the big data spokes advance the goals and regional priorities of each big data hub fusing the strengths of a range of institutions and investigators and applying them to problems that affect the communities and populations within their regions said jim kurose assistant director of the nsf for computer and information science and engineering we are pleased to be making this substantial investment today to accelerate the nations big data r&d innovation ecosystem click here to read the complete nsf big data spoke release
1510,each year the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university participates in the acm richard tapia celebration of diversity in computing conference this year the three-day conference was held in austin texas from sept 14-16 the tapia 2016 conference theme diversity matters! was chosen for three key reasons: diversity matters for innovation diversity matters for knowledge and diversity matters for life the conference is designed to bring together the strengths and differences that pave the way for growth and innovation in the field of computing this conference not only recognizes but also celebrates these differences by gathering students researchers and professionals from various backgrounds in one place twenty-six students from the department and the college attended the conference four of whom presented during the student poster session computer science and engineering phd student vijay rajanna won first prize for his graduate student poster seth polsley vice president of social for the computer science and engineering graduate student association (csegsa) attended the conference for the first time what was most impactful to me was the student poster session polsley said the session was focused on accessibility in computing and it featured presenters from very diverse backgrounds as i interacted with one of the presenters through his interpreter it dawned on me that i had never experienced a research poster presentation from a member of the deaf community before how much amazing research are we missing out on because there aren't enough venues for people of all types of backgrounds to present their work that's the question i came away with from the tapia conference it's an important question in my opinion and efforts like the tapia conference are necessary because that is where these questions are being addressed dr dilma da silva computer science and engineering department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii served as general chair for this years conference in this role she was responsible for overseeing the conference organization the conference offered a program that highlights the importance of technical excellence while also offering opportunities for career development da silva said this year the career fair was amazing with both students and industry representatives very pleased for the opportunities to interact tapia is organized by the coalition to diversify computing sponsored by the association for computing machinery and presented by the center for minorities and people with disabilities in information technology (cmd-it) cmd-it's executive director is senior associate dean for academic affairs and royce e wisenbaker professor dr valerie taylor the conference is also put together by the computing research association and the ieee computer society
1511,the center for robotic assisted search and rescue (crasar) a division of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for emergency informatics recently conducted a mass casualty exercise in coordination with the italian coast guard and interuniversity center of integrated systems for the marine environment (isme) in genoa italy the exercise explored the use of an emily lifeguard assistant unmanned surface vehicle a fotokite tethered unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) and lte cellular communications to prevent drowning of refugees trying to reach italy from africa emily robots were deployed to greece in january 2016 in response to the wave of migrations from turkey theyre currently being used by the hellenic coast guard and the hellenic red cross and have already been credited with saving more than 24 people according to crasar director dr robin murphy this exercise identified key differences between the turkey-to-greece migrations and the africa-to-italy migrations for example the scale of potential rescue events is much different in greece boats of 40-50 people usually ran into problems close to shore in italy the boats can have between 200 and 800 people and rescue operations are taking place much further out those differences affect the unmanned system design resulting in new research directions in autonomous navigation human-robot interaction with victims in the water and the use of uavs when you look at the situation in greece and then scale up to the situation in italy you can see the increased value of having uavs to help assess the situation murphy said we can better identify who needs immediate help from rescuers in the water and who can be helped by emily or perhaps even a basic floatation device the crasar team consisted of murphy graduate students grant wilde and jan dufek and undergraduate rebecca schofield from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university everyone focuses on the robots but texas a&m researchers are leading the way on training our students to think across disciplines in order to consider how sensors wireless networks and visualization tools can be integrated into truly useful systems murphy said the exercise occurred over three days from sept 22-24 in genoa it was arranged by professor gianluca antonelli of the university of cassino and professor pino casalino through isme a consortium of seven italian universities in conjunction with the italian coast guard genova led by commander massimo kothmeir emily creator tony mulligan of hydronaulix medical expert lynn marie kelly-mulligan and dr walt magnussen of the texas a&m internet2 technology evaluation center also participated with funding from the national science foundation rapid response research program crasar is accelerating research in robotics sensors and networks for search and rescue operations
1512,"texas a&m university system officials on monday (sept 26) kicked off their aggressive construction schedule for the new 2 000-acre rellis campus with a groundbreaking for its first new building the center for infrastructure renewal just five months after it was announced the size and scope of rellis has grown as a&m system agencies either redirected planned projects to the bryan site or decided to consolidate existing operations there to compliment other planned improvements to this campus blinn college also announced it will construct a building at rellis for its students when completed in four years the initial construction will include seven engineering research facilities and two education centers the research and testing focus will include robotics driverless and connected vehicles advanced manufacturing large-scale testing as well as smart power grids and water systems companies will be encouraged to build their own r&d and testing facilities alongside and in partnership with the a&m systems rellis also will offer workforce training professional certificates and associate degrees as well as four-year degrees from the a&m systems universities from around the state the first class of students is expected to begin fall 2018 we are creating an economic and education magnet that will offer the best of our state agencies and universities in one location said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system rellis is a new approach necessary to educate the next generation of texans and expand the state economy through research and innovation the center for infrastructure renewal authorized by the texas legislature is a prime example of that innovation the 138 000 square-foot research testing and training facility is expected to reduce the cost and extend the life of infrastructure with new better materials and construction methods it is a collaboration among the texas a&m engineering experiment station the texas a&m transportation institute and the private sector texas is at a critical juncture: an aging infrastructure system is costing billions of taxpayer dollars in construction projects using outdated technology said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering this facility will bring together the best engineers to address these challenges in ways that are more efficient effective and economical roadways and bridges are aging at a faster rate than they can be repaired the us power grid is more than 130 years old and vulnerable to natural disasters and terror attacks there is also a concern regarding the integrity of the nations oil gas water and wastewater pipeline systems modernizing these infrastructures will require interdisciplinary research teams 21st century technologies and innovative solutions for the demands from a growing population ""the center for infrastructure renewal will bring together the researchers agencies and industry collaborations necessary to greatly accelerate the steep change in new discoveries and innovation needed for texas and the nation said bjorn birgisson director of the center through these collaborations we will achieve more effective and cost-efficient infrastructure renewal solutions than are possible with todays technologies"" about the texas a&m university system the texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $42 billion through a statewide network of 11 universities and seven state agencies the texas a&m system educates more than 140 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year system-wide research and development expenditures exceeded $946 million in fy 2015 and helped drive the states economy"
1513,high school students attending this years camp build explored the world of civil engineering in a whirlwind week filled with hands-on experience design projects real-world problem solving competitions and tours at texas a&m university camp build is a one-week camp hosted by the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m to introduce high school juniors and seniors to science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) education and the civil engineering discipline from purifying water collected in a local creek to designing a bridge students witnessed the ins and outs of the study and profession of civil engineering in all of its various disciplines camp build is a major k-12 outreach program where we work to minimize common barriers to entering the profession said dr kelly brumbelow associate professor and assistant department head for undergraduate programs our camp activities follow good stem practice where everything is hands-on learning by doing and seeing first-hand theres no text or notes to take because we want students to see their efforts come to tangible fruition by their own work not by reading it in someone elses book many of us who are now engineers were fortunate to have these types of experiences early in our lives and we want to bring that engagement to this next generation throughout the week campers participated in numerous hands-on lab activities the activities were designed to expose students to the various specialties within civil engineering in the environmental engineering lab students worked alongside dr shankar chellam j walter deak porter 22 & james w bud porter 51 professor to explore the use of chemical coagulation in addition to filtration to emphasize the necessity of pre-treatment during the water purification process they also participated in a demonstration of electrical coagulation in water treatment additionally students designed and constructed a pipe system spanning a 20-foot gap starting from a garden hose connected to a spigot and ending in a lawn sprinkler the campers learned the concept of head loss – loss of kinetic energy in the water due to friction the goal was to achieve the farthest spray out of the sprinkler and soak one of their counselors sitting some distance away in the hydrology box experiment students learned about the rate of water flow in sediment and how it is affected by urbanization avery flessner a counselor at camp build and sophomore in the department of civil engineering studies water resources and was especially thrilled about this subject the idea here is to show that increasing urbanization greatly affects how water flows over land proving a further need for water resources engineers that would manage surface and groundwater run-off said flessner its fun to be able to interact with them and share my passion for the profession and what i want to study campers also participated in a beam design project using scale models they made with foam boards and balsa wood the campers also got to see aspects of structural engineering up close when touring the new zachry engineering education complex the future undergraduate engineering facility currently under construction it was a great hands-on experience i learned i really like the water resources and structural aspects [of civil engineering] said elizabeth chong a junior from taylor high school the wooden bridge project was a daily activity through the week the campers were split into smaller teams to design a bridge that spanned a minimum of 10-feet and could support a vertical load of 200 pounds the best bridge was decided in the competition held at the end of the weeklong session where each team had 25 minutes to construct its bridge based on its preplanned design additionally campers had the chance to learn and use surveying equipment apply autocad software to design projects and visit the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) at the tti campus campers were introduced to the multidiscipline research behind most transportation engineering these activities taught the campers about important civil engineering concepts teamwork cooperation creativity time management and how to work under stress due to its success over the past two years the civil engineering department hosted two one-week sessions of camp build this year over 95 students from texas illinois tennessee kentucky california and louisiana applied to participate in this years camps sixty applicants were chosen to attend based on academic achievement with a greater focus on those whose high schools do not offer engineering courses the 60 students selected represented the most highly qualified candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds a key factor in connecting the participants to the university the college of engineering and the department has been to keep the number of participants at a level that allows them to build relationships with one another the counselors and faculty said dr robin autenrieth department head and ap and florence wiley professor we want each participant to know they are special to us and to leave the camp with fond memories and a deeper awareness of engineering especially civil engineering
1514,the rising senior campers have had remarkable success in their applications and admissions to texas a&m and the college of engineering over the past three years 73 percent of seniors have been admitted into texas a&m and 85 percent of those have entered or will be entering the college this camp has been amazing ive learned so much about being a civil engineer and i cant wait to apply it said blazer humphries a junior from new diana high school contributing author: ryan terry
1515,the department of mechanical engineering and the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university brought together more than 50 top material scientists and material design experts from across the nation to discuss interdisciplinary research focused on the engineering design of material systems the workshop was supported by the design of engineering material systems (dems) program at the national science foundation (nsf) which was formed four years ago to support fundamental research intended to advance methods for the design of engineering material systems what we're moving toward is to custom design material to exactly match what we need in a given application and the balance and tradeoffs we'd want in that given application said lead organizer dr richard malak associate professor and morris e foster faculty fellow i in the department of mechanical engineering jump started by the success of a few pioneering researchers and now backed by the support of nsf the opportunity exists to accelerate research in this area by furthering the development of a coherent interdisciplinary community dedicated to understanding materials design problems defining the community one of the key things were addressing in this workshop is defining what the community should be malak said were bringing together experts on both sides of the problem to create a new community of people interested in solving problems that cant be solved from one side or the other alone the two-day workshop focused on identifying factors that make interdisciplinary research in material system design difficult and those that can be leveraged to make major research advances; and using that information to articulate a vision for overcoming those difficulties and leveraging the opportunities identified through breakout sessions and round-table and open discussions participants could directly impact the future of the community the pieces that will make the new community a community need to flow up from the people doing the work malak said bridging industry and education organizers of the workshop which also include dr douglas allaire assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department; dr raymundo arróyave associate professor in the materials science and engineering department; and dr debra fowler director of the center for teaching excellence are further committed to the formation and growth of this new interdisciplinary community by leading an innovative program committed to educating the communitys future experts supported by the national research traineeship program at nsf the data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) program equips master of science and doctoral students at texas a&m with the skills necessary to conduct interdisciplinary research in materials science informatics and engineering design this program will create a new class of students who are not afraid of exploring new things said arróyave who serves as d3em program director it will make them more creative and help them interact with experts in other fields in the real world the thematic connection between d3em and the workshop on designing material systems is not a coincidence this is an area of research we believe is gaining in importance malak said noting strong connections to national initiatives in materials and advanced manufacturing teaching the teachers fowler who holds her phd in interdisciplinary engineering with specific emphasis on engineering education assisted with the comprehensive curriculum design and plays a key role in training d3em faculty members to be interdisciplinary in their ability to think communicate and perform research activities interdisciplinary thinking is not necessarily natural we're used to our disciplinary silos said allaire who serves as d3em communications director a big part of d3em is not just educating the students it's actually educating the faculty as well through what is called the community of scholars fowler facilitates the faculty coming together on a regular basis to discuss scholarly articles related to interdisciplinary research or a component of it and later discusses the same articles with d3em graduate students through a graduate student learning community its a discussion other people arent having and supports the pedagogy behind interdisciplinary teaching and learning fowler said the interdisciplinary curriculum also includes energy- and entrepreneurship-related courses and activities through partnerships with the texas a&m energy institute and the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship at mays business school d3ems overarching goal is to develop and institutionalize a new training model that produces scientists and engineers who are otherwise grounded in one discipline to have the professional and technical skills needed to communicate collaborate and lead in interdisciplinary teams arróyave said success in this area is possible only by bringing people and ideas together malak said the d3em program and the workshop both are ways to do this contributing author: samantha ramirez
1516,dr richard malak associate professor and morris e foster faculty fellow i in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was appointed program director by the national science foundation (nsf) for both the systems science (sys) and the engineering and system design (esd) programs under the civil mechanical and manufacturing innovation (cmmi) division the programs support fundamental research in the area of how to design large-scale and complex engineered systems the sys program focuses on the theoretical foundations for these activities whereas the esd program focuses on novel methods for engineering and systems design malak brings an extensive teaching and research background focusing on issues relating to complex systems design and engineering to the position as program director malak receives proposals from institutions across the country and carefully selects and oversees panels of experts who review and rank each submission nsfs emphasis on panel review makes organizing these panels so expertise and research align an important duty malak then makes funding recommendations based on the panels remarks both the sys and esd programs are concerned with the broader issue of developing large and complex systems however they differ in the angle that is taken: one is to understand the other to improve and both can require collaboration between disciplines in order to advance current understanding i think we're at a point where you're starting to see people recognize the importance of bringing these perspectives together malak said youre starting to see excited young researchers in the community coming at this from different viewpoints and who are trying wholly different approaches to thinking about and understanding these problems advances supported by the esd and sys programs can have a broad impact on society by helping designers realize engineered systems more effectively and with better overall outcomes including enhanced performance higher efficiency and lower environmental impact methods that work well for the design of a bicycle dont necessarily scale well to the design of a manned fighter jet malak said yet there are underlying principles that apply to all design methods malak also serves as the design research expert for the multidisciplinary design of engineering material systems (dems) program the dems program supports fundamental research into methods for designing engineering material systems this appointment is not only an honor for malak his achievement also brings attention to the growing mechanical engineering department at texas a&m it also will benefit texas a&m in the long run i will be gaining expertise and knowledge that i didnt have before and i will bring it back to campus with me malak said my goal is to be a resource for people in this department and this college malak holds a master of science and doctorate in mechanical engineering from the georgia institute of technology; a master of science in electrical and computer engineering from carnegie melon university and a bachelor of engineering in electrical and computer engineering from stony brook university his awards include the 2014–15 texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) young faculty fellow award; the 2014–15 lockheed martin teaching excellence award; and 2014 engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research given in recognition of success in leading large-scale multidisciplinary research projects at texas a&m
1517,family friends faculty and students gathered for a special symposium and banquet honoring dr je-chin han distinguished professor and marcus c esterling chair in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university for his many achievements and contributions to the field of engineering and for his 70th birthday celebration han has been with the department since 1980 when he joined as an assistant professor and has dedicated his life to advancing the field of mechanical engineering focusing on thermal fluid science and energy and power technology during the symposium former student dr srinath ekkad rolls royce professor at virginia tech presented on behalf of hans current and former students recounting hans pioneering research and the profound impact he had on each of them what is studied today he knew then ekkad said he could see a dot and plot data which he did by hand i think we are better off because we were j-c hans students; not just because we were aggies but because we were his students han was the first researcher to provide correlations between friction loss and heat transfer to a variety of rib turbulence promoters which is widely used in the field today for turbine internal cooling his 1978 paper on rib turbulators is one of the highest cited gas turbine heat transfer papers with over 300 citations on the web of science index han was also the first to explore the degrading effects of unsteady high-turbulence on turbine film cooling performance using the transient liquid crystals image technique which is crucial in alerting designers that turbine blades might not be well protected by film cooling under hostile gas turbine flow environments hans contributions and extensive research in thermal fluid sciences and energy and power technology have earned him numerous awards and recognitions he has received multiple honors from the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) and the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) some of the most recent include the 2016 asme international gas turbine institute (igti) aircraft engine technology award; 2016 aiaa fellow; and 2013 asme heat transfer division 75th anniversary medal the department of mechanical engineering appreciates the hard work and dedication han has shown to his students the department and his field throughout his more than 35 years at texas a&m
1518,scott c saenger 83 has been an active supporter of texas a&m university for more than 20 years including contributions to the zachry department of civil engineering and the association of former students his most recent gift has established the saenger family endowed scholarship to benefit students pursuing an undergraduate degree in civil engineering at texas a&m university saenger is an honorary licensed professional engineer and works as a project engineer at jones & carter inc saenger and his wife andrea currently live in houston they have two children kayla and christina
1519,cynthia dc and david j whiteside 80 and nicholas c whiteside 13 have established the whiteside family scholarship in industrial distribution this endowment will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students pursuing an undergraduate degree in industrial distribution in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university chevron and williams companies have agreed to match funds through their respective companies' matching funds programs the whiteside family are generous supporters of texas a&m with contributions to the dwight look college of engineering the association of former students and to class gift funds david and his son nicholas both earned bachelors degrees from texas a&m in industrial distribution
1520,dr xiaoning qian from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been named the college of engineerings center for teaching excellence (cte) 2016-2017 montague-cte scholar dr carmen gomes from the department of biological and agricultural engineering was the recipient for the college of agriculture and life sciences the montague-cte scholar award is given annually to one tenure-track assistant professor from each college based on their early success in and passion for teaching undergraduate students awardees receive a $6 500 grant to encourage further development of teaching excellence this award has been granted to more than 234 faculty members qian who is an assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering received his phd from yale university his research interests are in bioinformatics and biomedical image processing and analysis the montague-cte scholar award is named in honor of kenneth montague 37 a distinguished alumnus and outstanding trustee of the texas a&m university development foundation who had a long and storied career in the texas oil industry ken and judy montague endowed a generous gift in 1991 to benefit the future aggies who are life-long learners and contributors to their communities past recipients of the early career award have shared the significant influence the award has had on their overall academic career and we continue to be forever grateful to jim and vicki montague for carrying on the montague legacy for this and other programs in the center said debra fowler associate director of the cte the montague-cte scholars will be honored during a celebration on nov 2 in the bethancourt ballroom of the memorial student center on the texas a&m campus
1521,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr prabhakar pagilla holder of the james j cain professorship ii in mechanical engineering the endowed professorship appointment was effective sept 1 pagilla is a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university he received his bachelor of engineering from osmania university and his master of science and phd from the university of california berkeley pagillas research interests include: modeling and control of roll-to-roll manufacturing systems and autonomous vehicles; robotics/mechatronics; and control of large-scale nonlinear dynamic systems
1522,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr alan palazzolo holder of the james j cain professorship i in mechanical engineering the endowed professorship appointment was effective sept 1 palazzolo is a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university he received his bachelor of science from the university of toledo and his master of science and phd from the university of virginia palazzolos research interests include: rotordynamics; magnetic bearings; active vibration and noise control; fluid film bearings; vibrations; finite and boundary elements; seal and impeller leakage flow; piping systems; machine design; flywheels; machinery couplings; expert systems; microgravity vibration isolation; electromechanical systems; cfd flow in pumps and compressors; heart pumps (vad); drillstring vibration; and ro desalination
1523,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr nasir g gharaibeh holder of the zachry career development professorship i in the zachry department of civil engineering the endowed development professorship appointment was effective sept 1 gharaibeh is an associate professor and division head transportation and materials engineering in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university he received his bachelor of science and master of science both from jordan university of science and technology and his phd from the university of illinois urbana-champaign gharaibehs research interests include: infrastructure condition assessment and deterioration modeling; infrastructure management decision support systems; infrastructure lifecycle analysis; quality assurance systems for infrastructure construction and maintenance; and pavement design preservation and management
1524,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr arul jayaraman holder of the ray b nesbitt endowed chair in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering the endowed chair appointment was effective sept 1 jayaraman is the associate department head and director of the graduate program in the chemical engineering department at texas a&m university he received a bachelor of science from birla institute of technology & science a master of science from tufts university and a phd from the university of california irvine jayaramans research interests include: molecular systems biotechnology specifically on using integrated experimental and modeling approaches for investigating problems in human health and medicine; systems biology of cytokine signaling in inflammatory diseases; inter-kingdom signaling interactions between bacteria and human cells in gi tract infections; and development of microfluidic model systems for combinatorial drug screening and vascular tissue engineering
1525,dr robert stevens 2015 president of the american society of civil engineers (asce) visited texas a&m university on sept 8 stevens met with dr robin autenrieth department head and other faculty members to discuss the success of the academic program in the zachry department of civil engineering stevens was the guest of honor at the asce chapter meeting where he presented a winning career with asce the presentation helped members learn more about asce and how to be involved even after graduation stevens spoke about his own educational background personal career and a few major projects he worked on through the course of his career both at home and abroad he emphasized the importance of the civil engineering profession in enhancing the lives of the public and helping people every day the student chapter of asce has six meetings planned this semester each with a different guest speaker stevens was invited to be the first guest to kick off the semester and a crowd of over 150 engineering students attended the presentation contributing author: ryan terry
1526,the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university welcomed a tenured faculty member and two tenure-track faculty members this year dr bjorn birgisson joins as tees distinguished research professor and director of the center for infrastructure renewal dr ali mostafavi and dr stephanie paal join as assistant professors prior to joining texas a&m birgisson was a chaired professor of transport science pro vice-chancellor and the executive dean of the school of engineering and applied science at aston university before aston birgisson served as the vice president for research at the kth royal institute of technology in stockholm sweden as well as the chaired professor and head of the division of highway and railway engineering while with kth birgisson created the department of transport science blending technology systems and policy assessment in education and research his specific areas of specialization include pavement analysis and design the material science and mechanics of construction materials non-destructive testing life cycle analysis and risk assessment birgisson was a member of the faculty at the university of florida where he earned his tenure in 2004 co-established the center for pavements and infrastructure materials and the florida center for pavement excellence both in 2001 between 2006 and 2010 birgisson led the development of the us national roadmap for nanotechnology for concrete-based materials mostafavi joins the department after having been an assistant professor in the florida international university college of engineering and computing he received his phd in civil engineering and a masters in industrial administration from the krannert school of management-purdue university his research focuses on a system-of-systems paradigm that bridges the boundaries between complex systems science network theory and civil infrastructure systems to address sustainability and resilience challenges he has been a principal investigator on multiple research projects funded by different agencies such as the national science foundation (nsf) construction industry institute (cii) and miami-dade expressway he is also a member of the infrastructure resilience division of the american society of civil engineers (asce) and the academic leadership committee of cii he has received multiple awards and honors for outstanding research teaching and service his recent awards include the cii distinguished professor award engineering news records top 20 under 40 in the southeast region and the best paper award of the 2015 asce computing in civil engineering conference paal joins the department after having been a postdoctoral researcher in the school of architecture civil and environmental engineering at the swiss federal institute of technology she received her doctorate and masters degrees in civil engineering from georgia tech and her bachelors degree in architectural engineering from the university of texas at austin her research interests lie in the study of visualization and advanced technology-based solutions to address infrastructure related challenges more specifically her interests are related to infrastructure condition assessment computing technologies and visualization in civil engineering sensing and data collection for civil infrastructure system of systems resiliency and knowledge extraction and management she has had extensive experience in creating machine vision methods to automatically assess infrastructure in both post-disaster and routine scenarios these methods can be used to provide real-time and quantitative assessment of buildings in the damaged state contributing author: ryan terry
1527,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr sharath girimaji head of the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university the appointment of girimaji who has been serving as interim head of the department is effective oct 1 prior to serving as the interim head of the department girimaji was the general dynamics professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m he assumed the position of interim head of ocean engineering in the fall of 2015 when the department was formed girimaji received his btech degree in mechanical engineering from the indian institute of technology-madras and his masters and doctorate in mechanical engineering from cornell university he worked for nine years at nasa langley research center primarily in the institute for computer applications in science and engineering (icase) he joined texas a&m in november 1999 as an associate professor in the aerospace engineering department girimaji has served the department in various capacities including tenure and promotion committee chair for four years his areas of research include: complex fluid flows (turbulence); chemically reacting flows; and mathematical/analytical techniques for multiscale multi-physics engineering systems girimaji is a fellow of the american physical society and an associate fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics
1528,nine engineering students supported by the women in engineering (we) program at texas a&m university competed in the 2016 international robosub competition in san diego their mission was to earn the highest number of points completing a series of underwater tasks with a robosub they designed and programmed themselves in the end the texas a&m team we reaf made it to the semifinals the women in engineering project teams give students a chance to learn from the ground up in a real-world setting said shawna fletcher director of women in engineering project teams exist around campus but some women shy away from these experiences we provides a technical opportunity where students can design build program and test autonomous underwater vehicles (auv) and other projects in a safe space where its ok to learn and make mistakes fletcher said the students often join the teams with little knowledge but leave with expertise because they are able to challenge themselves and learn from each other in a welcoming environment the team used the engineering innovation center at texas a&m to work on its robot spending months to design and build a cost-efficient robosub learning & collaborating judy amanor-boadu an electrical engineering phd student served as a graduate mentor to the team amanor-boadu said she enjoyed the collaborative environment the competition provided saying it wasnt about who got first place but instead it was about solving problems its more about sharing information and growing each other she said adding that she would have benefited from an opportunity like this when she was earning her undergraduate degree sarah beardsley a junior computer science major said the project team provided her with a wealth of information that helped in her classes ive lost track of the number of times i was researching something for the project and realized ‘wait a second this ties in to that lecture in my engineering class last week she said the lessons i learned that i consider to be the most important to me were more related to project management and leadership the payoff the team was divided into three sub-teams programming electrical and mechanical all were put to the test when the thrusters on the teams robosub stopped working after they arrived in san diego after speaking with other teams who had the same thrusters the texas a&m team learned it was a manufacturing error the company that made the thrusters provided each team with a different model the new thrusters they gave us were completely different so its not just like plug and play amanor-boadu said the company came on friday and we had until saturday to make sure we were done the team stayed up all night cutting wires redesigning and reprogramming its robot making sure it was watertight in the end the team learned about the importance of collaboration finally at about 4 am the new thrusters were ready to go so we took our robot down to the hotel pool to test it beardsley said to our excitement the new thrusters worked the teams hard work paid off the next day when we reaf made it to the semifinal round when our robot finished the qualifying task the team cheered so loudly that other competitors told us later that they could hear us cheering from the other side of the facility beardsley said when we first started the project last fall the goal we had set for ourselves for our first year was to make it to the semifinal round so reaching that goal felt like all of the hard work that myself and my teammates had put into the project had finally paid off while there were other women represented in the 46 teams at the competition we reaf was the only all-female team becoming the first of its kind in the competitions 19-year history
1529,dr tahir cagin dr miladin radovic and dr pao tai lin have been appointed to the editorial board of scientific reports an online open access scientific journal published by the nature publishing group that covers all areas of the natural and clinical sciences cagin is a professor in the department radovic is an associate professor and the associate department head and lin is an assistant professor in the department of electric and computer engineering and an affiliated faculty member in materials science and engineering dr michael demkowicz associate professor in the department was appointed to the board in 2015 having four faculty members from our department on scientific reports editorial board for condensed matter physics is a great recognition of the research in the area of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university said radovic scientific reports in the last five years has become one of the main avenues for dissemination of significant findings in science and engineering said cagin for a newly-established department having four members serving on the advisory board of the journal is an achievement we should be proud of cagin studies designing materials and material structures to improve the energy conversion from abundant sources such as thermal mechanical chemical and light to useable forms such as electricity his research group analyzes the processing pathways using non-equilibrium statistical thermodynamics through advanced molecular dynamics methods radovics research is focused on the processing of advanced structural and multi-functional ceramics and ceramic composites for extreme environments and characterization and modeling of their mechanical behavior oxidation/corrosion resistance and thermal properties lin is involved in research about mid-infrared integrated photonics biomedical sensors on a chip multiscale fabrication technologies reconfigurable materials and nanophotonics and metamaterials scientific reports publishes original research in all areas of the natural and clinical sciences the journal is fifth among all multidisciplinary science primary research journals in terms of its scientific impact according to the 2014 journal citation reports science edition which evaluates the worlds leading journals based on citation data
1530,the texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) announced its 2016-17 class of faculty fellows which includes four who will be part of the texas a&m university college of engineering the class which includes 10 distinguished scientists and scholars who are nationally or internationally renowned for conducting groundbreaking research in chemistry mathematics engineering medicine astronomy atmospheric science marketing or law will be inducted during the institutes annual gala in early 2017 joining the college of engineering are dr christopher c cummins; dr ingrid daubechies; dr huajian gao; and dr maryellen giger the newest class of faculty fellows includes members of the united states national academies as well as representatives from major scientific or professional organizations in the united states the united kingdom canada and germany each faculty fellow will partner with one or more of the departments offering graduate degrees housed in texas a&ms 16 colleges or schools at texas a&ms branch campus in galveston the institute provides fellowships for graduate students to work with faculty fellows as well as funding to support visiting graduate students and post-doctoral researchers affiliated with the faculty fellows a long-time champion of the institute chancellor john sharp of the texas a&m university system provided the funds that launched tias in 2010 the talent that the tias program brings to texas a&m is causing everyone else in higher education to take notice chancellor sharp said it was money well spent to enrich the academic experience with such world-class scholars and researchers president michael k young of texas a&m university said this fifth class of tias faculty fellows offers truly outstanding credentials in collaboration with our exemplary faculty these fellows will sustain the extraordinary trajectory of tias inspire truly transformative intellectual experiences among our students and advance the international reputation of the texas a&m research enterprise provost and executive vice president karan watson said each of these remarkable individuals offers a strong portfolio of world-class accomplishments in their fields as we have seen with the previous four classes of faculty fellows the research that will emerge from their collaborations with our own outstanding faculty and students will be exciting and extraordinary each year the institute selects its faculty fellows from among top scholars who have distinguished themselves through outstanding professional accomplishments or significant recognition former classes have included two nobel laureates a wolf prize recipient a recipient of the hubble medal in literature for lifetime achievement a recipient of the national medal of science an awardee of the national medal of technology and innovation a recipient of the highest award in architecture and a two-time recipient of the state prize of russia tias founding director john l junkins said this fifth class of 10 outstanding scholars have intellectual strengths centered in six colleges however their scholarship impacts many disciplines these fellows being in residence afford our faculty and students extraordinary opportunities to collaborate one-on-one with top people in their fields we expect game-changing and life-changing outcomes as a consequence christopher c cummins henry dreyfus professor of chemistry massachusetts institute of technology – among the most innovative synthetic chemists of his generation known for his impact on small molecule activation cummins is a member of the american academy of arts and sciences and a corresponding member of germanys göttingen academy of sciences and humanities cummins will collaborate with faculty-researchers from the college of science and the college of engineering ingrid daubechies james b duke professor of mathematics and electrical and computer engineering duke university – one of the worlds most cited mathematicians recognized for her study of the mathematical methods that enhance image-compression technology daubechies is a member of the national academy of engineering the national academy of sciences and the american academy of arts and sciences daubechies will collaborate with faculty-researchers from the college of science and the college of engineering huajian gao walter h annenberg professor of engineering brown university – known for his research into micromechanics the basic principles that control mechanical properties and behaviors of materials in both engineering and biology gao is a member of the national academy of engineering he will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the college of engineering maryellen giger an pritzker professor of radiology and college vice-chair for basic science research the university of chicago – an expert in computer-aided diagnosis as well as digital signal and image processing giger is a member of the national academy of engineering she will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the college of engineering as well as with scientists and clinicians in the texas a&m health science center the houston medical center and local hospitals about the texas a&m university institute for advanced study: the texas a&m university institute for advanced study was established in december 2010 by the texas a&m university system board of regents to build on the growing academic reputation of texas a&m and to provide a framework to attract top scholars from throughout the nation and abroad for appointments of up to a year the selection of faculty fellows initiates with faculty nominations of national academies and nobel prize-caliber scholars who align with existing strengths and ambitions of the university to learn more visit http://tiastamuedu about research at texas a&m university: as one of the world's leading research institutions texas a&m is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery including that of science and technology research conducted at texas a&m represented annual expenditures of more than $8666 million in fiscal year 2015 texas a&m ranked in the top 20 of the national science foundations higher education research and development survey (2014) based on expenditures of more than $854 million in fiscal year 2014 texas a&ms research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit http://researchtamuedu
1531,the earth can only handle so many contaminants in excess water released into the environment by homes businesses and industries before becoming overwhelmed to prevent this daunting introduction of pollutants to the environment wastewater must be treated adequately prior to being released dr yongheng huang associate professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m university is working to develop cost-effective water treatment technologies to meet industrial agricultural and domestic needs we focus on discovering and using iron chemistry to immobilize and secure heavy metals and to remove nutrients and other undesired impurities from various impaired liquid streams huang said we use these new understandings to develop innovative water technologies and solutions to help meet our societys needs in reducing water pollution protecting our environment and safeguarding public health huangs research led to the invention of the activated iron technology that has been exclusively licensed by the texas a&m university system and texas a&m agrilife research to evoqua water technologies llc the new technology has been commercialized as a cornerstone for evoqua for water and wastewater treatment including electric power mining refinery and other industries as well as for environmental remediation and municipal drinking water applications huang said the invention was accomplished after a series of breakthroughs made by huang in iron chemistry to help sustain iron corrosion reactivity these breakthroughs have solved the issue related to the formation of passive iron oxide coatings on iron surface that could stop iron corrosion reaction often referred to as iron passivation which has troubled scientists and the industry for many years the main chemical used by the activated iron technology is metallic iron powder which is inexpensive and widely available around the world huang said with the solving of the iron passivation issue the technology could now use the full reactive power of iron for targeted contaminant treatment thus greatly reducing the usage rate of the chemicals and generating less solid wastes the new technology is robust and versatile capable of removing a broad spectrum of toxic materials from some of the most challenging and complex wastewaters the materials removed include metals such as selenium mercury arsenic chromium cadmium vanadium and lead if these metals were left untreated in the wastewater and discharged into the receiving water bodies they could hurt the health of the environment disrupting the ecosystem and in many cases pose an immediate or long-term threat to human health through this process soluble and toxic heavy metals in wastewater are transformed and secured in non-toxic solid forms mostly being incorporated into the iron rust produced from iron corrosion huang said the new technology is a solution for industry to be within the new united states environmental protection agency (usepa) effluent limitations guidelines (elgs) the activated iron technology is a cost-effective solution for the steam-electric power industry to comply with the new usepa elgs on mercury arsenic and selenium discharge huang said with the success of the activated iron technology a single treatment can now decrease selenium arsenic and mercury simultaneously to below the elg limits; particularly it can remove mercury to a much lower concentration than other technologies can achieve effective in removing a broad spectrum of heavy metals and metalloids from many of the most challenging and complex water streams the technology is gaining attention in various industries around the world
1532,"""in north america alone it is expected that nearly 200 coal-fired power plants will be required to install new wastewater treatment facilities at a total cost of billions of dollars in the next few years in order to comply with the new elg regulation huang said the technology being part of the clean coal solution could contribute in a significant way to reduce pollution associated with coal industry similarly the technology can be used in many industries troubled by heavy metals pollutions around the world huangs team is aiming to refine and further improve the activated iron technology and expand the application scope to cover more pollutants and impaired water sources in addition the team digs into the fundamental chemistry to further advance the understandings of the mechanisms and kinetics related to the interactions among metallic iron iron oxides and contaminants we believe there are numerous potentials in iron chemistry that have yet to be discovered and that may help solve some existing or emerging environmental problems huang said we will strive to advance the science of iron chemistry and fulfill its potential as a powerful tool for protecting our environment and human health"
1533,"students from the texas a&m university-kingsvilles (tamuk) chapter of the american nuclear society (ans) attended a tour of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university that included two laboratories under professors from the nuclear science security and policy institute (nsspi) the nuclear science center the texas a&m university college of engineering career fair and a department seminar the students were able to view different types of equipment used in the labs and gain more exposure to the field of nuclear engineering a discipline that is not offered at tamuk the first thing i noticed was how personable everyone one was said abdullah weiss a junior mechanical engineering major and president of ans at tamuk it also seems like there are a lot of opportunities here for research and that is something that interests me as well"""
1534,the group of 20 students toured the labs of research assistant professor and director of nsspi dr sunil chirayath and assistant professor and deputy director of nsspi dr craig marianno the students received an introduction to radiation detection equipment a discussion on the applications of dosimetry and current research projects the students represent a growing interest in the field of nuclear engineering that is developing at tamuk many of the students are looking to attend texas a&m for graduate school the curiosity that has really increased is in the minor program at kingsville in nuclear engineering said nick pizaña a senior mechanical engineering student to my knowledge its become one of the biggest minor programs in engineering i find the field interesting personally because of the waste aspect weiss said the issue of what were going to do with that nuclear waste is important to me and ensuring that we dispose of or utilize it correctly is going to have an impact on the futurethe students are drawn to nuclear engineering for their own reasons but a common thread is the idea of taking part in research that has an ability to affect future generations the students also had the opportunity to attend the opening of the ray rothrock lecture series where nuclear venture capitalist ray rothrock delivered a seminar on the future of nuclear innovation and leadership within the nuclear industry there is a certain level of importance in nuclear engineering as far as it being a delicate field where the detail is crucially important and where those details affect a lot of factors pizaña said i think it has the potential to impact a lot of things
1535,"dr edward kavazanjian jr director of the center for bio-mediated and bio-inspired geotechnics at arizona state university is the 2016 buchanan lecturer kavazanjians lecture is titled bio-geo-alchemy: biogeotechnical carbonate precipitation for hazard mitigation and ground improvement the buchanan lecture is held in honor of dr spencer j buchanans life and legacy at texas a&m university buchanan dedicated his life to the service and education of others he was a texas a&m distinguished professor a founder of the bryan boys club and a world leader in geotechnical engineering every year the buchanan lecture is held in his honor aiming to educate and motivate present-day geotechnical engineers the lecture is organized by dr jean-louis briaud distinguished professor and holder of the spencer j buchanan chair in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m this year the lecture is sponsored by fugro consultants inc also on the agenda is dr donald a bruce president of geosystems lp who will be presenting his 2015 terzaghi lecture ""the evolution of specialty geotechnical construction techniques"" the terzaghi lecture was established by the geo-institute of the american society of civil engineers in 1960 this lectureship is an annual award coupled with a lecture that addresses modern research in the field of geotechnical engineering lecturers are recognized for their outstanding and sustainable contributions to geotechnical engineering that can be utilized in the united states the lectures will take place in the brazos amphitheater at the college station hilton starting at 2 pm on oct 14"
1536,dr raymundo arróyave associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to the board of directors of the minerals metals and materials society (tms) he begins his new role in the spring tms promotes the global science and engineering professions related to minerals metals and materials that impacts the society as a whole said arróyave i am deeply honored by being elected by the membership to serve tms in this capacity currently arróyave serves as associate editor of the journal of materials science letters and the journal of phase equilibria and diffusion (jped) he also is the vice-chair of asm internationals alloy phase diagram committee which oversees the editorial direction of jped among other activities related to the dissemination of knowledge on the thermodynamics and kinetics of materials he is also vice-chair of the functional materials division of tms and will assume the position of chair in the spring arróyave received the 2014 distinguished service award from the electronic magnetic and photonic materials division (empmd) of tms arróyave directs the computational materials science lab which uses computational materials science tools to investigate material properties at different scales of length and time the research team uses a variety of tools ab initio calculations molecular dynamics monte carlo phase-field models and calphad to investigate the fundamental properties of complex materials tms is a professional organization of 12 000 scientists and engineers that encompasses the entire range of materials and engineering from minerals processing and primary metals production to basic research and the advanced applications of materials
1537,dr sam mannan dr tahir cagin and dr arnab chakrabarty have co-authored a book that focuses on addressing the use of multiscale modeling in process safety mannan is the director of the mary kay oconnor process safety center regents professor and holder of the t michael oconnor chair i in artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university cagin is a professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m chakrabarty who completed his phd in chemical engineering in 2008 at texas a&m is the director of process technology at virden chemicals cagin was chakrabartys graduate adviser the book multiscale modeling for process safety applications explores practical approaches to multiscale modeling in safety applications to address safety problems in all levels of modeling the in-depth and informative text features examples and case studies to help readers understand the mapping between problem detail and effective usage of resources for example it demonstrates how a flammable vapor cloud might behave if ignited mannan is involved in hazard assessment and risk analysis process hazard identification hazard and operability (hazop) studies vulnerability assessment process safety management and risk management his research interests include development of inherently safer processes; application of computational fluid dynamics to study the explosive characteristics of flammable gases; development of quantitative methods to determine incompatibility among various chemicals; application of calorimetric methods for the assessment of reactive hazards; and application of consequence analyses to assess the impact of process plant incidents cagins research interests include designing materials and material structures to improve the energy conversion from abundant sources such as thermal mechanical chemical and light to useable forms such as electricity his research group analyzes the processing pathways using non-equilibrium statistical thermodynamics through advanced molecular dynamics methods
1538,dr malini natarajarathinam and dr mathew kuttolamadom have been awarded a $284 985 grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to introduce a self-sustaining manufacturing and distribution program to students living in underserved latino communities along the south texas border natarajarathinam and kuttolamadom professors in complementary programs within the department of engineering technology & distribution at texas a&m university are co-principal investigators for the initiative along with dr sharon lynn chu from the college of architecture at texas a&m dr francis quek professor in the department of visualization is the principal investigator the funded proposal making in the colonias: motivating stem participation through making as micro-manufacture aims to teach area high school students how to manufacture and distribute instructional hands-on science kits to elementary schools in their community by being part of making-production teams (mpt) there is a big movement to involve children in actually making things and learning by creating says natarajarathinam who teaches in the industrial distribution program within the department kids are learning by putting things together hands-on versus watching a video or reading about it in a book expanding upon the successful project making the maker the initiative will introduce stem principles so students can eventually help their communities independently and in a sustainable manner currently engineering technology and industrial distribution students are responsible for ordering manufacturing and distributing the parts for the kits; the new project will bring high school students to texas a&m so engineering technology and industrial distribution faculty can help impart knowledge and skills via summer training workshops undergraduates will serve as distance mentors to high school students in the colonias who will implement manufacturing supply chain management and industrial distribution principles in their hometown and provide science kits to local elementary school children i will be creating the workshop parts and curriculum on the fabrication and manufacturing side – drilling 3-d printing putting things together – and [natarajarathinam] will be taking care of the logistics supply chain industrial distribution side says kuttolamadom from the manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology program in the department classified as an early-concept grant for exploratory research (eager) the two-year endeavor is considered high-risk high reward that will explore untested but potentially transformative research ideas or approaches according to the nsf if successful the project could receive larger funding and be expanded on a state or even national scale this cutting-edge engineering education research is not rare in the department; faculty are continuously transforming the lives of students and communities at texas a&m and beyond
1539,dr krzysztof a michalski associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been elevated to life fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) the life fellow designation is a special honor reserved for individuals who have truly distinguished themselves through their sustained and lasting contributions to ieee michalski was first elevated to the ieee fellow grade in 2000 for the development of numerical solution methods in electromagnetic scattering antennas and microwave circuits michalskis research interests include numerical and analytical methods for the solution of electromagnetic boundary value problems with emphasis on field interaction with plane-stratified media his recent honors include winning the 2015 ieee antenna and propagation sergei a schelkunoff transactions prize paper award
1540,dr laszlo kish professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named distinguished guest professor of hunan university kish received the title for research collaborations with the university located in changsha china kish visited the university last august to collaborate on a research project with professor he wen his former visiting scholar at texas a&m during that time he also taught a shortened version of his low-noise electronic design course and organized a conference during a previous visit kish directs the fluctuation and noise exploitation laboratory in the department and also is a researcher in the electrical and computer engineering division of the texas a&m engineering experiment station his general research interests include the study of laws limits and applications of electronic noise processes for sensing communication and information processing such applications are fluctuation-enhanced sensing unconditionally secure communications zero-signal-power communications and noise-based logic hunan university is one of the oldest and most important national universities in china
1541,virginia stiles westbrook 77 robert f stiles 79 and david t stiles 81 have established the shirley & loren harvin stiles 46 endowed memorial scholarship in memory of their parents undergraduate students pursuing a degree in civil engineering from texas a&m will be eligible for this scholarship loren harvin stiles graduated with a bachelors degree in civil engineering from texas a&m he received the purple heart and the bronze star medal after fighting in world war ii and was an honorary professional licensed engineer his wife shirley gave to texas a&m for over 40 years primarily to the association of former students westbrook received her bachelors degree in education and curriculum and instruction and her brothers robert and david earned their degrees in civil engineering and mechanical engineering respectively
1542,enervest management partners ltd has contributed to the mark and lou houser scholarship in petroleum engineering established in 2008 by mark and lou hedgcoxe houser of houston the scholarship recognizes high-achieving undergraduates in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university enervest is one of the 25 largest oil and gas companies in the united states and has more than 1200 employees they are headquartered in houston
1543,betty g and amos c white 72 have been active supporters of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and texas a&m university for more than 30 years their most recent gift has established the betty and craig white 72 scholarship which provides financial assistance to students pursuing an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m amos graduated in 1972 with a chemical engineering degree from texas a&m and is the director of engineering at fluor daniel incorporated he and his wife live in sugar land texas they have a daughter kristin who graduated from texas a&m in 2003
1544,the children of dr toby eubank valerie peck 91 and steven eubank have established the dr toby eubank memorial scholarship in honor of their late father distributions of this endowment will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students pursuing an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at texas a&m university toby eubank was a faculty member in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m for more than 40 years he received numerous awards for teaching research and service during his tenure at texas a&m and was credited with six us patents eubank passed away in 2011
1545,"student innovation was truly the theme for the latest aggies invent medical devices physical therapy aids water quality testing weed eaters and fashion mobile apps were just some of the innovative student products ideated at the event held sept 16-18 on the texas a&m university campus aggies invent promotes an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset among students it gathers invited students provides them with the needs statements allows them to self-select teams and gives them access to support from the engineering innovation center (eic) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours for the first time aggies invent flipped the script and put the students in control of the topics for the weekend aggies invent: bring your own idea kicked off with students pitching their ideas to the whole group they selected the top 10 for development fifty-two students participated in this aggies invent students today are so creative and are always coming up with great ideas said rodney boehm director of aggies invent and associate professor of practice i hear a new idea almost every day we thought lets give the students a way to develop their ideas into solutions bring your own idea was born taking first prize was snap desk a lightweight portable backpack that transformed into a desk and chair for children snap desk is designed for children in developing nations to have a desk chair and backpack because many schools are underequipped and far from their homes team members included allison korner management information systems muhammad aun industrial and systems engineering purvit soni civil engineering gabriel wang electrical and computer engineering and jon rickert and omar dauleh from mechanical engineering hex support a redesigned crutch came in second place the team was comprised of andrew allen electrical engineering diego garcia biomedical engineering and julie garza xavier benavides tyler wooten and christopher rech from mechanical engineering the hex support crutch was redesigned to include a hexagonal design for improved comfort cushioned crutch tip for improved traction control and maneuvering skills and collapsible design for traveling the third place prize went to quick eater a redesigned weed eater string control head to more efficiently string the tool the quick eater retrofits weed eaters with an improved design to change the cutting line and simplify the process team members included nirmal patel electrical and computer engineering ryan alderink computer engineering and saurabh balla management information systems this aggies invent was judged by dr johnny hurtado associate dean for engineering academic and student affairs dr akash tyagi professor of practice from computer science dr saurabh biswas professor from biomedical engineering and blake petty director for the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively for their awards the presentations and awards do not mean the innovation is complete each team is invited to continue developing its product with access to the eic and mentors throughout the process teams also have the opportunity to work with startup aggieland for additional assistance ""the students who participate in aggies invent continue to impress me through their creativity determination and teamwork said hurtado i encourage all engineering students and faculty to take their turn in participating in an aggies invent it's a wonderful experience"" more information on aggies invent and all upcoming events can be found here"
1546,ross luna a junior in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university had the unique opportunity of participating in the 10-week research experience for undergraduates this summer students from texas a&m and penn state universitys colleges of engineering coordinated to create this program that aims to promote mutual awareness and collaboration between faculty and students at the two prestigious universities additionally it provided opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in real research projects early in their academic careers the goal is that these experiences will help broaden their engineering education early in their studies the program was split into two five-week sections half at texas a&m and half at penn state while at texas a&m luna did his research with dr zachary grasley associate professor in the civil engineering department studying how leaching affects mechanical properties in cement mortar students had the opportunity to design their own cement mortar induce it to leaching in ammonium nitrate and test their samples in tension and compression using the machinery in the civil engineering research labs luna also enjoyed the opportunity to show the students from penn state around campus teach them aggie traditions introduce them to texas barbeque and take them on a road trip to austin to celebrate the fourth of july at penn state luna conducted research under dr aleksandra radlinska assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering this research focused on how different cement mixtures performed against restrained shrinkage around steel reinforcements the goal of the research at both universities was to explore ways to increase the longevity and durability of concrete the students were able to take part in real research and assist respected professionals in their fields of study at the end of the program luna and his partner were able to present the results of their research to multiple professors from various fields of engineering it was an amazing experience and it truly opened my eyes to wanting to pursue graduate school in structural engineering at texas a&m said luna the trip wasnt all about work though during their free time in pennsylvania students took a trip to philadelphia during the democratic national convention visited new york city and attended a pittsburg pirates baseball game the opportunity to participate in such research made a lasting impact on the students involved i am glad to have participated in the program said luna i learned so much and now want to attend graduate school in the future contributing author: ryan terry
1547,when you think of the future what do you see self-driving cars objects that ‘talk to one another via the internet or maybe high-functioning robots no matter what you picture the future of technology will certainly be coming from one field in particular mechatronics this union of electrical and mechanical engineering technology will bring the internet of things to life; it is now an undergraduate program at texas a&m university the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) is excited to offer a new multidisciplinary engineering technology (mxet) degree with an emphasis in mechatronics the first of its kind in the state of texas the new mechatronics program is the vision of etid department head dr reza langari who knows first-hand the value and need for such a program at texas a&m there are two major factors involved said langari one there is continued interest in the job market for graduates who have interdisciplinary skills in mechanical design electronics and software to develop more comprehensive integrative products two we are looking at expanding beyond texas a&m in college station; there is demand for a broad-based engineering technology degree at branch campuses and community colleges we developed a program with the intent to serve both purposes built on two abet accredited programs electronic systems engineering technology (eset) and manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology (mmet) mxet emphasizes technical areas identified through industry and faculty collaboration the 127-hour curriculum combines a comprehensive range of hands-on disciplines including mechanical electrical communications control and computer systems to get a better scope of what this means for students mxet program coordinator dr joseph morgan shared the feedback he has received from industry professionals theres a tremendous interest and support from the private sector … aerospace automotive oil and gas medical are all talking about mechatronics said morgan instead of needing to hire both an electrical and mechanical engineer companies will have the option to bring on an mxet graduate who has a general understanding of both disciplines national instruments and other companies have shown strong interest in [mxet] – they are supporting it said morgan students are drawn as well because it provides a set of skills that are very marketable after gaining a fundamental understanding of mechanical and electrical engineering from eset and mmet curricula students will take mxet-specific courses uniting both disciplines as well as capstone classes tackling real-world problems students will use labview software and national instruments real-time input-output (ni rio) technology for hands-on learning in the mechatronics courses thanks to etids relationship with national instruments students will utilize nis commercial-grade myrio and crio devices for mxet i and ii respectively students will gain experience with real industrial hardware and be able to transport their knowledge of labview so they can hit the ground running upon graduation said morgan they will already know what the real world is like in mobile and manufacturing robotics according to the latest long-term employment projections mxet graduates will not have a problem finding a high-paying job after finishing school: usa engineering employment growth outlook 2012-2022 occupation growthrate annualpay number of jobsin 2022 mechanical engineers (bs) 5% $80 580 269 700 electrical & electronics engineers (bs) 4% $89 630 318 700 software developers 22% $93 350 1 240 600 texas long-term employment projections (2012-2022) occupation growth rate annual pay annual average job opening electrical engineers 208% $101 126 580 electronics engineers ex computer 222% $100 002 485 mechanical engineers 200% $99 073 990 software developer applications 251% $97 035 1 540 since mxet combines multiple engineering disciplines graduates will be uniquely qualified for a myriad of lucrative careers upon graduation mechatronics is the only emphasis for mxet at the moment but more options are planned for the future this framework will allow etid to offer unique multidisciplinary engineering degrees catered specifically to student industry and job demands for more information on the mxet program contact morgan jmorgan@tamuedu 979-575-0128
1548,jim chisholm a doctoral student in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university was awarded a fellowship with the texas a&m university mentored research program in space life science the fellowship provides for $22 000 in tuition and fees and includes a mandatory internship at johnson space center in the summer the internship requires participants to take four classes revolving around space life science and kinesiology as well as partake in two experiential training programs the fellowship is also part of the space and life sciences certificate program that focuses on teaching students a combination of topics involving kinesiology radio-biology and nutrition were essentially looking at how to keep people healthy and happy going to mars preventing muscles from wasting away and protecting against radiation damage chisholm said muscles and bones atrophy in space and we have to develop countermeasures for long term space flight chisholm was encouraged to apply for the fellowship by his faculty adviser dr john ford associate professor in the department working with ford chisholm studies microbes and radiation specifically using microbes to generate electricity my research project is trying to design a type of microbial fuel cell system chisholm said we are looking at how a microbial fuel cell functions in low-earth orbit and i suspect that some microbes have their metabolisms improve in this kind of environment improving their ability to remove radium out of aqueous solutions with the ability to remove radium out of aqueous solutions improved the microbes could theoretically take things such as waste water and transform it into something usable a microbial fuel cell could also provide other benefits to astronauts while working within the spacecraft the use of nuclear engineering is pertinent in this research because radiation is used to improve the function of these microbes in generating electricity and other byproducts the idea is to use something that could be used in a spacecraft an item that has few moving parts to generate electricity for the craft chisholm said a microbial fuel cell can be configured to do a number of things that would be useful on a manned space mission prior to his studies in nuclear engineering chisholm served as an attorney but felt he could be more productive and impactful with his time by contributing to the sciences i was helping people in my job but i wanted to get involved in something on a bigger scale and start producing something chisholm said i started looking for something i felt was going to make a difference on a bigger scale chisholm will be conducting lower-orbit testing to send microbes and an apparatus into low-earth orbit to simulate various radiation conditions this will help approximate the conditions of a real space flight i really love to do this type of work but i never thought this was realistic to do stuff in space because it hasnt been generating a lot of interest as i have seen lately chisholm said im hoping for good results with my research and for the experiment to go well im excited to see where we go from here contributing author: ryan terry
1549,when asked why he accepted the leadership position for the new center for infrastructure renewal (cir) dr bjorn birgissons answer is simple: tti and texas a&m are the best place in the world to be for infrastructure research his claim might sound glib but its born of experience trained as a professional engineer in the united states and with extensive experience in the united kingdom and sweden birgisson is an expert on the current state of infrastructure research and implementation and he brings that broader perspective to his new roles as cir director and tees distinguished research professor and a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university in northern europe youre taught to think of things from a systems perspective he explains for example how does an efficient construction supply chain help in repairing this particular road cost effectively in the united states its more often more about the methodology itself involved in repairing the road and the best way to do that birgisson hopes to combine bothan appreciation for the bigger picture with the focused know-how of the us approach to maintenanceas he shapes the cirs strategic direction his philosophy is an inclusive one that seeks a holistic multidisciplinary method to solving problems of infrastructure management and development im a consensus builder says birgisson i like to listen to talk to people as we learn to do more with less in terms of resources finding new efficiencies across disciplines will prove essential to that process he sees the center as an anchor for establishing true leadership in infrastructure engineering around the globe: a place where professionals from various disciplines can come together and share ideas to find unique solutions ultimately the kinds of projects pursued will need to not only fix the potholes of the past but also look to smart technologies such as embedded sensors to help improve the science and timeliness of preventive maintenance our roads are getting smarter and thats a good thing says birgisson our research methodologies have to get smarter too so beyond the day-to-day projects in the center i want to work with center contributors to create three to five innovative research directions that have the potential to really make a difference better sustainability reduced maintenance costs safer systemswe must design with these in mind one need look no further than birgissons favorite hobby to understand his strategy for the cir he grew up fishing and still sees it as an opportunity for quiet reflection far away from the fast pace of first-world problem-solving still one can see the thoughtful researcher at work even while hes at play both art and science are involved what are the fish eating what are the weather conditions fishing involves strategy of course but also a feel for the fish as you reel him in he says it requires intuition as much as domain knowledge catching a fish is not that different from making a breakthrough in research when you think about it birgisson is quick to note that hes a catch-and-release guy which speaks to his belief in sustainability asked what hed like tti to know about him as he takes the reins of the cir birgisson pauses for a moment id like them to know that im going to work hard for them and with them to make this the premier research facility of its kind in the world he says and one of the first things on my list this fall is to seek endowments and other fundraising opportunities to make the center a success over time the cir will house researchers developing advanced and sustainable materials and structural systems aimed at reducing cost and extend infrastructure life safety resiliency and durability the center is a shared facility of the texas a&m engineering experiment station and tti and groundbreaking will take place on september 26 at the rellis campus birgisson is the former pro vice-chancellor and executive dean in aston universitys school of engineering and applied science
1550,preparing for the take off of faster production lockheed martin and the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university are investigating the use of advanced industrial engineering tools and procedures to study f-35 rate production the main focus of the texas a&m study is the many integrated processes that must be optimized and balanced as the production line of f-35 aircraft ramps up production to meet the customers demand said dr lewis ntaimo an associate professor and the marilyn and l david black faculty fellow in industrial and systems engineering ntaimo and dr amarnath banerjee with the help of graduate students ashley owenby and ryan hillegass are modeling and analyzing the process of assembling an f-35 aircraft at the lockheed martin facility lockheed martin is responsible for putting the final aircraft together said banerjee professor and the corrie and jim furber 64 faculty fellow in the department one company builds the engine another company builds the seat and so on our job is to model the mating of the four fuselage sections followed by the final assembly stations modeling these assembly processes with real-world probability distributions will help us understand the critical process elements and potential bottlenecks as production rates increase lockheed martin has already developed the plans to implement the increased production rate but is open to new techniques that may identify improvements in the current plan lockheed martin plans to increase their f-35 production rate by about four and a half times from their current rate banerjee said the plan is to increase the production rate in stages over the next few quarters after visiting the facility the team of researchers began collaborating on how to go about studying the complex f-35 manufacturing systems and identifying the processes that should become more efficient as production rates increase the application of advanced industrial engineering simulation techniques was of particular interest to lockheed martin in order to do this as industrial engineers we have to understand the processes ntaimo said once we understand the process we capture and model it then we build simulation models that allow us to actually run the process to see how long it takes to get an aircraft out while every plan works perfectly in theory a complex manufacturing system like the f-35 must be able to deal with unanticipated quality material or engineering issues as they arise one such variable is that some jobs that are supposed to be done in a given station due to engineering quality personnel or material issues do not always get finished on time resulting in out of station work banerjee said out of station work typically costs more to complete when it is moved out of its original position on the assembly line so there are buffers in the models to allow for the crews to catch up when there is unfinished work they have to figure out what crew to allocate to the job the level of the unfinished work and who can perform the job when people are reassigned the work rotation becomes non-standard and thus a disruption to the line ideally the buffers should not have any work and should only serve as holding stations which would indicate no out of station work the f-35 is a mixed-model production line producing three variants on the same line which was one of the advantages of the original joint strike fighter affordability strategy in spite of the shared learning and commonality between variants the changeover between them does result in some variability in the system when there is a shift in production from one variant to another disruption occurs from the differences in tasks required to assemble another variant banerjee said additionally not all of the variants are produced in equal numbers when a variant is produced in smaller numbers the production staff is not as familiar with all the steps the team is analyzing different types of data including future production plans and proposed increases in production staff to handle the growing production rate it is a learning process banerjee said the more they make a particular variant the better they get at it the team is first building simulation models that will accurately replicate the results currently seen on the lockheed martin production line we use simulation to see the extent of the variabilities look at the schedules which transitions are happening and when they are occurring banerjee said once we know if this works we will then apply optimization techniques to help efficiently increase the assembly of the planes the optimization problem will involve determining the appropriate levels of decision variables for the production line to meet the desired production schedule for each type of aircraft ntaimo said in addition to optimizing the schedules we want to help lockheed martin minimize the risk of missing any internal scheduled dates if they miss these deadlines then they may incur additional costs brent lyon president of the industrial and systems engineering advisory council and lockheed martin industrial engineering senior manager is looking forward to executing the future plans of the company as it increases the f-35 production rates by bringing in outside eyes with this level of expertise in analytics and optimization we can assure that as we execute our future plans for increasing production rates that we will do so at the most efficient and effective level lyon said
1551,texas a&m engineering ranked eighth among engineering schools at public institutions offering a doctorate according to the latest us news & world report rankings of the countrys undergraduate universities and programs the college of engineering is ranked 16th overall in engineering programs at public and private national universities tied with virginia tech the harold vance department of petroleum engineering had the highest ranking at second overall and among public institutions in the nation while the department of biological and agricultural engineering was fourth in both categories biological and agricultural engineering is part of both the college of engineering and the college of agricultural and life sciences at texas a&m the department of aerospace engineering moved up one spot overall to 11th and maintained its ranking at 7th among public and private universities other specialties ranked among public institutions were: civil 8th; industrial 9th; and mechanical 8th overall civil was 12th; industrial 13th; and mechanical 15th us news & world report does not rank nuclear engineering every year the last time the magazine surveyed this area texas a&ms nuclear engineering program was third (second public)
1552,elizabeth and michael l walzel 82 have established the michael l walzel 82 study abroad scholarship distributions from this endowment will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing participating in study abroad these students must be pursuing an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m university the walzels have been active contributors to texas a&m for more than 30 years with gifts to the association of former students the dwight look college of engineering and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering the walzels reside in houston where michael is a manufacturing leader at dow chemical company they have two children michael t walzel 11 and katherine e walzel 13
1553,tina and sean smith have established the tina l (hrncir) 82 and m sean smith 83 roughneck scholarship this four-year scholarship is awarded to students with financial need who maintain a minimum 25 gpa in petroleum engineering at texas a&m university the smiths have been involved with giving to texas a&m for 10 years including contributions to the 12th man foundation association of former students and the harold vance department of petroleum engineering sean smith is a partner in encap investments lp he currently resides in cypress texas with his wife tina and their three children
1554,dr sp bhattacharyya professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was appointed adjunct professor in the department of electrical engineering at national cheng kung university (ncku) tainan taiwan as honorary adjunct professor bhattacharyya who visited ncku last year to give four lectures is expected to visit ncku one to two weeks per year to deliver lectures and work on collaborative research the hope is to strengthen its research and academic ties with the texas a&m college of engineering bhattacharyya the robert m kennedy '26 professor i in the department was elected a foreign member of the national academy of engineering in brazil in 2015 he obtained his btech degree from iit bombay in 1967 and his phd from rice university in 1971 he joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1980 he has co-authored eight books and nearly 300 papers in the field of control systems was elected ieee fellow in 1989 ifac fellow in 2011 and was named a foreign member of the brazilian academy of sciences in 2012 ncku is a research-led comprehensive university that is considered one of the most prestigious universities in taiwan with a high reputation in science engineering medicine management planning and design us news & world report ranked it the 22nd best global university for engineering and computer science in 2014
1555,a few decades ago harnessing the power of the oceans wind and hydrokinetic energy seemed impossible in august the nations first offshore wind farm was established in rhode island and it is estimated it will produce up to 30 megawatts (mw) of energy enough to power a small town researchers at texas a&m university are using existing technology and experience in the offshore oil and gas industry to apply the designs of a multi-unit floating offshore wind turbine in order to generate economically competitive infinitely renewable no waste or carbon emission energy dr moo hyun kim professor in the department of ocean engineering and dr y h bae an assistant professor at jeju national university in south korea who received his phd in ocean engineering from texas a&m have developed a state-of-the-art numerical simulation program to design study and optimize the multi-unit offshore wind turbines in oceans deeper than 50 meters the atlantic ocean is best suited for wind energy said kim texas also has some potential there will be more floating wind turbines in deeper water depths in the future since deeper waters are less sensitive to regulations and opposition from residents typically a floating offshore wind turbine is a complicated structure that needs more sophisticated control and station keeping compared to a fixed wind turbine on land a multi-unit floating offshore wind turbine is an engineering design marvel said kim it consists of multiple wind turbines on a single floating platform it can also serve multiple purposes hosting other ocean energy converters such as wave and current energy converters and solar panels predicting and simulating the global performance of such a complicated energy station in ever-changing ocean environments is a big challenge the researchers numerical simulation program fast-charm3d calculates the dynamics between the entire turbine structure such as the aero-rotor-tower-controller-float-mooring units in real time the energy station can host multiple wind turbines and wave energy converters as a result several aspects of the energy station can be computed and analyzed by a single run of the program the american bureau of shipping posco and the united states department of energys research partnership to secure energy for america program supported the prior stage of fast-charm3d development kim contributed to the mooring dynamics module of the most recent version of fast the most widely used wind-turbine program in the world developed by the national renewable energy laboratory the floating offshore wind turbine industry is still emerging said kim while fast-charm3d is not commercialized yet the american bureau of shipping the worlds largest offshore/ship certification agency has already adopted it to develop their design guidelines for offshore floating wind turbines broadening the spectrum of renewable energy the researchers foresee adding structures collecting ocean current energy and solar energy to the existing multi-unit offshore structure a well-operated offshore energy station could combine wind energy wave energy ocean currents energy and solar energy to provide on-demand power for land-based or sea-based activities when wind turbines may not be able to generate enough power these other sources of energy could compensate ensuring a near-constant supply of electricity advancement in integration of renewable ocean energy sources into one single ocean energy station could meet specific demand by us armed forces to provide energy for a foreign remote location or a mobile offshore military base kims unique computer simulation program can resolve the grand challenge of integrating and controlling a multi-source energy station in real-time from a remote location it can optimize and improve the operations production and efficiency of the energy station in ever-changing ocean environments
1556,trifusion devices founded by dr blake teipel (left) and charles brandon sweeney (right) produces customizable 3-d-printed prosthetics a stack of sticky notes pulled in either direction typically wont separate however a single sticky note when peeled comes right off the stack of sticky notes a rather rudimentary example of physics behind three-dimensional printing shows how additive manufacturing works in its simplest form it involves creating three-dimensional objects gradually building them layer after layer in a single process this differs from more traditional top-down manufacturing where materials are machined ground forged molded bent cut welded or glued into their final form since the beginning nothing the co-founders of trifusion devices have done has been traditional dr blake teipel a recent phd graduate and charles brandon sweeney a graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university are microwaving and welding a carbon nanotube-coated 3-d printer filament to fuse together parts to make next generation 3-d printed biomedical and sporting devices two million americans face some sort of limb loss and on an average 500 limbs are lost each day prosthetic devices are very expensive and dont fit as well as they should a prosthetic leg may cost up to $10 000 and take six to eight weeks to construct trifusion devices was founded to produce customizable 3-d-printed prosthetics the technology enables design fabrication and fitting of a prosthetic device in 48 hours rather than six to eight weeks unlike current technology trifusion devices customized prosthetic and orthotic devices are cost-effective whether it's apparel or a piece of sporting equipment traditionally there are four or five sizes small medium large extra large extra-extra large said teipel when it comes to prosthetic sockets and orthotic devices that's not an option it has to be your size fits you not just let's get it close it's simply not an option the cofounders developed a 3-d printer with an integrated microwave unit that allows them to weld the layers of a 3-d printed part together making it as strong as an injection molded or machined counterpart to provide that type of customization today takes a long time with expensive materials and the device must be hand-built said sweeney three-dimensional printing combined with our materials changes the whole equation the co-founders saw the potential of their technology in applications where mass-customization was not initially possible currently trifusion devices is involved in clinical and beta testing of its definitive sockets next year it will expand into production of custom sporting equipment such as football helmets pads and shin guards as well as military products like non-ballistic soft body armor and helmets there is going to be an ever-increasing need for mass customization where you're going to have an option to get a device that was made specifically for you said sweeney it would be ergonomically designed for that user that's going to make all the difference in the world for applications in the biomedical industry sporting equipment and protective devices for military the partners want to address the global need for prosthetic and orthotic devices especially in developing countries they are working with the rotary club of lakeway/lake travis texas and the baylor college of medicine to provide affordable prosthetic devices to children in tanzania the co-founders plan to evaluate and track the performance of their technology on volunteers who are testing the devices at the clinical stage after the completion of phase-one clinical tests they will be partnering with the veterans administrations in houston and dallas to fit the prosthetic sockets sweeney and teipel will be submitting a 510(k) premarket submission to the united states federal drug administration in the next few months once approved trifusion devices can deliver its devices to the general public in collaboration with prosthetic and orthotic clinics during one of the tests teipel and sweeney witnessed a patient grinning from ear to ear while walking and wearing trifusion devices' prosthetic device we know that if we keep doing our job then we will have that experience so many more times with so many more people said sweeney we will be working tirelessly to continue innovation in 3-d printing technologies that impact the lives of people everywhere
1557,"texas a&m university chevron and austin community college (acc) have announced the formation of the texas a&m-chevron engineering academy at acc an innovative co-enrollment partnership developed to address the states growing need for engineers qualified students will be admitted to the texas a&m college of engineering complete the first two years of coursework at acc and finish their engineering degrees in college station texas the texas a&m-chevron engineering academies will allow students to remain close to home for their first two years while pursuing one of 18 majors within the college of engineering at texas a&m this program is being generously supported by chevron we were excited to be contacted by austin community college to explore an engineering academy partnership and are pleased now to offer acc students a unique pathway toward a first-rate degree from an engineering college ranked among the top 10 in the world said chancellor john sharp our goal is to attract the very best students to texas a&m engineering even if circumstances require them to stay close to home for the first two years of college these students will be aggies in austin from day one its about opportunity this academy makes it possible for more students to pursue their dreams; starting at acc and finishing at one of the most prestigious engineering schools in the nation said dr richard rhodes acc president and ceo this partnership is a great example of industry and higher education working together to accelerate pathways into the workforce a 2012 report by the presidents advisory council on science and technology projected that 1 million more stem degrees would be needed in the next decade in texas alone the projected need for engineers in the workforce is 62 000 by 2022 to meet this need universities and two-year colleges will need to work together to bridge the gap and attract and retain students who are interested in stem fields ""acc has inked another innovative partnership which will help area employers receive more quality engineering talent said drew scheberle austin chamber of commerce senior vice president its important that we do our job and recruit them to return to central texas after graduation"" chevron has donated $5 million to support five total texas a&m-chevron engineering academies across the state that include austin community college; houston community college spring branch in houston; texas southmost college in brownsville; el centro college in dallas; and alamo colleges in san antonio texas a&m also has successful engineering academies at the blinn college campuses in brenham and bryan chevron is committed to increasing access to and the quality of education around the world and is excited to be able to continue our longstanding relationship with texas a&m through support of the engineering academy initiative our engineering academies will help provide opportunities in the field of engineering for many underrepresented and first generation college students said shariq yosufzai chevron vice president of global diversity ombuds & university partnerships & association relations partnering with texas a&m a top source of engineering hires for chevron to help provide opportunities in the field of engineering will support our efforts to help build the diverse workforce of tomorrow that will be required to meet the energy needs of the future texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean m katherine banks said the academies have the potential to reach beyond the typical pathways for access to a top-ranked engineering program the academies through our partnership with chevron and the two-year colleges provide new pathways to a first-rate engineering education said banks through this co-enrollment program students can live at home for the first two years of college without postponing their participation in an engineering program that is highly regarded by employers across the country"
1558,the master of industrial distribution (mid) program at texas a&m university hosted its annual residency week aug 8-12 in college station texas this year 120 professionals attended making it one of the programs largest classes to date residency week is filled with intensive learning focused on the latest trends in industrial distribution as well as activities to help students build stronger relationships with their peers in addition students have the opportunity to meet the faculty who are in regular contact with them throughout the year students in the mid program are required to participate in two residency weeks; two groups the classes of 2017 and 2018 attended this year while on campus students have the opportunity to discover texas a&ms rich heritage and traditions professors present lectures discussions case studies and classroom activities this brings the class of 2017 one step closer to graduation; their second-year residency week focused on beginning a nine-month capstone project for those in the class of 2018 this years residency week started with classes in distribution management and leadership allowing them to bond with their classmates the master of industrial distribution program is a 21-month distance education graduate program the largest of its kind in the college of engineering specifically designed to serve the needs of working professionals who require flexibility in their schedules and location the program teaches students to think globally integrate trends acquire knowledge and act strategically for more information visit midtamuedu
1559,texas gov greg abbott on friday helped unveil a new mode of transportation and applauded the partnership of university research and industry investment that made it possible abbott was joined by texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp in rolling out the autonomous freight shuttle system (fss) which operates on its own guideway using single remotely controlled transporters carrying truck trailers or shipping containers powered by linear-induction electric motors its the product of exemplary collaboration the governor noted for more than a decade texas has been the number-one exporting state in america and freight movement is vitally important to our states economy abbott said as the product of innovative research at the texas a&m transportation institute the freight shuttle system will help ensure that we are able to meet our growing demand for efficient freight movement in texas and ensure our long-term prosperity sharp emphasized the a&m systems commitment to public-private ventures our system universities are places where brilliant ideas emerge as visions and our private investment markets are places where those visions can be transformed into commercial reality sharp said freight shuttle international and the texas a&m transportation institute are showing us today how such partnerships can transform our states future the first commercial example of that transformation officials said on friday could be underway soon at the port of houston authority (pha) where increased container traffic has grown even greater since the expansion of the panama canal pha executive director roger guenther said that pha officials and officials of freight shuttle international llc (fsi) have agreed in a recently signed memorandum of understanding to work together to evaluate options over the next few months for deployment of the fss at the port pha and fsi will announce more details of the agreement on monday the fss is the result of more than a decade of research at tti said tti agency director dennis christiansen the technology has produced 17 patents held jointly by the a&m system and fsi researchers say the fss borrows the best characteristics from both truck and rail transport and uses only about one-third the energy required by diesel trucks additional benefits of the fss include: zero point-of-service emissions – dramatically less pollution than from trucks reduced roadway congestion reduced potential for truck-related highway crashes improved delivery time reliability reduced infrastructure damage the fss is being introduced at a time when the freight industry faces mounting challenges –strained rail and roadway system capacity environmental concerns and a chronic shortage of truck drivers to name only a few the industry cannot thrive without augmenting our existing transportation system and fundamentally changing how we approach freight movement fss inventor and fsi founder/chairman steve roop says the freight shuttle system is designed to blend into todays intermodal network integrating proven technologies with novel patented designs into a new mode of transportation
1560,dallas little senior research fellow at the texas a&m transportation institute gave the cl monismith lecture at the geo-chicago conference august 17 the american society of civil engineers (asce) geo-institute (g-i) is one of the eight specialty asce institutes geotechnical engineering is concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials little was awarded the lecture following his nomination by the g-i awards committee and approval by the g-i board of governors the lecture is awarded annually for outstanding research contributions in pavement engineering since this was a selected lecture it was especially heartwarming to be selected by my peers for this honor little says the lecture was entitled sustainable pavements: the impact of geo-mechanics and geo-chemistry the annual monismith lecture is in recognition of professor carl l monismiths contribution to pavement engineering a professor at the university of california berkeley his teaching and research career spans more than 50 years little is the eb snead chair professor and regents professor in the zachry department of civil engineering he was also honored with the f c turner lecture award from the transportation and development institute of asce in june of this year
1561,texas a&m university alumnus dr nolan e hertel 73 was awarded the 2016 distinguished scientific achievement award by the health physics society (hps) to recognize his contributions to the scientific field of radiation safety and for his accomplishments regarding the practice and advancement of the profession of health physics hertel is a professor of nuclear and radiological engineering at georgia institute of technology and is also currently serving as the interim associate chair of the woodruff school for the nuclear and radiological engineering/medical physics programs hertel received both his bachelors and masters degrees from in nuclear engineering from texas a&m when i was at texas a&m the bachelor of science was only in nuclear engineering hertel said i kind of started off in traditional engineering and it was my interest in neutron measurements that got me into this radiation protection to begin with my master thesis research at texas a&m was performed at the cyclotron in support of what was then a neutron radiotherapy program with md anderson it sent me in some directions that have continued until this day after his time at texas a&m hertel received his ph d in nuclear engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champagne in 1979 he began his career in academia shortly after as an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at the university of texas at austin in 1993 he moved to georgia tech as an associate professor of nuclear engineering and health physics during his time at georgia tech hertel has held a variety of positions including chair of the health physics and radiological engineering research group radiological safety officer director of the neely research center (georgia tech research reactor) and research fellow of the sam nunn security program of the georgia tech school of international affairs hertel is best known for his research concerning neutron spectrometry neutron interactions radiation dosimetry and radiation shielding outside of his research he has worked with numerous organizations and programs as an expert in radiation dosimetry including nasa the japanese atomic bomb dosimetry efforts the international commission on radiological protection and the department of energy hertel also holds a joint faculty appointment as acting director of the center for radiation protection knowledge in the environmental sciences division of oak ridge national laboratory this center serves as a common resource for six federal agencies to assist in the development and application of radiation dosimetry and risk assessment methodologies despite his success hertel has made sure to never forget his roots i look back on my time at texas a&m with fond memories and i know i received a great education and a great start he said contributing author: ryan terry
1562,dr robert skelton a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor helped design control systems for skylab nasas first space station now he hopes to design the next one skeltons office in the bright building on the texas a&m university campus is littered with structures created out of wood or metal held together with strings that make the room look a bit like a modern art exhibit the structural paradigm behind them is called tensegrity an amalgamation of the words tension and integrity an internet image search of the word will turn up a number of modern art exhibits skelton believes tensegrity structures which are exceptionally rigid yet lightweight are the solution to some of the biggest problems nasa faces in long-term space flight his tensegrity approaches to in-space construction of a 1g growable habitat proposal was recently selected by the nasa innovative advanced concepts program (niac) as one of eight proposals to receive as much as $500 000 in funding over the next several years to research feasibility this project is trying to solve four space-related problems skelton said first is to figure out how to grow habitats in space second is how to solve the gravity problem--how do we give gravity to astronauts third is how do you shield and protect them from the galactic radiation thats in space fourth is how to manufacture structures in space
1563,each of the eight niac proposals are based on ideas that science doesnt yet have the technology to implement others include deep sleep chambers for astronauts and using plasma from a planets atmosphere instead of heat shields to slow down manned spacecraft with this second round of funding the goal is to try and close the gap between the concepts and the technology you see these sticks and strings laying around well this turns out to be the minimum mass way to build structures skelton said pointing to one of the structures in the office so its a new structural paradigm and its a new manufacturing paradigm thats why its on the advanced concepts list its a study about the feasibility for the future its not going to happen overnight it might not even happen in my lifetime but these are the steps you have to take what skelton referred to as the gravity problem is an issue nasa hasnt had to worry much about yet but would as the length of space travel grows astronauts lose bone mass while in space and while exercise equipment aboard the international space station helps slow this process it doesnt stop it thats just the beginning of the problems faced in a zero-g environment i think nasa is finally realizing the need for a 1g program in the space program skelton said there are fundamental questions that we dont have answers to what is the gravitational level thats healthy for human beings can you raise children in 1/3g or 1/2g or do you need 1g we need facilities to study the effects of gravitational environments on the human body to solve this the structure would spin creating artificial gravity due to centrifugal force inside the introduction of gravity into the space program would also help solve another problem food with gravity light and enough space astronauts could potentially grow crops in space a similar problem is radiation for someone in space to have the same protection from radiation that we experience on the earths surface they would have to be surrounded by at least two meters of water the lack of radiation protection hasnt been a huge issue because of the relative short amount of time spent in space so far this is a totally new thing for nasa skelton said theyve never protected their astronauts from radiation before because theyre up there for a relatively short period of time but if you want a permanent presence of humans in space you cant avoid this problem
1564,with his experience working on structures in the past skelton said a common problem is the stove piping of ideas someone would design a structure and someone else would design the controls someone else the navigation systems and so on he believes that the future of space flight and the future of engineering itself is in finding fundamental new ways to integrate and combine the disciplines the potential to break down some of those walls is what drew skelton to texas a&m in the first place engineering has left us with a lot of component technologies without rules about how you put components together to make systems he said so you start at the interface of two disciplines like structure and control design or signal processing and structures you start at those interfaces and you find better ways to pose the problem if you want to integrate two disciplines you cant start at the state-of-the-art of either one you have to find more fundamental ways to pose the question its not just enough to talk to each other because we dont know what to say we dont have the analytical tools to integrate the disciplines i think the university that develops them will be the leader in the future of engineering skeltons team on the project includes tees institute of engineering education and innovation director and former astronaut dr bonnie dunbar; tees texas institute for advanced study (tias) professor dr david hyland; and department of aerospace engineering associate professor dr raktim bhattacharya hes also working with anthony longman a california-based architect who has proposed his own tensegrity structures to nasa and joel sercel ceo of ics associates to bring his proposal into reality skelton will have to scale several hurdles the technology doesnt yet exist for robots to create tensegrity structures which is something necessary since as he says we dont want astronauts out there with bolts and screwdrivers smart manufacturing and robotic technologies are as much a part of the research as the design of the structures themselves to start skelton said the group will focus on the design of the habitat itself and how it will grow in space he says the ability to expand the habitat is a key reason why his proposal is of interest to nasa despite the many challenges still to come skelton said working on something that could help send humans deeper into space than ever before is rewarding for me its satisfying that im working on the last space station at least in my lifetime it will be the last space station he said i designed control systems on americas first space station skylab so its a fun closure for me images provided by dr robert skelton
1565,dr suman chakravorty associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering and dr dylan shell associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university have received a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to conduct research which will demonstrate how robots can make the greatest use of their personal information by sharing it with those nearby when they are within communication range the study centers on the use of robots for information collection of affected spatial fields which for instance can be the concentration profile of a pollutant such as a harmful gas or nuclear material over a given geographical area the team will be studying the deployed robots as they measure the concentration of these fields and gather information on the area; the idea is to have the networked robots pool their own gathered bits of information together in order to carry out sensing tasks effectively as a cohesive whole so that the global picture becomes clear one challenge of this study is if the robots pass out of their range of communication they run the risk of learning new things about the world and sharing this information with others thus altering the findings chakravorty stated that the ultimate goal of this research is sharing these pieces of information in a principled manner so that the giant puzzle can be solved with the local pieces of the jigsaw that is available to every robot and without arriving at a completely erroneous answer they have been exploring the use of a covariance intersection and other related techniques that provide a way of combining multiple pieces of information to construct a more representative summary of the area these distributed inference techniques allow one to ensure that sharing information between robots does not lead to misleading results while making sure that the information content regarding the phenomenon being monitored is maximized this research has real-world application in the distributed mapping of spatial fields such as the case of a natural gas leak or volcanic eruption
1566,dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has received a five-year $750 000 grant from the us army us navy and nasa that will allow him to study the upward scalability of revolutionary vertical takeoff and landing (vtol) concepts for uas applications the grant was awarded as part of the university of marylands vertical lift research center of excellence in the proposed research scalable novel configurations for uas applications the goal is to conduct experimental and computational studies to develop a fundamental understanding of the upward scalability on rotor aeromechanics vehicle dynamics and empty weight fractions of revolutionary flying concepts such as cycloidal rotors flapping wings and quad biplane developing the next generation of uass requires vehicles that are compact hover-efficient high speed capable quiet highly maneuverable and gust tolerant over the past 10 years benedict has been conducting pioneering research on a myriad of out-of-the-box hover-capable micro aerial vehicle (mav) concepts such as cycloidal rotors and flapping wings the cycloidal rotor is a revolutionary propulsion system that utilizes a horizontal axis of rotation with the blade span parallel to this axis with the blades cyclically pitched so that each blade has a positive geometric angle of attack at the top and bottom of the circular trajectory a net lift is produced previous studies by benedict have shown that a cycloidal rotor can achieve higher hover efficiency than a conventional rotor at smaller scales possibly due to uniform aerodynamic conditions along the blade span and the favorable unsteady mechanisms traditional uavs with helicopter rotors are limited in forward flight speed due to the rotor operating in an edge-wise flow the cyclocopter can perform efficient high-speed forward flight by modulating the blade-pitch schedule unlike a traditional hybrid aircraft (tilt-rotor) a cyclocopter can transition from hover to high-speed forward flight without any configuration change due to its capability to vector thrust although such a device was first envisioned over 100 years ago a lack of systematic scientific study and limited technology prevented the idea from getting off the ground thanks to advances in electronics and material sciences the first working cyclocopter was built and flown by benedict in 2011 at the university of maryland recently the worlds smallest cycloidal-based rotorcraft was designed built and test flown successfully at the advanced vertical flight laboratory (avfl) at texas a&m weighing only 29 grams it utilizes the latest advances in microelectronics technology and carbon fiber composite construction as well as extensive experimental data for design and optimization biological flapping wings offer superior maneuverability with excellent gust tolerance and disturbance rejection capabilities compared to that of man-made mavs avfl has successfully designed built and flight-tested a 62-gram hummingbird-inspired flapping wing mav with hovering capability this is only the second vehicle of this type ever created along with the darpa-funded nano hummingbird by aerovironment it is the first of its kind to be developed specifically for the purpose of scientifically investigating the flight dynamics aerodynamics and control of an actual flying vehicle utilizing this form of aerial locomotion this vehicle is unlike most other flapping wing mavs in that it is capable of truly stationary hovering flight the stabilization and control is accomplished through wing kinematic modulation mechanisms without external vanes fins or control surfaces this research project is motivated by benedicts prior studies which showed that the concepts of cycloidal rotors flapping wings and quad-biplane have unprecedented performance over conventional helicopters at small scales the objective will be to examine whether these concepts are feasible at larger scales for specific missions and how far these performance benefits persist with scales more information on benedicts research can be found at advanced vertical flight lab website
1567,aggies invent director rodney boehm spends his days developing programs for engineering students and working to cultivate their skillsets this summer he worked with students in a new capacity as a texas a&m university fish camp namesake
1568,fish camp is a texas a&m tradition where incoming freshman learn about the university make friends and begin finding their place within the aggie family its a four-day orientation program directed by upperclassmen counselors highlighting what the university offers it provides attendees the opportunity to get to know one another attend programs that highlight opportunities and services available on campus and participate in traditions such as yell practice aggie muster and silver taps seven fish camp sessions are held each summer and each is divided into seven smaller groups by a color and namesake individuals who have made a positive contribution to texas a&m can be nominated for the honor of being a fish camp namesake boehm was selected as one of the 2016 namesakes from hundreds of nominations it was a great honor to be one of the namesakes for fish camp this year said boehm i loved seeing how incoming freshman embraced the spirit of texas a&m and became part of the family – our family this has now come full circle as i met my wife ann when we were counselors of fish camp in 1976 we loved having the chance to share experiences and stories with them boehm is an associate professor of practice in the college of engineering he recently spoke at the tedx tamu event on the intensive innovation experience for engineering students he holds a bachelor of science and master of engineering in electrical engineering from texas a&m where he was also a member of the corps of cadets and commanding officer of the artillery band and a member of the bugle rank his senior year boehm came to texas a&m with more than 30 years of experience within the telecommunications industry where he was involved with sales marketing manufacturing business development and technical design within the college of engineering boehm runs the successful aggies invent and [u]invent programs in addition to teaching a freshman engineering projects in community service (epics) course running the engineering innovation center and other engineering entrepreneurship programs we are all so happy to see rodney recognized in this way said dr johnny hurtado associate dean for academic affairs he has been a valuable part of providing engineering students with wonderful opportunities such as aggies invent
1569,the petroleum ventures program has kicked off its inaugural semester with 25 petroleum engineering students several finance students and a 23-member advisory board the interdisciplinary partnership between the business and engineering schools at texas a&m university started with a $12 million gift from anthony bahr 91 and jay graham 92 who gave $6 million each to the finance and petroleum engineering departments the petroleum engineering graduates own wildhorse resources in houston their goal is to teach finance skills to petroleum students and petroleum engineering skills to finance students id say we are off to a good start and the advisory board members are excited at what is to come said detlef hallermann a mays business school clinical professor who oversees the program what i am hearing from the board is that its been a long time coming weve made the first step now the board is going to help us look at what we are doing and provide direction for where we wish to go next students wrote multiple analytical analyses reviewed by advisory board members prior to being accepted into the program approximately 100 students attended the informational sessions and more than 60 students applied princewill imouokhome a sophomore pursuing a bachelors in finance said he was immediately both interested and curious about the program and the current state of the oil and gas industrys impact on it he applied because he wants to be involved in the energy industry i saw an opportunity to gain both a competitive edge and to leave my comfort zone he said in my time in the program i have already seen a change in the way i see many things that a contingent upon the energy industry i hope to gain knowledge new perspectives on problem solving and exposure to situations that force me to grow as an individual and a professional bahr said he is happy to hear about the popularity of the program im thrilled to welcome the inaugural class of business and engineering students into the petroleum ventures program and excited these students have made a significant commitment to their future careers in the energy business he said when fully implemented the program will offer a certificate in petroleum ventures for both petroleum and finance students
1570,katherine m banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering recently announced new administrative appointments for dr cindy lawley dr vikram kinra dr mark weichold and dr sunay palsole lawley has been appointed assistant vice chancellor for academic and outreach programs and assistant agency director for workforce development; kinra will serve as director for engineering global programs; weichold has been appointed associate dean for academic affairs; and palsole will serve as assistant vice chancellor for engineering remote education lawley was previously the executive director for workforce development in her new role she will oversee the continuing education and professional development programs conference programs community college partnerships engineering academics pre-k-12 engineering outreach and teacher training programs and the engineering system schools for academic and non-academic programs kinra who is a professor in the department of aerospace engineering will work across college of engineering departments and international regions to develop a strategy for expanding its global reach he will lead efforts to develop new opportunities in regions of the world of strategic importance to the college weichold who is the director of the halliburton engineering global program will oversee the development of the engineering science curriculum he will continue to lead the halliburton global programs and will represent the dean of engineering at various internal and external forums palsole will develop strategic innovative solutions for remote engineering education and advance the mission and goals of the college for both academic and non-academic courses for college station and regional campuses this will include developing online blended distance and open programs and courses upholding high standards of quality and rigor
1571,a senior capstone design team from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university took its design to the next level earning a spot as one of the top teams in the united states in the go green in the city global business case challenge the sixth annual go green in the city global business case challenge hosted by schneider electric gives teams a chance to revolutionize energy management and gain unique insight into one of the leading global energy management companies teams submit an intelligent idea for efficient energy management in a city environment that addresses one of the five challenges related to growing cities and the energy dilemma and present an innovative solution for the challenge devin wise and wanda moon presented their senior capstone design project solar powered bus stop (spbs) their goal with the spbs project was to create solar powered signage to attach to current bus stops located around campus that showed information regarding bus routes and the arrival of the next bus their design ranked them as one of the top three teams in the united states out of nearly 1 000 entries schneider electric se is a french multinational corporation that develops connected technologies and solutions to manage energy and process in ways that are safe reliable efficient and sustainable the group invests in research and development in order to sustain innovation and differentiation with a strong commitment to sustainable development
1572,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2016 society of maintenance and reliability professionals (smrp) higher standards scholarship was awarded a scholarship by the association of energy engineers foundation and received the graduate student presentation grant from the association of former students dehghanian was one of only five awardees nationwide selected for the smrp higher standards scholarship the awardees will attend the smrp annual conference in jacksonville fl the society for maintenance & reliability professionals is a nonprofit professional society formed by practitioners to advance the reliability and physical asset management industry and to create leaders in the field after a nationwide search the $2 000 scholarship was awarded to dehghanian by the association of energy engineers foundation the scholarship aims to encourage practitioners in energy engineering and energy management to further education in the field the graduate student presentation grant funded by the association of former students and the office of graduate and professional studies at texas a&m is granted to compensate expenses for attending the international conference on probabilistic methods applied to power systems in beijing china in october dehghanian who is advised by dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department is the current leader of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the ieee pels-pes-ias he received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications other recent honors include being accepted for participation at the prognostic and health management societys symposium being selected as a potential future leader by ieee receiving the sigma xi grant-in-aid-of-research receiving a 2nd place prize for best poster award at the 2016 ieee power and energy society (pes) transmission and distribution (t&d) conference and exposition a research grant scholarship from the american public power association under the demonstration of energy and efficiency development (deed) program being awarded the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship for the 2016-2017 academic year and being selected as the ieee industry application society electric safety workshop 2017 student program chair
1573,two researchers from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university have received a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) that will allow them to look at the interface between microgrids and power electronics dr le xies (left) and dr prasad enjetis (right) grant is titled microgrid interconnections control via voltage angle droop methods their project proposes a novel system configuration for a future distribution grid in which multiple microgrids are coupled through distribution lines and present themselves as individual controllable entities built upon the innovations on sensors (micro-synchrophasors) and actuators (power electronic interfaces) theyre hoping to create a future distribution grid comprised of many microgrid clusters each interfacing through points of common coupling with little or no inertia their hope is that the results of this project will help many communities such as rural and developing regions leapfrog the century-old distribution grid through an envisioned clean slate approach to integrating a much deeper level of renewable resources at a much higher level of reliability xie an associate professor in the department joined the texas a&m faculty in january 2010 he received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 2004 from tsinghua university in beijing china his master's degree in engineering sciences from harvard university in 2005 and his phd from the department of electrical and computer engineering at carnegie mellon university in 2009 his research interests include modeling and control of large-scale power systems with renewable energy resources and electricity markets xie received the nsf career award and the oak ridge associated universities ralph e powe junior faculty award in 2012 he has also received best paper awards and served as the founding faculty advisor for the texas a&m energy club enjeti the ti professor iii in analog engineering in the department and associate dean for academic affairs in the texas a&m university college of engineering joined the department in 1988 and is responsible for developing the college's state-of-the-art undergraduate design experience laboratory from 2008 to 2010 he was associate dean of academic affairs at texas a&m university at qatar enjeti's research focuses on power electronics and power quality; advancing switching power supply designs and solutions to complex power management issues; power conditioning systems for fuel cells wind and solar energy systems; and design of high temperature power conversion systems with wide band-gap semiconductor devices
1574,this past summer two professors in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university participated in programs to help teachers and two-year college faculty learn more about general and automated manufacturing drs wayne hung and shen-jen tony hsieh professors in the manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology (mmet) program each combined classroom and hands-on manufacturing education with educators from the area as well as across the nation how do we get people interested in manufacturing this was the crucial question that spurred the creation of his program said hung five high school teachers from the bryan-college station and houston areas were provided professional intensive training on general manufacturing over two weeks and took the knowledge learned back to their schools to share with students most of [the teachers] have some machines in their schools but they do not always know how to operate them says hung now they can not only know how to use them but also implement what they learned in the programfunding from the gene haas foundation allowed teachers to attend hungs program at no cost additionally the organization will help implement what teachers learned to their classrooms and curriculum back home on oct 7 the teachers from hungs program will have an opportunity to bring their students to campus and participate in manufacturing day – a nationwide celebration of modern manufacturing meant to inspire the next generation of manufacturers there will also be a mini-competition between teams that will allow students to implement what their teachers learned from the program hsiehs program research experiences for high school and two-year college faculty in mechatronics robotics and industrial automation lasted six weeks during june and july on the texas a&m campus and was funded by the national science foundation (nsf) designated as a research experiences for teachers (ret) site by the nsf 10 participating high school and two-year college faculty members were provided a weekly stipend and engaged in a research project with faculty mentors attended special topic presentations and site tours and developed an instructional module to teach a topic related to their research hsieh was responsible for the industrial automation aspect of the program working alongside six faculty members from other departments to provide a diverse array of expertise the teachers had to develop a lesson plan to be implemented into their classroom based on their research experience said hsieh several participants from last years program were able to publish their research through asee the american society for engineering education we want to demonstrate that their work is not just for the classroom but that it is being recognized at a higher academic level this summer marked the programs third year; in the spring teachers who participated in the program will have an opportunity to bring some of their students and present the results of implementing their created lesson plan both hung and hsiehs summer efforts exemplify the commitment to community outreach and dynamic research that etid faculty are known for we bridge the gap says hsieh by making an impression with these teachers their students get an idea of what etid does and it sparks an intense interest in our programs
1575,refrigeration and cooling account for more than 17 percent of electricity consumption worldwide however the fundamentals of the vapor compression cycle that are used for most refrigeration applications have changed little since they were developed in the mid-19th century as the global dependence on commercial and residential refrigeration and cooling increases the need for next generation refrigerant materials becomes significant dr patrick shamberger assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university is conducting fundamental research on magnetic cooling technology that can heat up when magnetized and cool down when the magnetic field is removed high-efficiency magnetic refrigerants could potentially consume much less electricity than traditional vapor-compression refrigerators and heat pumps however every time the magnetic field is changed abrupt energy loss or hysteresis occurs in july shamberger received a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to study the microscopic mechanism causing the energy loss to understand how to design high-efficiency near-room temperature magnetic refrigerants the proposal understanding mechanisms in magneto-structural transformations received $382 000 from nsf shambergers research seeks to investigate the phase transformation mechanisms in the iron phosphide class of alloys (fe2p) it is known that the fe2p alloys exhibit magnetocaloric effect which is the thermal response of a magnetic material to the change of an external magnetic field which results in temperature change the research aims to explore the mechanisms responsible for low-hysteresis transformation in fe2p alloys and additionally may provide insights into hysteresis engineering in other functional materials such as shape memory alloys there is very little theory to describe why we can achieve very small hysteresis in this one class of fe2p but we have not been able to achieve anything close on other common classes of magnetocaloric effect materials said shamberger really the goal here is to take lessons from one particular class of materials and apply this to the greater understanding of the origins of hysteresis in solid-solid magnetostructural phase transformations
1576,"children look up to the sky and dream about space and the mystery of the unknown compels everyone at some point for most people however the wonder fades jaskirat batra a graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has found a way to combine his childhood curiosity and his current research to work with the national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) starting early as a high school student in patiala india batra represented the entire asian region at the international space settlement design competition at johnson space center in houston for their capstone project his team put together a terraformation of different planets and a design of space settlements and colonies batra earned his bachelors degree in engineering from trinity university in san antonio before enrolling at texas a&m for his masters degree as a graduate student batra was part of a project funded by the center for advancement of science in space (casis) in partnership with nasa to develop small-chip technology that can analyze cancer and stem cell interactions in space our goal was to grow cancer and stem cells in space said batra in the past people have experimented in 2-d petri dishes unfortunately that does not replicate what our body does biologists have come up with a model to grow tumors or other cells three dimensionally in space research batra is pursuing applied research in materials science and engineering where he is utilizing 3-d printing and micro-fabrication to design biosensors for use in health care dr jun kameoka an associate professor in electrical computer and engineering and batras graduate adviser is leading the research kameoka is also an affiliated faculty member in materials science and engineering and an adjunct faculty member at md anderson cancer center together batra and kameoka are developing a low cost portable biosensor that can be installed as a chip and used with a smartphone to perform point of care diagnostics the device can detect bacteria in water samples and eventually in blood samples so that diagnostics can happen quickly in the doctors office or at home right now we are in the technology development phase said batra it could be applied to any pathogen as long as we can find the right biology that works for it there are expensive alternatives that exist but batra is finding ways to decrease cost so that widespread health care may be improved leveraging aggie network last year batra went to washington dc to learn about science policy and the federal funding budget process at the catalyzing advocacy in science and engineering (case) conference organized by the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) an international non-profit organization ""this program taught us how the federal funding budgets work so we could advocate for good science policy and funding said batra it was an opportunity for me to go there get trained and work with aaas after attending the program batra was inspired to establish a local organization for his peers at texas a&m in 2015 he co-founded and served as the president of the aggies in science technology and engineering policy (a-step) which he now co-advises the organization has grown to more than 175 students and includes aggies from different majors and interests although most members are graduate students an undergraduate leadership team is currently recruiting younger aggies for a-step it is a very diverse group said batra we have student members from different colleges such as agriculture bush school college of science and college of engineering batra emphasizes the benefits of the aggie network and encourages members of a-step to step out of their comfort zones when you are talking to someone from a different college you describe the importance of your work in the best way without using technical language he said a-step aims to create awareness of good science policy provide professional development for its members and establish outreach opportunities in the community we want to train the new generation of professionals said batra we don't want them just to be scientists working in labs we want them to be good communicators and be able to convey what they do well not just in technical jargon but also in common language so that politicians and the public can understand following the success of a-step batra was invited to join the leadership team as a regional director of the national science policy group (nspg) which is a network of more than 60 science policy groups all over the united states at texas a&m batra has used his experiences as a student and a professional to teach others his involvement in other organizations such as the graduate and professional student council (gpsc) through grad camp furthered the aggie experience for the students he has impacted as a chair for grad camp 2015 batra helped welcome 220 new graduate and professional students to texas a&m this year as the assistant director of grad camp 2016 he organized three camp sessions to introduce 430 incoming graduate students to aggie traditions and culture we take so much pride in the aggie network here he said if you take the time to invest in the social capital of aggies you can benefit from their knowledge and experiences while creating your own unique aggie story your network is your net worth contributing author: haley posey"
1577,a significant increase in small-scale seismic activities has taken place in texas since 2010 although many of these activities are not ‘felt or cause damage it is important to know the cause for such an increase dr akhil datta-gupta university distinguished professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university is leading a project to model reservoir behavior and in-situ stress conditions near faults datta-guptas efforts might determine if well activities such as fluid injection and production near a fault have a potential link with earthquakes and his goal is to find the range of oil and gas operating conditions and geologic subsurface parameters that can lead to earthquake activities joining datta-gupta on the project are dr michael king the lesuer chair in reservoir management in the department and dr jihoon kim an assistant professor in petroleum engineering earlier this year gov greg abbot appointed a committee to oversee the purchase and deployment of seismic equipment across texas the committee will advise the bureau of economic geology at the university of texas at austin in conjunction with the texnet seismic monitoring program on creating the seismic network that will provide data to datta-gupta datta-guptas project will handle the modeling of reservoir behavior for systems of wells in the vicinity of faults in azle texas where there has been recent incidents of seismic activity and submit findings to the committee earthquakes are typically caused by activations of fault systems or fault networks said datta-gupta these faults are activated whenever there is a change in stress conditions some of these faults may be in critical stress so it wouldnt take much to actually cause a fault slip which could trigger seismic activity fluid injections are one potential trigger oil and gas production often produces significant amounts of brackish water and this water is either injected back into the formation in a process called water flooding or taken to a regulated waste fluid disposal well often hundreds of miles away and injected there according to the united states geological survey of the more than 150 000 class ii injection wells in the united states roughly 40 000 are waste fluid disposal wells for oil and gas operations only a small fraction of these disposal wells have induced earthquakes that are large enough to be of concern to the public datta-gupta is studying one of the few known areas that might help understand that small fraction he is concentrating his research on azle texas because the area around it experienced several magnitude 2 or greater earthquakes during 84 days from november 2013 to january 2014 there are two disposal wells in the area that could possibly be linked to the activity there are two main goals said datta-gupta first the bureau will monitor (the seismic network) to document and catalog any seismic activity particularly of magnitude 2 or greater the second determines potential linkage between fluid injection and the seismic activities (through modeling) datta-guptas project will use seismic data from the bureau data from wells drilled nearby and publicly available geologic information to construct three-dimensional computer models of the subsurface he will then model the fluid flow through the subsurface and look for critical stress factors we are not here to make a definite prediction such as: if you do this then this will happen he said what we are mainly looking at is the sensitivity a major part of this i think is to understand boundaries what are the ranges of subsurface and operating parameters that might lead to some sort of connection between fluid injection and seismicity datta-gupta began digitally modeling subsurface activities while working toward his masters degree at the university of texas and was in on the ground floor of the widely used utchem program for modeling chemically enhanced oil recovery years later he worked with king while at bp to create a faster modeling process called streamline simulation which is now routinely used in reservoir engineering practice modeling has become his specialty we can put in all these complexities when it comes to geologic heterogeneity and we can do the computations at a much faster pace if we focus on the dominant physics said datta-gupta what are the major flow paths in the subsurface how fast is fluid flowing through these flow paths with streamlines we think of the reservoir as made up of highways how long does it take the fluid to flow on these highways and where are these highways going now that he and king are both professors at texas a&m they have collaborated on a streamline modeling textbook the modeling calibration and efficient reservoir imaging joint industry project and novel approaches to model pressure propagation in unconventional reservoirs my students apply the basic principles they learned in high school mass is conserved energy is conserved and momentum is conserved datta-gupta said the question is how these principles translate into solving practical problems thats what engineering is all about you take a knowledge base and then translate it into mathematical equations then you solve them to answer specific questions
1578,according to the american academy of orthopedic surgeons two of every 100 americans have an artificial joint where the ends of bones are removed or resurfaced and replaced with plastic ceramic or metals titanium and ceramics such as alumina [aluminum oxide] and zirconia [zirconium oxide] account for most artificial joints dr hong liang professor in the department of mechanical engineering and affiliated faculty in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university along with her graduate student m fezvi ozaydin have been studying a titanium-gold compound that is four times stronger than titanium and most steel alloys the compound made from a mixture of titanium and gold exhibits properties that are potentially useful for orthopedic dental and prosthetic applications the findings of the study published in science advances are part of the core research of dr emilia morosan a physicist at rice university morosan combined three parts pure titanium with one part pure gold and melted them at scorching temperature stumbling upon the compound by accident she found that relatively high temperature produced an almost pure crystalline beta form of the compound she attributed the strength to elevated valence electron density reduced bond length and pseudo gap formation liang and ozaydin co-authored the study and are currently measuring the coefficient of friction wear-rates and biocompatibility of the compound on a tribometer that simulates the movement of a human knee the applicability of the any material used in biomedical applications is determined by its biocompatibility and wear-rate in vivo depending on the use the implants made from currently available materials last from 10 to 20 years artificial hip joints wear down faster than other joints due to pressure weight and movement of the body over time the friction causes implant particles to come lose causing infection and inflammation of the surrounding tissue liang is optimistic about the hardness and durability of the biocompatible compound she expects to conduct more mechanical tests to further understand its properties despite the use of gold liang does not anticipate the price of the compound to rise dramatically titanium is the majority material used in the compound said liang besides youd be surprised how much people are willing to spend on a good artificial joint material the original research publication can be found in the journal scienceadvances
1579,engineering students at texas a&m university at qatar are building on their classroom knowledge and bringing their imagined projects to life through the engineering enrichment program (eep) first offered in spring 2016 the program provides 26 short courses to students who want a more hands-on engineering experience to drive innovation and entrepreneurship the program which just wrapped up its third cycle in mid-august enhances texas a&m at qatars commitment to educate exemplary engineers and well-rounded leaders eep has three levels: pros mentors and inventers pros learn the skills of machining electronics fabrication and programming mentors help their fellow students learn these valuable skills while solving design problems and inventers have the opportunity to bring their ideas to fruition and possibly have their projects sponsored eep manager yasser al-hamidi said he wants the program to empower engineering students these short courses are important stepping stones in your career al-hamidi said this recognizes you as an expert in your course but the road doesnt end here we look forward to seeing you return as mentors and to continue toward certification dr eyad masad vice dean of texas a&m at qatar told students that he was proud of what theyd accomplished and their participation showed their commitment and thirst for learning and gaining skills masad encouraged them to continue in the program to train the next group of students that goal has been accomplished more than 100 students have since participated and some have achieved certification one student attained the ni certified labview associate developer distinction and five of the 12 certified solidworks associates in qatar are aggie engineers the program came full circle last week when one of its certified students literally became the teacher for students the draw is the opportunity to get certified in house personally the chance to take a solidworks course and future opportunities to get certified is why i wanted to be here said one of the participants maher armoush it was a really good experience beyond short courses one new aspect of the program will be involving students in international competitions like the society of automotive engineers formula sae program where students will be tasked to collectively build a race car from scratch masad also said he hopes these trainings will appear on future students transcripts as ancillary coursework
1580,texas a&m university at qatar welcomed its largest freshman class since 2012 when 110 freshman students started classes aug 23 bringing the total enrollment of the branch campus to 545 sixty students or 545 percent in the class of 2020 are qatari constituting the branch campus largest intake of freshman qatari students ever this brings texas a&m at qatars total qatari undergraduate enrollment to 254 or 544 percent in addition 455 percent of the new class of freshmen is female bringing the branch campus total female undergraduate enrollment to 428 percent more than twice the us national average of women in engineering (199 percent) and significantly higher the the female enrollment in engineering at texas a&ms main campus in college station texas usa (219 percent) officials said the count of students may fluctuate slightly during the next few days one of the new faces on campus for the first week of classes is dr césar malavé dean of texas a&m at qatar who took his post 1 july texas a&m at qatar is educating the next generation of engineering leaders in qatar malavé said i congratulate each and every one of our new students on not only getting into this prestigious university but also for having the wisdom and courage to take on this challenge of a world-class engineering education i look forward to experiencing their first semester with them as we all embark on our journeys at texas a&m at qatar malavé credited the record-setting success of this falls incoming class to the work of the office of admissions and the office of development engagement and outreach for their efforts in attracting qatars best and brightest to texas a&m at qatar students were welcomed to campus during a weeklong orientation event called aggie life 101 hosted by the department of student affairs the series of workshops and activities gave incoming students a chance to learn about texas a&m and its unique traditions as well as what it takes to succeed in a world-renowned engineering institution during the week new students also met their fellow classmates as well as student campus leaders; attended academic advising sessions; and toured the texas a&m engineering building in addition 13 new graduate students started their masters degrees in chemical engineering this semester texas a&m at qatar has offered master of science and master of engineering degrees in chemical engineering since 2011 texas a&m commands an international reputation as one of the worlds premier engineering programs and since 2003 texas a&m at qatar has built on that esteem students at texas a&m at qatar receive the same top-tier training as students enrolled at the main campus in college station texas texas a&m at qatars accredited bachelors degree programs in chemical engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering rank among the top american engineering programs for education and research the masters program is an example of texas a&m at qatars commitment to addressing the needs of the state of qatar in partnership with qatar foundation and is critical to the success of texas a&m at qatars ambitious research program
1581,adult learners of a second-language (l2) often continue to speak with the accent associated with their first language this can subject them to discrimination and make them less confident when interacting with others l2 learners rarely receive formal training in pronunciation a primary reason being that effective training must be customized to meet each learners individual needs to address this problem dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna professor in the department of computer science and engineering and director of the perception sensing and instrumentation lab at texas a&m university is working with linguists at iowa state university to develop the technology to provide better pronunciation practice paraphrasing my colleague john levis pronunciation is viewed as the cinderella of language learning which typically emphasizes grammar and vocabulary whereas pronunciation is expected to just happen gutierrez said one of the primary difficulties with pronunciation is that it cannot be taught on a large scale such as in a classroom of 300 students traditional classroom instruction cannot easily meet the needs of diverse learners because each individual has their own needs based on their first language gutierrez and his collaborators are working to develop algorithms that synthesize a personalized golden speaker for each learner the golden speaker will be his or her own voice but without the non-native inflection usually present the idea is that learners can more easily perceive differences between their actual and ideal pronunciations when hearing their own voice thus improving their pronunciation the national science foundation recently awarded gutierrez and his team two grants to develop and evaluate golden speakers the first grant from the nsf robust intelligence program will develop the underlying technology for golden speakers the speech representations and speech processing algorithms to produce high-quality golden speaker voices similar to rgb color coordinates the teachers voice and the l2 learners voice each have their own weighted sum of base sounds that comprise their individual way of speaking the golden speaker program will record the teachers and the learners voices while speaking a sentence or phrase it will then assess the fragments and make the learners voice comparable to that of the teachers voice by recombining the base sounds the second grant from the nsf cyberlearning program will create a web-based learning environment that allows l2 learners to build their golden speakers by selecting among different regional us accents or voices that they identify themselves with such as actors world leaders or inspirational figures the investigators will use this learning environment to study how golden speakers facilitate pronunciation training the goal is to create these engaging pronunciation exercises in a computer format so that students can practice on their own time at their own pace and in the comfort of their own home with their alter ego: their own voices but with a native accent gutierrez said to bring these projects to fruition gutierrez is collaborating with professors john levis and evgeny chukharev-hudilainen of the applied linguistics program at iowa state university and current phd students chris liberatore and guanlong zhao former phd students dr daniel felps and dr sandesh aryal also helped with this research these two projects have the potential to impact society in a significant way by enhancing communication in critical sectors such as higher education technology and healthcare which attract a large number of non-native speakers of english
1582,leading researchers and graduate students from institutions across europe north africa the middle east and north america attended the sixth international institute on multifunctional materials for energy conversion (iimec) school on computational materials science across scales at texas a&m university iimec is a national science foundation-funded international material institute established at texas a&m in partnership with participating us institutions (texas a&m university of houston pennsylvania state university) as well as international research collaborators at universities around the globe the summer school served as part of iimecs mission to facilitate a platform for students and faculty from the united states and participating countries to exchange knowledge and to be involved in a global research and international leadership experience dr amine benzerga associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering and an affiliated faculty member in the department of materials science and engineering led the summer school with the support of dr raymundo arróyave associate professor in materials science and engineering the college of engineering the college of science and the office of the associate vice chancellor for engineering research we continued with the theme of multi-scale computational materials science as we have done for the past five instances of the school said arróyave the big difference this time though was that we dedicated an entire day of the school for students to get more in-depth experience with specific computational tools of their choosing this enabled them to pursue activities that better resonated with their research interests the school boasted instructors from texas a&m georgia tech purdue university national institutes for standards and technology lawrence livermore national laboratory centre des matériaux mines paristech (france) arts et métiers paristech (france) university of cambridge (england) and the university of duisburg-essen (germany) summer school participants included students from more than a dozen institutions including seven of the top universities in the united states as well as universities and research institutes in france greece qatar egypt and germany over a period of 10 days students were exposed to theory and practice sessions focused on different computational materials simulation tools ranging from continuum to the electronic structure level hands-on computational laboratory activities were part of the class structure students had access to linux cluster consisting of several hundred nodes/cores state-of-the-art computational codes such as vasp abaqus lammps paradis matcalc vpsc and matlab were used to illustrate the concepts covered in the school software and hardware infrastructure was facilitated by dr lisa perez manager of the laboratory of molecular simulation under dr michael b hall executive associate dean of the college of science and professor of chemistry
1583,dr john valasek professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been honored with a university professorship for undergraduate teaching excellence (upute) valasek was named the holder of the thaman professorship the award is conferred only upon the universitys most distinguished teachers of undergraduates faculty who have exhibited uncommon excellence and devotion to the education of undergraduate students valasek who is the director of the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and director of the vehicle systems & control laboratory in the aerospace department has been with the aerospace department for 19 years he teaches courses in atmospheric flight mechanics vehicle management systems modern control of aerospace systems cockpit systems & displays and aircraft design he created the senior/graduate level course aero 445 vehicle management systems which was the first regularly offered course on this topic in a us aerospace engineering department he created the aerospace engineering and computer science cross-listed course aero 440/csce 489 cockpit systems and displays that combines students into integrated product teams to work on a unified project using a systems engineering format valasek has authored or co-authored three books morphing aerospace vehicles and structures (2012); advances in intelligent and autonomous aerospace systems (2012); and nonlinear multiple time scale systems in standard and non-standard forms: analysis and control (2014) valaseks teaching and research activities are highly integrated and broadly encompass dynamics and control with a focus on systems engineering and integrated/embedded learning systems his teaching goal is to inspire and encourage diverse students to take responsibility for their learning by making them a stakeholder in the learning enterprise this not only lessens their dependence on others to learn but also fosters the excitement of discovery and insight creating an essential lifelong learning experience since teachers will not be with them all their lives i enjoy working with young people and helping them grow and develop as a person since touching a students life in a positive way is what being a teacher is all about he said i try to get to know each student by name and meet with them one-on-one outside of class at least once during the semester i put a lot of emphasis on lifelong learning and strongly encourage all students to pursue graduate studies in their career valasek applies the discipline-based experiential learning pedagogy to ensure that each graduate of the department knows how to competently describe the physics of airplane flight mathematically model an airplane and successfully fly an airplane in a flight simulator he also holds outside-of-class experiences called hug-an-airplane day hug-a-uav day and hug-a-satellite day to literally put students in touch with their major valasek has served as chair of committee to 41 completed graduate degrees including six nsf six ndseg and one smart graduate fellowship recipients as well as supervising the research of 78 undergraduate students his students have won national and regional student competitions in topics ranging from aircraft design to smart materials to artificial intelligence and his recent phd student was the 2013 recipient of the texas a&m university award for outstanding accomplishment in research doctoral level valasek has been recognized for his teaching with awards at three levels the 2014 asee/aiaa john leeland atwood award as the national outstanding aerospace educator; the university level association of former students distinguished achievement award for teaching (2008) and a scholar of the montague center for teaching excellence (2001); the college of engineering level bp amoco teaching excellence award (2001 2003) and the thomas u mcelmurry teaching excellence award in the aerospace engineering department (2001 2004 2014) valasek serves as the faculty advisor for texas a&ms sigma gamma tau (sgt) chapter the aerospace engineering honor society he served as the national president for sgt from 2006-2008 as well as the faculty adviser to the texas a&m student branch of the american institute for aeronautics and astronautics from 2000-2009 and received the national faculty advisor award from aiaa in 2005 he was recognized at the 2016 undergraduate convocation held aug 28 the professorship is for a period of three years and carries a $5 000 annual salary supplement as well as an annual discretionary income of $5 000 to support his teaching program and related professional development valasek will develop a series of short learning videos for aerospace students based upon the highly regarded khan academy model in the first year he will develop videos for the junior level dynamics of aerospace vehicles course in the second year he will develop videos for dynamics and control courses and in the third year he will develop videos for a variety of courses in the department
1584,the texas a&m university system board of regents today approved naming the engineering education complex the zachry engineering education complex the former zachry engineering center is undergoing extensive renovation and will nearly double in size to more than 500 000 square feet of space when completed in the spring of 2018 the building will be dedicated to undergraduate engineering education the original zachry building was a significant part of many aggies educational experience since 1972 said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering we are proud that the zachry name will again become synonymous with the place where our students are transformed into aggie engineers zachry group headquartered in san antonio has given a lead gift of $25 million to the college of engineering at texas a&m university to support the construction of the zachry engineering education complex establishment of the zachry leadership program and the zachry group professor of practice within the department of mechanical engineering
1585,aggies invent is known for bringing together a unique group of students and mentors for an innovative 48 hours the most recent event aggies invent: internet of things did not disappoint in addition to students from the texas a&m university college of engineering five engineering students from texas a&m university-corpus christi two engineering students from belgium and an assembly of mentors from texas instruments and accenture added a new perspective and depth to the weekend as a result innovative ideas flowed from each team i really felt that we each brought a different skillset to the mix and complemented each other well on our team said james oconnell a texas a&m mechanical engineering student i think because of the diversity we all shared the workload equally and had great results aggies invent promotes an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m it gathers invited students provides them with the needs statements submitted by sponsors allows them to self-select teams gives them access to industry mentors and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours aggies invent: internet of things (iot) focused on developing devices processing techniques and adding intelligence to addressable devices texas instruments made aggies invent extra special by providing all the iot-based ti launchpadtm development kits simplelinktm bluetooth® low energy and wi-fi® boosterpack™ plug-in modules i/o sensors and breadboards that students could possibly need as well as the engineering mentorship and advice to go with it i was amazed to witness what a group of motivated students could accomplish to solve problems that have never been addressed said bart basile a ti systems architect and mentor for aggies invent at ti weve put a lot of effort into building tool ecosystems that make it easy to get started with our products seeing students go from idea to concept to working prototype in such a short time using our tools affirms that what were doing is helping students not just learn but to create new solutions to real problems in first place was electrospace an led projector that aims to integrate time sensitive marketing techniques with led billboards to provide more effective advertising the teams plan will allow companies to advertise at only the times of day that would be effective for the target customers the first place team included michayal mathew marlyn rosales pavan shetty and madalynn mikkelsen the second place team created portable and wireless devices to improve the laundry process especially in shared machine settings its device will monitor and alert the user when their laundry is completed and also collect data for predictive maintenance on the washer and dryer guardian electronics teammates included alexis crandall colby ryan jennifer jordan kristian ecolango james oconnell and millie kriel greentech took third place with its lamp-style data collection tool for gardening and farming its goal was to provide a way for gardeners and farmers to get real-time soil analysis to improve the health and viability of the plants this team was unique with four students from the college of engineering at texas a&m-corpus christi (tamucc) and one from the university of mons in belgium the tamucc students were zachary garcia raul martinez jared stowell and ximena cabrera lehmann; tanguy thibaut was the student from belgium hybrid received honorable mention and was awarded $250 for its efforts in a last-minute decision from the judges identification cards havent been updated in decades so this team created a bluetooth-based id card and mobile app for it the teams goal is to make class attendance and on-campus payments simplified through its platform on college campuses team members included julio garza william mccanless darryl jacob carlos castillo derek richards and kyle bohac the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively the eic and aggies invent also offer support for students to continue working on their project the collaboration between the teams and pairing ti and accenture to support the effort was phenomenal said obi osuorji technology consulting senior analyst from accenture im so happy to hear that the students benefited from our involvement both through their comments and seeing the results through the final presentations the students from belgium commented on the format of aggies invent and expressed a desire to bring [u] invent back to their university additionally they were impressed with the eic facility and everything offered within it the only breaks to our imagination was ourselves we had no limitations within the eic said thibaut it was a great experience the judges for the weekend were rani dent university recruiting manager texas instruments; steve heinrich-barna ip development team manager for non-volatile memory texas instruments; bart basile systems architect texas instruments; sam mallisetti associate director accenture digital practice; and salim butler senior manager accenture digital practice
1586,cheyenne stowers a masters student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university recently received a fellowship from the environmental engineers of the future program the purpose of the program is to encourage students to obtain a masters degree and increase the number of talented professionals with advanced degrees practicing in the united states the fellowship provides funding for students who attend outstanding environmental engineering programs across the country in return for a commitment to a two-year employment with one of eight participating engineering companies after graduation as an undergraduate student at texas a&m stowers was heavily involved with engineers without borders (ewb) stowers was a project leader for ewb in her final two years as an undergraduate where she led a trip to los chaguites nicaragua the primary goal was to improve the water quality conditions in the community the current project in los chaguites built upon this and is now implementing a process for the community to produce its own chlorine to disinfect its water stowers was also involved with research as an undergraduate when one of her environmental engineering professors introduced her to dr xingmao ma associate professor of civil engineering who she still works with in her masters program the research studies how nanoparticles affect biological and physiological processes in plants most professors are willing to help students get involved in research which i find to be one of the best aspects of going to texas a&m said stowers being a part of a research group really helps challenge you and makes you a better engineer the award provides up to $10 000 for tuition and living expenses stowers will be interviewing with the partnering companies after the completion of her masters program in 2017 contributing author: ryan terry
1587,several people affiliated with the graduate program in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university were recognized for their accomplishments at the 2016 graduate student awards banquet (pictured in order) best phd student award (for outstanding performance of the first two years of the phd program) first place: pingchun hsieh (adviser dr i-hong hou) second place: matthew gardner (adviser dr hamid toliyat) third place: jin li (adviser dr peng yu) best phd student award (for outstanding performance during the phd program) first place: juseok bae (adviser dr cam nguyen) second place: ahad esmaeilian (adviser dr mladen kezunovic) third place: celal erbay (adviser dr arum han) additionally dr qinghua li received the best ece alumni award for outstanding scientific contributions to increase the visibility and prestige of the graduate program tammy carda a senior academic advisor in the graduate program received a certificate of appreciation for 32 years of outstanding performance and invaluable service provided to students staff and faculty of the department
1588,a team led by dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently had its paper on droplet microfluidics-based systems for algal biofuel development published in the journal biotechnology and bioengineering as a front cover hans team has been developing microfluidic lab-on-a-chip systems that can be used as high-throughput screening tools to quickly evaluate the growth and oil production characteristics of numerous algal libraries both natural and genetically engineered the teams paper describes how it developed a high-throughput algae analysis platform where a large number of cell-encapsulated pico-liter size droplets each functioning as an independent photobioreactor can be manipulated on a business card sized chip the developed microsystem utilizes droplet microfluidics technologies to individually control and analyze each of these photobioreactors and was used to screen algal strains showing improved growth and oil production characteristics using these microsystems han and his collaborators dr tim devarenne and dr david stern are working together to transfer the valuable hydrocarbon synthesis pathway of the slow-growing alga botryococcus braunii to faster-growing algae with commercial potential through metabolic engineering this multidisciplinary team is currently funded under a $2 million award from the national science foundations (nsf) emerging frontiers in research and innovation (efri) office with the new microsystem technology the team is expected to significantly shorten the development time where testing that previously required up to a year in a standard laboratory environment can be achieved in a few weeks han director of the nanobio systems lab and an expert in microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technologies joined the electrical and computer engineering department in 2005 his research is at the interface of micro/nano technology and life sciences with interest in solving grand challenge problems in the broad area of health and energy through the use of micro/nano systems technology and multidisciplinary team effort the paper can be viewed on the wiley online library website
1589,the texas a&m university college of engineering honored five students with its craig c brown outstanding senior engineering award during a banquet on oct 6 at the memorial student center on the texas a&m campus seniors benjamin e jack adam kellen adam navara adam springer and courtney walker received the annual award for their academic achievement character and leadership abilities jack an electrical and computer engineering major is from kingsport tennessee his ability to work toward a common goal with a wide variety of people as well as his tendency to see new situations as unique opportunities have marked his career at texas a&m through his academic coursework engineering honors program and undergraduate research he has had the opportunity to build these strengths working with students and professors of many various fields from all over the world jack has earned numerous academic awards including being honored as a brown scholar and an institute of electrical and electronics engineers power and energy society schweitzer meritorious scholar in addition he is a national aggie scholar ambassador he is strongly connected with his faith serving as a bible study leader at grace bible church and as a member of christian engineering leaders he has worked as an intern for eastman chemical company twice and recently completed an internship with boeing space and security as an avionics and software engineer in the boeing engineering accelerated hiring initiative kellen is an aerospace engineering major from spring texas his goal has always been to succeed and to help ensure the success of those around him from mentoring underclassmen to reshaping the culture of his squadron in the corps of cadets into a family focused on mutual success kellens concern for his fellow aggies is well-known as first sergeant in the o r simpson honor society he introduced numerous academic support systems one of which has helped reach more than 700 cadets over the past two years his efforts in the corps of cadets earned him the honor of most outstanding executive officer outside of the corps kellen has been a leader on the sae aero design team as an engineering team leader and an active member of sigma gamma tau aerospace honor society he has interned with ingenium technologies working on the development of airplane actuation systems; worked as a student engineer at southwest research institute; and served as a student research assistant to dr moble benedict assistant professor of aerospace engineering kellen is passionate about his research in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles and will be pursuing graduate studies in the advanced vertical flight lab with benedict navara is a biomedical engineering major from san antonio as the managing editor of the eckleburg project navara stands out from the average engineering student the eckleburg project is the official undergraduate literary magazine of texas a&m serving to promote art on campus in addition to this unique experience navara has been a student researcher for dr daniel alge at texas a&m and dr colin bishop as a wake forest institute for regenerative medicine summer scholar navara is also involved with the national aggie scholar ambassadors as a recruiter and mentor the biomedical engineering society as a member and mentor and the phi eta sigma honors society he has been honored as an undergraduate research scholar engineering scholar presidents endowed scholar and university of california berkeley engineering preview days invitee one of only 14 prospective graduate students he credits his involvement with these various organizations and his academic studies as the catalysts for his aspirations to develop engineering solutions that will ultimately change the community for the better springer is a civil engineering major from huntsville texas a brown foundation scholar presidents endowed scholar deans honor roll student and distinguished student springer is dedicated to his studies and has excelled academically throughout his career at texas a&m in addition to his scholastic achievements springer serves as unit commanding officer in the corps of cadets a member of the ross volunteer company an active member of the o r simpson honor society and an active member of the tau beta pi honor society he is most proud however of his involvement with the navigators a christian organization where springer has been a bible study leader throughout his college career springer also attended the civil engineering study abroad trip to spain this summer where he took classes in water resources and geomatics walker is a petroleum engineering major from sugar land texas best characterized by her dedication and passion walker has excelled in every aspect of her college career academically she has been awarded the presidents endowed scholarship the petroleum engineering scholarship the deans honor award and the fort bend panhellenic scholarship she has displayed excellent leadership abilities as former co-chair of the career development committee and now as vice president of the student chapter of the society of petroleum engineers for her outstanding leadership she was selected as a spring leadership exchange participant to visit the qatar campus during spring break she has also been to costa rica and dubai during her time at texas a&m she has been a member of social sorority alpha delta pi for two years and pi epsilon tau honors fraternity for three years she is also heavily involved with community service from serving at st marys catholic church to the big event to habitat for humanity impressively walker has also held a position with southwestern energy for three consecutive summers first as a roustabout intern and then for two summers as an engineering intern where she pursued her passion for environmental conservation the craig c brown outstanding senior engineer award is the most prestigious honor bestowed upon a graduating senior in the college of engineering the award is based on outstanding scholastic achievement leadership and character the award was first presented in 1947 as the engineering faculty senior award in 1996 the award was renamed to recognize craig c brown for his vision to expand and enhance the program through a permanent endowment this years recipients received a $5 000 educational grant and an award their names will be added to the programs recognition plaque brown is a 1975 civil engineering graduate and past recipient of the engineering faculty senior award he also received a master of business administration from texas a&m and is the president owner and chief operating officer of bray international inc
1590,students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university competed in a local programming competition that was hosted by the texas a&m computing society the event is used to select the teams that will represent texas a&m at the upcoming association for computing machinery international collegiate programming contest (icpc) which is the premiere global programming competition conducted by and for universities around the world dr john keyser professor and associate department head of academics served as coach for the students twenty students participated in this individual competition; the top nine students were selected to form the three teams going to the south central usa regional competition the regional winner will go on to compete in the icpc world finals which will be held in the spring of 2017 the three-hour local competition was an individual contest during the five-hour regional competition teams of three students will compete together with just one computer shared between them jordan lamkin brian maule and nathan villanueva make up team maroon; nicole ahles david earl and nathan leake make up the team white; and team aggies is chase hinesman christopher rech and tao wang jordan lamkin nathan villanueva david earl and nathan leake are also members of the computer science and engineering track of the engineering honors program during the recently held local contest the top students solved two to five problems with sophomore computer science and engineering major jordan lamkin finishing in first place the programming contest tests students abilities to analyze problems apply their knowledge of algorithms and write working code accurately and efficiently keyser said the regional contest also requires good teamwork and resource allocation for each competition the students are given a set of problems with the goal of writing programs that can solve those problems automatically students are ranked based on who solves the most problems with ties broken by the time taken to solve them icpc's origin can be traced back to a competition held on campus at texas a&m in 1970 since then it has grown to be a global competitive educational program that has raised aspirations and performance of generations of the world's problem solvers in computer sciences and engineering last year over 40 000 of the top students and faculty in computing disciplines from 2 736 universities from 102 countries on six continents participated in the event
1591,build a student-led organization that is aimed at unifying the student body through a physically uniting effort is making waves across the texas a&m university campus for its innovative and aspirational endeavors the organization which also aims to connect students from all different types of organizations educational backgrounds fields of study and aspects of texas a&m accomplishes this by encouraging students to work together in planning organizing and constructing a project the long term vision of build is to build and send out portable medical clinics around the world in honor of those who lost their lives in the collapse of the aggie bonfire as it was a tradition that pursued these same aggie core values annie clark a senior in the zachry department of civil engineering is heavily involved in the build organization passionate about service and giving back clark has served as a student supervisor and a member of the marketing command team over the past three years build has done impressive work for the community both locally and globally in 2013 build partnered with the bryan and college station habitat for humanity chapter to build a house for a local single mother and her family this was builds first project but hundreds came out to help and it turned out to be a great success in 2014 build began a three-year project to turn 12 shipping containers into portable medical clinics called texas aggie medical clinics (tamcs) the 12 portable clinics are dedicated to the 12 aggies who lost their lives in the bonfire collapse of 1999 in its final year of this project build plans to finish the shipping container project by completing and dedicating the final four clinics as a student supervisor clark helped oversee and plan the construction of the tamc units in the fall of 2015 now on the marketing command team she has been responsible for creating videos to attract donors and volunteers her position also involves speaking to other student organizations to recruit volunteers and make contacts with potential donors so far build has raised $70 000 of its $100 000 goal for the fall semester construction my studies and internships in civil engineering have helped me understand what all goes into a large project from the design to construction to funding said clark as a civil engineer you get to help people and make decisions that will impact the public for a long time build is such a cool project because we are helping people in the caribbean central america and africa what initially drew clark to build was how the organizations mission reflects the aggie core value of selfless service i wanted to join an organization that completely revolved around service she said selfless service is a texas a&m core value for a reason and we as a large university with an even larger network have the manpower and resources to do great things i was fascinated by build because it related to my career goals to help impoverished communities after graduating clark hopes to pursue a masters degree in water resources in order to help create clean sustainable water systems in her career as a civil engineer construction on the 2016 fall project will begin on sept 26and last until nov 11 the eight finished tamcs are located in antigua guatemala; tecpan guatemala; thomzeau haiti; dolores honduras (two units are located here); kingston jamaica; beaudachita haiti; and maua kenya contributing author: ryan terry
1592,bruce hamilton a texas a&m university alumni and a member of the defense nuclear securities safety board (dnfsb) delivered a seminar to the students and faculty of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m hamiltons seminar provided insight on the development of nuclear safety oversight and regulation in the united states focused primarily on the historical origins of the dnfsb hamilton is from dallas and was appointed a member of the dnsfb on aug 26 2015 he is a veteran of more than three decades in the nuclear energy field prior to his appointment to the board he was the president of a nuclear fuel procurement company and prior to that he was an engineering director at a commercial nuclear power plant where he held a nuclear regulatory commission senior reactor operators license as a us navy officer hamilton supervised nuclear operations in six warships commanded a seventh and served as the reactor officer for the mid-life refueling overhaul of an aircraft carrier a registered professional engineer hamiltons academic credentials include a bachelor of science from texas a&m a master of arts from the us naval postgraduate school and a phd from the fletcher school of law & diplomacy
1593,dr tracy hammond professor and director of the sketch recognition lab (srl) in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university recently received the information and intelligent systems eager grant from the national science foundation which was given in support of the social media platform kidgab kidgab is a social network developed by srl assistant research scientist dr stephanie valentine with support from hammond originally designed for preteen girl scouts kidgab was meant to serve as a safe space for children to interact with each other and reduce cyberbullying and oversharing although preteens regularly use social networks little is known about how they behave online or how this affects their well-being this is because most popular social networks close preteens' accounts when detected while purpose-built networks for preteens are heavily restricted in terms of both what users can do and what data is available for study with this grant hammond and her srl team will investigate why children use social networks and how they influence each other using kidgab the team has previously worked alongside girl scout councils in texas and will expand the outreach workshops with new councils it will also develop new features and activities for kidgab the team will also develop methods for studying creativity conformity and influence in social networks by looking at how children create and adopt each other's drawings in visually-focused activities ultimately the goal of this research is to build a network that is large enough that the team and other researchers can conduct future studies and to also build a large enough dataset to answer new questions through later data analysis photo above: valentine working with girl scouts
1594,dr helen reed professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was inducted into the inaugural class of the academy of aerospace and ocean engineering excellence at her alma mater virginia polytechnic institute and state university on oct 22 of the 34 inaugural inductees reed was the only female the department of aerospace and ocean engineering (aoe) at virginia tech launched the academy to recognize its highly accomplished alumni faculty and friends for their contributions in the fields of aeronautics astronautics and hydronautics the launch coincides with the 90th year of aeronautics at the university the academy will keep a collection of biographies on the aoe website to give current students an idea about the trajectory through an aoe career including exciting projects and the importance of hard work and dedication reed joined the texas a&m faculty in 2004 and served as department head for four years before returning to teaching and research on a full-time basis widely regarded as an expert in hypersonics boundary-layer stability and transition energy efficient aircraft and small satellite design reed has led research projects totaling millions of dollars reed also directs the aggiesat lab satellite program a design-build-fly student satellite program housed within the department reed is a consultant to the institute for defense analysis and a member of the national academies air force studies board intelligence science and technology experts group she is also co-founder and chief technology officer for chandah space technologies a start-up company specializing in small satellite systems she is a licensed professional engineer in the state of texas she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being named a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) she received the atwood award from the american society for engineering education and aiaa the minnie stevens piper professor award from the state of texas and was inducted into the academy of engineering excellence and the committee of 100 in the college of engineering at virginia tech in november 2016 she will receive the kate gleason award from asme the award recognizes a female engineer who is a highly successful entrepreneur in a field of engineering or who has had a lifetime of achievement in the engineering profession in 2013 she was named a presidential professor for teaching excellence (in perpetuity) as well as a regents professor (in perpetuity) and in 2014 she was awarded the texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching at the university level and was named holder of the edward pete aldridge 60 professorship reed earned an ab degree in mathematics from goucher college and a master of science and phd in engineering mechanics from virginia tech
1595,dr na zou instructional assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university will be featured in the institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) industrial and systems engineer magazine her article is titled modeling and change detection of dynamic network data by a network state space model zous work focuses on the difficulty of detecting change in dynamic networks that naturally evolve over time she worked closely with the email communication networks of enron corporation an energy trading company ranked as the seventh largest in the united states the experiment achieved a high level of accuracy in modeling the natural evolution of networks during an eight-month in-control time period from september 2000 to april 2001 zou said it successfully detected changes in two new months with one change due to the launch of a new initiative in may 2001 and another change due to disclosure of a scandal in october 2001 zou will be featured in the december issue of iise industrial and systems engineer and her paper will be published in the january 2017 issue of iie transactions there are a number of future research directions that can be further pursued from the current methodology zou said i will continue to explore a broader spectrum of networks and also to integrate network and non-network data
1596,trey roady phd student in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was on the winning team of the ux guerilla design challenge at the human factors and ergonomics society's (hfes) annual meeting roadys team agile in action consisted of megan nyre and yash shah from purdue university stephanie hornung from target and the university of minnesota and roady in 48 hours we had to evaluate the weddingwire app with two usability methods produce a prototype evaluate that prototype with two methods again then iterate a new prototype model based off of the feedback roady said we developed prototype models in invision and balsamiq and performed an online survey of the target demographic with qualtrics the team also received the audience choice award for best presentation the hfes annual meeting is the principal conference for human factors and consists of a week of panels posters and competitions topics include among others user experience perception & performance cognitive engineering education aerospace and surface transportation this conference connected me with all of the most notable members of the human factors field and provides invaluable insight on both research and professional matters roady said
1597,valero energy corp a fortune 500 company headquartered in san antonio has given $15 million through the texas a&m foundation to support the construction of the zachry engineering education complex (eec) to recognize the company for its generosity the texas a&m university college of engineering will name a laboratory within the complex the valero high bay lab the gift will be counted toward the $4 billion goal of the universitys lead by example campaign this gift from valero will allow us to develop a pivotal component of the zachry eec the high bay laboratory space said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering this lab will be truly interdisciplinary allowing students from multiple engineering fields the opportunity to participate in experiential learning and transformational research the lab will consist of two distinct areas: a four-story high bay area and a one-story low bay area the high bay area will allow for the installation and development of undergraduate experiments that require a large vertical space the low bay will house a number of large-footprint experiments such as a double-effect vaporizer and a steam-based heat exchanger system the space will feature movable work benches and seating making it easily reconfigured departments expected to use the space include aerospace chemical mechanical nuclear and petroleum engineering valero is proud of the longstanding partnership with the texas a&m college of engineering said lane riggs executive vice president-refining operations and engineering our investment in the valero high bay laboratory demonstrates our continued commitment to the institution and to current and future students the zachry engineering education complex dedicated to undergraduate engineering education will be completed in the spring of 2018 and will double the size of the original engineering center with more than 500 000 square feet of space the complex was designed with the college of engineerings future growth in mind specifically the 25 by 25 initiative which aims to increase the colleges total enrollment to 25 000 students by 2025 many learning spaces within the building including the valero high bay lab will provide unprecedented accessibility to students by creating educational opportunities that can be customized to their schedules about the texas a&m foundation the texas a&m foundation is a nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance texas a&ms capability to be among the best universities for additional information please contact monika blackwell at mblackwell@txamfoundationcom or (979) 845-7468 about the texas a&m university college of engineering with more than 500 tenured/tenure-track and academic professional track faculty and 17 000 students the college of engineering is one of the largest engineering schools in the country the college is ranked seventh in graduate studies eighth in undergraduate programs and second in research expenditures among public institutions by us news & world report about the 25 by 25 initiative the 25 by 25 initiative is a transformational engineering education program designed to address the national and state need for more engineers and to better prepare these students for the changing needs of the engineering workforce the college of engineering is answering this call by providing an opportunity for more qualified students to pursue an engineering education at texas a&m by increasing its total enrollment to 25 000 engineering students by 2025
1598,the chairman of the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) the honorable stephen g burns spoke to the students staff and faculty of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university as part of a special seminar burns presented the seminar as the guest of the department and the nuclear power institute (npi) and also toured facilities and labs within the department and met with students and faculty burns began his career as an attorney and has worked as an attorney both within and outside of the nrc beginning his work for the nrc in 1978 he served as general counsel to the nrc from may 2009 until april 2012 and has also served as executive assistant to former nrc chairman kenneth m carr burns was sworn in as a commissioner of the nrc in 2014 and was designated as the chairman of the nrc beginning in january 2015
1599,dr raktim bhattacharya associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected by the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) as a 2017 aiaa associate fellow the aiaa is the world's largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession the grade of associate fellow recognizes individuals who have accomplished or been in charge of important engineering or scientific work or who have done original work of outstanding merit or who have otherwise made outstanding contributions to the arts sciences or technology of aeronautics or astronautics to be selected as an associate fellow an individual must be an aiaa senior member in good standing with at least 12 years professional experience and be recommended by a minimum of three current associate fellows bhattacharyas research interests are uncertainty quantification in dynamics and control control theory optimization aerospace robotics embedded systems verification and validation he directs the laboratory for uncertainty quantification where the focus is on understanding the influence of uncertainty in engineering systems and developing algorithms to control them in the presence of such uncertainties the class of 2017 associate fellows will be officially recognized during the associate fellows recognition ceremony and dinner to be held in conjunction with the aiaa scitech forum on jan 9 2017 at the gaylord texan in grapevine texas
1600,dr jean-briac le graverend assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university is one of 58 scientists and engineers who will receive approximately $208 million in grants from the air force office of scientific research (afosr) through its young investigator research program (yip) le graverend whose research goals are to predict the mechanical behavior and lifetime of materials at high temperature by means of a multi-scale approach combining experimental theoretical and computational tools was selected for his research on microstructural instabilities in single crystal metals for extreme environments as the us air forces fleet continues to age a greater portion of its budget will be required to ensure safe and effective operations beyond the design service life for various military vehicles and platforms the recommended service life for safe operation is projected to increase by a factor of 15 to five the high demand for safety and cost reduction culminates in the case of materials systems operating under extreme environments such as turbine blades made of ni-based single crystal superalloys turbine blades are used in the hot section of the engine and are therefore subjected to multiaxial high-temperature viscoplastic deformations due to both their complex geometry and their advanced design (internal cooling channels aimed to increase the exhaust-gas temperature during in-service operations) uniaxial thermo-mechanical environments have already been shown to lead to microstructural instabilities such as phase transformations microstructure gradients and lattice rotations which dramatically alter the mechanical properties this raises the question of how does in-service thermo-mechanical loading modify the kinetics of microstructural instabilities the development of predictive deformation and damage models tailored for such extreme conditions are necessary and has recently been emphasized through the digital twin (dt) paradigm for future nasa and air force vehicles the synergetic experimental and modeling approach developed in this project is a first step toward a fully integrated computational materials engineering the yip is open to scientists and engineers at research institutions across the united states who received phd or equivalent degrees in the last five years and who show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research the objective of the program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering; enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators; and increase opportunities for the young investigator to recognize the air force mission and related challenges in science and engineering le graverend joined the department in 2014 after receiving a phd in materials science and engineering/aerospace from the national school of mechanics and aeronautics (ensma poitiers france)/national office for studies and aerospace research (onera chatillon france) in 2013 and doing a post-doc at caltech in the aerospace department (galcit) he will receive $120 000 per year for the next three years from the afosr grant
1601,"tamuhack is texas a&m universitys annual hackathon event that brings together students from around the nation to share their passion for learning creativity and self-expression through technology the hackathon was held at the memorial student center on the texas a&m campus and was sponsored by several companies including google facebook and capital one the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m and startup aggieland were a couple of the many partners that also helped to make the event possible each year tamuhack brings the most creative and driven student hackers from all over the country to make their most innovative ideas come to fruition workshops were held throughout this years 24-hour event allowing students to learn just as much in their time at the event as they did creating and tinkering on projects tamuhack student organization officers sahil dhanju himank yadav and denise irvin helped put the event together as well as other students from computer science and engineering and various departments within the texas a&m university college of engineering our goal has always been to try to strengthen this mentality and culture here at a&m by having students realize just how easily they are able to create with nothing but an idea and their 13-inch laptop dhanju said we hope this year's hackathon has either instilled this passion for creation to first time hackers or strengthened it for those already accustomed to it the organizers are dedicated to forming a unique atmosphere that harbors creativity and motivates students each year to push the limits and pursue novel ideas they are committed to continually making the event even better than the last we had a record high of 540 hackers from around the state said jeff zhao junior mechanical engineering student who helped organize the event this year we had the budget to send out buses to the university of texas university of texas at arlington university of texas at san antonio and university of texas at dallas because of these efforts over 150 non-texas a&m hackers attended the organizing team and i put in a lot of work and in the end everyone had a great time and learned a lot we hope to increase attendance further and come back next year with an even better event"" rafa moreno computer science and engineering senior who played an instrumental part in creating the very first tamuhack said ""four years ago i started traveling the country mostly on my own attending these hackathon and networking events after pulling some friends in and starting the hackathon i'm very excited and pleased to see how many students are now going to these events across the country and preparing themselves for industry as a result"""
1602,dr robin murphy director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for emergency informatics presented at the white house frontiers conference on the campus of the university of pittsburgh her lightning talk focused on the importance of artificial intelligence for the future of rescue robotics president barack obama also took the stage at the conference and gave what murphy described as an inspiring speech
1603,murphy who is the raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was also recently awarded a national science foundation national robotics initiative grant funded by the department of energy the grant will allow murphy to continue her current research on autonomous robot assistants for this three-year project murphy will be studying the use of autonomous robot assistants which will improve the efficiency of and help overcome the perceptual limitations of just one robot in various situations by providing an external and secondary viewpoint this project will enable co-robots to build more resilience to disasters and public safety incidents although the use of a secondary robot to assist is not a new concept research on assistant robots has been limited because users tend to rule out the use of aerial robots and instead consider only ground robots additionally users often choose suboptimal viewpoints which reasonably diminishes efficiency having the assistant robot act autonomously should reduce the work demands on the operator as long as the operator trusts the assistant and the actual motion of the assistant does not move so quickly so as to distract or disorient the operator trust that an autonomous robot will perform correctly without supervision has not been widely explored the project will create the fundamental principled understanding of perception and control needed to tackle the cognitive demands on co-robot operators which will increase productivity and reduce costly errors this research aims to contribute to practical methods for human supervisory control of multiple robots and quantification of risk murphy was previously awarded the department of energy science of safety grant this summer which was used to develop the prototype of the air-ground collaborative system that will be used for this current project murphys research in this area has the potential to change the landscape of co-robotics by increasing the effectiveness of future ground and aerial robots in turn this can impact our society and economy in a positive way by increasing the countrys resilience in disasters and daily routine emergencies there will be numerous life-saving co-robot applications such as bomb-squads swat teams and disaster robots
1604,dr nick duffield a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) that will allow him to research network traffic classification duffield in collaboration with dr minlan yu from yale university received the grant which is titled distributed approximate packet classification it is funded from 2016 to 2019 with a budget of $350 000 network traffic classification assigning incoming packets to classes for processing based on pattern-matching rules is critical for many network management tasks including performance monitoring and fault diagnosis however as the number of classification tasks grows the resources required to store and apply the rules switch memory in particular can become scarce duffields project takes an end-to-end view of traffic classification observing that in addition to the memory usage at switches other cheaper resources are involved in packet processing specifically bandwidth to transfer selected packets to the receivers and downstream receivers that run applications trading off resources and even classification accuracy amongst these resources can lead to a better overall performance once the needs of downstream applications are factored in the big research challenge now is how to realize these benefits in large and complex communications networks such as in data centers which can encompass millions of servers connected by hundreds of thousands of switches duffield said duffield who also has a courtesy appointment in the department of computer science and engineering and is director of the texas a&m engineering big data initiative received his bachelor's degree in natural sciences in 1982 and a masters in mathematics in 1983 from the university of cambridge he received his phd in mathematical physics from the university of london in 1987 his research focuses on data and network science particularly applications of probability statistics algorithms and machine learning to the acquisition management and analysis of large datasets in communications networks and beyond before joining the department duffield worked at at&t labs-research florham park new jersey where he held the position of distinguished member of technical staff and was an at&t fellow he previously held post-doctoral and faculty positions in dublin ireland and heidelberg germany duffield the author of over 150 refereed journal and conference papers and inventor of 50 us patents is co-inventor of the smart sampling technologies that lie at the heart of at&ts scalable traffic analysis service he is specialty editor-in-chief for big data of the journal frontiers in ict and he was charter chair of the ietf working group on packet sampling duffield is an ieee fellow an iet fellow and serves on the board of directors of acm sigmetrics he is an associate member of the oxford-man institute of quantitative finance he is a texas a&m principal investigator on the darpa funded consortium deduce: distributed enclave defense using configurable edges and has received faculty research awards from google and intel
1605,ali pourghorban saghati a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the fouraker fellowship from the department this competitive fellowship is awarded to one top graduate student in the department who has demonstrated an outstanding educational and research record saghati who is advised by dr kamran entesari has been the first author of seven publications in high-impact ieee peer-reviewed international journals and conferences his recent paper on microwave miniaturization techniques was listed as the most popular paper of ieee transactions on microwave theory and techniques in january 2016 saghati received his master of science degree with honors in electrical engineering from ferdowsi university of mashhad in iran in 2014 he is currently pursuing his phd in electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m his research interests include miniaturized rf/microwave antennas and filters reconfigurable multiband and broadband antennas and microwave chemical sensing suitable for lab-on-a-board applications saghati was a recipient of the departments graduate student scholarship in fall 2014
1606,faculty staff advisory board members and students of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m won several awards volunteered time and effort and presented academic papers at the recent society of petroleum engineers (spe) annual technical conference and exhibition (atce) held sept 26-28 in dubai the conference is an annual gathering of the international members of spe celebrating the dedication distinction service and endeavors of those who strive to promote petroleum engineering both in academia and industry recognition is given during the spe annual awards banquet at the conference professor of engineering practice fred dupriest professor john killough and professor jenn-tai liang (shown above) were all awarded distinguished member status established in 1983 this award recognizes spe members who achieve distinction deemed worthy of special recognition in the past few years dupriest has received several awards for engineering and teaching killough has received recognition for his distinguished reservoir simulation research and liang has received honors for his research endeavors with nanotechnology spe distinguished members represent less than 1 percent of the current spe professional membership of about 80 000 so this is truly a distinction said dan hill head of the petroleum engineering department their receipt of this award brings the total number of our faculty who are spe distinguished members to 18 which is more than any other petroleum engineering department in the world professor ding zhu received the spe completions optimization and technology award the award honors her many contributions to well completion technology including her outstanding research in horizontal and multilateral well completion design and intelligent completion application of downhole monitoring and control dr yuri makogon retired tees research engineer with the department received the robert earll mcconnell award this achievement recognizes beneficial service to mankind by engineers through significant contributions that advance a nations standard of living or replenish its natural resource base makogons career spans nearly 60 years and includes significant discoveries and research involving gas hydrates the texas a&m student chapter of spe won the outstanding student chapter award for the second year in a row this prestigious award recognizes spe student chapters with exceptional programs in industry engagement operations and planning community involvement professional development and innovation the texas a&m chapter is the second largest student chapter in the world the 2016 officers accepting the award in photo are (from left to right) jordan argamany hanyu li alex lambros benjamin bates and courtney walker three students from texas a&m participated in the international student paper contest this competition pits regional winners from around the world in undergraduate masters and phd divisions against each other in a display of research and presentation skills this is the first time all three texas a&m students placed melissa leroy (right in photo) – second place undergraduate division (adviser – terri smith) hanyu li (middle in photo) – first place masters division (adviser – mike king) karin gonzalez (left in photo) – third place phd division (adviser – maria barrufet) the spe atce is the worlds foremost technical conference in oil and gas drilling and production this year over five hundred technical papers were presented several people from petroleum engineering at texas a&m volunteered their time effort and research to help make this possible tees research engineer frank platt who works with the global petroleum research institute housed within the department served as the management and information specialty coordinator for the event former student and industry board member janeen judah the incoming 2017 president for spe was a featured speaker for the sessions the value of gender diversity in leadership and managing the oil industry cycles – employee students and employer perspective she also served as moderator for the session: early identification of future leaders professor tom blasingame was a featured speaker and moderator for the session the way to move forward is to look back professor a dan hill was a featured speaker for the session managing the oil industry cycles – employee students and employer perspective assistant professor sam noynaert was a featured speaker for the session how is academia managing in a cyclic environment adjunct professor oliver mullins was a featured speaker for the session getting the most from mature fields professors hisham nasr-el-din and ding zhu served as technical session chairpersons associate professor i yucel akkutlu professor maria barrufet university distinguished professor akhil datta-gupta assistant professor berna hascakir professor a dan hill professor john killough professor w john lee professor duane mcvay professor george moridis professor nobuo morita professor hisham nasr-el-din associate professor david schechter and professor ding zhu were authors of papers presented in technical sessions
1607,hyosung an (pictured above) phd candidate in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university won the award for the best oral presentation in the energy storage technologies category at the inaugural texas a&m conference on energy the brainchild of late christodoulos a floudas the conference was organized by the texas a&m energy research society with the support of the texas a&m energy institute the presentation highly flexible self-assembled v2o5 cathodes enabled by conducting diblock copolymers beat out nine other presentations in the energy storage technologies category ans presentation is the result of nearly three years of polymer research with his phd adviser dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor in chemical engineering and holder of the william and ruth neely faculty fellowship as part of a national science foundation grant hyosung and lutkenhaus have developed a novel electrode a cathode in this case that allows for the construction of a flexible battery currently electrodes in lithium ion batteries are composed of rigid materials that store lithium ions in between paper-like layers however the rigid geometry of the electrodes limits them in terms of possible applications further owing to the rigidity the energy capacity of current electrodes is directly proportional to their size there has been some research towards different higher-capacity more elastic materials in electrodes but they are plagued with short lifecycles; the higher capacity materials such as silicon and in this case vanadium pentoxide (v2o5) expand and contract with each cycle causing them to become brittle and prone to mechanical failure while not currently used in consumer lithium ion batteries v2o5 is an appealing candidate for electrodes as it is inexpensive and has a very high energy density however v2o5 is prone to mechanical failures further it is also limited by relatively poor conductivity to counteract these issues researchers have begun to incorporate polymers into the electrode design to date however researchers have been forced to do a tradeoff either increasing the mechanical properties and decreasing the conductivity or vice versa there has been work towards incorporating a polymer into the battery system said an some improved the mechanical properties but the electrochemical performance was poor other research has achieved a high electrochemical performance but most did not show any mechanical improvement or simply did not test mechanical performance herein lies the problem to find the right polymer that would increase both the mechanical and electrochemical properties of the electrode an and lutkenhaus were able to do just that somewhat serendipitously when we started working on this our original goal was to enhance the electrochemical properties said lutkenhaus with the right polymer the electrode becomes more conductive and offers better performance hyosung came to me and said ‘its also more flexible added an by using conducting diblock co-polymers we balanced both achieving high mechanical performance and high electrochemical performance these new electrodes are much more than adequate in fact in a single component analysis the new cathode is fundamentally better than what is used now this is on top of its added mechanical flexibility the cathode you have right now is probably doing around 120-140 mah/g and what hyosung is showing is about 200 mah/g said lutkenhaus so it is substantially better this work has already led to a wide variety of accolades in addition to an winning the award for the best oral presentation he was a finalist in this years raymond ideas challenge sponsored by the texas a&m university center for new ventures and entrepreneurship an and lutkenhaus have published papers in acs appl mater interfaces and scientific reports ans phd program is supported by a scholarship from the kwanjeong educational foundation
1608,roughly 1 400 satellites surround the word today with 500 of those launched by the united states while they all have various duties and capabilities it is of utmost importance to correctly and efficiently identify the appropriate satellite for every job some are used for national security and some are launched by private companies for collecting data said dr lewis ntaimo associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university there are a lot of companies that have invested in collecting data for natural disasters such as floods hurricanes and tornadoes there are many instances in which satellites can be used to help the earths population in a natural disaster such as a wildfire or flood real-time satellite images can be helpful in determining the extent of damage during and after the disaster or where the fire front is and where it is heading to get that done we need to basically select and control the satellites to focus on those areas ntaimo said the challenge is that we may not have good weather or the time especially for the viewing satellites with each satellite having different capabilities the problem occurs when selecting the appropriate one to capture the specific data that is needed this problem is very difficult because you have a constellation of satellites then you have to select from those and schedule them to focus on a specific area at a particular time ntaimo explained our task is to model this problem as a mathematical program we are given a set of satellites and their capabilities and time windows for activities that we want to capture data from one such activity could be a wildfire in a specific state to accurately assess the widespread damage satellite images are a great way to compare how the wildfire has spread from day-to-day therefore the satellites must be programmed several hours in advance to allow time for them to properly orient and figure out the best location for the images to be captured from we also need to know the weather information and how it may affect the satellites for the given time window to maximize the quality of the images we are going to get ntaimo said so if you assume the weather is going to be perfect the problem is still difficult because of the combinatorial nature due to the number of choices you have to select from unfortunately there are limited instances in which the weather is perfect and cooperative with the activities being captured this is where i come in ntaimo said my expertise is more on how you handle decision making when you have random data thats kind of my main thrust on this particular project to add to the multitude of possible hiccups when selecting the best satellite periodical maintenance must also be performed on the machines this schedule of maintenance and recalibration must also be taken into account additionally the human aspect of the operators must be figured in the model will be a gauge for those operating the satellite because they will make the final decision on which satellite is assigned to the particular activity so we are looking at different types of activities while we are trying to collect data ntaimo said at any given time we input the current data then we solve with the formulation developed it captures all the different intricacies and then we optimize it this will give you the best possible solutions private companies are becoming increasingly interested in using satellites to capture information regarding a certain area in the world this could be an oil rig company that wants to know what the weather will be doing two hours from now in the area of one of their rigs ntaimo said the satellite companies then charge the private companies fees in exchange for the information it is a big industry that i was not even aware of myself until i got the exposure from this project this is a collaborative project with dr swaroop darbha professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m dr sivakumar rathinam associate professor in mechanical engineering and sandia national laboratories along with our students we worked on the deterministic version of the satellite scheduling problem and developed some fast heuristics to find good feasible solutions for large scale scenarios with eight satellites and more than a thousand sensing activities said rathinam who is also an investigator in the project
1609,the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university organized and sponsored the first of its type industry luncheon at the 2016 biomedical engineering society (bmes) annual meeting the event took place on oct 7 at the minneapolis convention center the luncheon featuring three nationally prominent industrialists attracted approximately 340 guests many of whom were undergraduate biomedical engineers seeking insight into possible careers in industry dr anthony guiseppi-elie tees professor and head of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m who had a 15-year career in industry introduced the department talked about texas a&m's innovative joint engineering and medicine degree program with methodist hospital (enmed) and moderated the three presentations dr michael hill vice president of corporate science technology and clinical affairs at medtronic inc gave the keynote presentation that recounted the importance and significance of innovation in the history of medtronic hill used the earl e bakken story to emphasize medtronics enduring commitment to innovation paul torres chief strategy officer and president for hospital housekeeping systems (hhs) also highlighted innovation within his presentation daring attendees to celebrate their differences as a source of inspiration for innovation dr balakrishna haridas director of commercialization at the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and a professor of practice who presented on pathways to excellence through innovation stated we have to think differently if we want our students to excel haridas presentation noted that the success of students is not merely a degree plan assembled by a university but rather an encompassing growth platform that provides solutions to the problems students are facing visitors to the event mentioned that the quality of the presentations the speakers who were selected and the possibility of a luncheon next year all coincided to produce a strong turnout the luncheon was a huge success said maria lyons senior academic advisor for biomedical engineering at texas a&m increased engagement with industry at the bmes annual meetings has consistently been requested by attendees we look forward to hosting this event again at the 2017 annual meeting in phoenix in addition to the luncheon faculty and students from the department contributed to 35 presentations throughout the three-day conference while also meeting with prospective students at the bme@tamu booth the department also hosted an evening reception where refreshments and fellowship were shared among approximately 125 faculty staff prospective current and former students and other supporters
1610,this summer 19 undergraduate students in the industrial distribution program at texas a&m university took part in a 16-day study abroad trip to scotland and germany led by dr ismail capar in aberdeen scotland students toured a halliburton facility and worked on a case study based on actual problems ­logistics regulation changes and budgeting that the company was facing capar an associate professor in the engineering technology and industrial distribution department stressed the importance of exposing students to real-world industrial distribution problems they were real problems [halliburton] was facing at the moment capar said students saw these problems in action and came up with solutions problems such as uncertainty of imported material dimensions for packing were addressed as well as finding the best responses to emergency situations students presented their findings to the halliburton leadership team which was very impressed the director of international supply chain management was so impressed with the feedback he received from his colleagues in scotland that he wanted copies of the students presentations sent over said capar after finishing their presentations in scotland the group traveled to berlin and munich germany to visit various companies including mercedes volkswagen and bmw in munich after visiting the bmw facility the aggies faced off against graduate and undergraduate students from the university of alabama in a case study competition judged by a bmw executive and faculty from texas a&m and the university of alabama out of 10 teams junior industrial distribution major tori withrows group received second place id students did such a great job and our presentations were excellent said withrow withrow emphasized how the overall experience was a great opportunity both professionally and personally a lot of the fun stuff we did was actually built into the curriculum withrow said this experience actually felt like a learning vacation given the success of the trip capar said next years program has already been approved and the schedule is in the works he will be taking another group to europe and is working with various companies to make sure students get a unique professional experience
1611,purvit soni masters student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and his team recently participated in aggies invent aggies invent is a 48-hour intensive design experience offered at the engineering innovation center at texas a&m a 20 000 square foot rapid prototyping lab multidisciplinary teams engage in hands-on projects that challenge their innovation creativity and communication skills the goal is to give students an opportunity to understand and acquire the skills necessary to becoming leaders in innovation as well as to support them in founding startup companies based on their designs the bring your own idea event took place sept 16-18 the theme of the event was open to any and all innovative ideas teams with exciting new ideas design and present their ideas to compete for $2 225 in prize money sonis team snapdesk included phd student jon rickert senior omar dauleh juniors muhammad aun and gabriel wang and sophomore allison kornher the team developed a backpack designed for students that can also be used as a portable desk and chair its lightweight design allows it to be carried by even small school children the goal of the teams project is to provide an affordable solution for students in developing countries who attend schools without basic equipment like chairs or desks the philanthropic nature of the project is what compelled soni to join the team to help in any capacity necessary to ensure the success of the product the concept of a portable desk really touched me said soni being from a developing country i know that it is a major problem when students dont have desks to write on and have to hunch on the floor to write in dimly lit classrooms as a graduate student on a team of mostly undergraduates soni was naturally a valuable asset to the team he helped in all aspects of the brainstorming and engineering design as well as researching existing competitors in the market and other data relevant to the project soni hopes to pursue a career as a project manager with a notable engineering firm after graduating he credits his time in the civil engineering department at texas a&m for his preparation to do so it is one of the most challenging programs that will bring out the best of your abilities and widen your knowledge of this field giving you both theoretical and practical exposure to face real world problems effectively contributing author: ryan terry
1612,four professors in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university are part of a three-year national science foundation innovative technology experiences for students and teachers grant that includes blinn college the grant will be used to encourage middle and high school students to learn about science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) and the types of career paths those fields offer the combined grant totals $1 049 364 with texas a&m receiving $834 654 and blinn receiving $214 710 (pictured above from left) dr michael johnson dr joseph morgan dr jay porter and dr matthew kuttolamadom from engineering technology and industrial distribution will be working together on the funded project connected stem promoting stem education through connected devices and building automation they will also be working with dr jennifer whitfield from the college of science and dr bugrahan yalvac from the college of education and human development johnson principal investigator for the project said that they will promote stem via a combination of internet of things and 3-d printing and will develop solutions for building automation using those technologies the technologies were chosen because theyre exciting new areas that companies are interested in and obviously we want the students to hear about these things and use them in class and hopefully that stimulates their interest in science and engineering johnson said to start this process teachers will travel to texas a&m over the summer to learn about product design the product development process 3-d printing and computer-aided design (cad) as well as electronics design and communication protocols necessary to make connected devices actually work from there the teachers will put together modules that will teach math and science concepts to students utilizing the technologies learned over the summer in addition to educating teachers in stem faculty members are working with blinn to develop dual-credit courses for high school students in these courses students will use technologies focused on building automation to spark interest and get them to learn in-depth about engineering all while receiving credits from both blinn and their high school max hibbs blinn college dean of mathematics business engineering & technology will be the primary liaison engineering technology and industrial distribution faculty will work with to create the dual-credit courses two of the most exciting and transformational technologies today are connected devices also known as the internet of things and 3-d printing said hibbs as major companies adopt these technologies the workforce of the future will need to be comfortable working with these connected devices how new manufacturing processes work and understanding the role these technologies can play in the modern enterprise blinn will begin offering its first dual-credit courses developed from the project in fall 2017 connected devices and 3-d printing will be a part of everyday business life especially in manufacturing hibbs said by showing students how stem and ict education has hands-on applications we can help them understand how important these curricula are and the career opportunities they can offer in addition to the dual-credit courses etid faculty will be running summer camps for students in the bryan and college station texas area as well as south texas were going to work with some of our industry partners to make sure that we can get some industry personnel into the classrooms to talk to the students about technology and engineering careers said johnson industry partners currently on board with the project include national instruments texas instruments and schneider electric a large part of the awarded funds will be used to purchase relevant technological equipment for participating schools as well as stipends for teachers who attend the summer workshops johnson stressed that the key goal is to make the process sustainable allowing teachers to continue implementing stem principles and opportunities well after the project is over in addition to the outreach aspect theres also a research aspect of how we can use authentic product development opportunities to get students excited about stem said johnson engineering technology and industrial distribution consistently pioneers new and innovative research in engineering education evident by recently funded projects and outreach initiatives that help local communities texas a&m and beyond
1613,dr yossef elabd professor and associate department head in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the american physical society (aps) the fellow designation is an honor signifying recognition by a professional peer group for exceptional contributions to the study and application of physics aps is one of the oldest organizations of physicists and the worlds second largest aps which formed in 1899 has more than 51 000 members according to the official citation elabd was elected to aps for fundamental contributions to transport phenomena in ion-containing polymers the bulk of these contributions are a result of elabds work and research on the development of new polymers for clean energy including fuel cells batteries and capacitors there are many different areas and industries elabds research impacts but the largest potential impact is in the electric vehicle industry this is just the latest milestone in a long line of achievements for elabd in 2013 elabds research led to two patents around the structure of fuel cells which both improve the efficiency of cells and reduce the production cost in may 2015 elabd was invited to become a visiting fellow at the university of bologna the worlds oldest university in june 2015 elabd was awarded a department of defense grant to conduct further polymer research
1614,cynthia 82 and fred 82 balda have contributed $25 000 to the zachry department of civil engineering endowed excellence fund and also have established the cynthia 82 and fred 82 endowed scholarship distributions from the existing endowed excellence fund will be used to advance the civil engineering department at texas a&m university distributions from the scholarship will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students pursuing an undergraduate degree in civil engineering from texas a&m university the baldas have given to texas a&m for the past nine years with contributions to the 12th man foundation the association of former students and the civil engineering department fred received a bachelors degree in civil engineering while cynthia received a bachelors degree in business administration they currently reside in dallas where fred is the president of hillwood residential they have three children brad blake and brett
1615,with a long history of contributing to texas a&m university joe b fosters most recent contribution is to the newfield dvg developmental professorship in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering the professorship supports the teaching research service and professional development activities of petroleum engineering faculty foster earned two bachelors degrees from texas a&m the first in 1956 in general business and the second in petroleum engineering the following year he has been awarded and honored multiple times during his affiliation with texas a&m including the corps hall of honor college business award association of former students distinguished alumni engineering outstanding alumni and several business recognition awards in texas foster is the owner of sugarberry partners ltd he and his wife harriet currently reside in houston and have seven children
1616,angie b 84 and william r billy 83 lemmons jr have contributed to the william doug von gonten 56 excellence fund for faculty enrichment this fund benefits professors in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university the lemmonses have supported texas a&m for many years with contributions to the bush foundation the 12th man foundation mays business school and the petroleum engineering department billy is a managing partner in encap flatrock midstream based in san antonio the couple currently resides in boerne texas and has three children hayley lemmons 15 kelsey lemmons and avery lemmons
1617,sallie and don davis 61 have contributed $1 million to support the teaching research service and professional development activities of faculty in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university their gift created three faculty endowments: the sallie and don davis 61 career development professorship in mechanical engineering the sallie and don davis 61 faculty fellowship in mechanical engineering i and the sallie and don davis 61 faculty fellowship in mechanical engineering ii the davises have contributed to texas a&m for more than 30 years with gifts to the 12th man foundation the association of former students (afs) mays business school class gift funds and the mechanical engineering department don received the engineering outstanding alumni award in 1990 and the afs distinguished alumnus award in 2010
1618,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr sharath girimaji holder of the wofford cain chair ii in offshore technology the endowed chair appointment was effective oct 1 girimaji is the head of the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university he also holds a joint appointment in the department of aerospace engineering girimaji received his btech degree in mechanical engineering from the indian institute of technology-madras and his masters and doctorate in mechanical engineering from cornell university he worked for nine years at nasa langley research center primarily in the institute for computer applications in science and engineering (icase) he joined texas a&m in november 1999 as an associate professor in the aerospace engineering department girimaji has served the department in various capacities including tenure and promotion committee chair for four years his areas of research include: complex fluid flows (turbulence); chemically reacting flows; and mathematical/analytical techniques for multiscale multi-physics engineering systems girimaji is a fellow of the american physical society and an associate fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics
1619,matthew johnson and matthew gardner (center) researchers in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and their adviser dr hamid toliyat (left) received the second prize paper award during the prestigious 2016 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) energy conversion congress & exposition (ecce) in milwaukee they received the award from the chair of the electric machines committee of ieees industry applications society dr andrew knight (right) for their paper analysis and development of an axial flux magnetically geared generator the paper describes their development analysis and experimental evaluation of a novel topology for compactly integrating an axial flux motor or generator with an axial flux magnetic gear to produce an extremely high torque density machine their laboratory at texas a&m the advanced electrical machines and power electronics laboratory is a world leader in the emerging field of magnetic gears johnson earned his bachelor of science in electrical engineering from texas a&m in 2011 he is currently finishing his phd in electrical engineering while working in the advanced electric machines and power electronics laboratory his research interests include magnetic gears magnetically geared machines and motor drives gardner earned his bachelor of science in electrical engineering with a minor in computer science from baylor university in 2014 he is currently pursuing a phd in electrical engineering while working in the advanced electric machines and power electronics laboratory his research interests include optimal design and control of magnetic gears and magnetically geared machines toliyat came to texas a&m in 1994 after being an assistant professor at ferdowsi university of mashhad he received his phd from the university of wisconsin-madison in 1991 he is an ieee fellow and received the prestigious ieee nikola tesla award in 2014 the cyrill veinott award in electromechanical energy conversion from the ieee power engineering society in 2004 the patent and innovation award from the texas a&m university system office of technology commercialization in 2007 the tees fellow award in 2004 and 2006 an outstanding professor award in 2005 from texas a&m the distinguished teaching award in 2003 the ed brockett professorship award in 2002 the eugene webb faculty fellow award in 2000 and the texas a&m select young investigator award in 1999 from texas a&m he has also received the space act award from nasa in 1999 and the schlumberger foundation technical awards in 2001 and 2000 toliyat has been an editor of ieee transactions on energy conversion and an associate editor of ieee transactions on power electronics he has been chair of ieee-ias industrial power conversion systems department and is a member of sigma xi and was general chair of the 2005 ieee international electric machines and drives conference in san antonio toliyat is a professional engineer in the state of texas ecce is the foremost ieee conference in the field of electrical and electromechanical energy conversion co-sponsored by the ieee power electronics society (pels) and the ieee industrial applications society (ias)
1620,this summer over 40 students participated in various sectors of the research experience for undergraduates program in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university the visiting students worked alongside faculty mentors in the department including co-directors of the parasol lab dr nancy m amato and dr lawrence rauchwerger; department head dr dilma da silva; director of the sketch recognition lab dr tracy hammond; assistant professor in geography with a joint appointment in computer science and engineering dr dan golberg; director of the perception sensing instrumentation lab dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna; director of the data analytics at texas a&m lab dr xia (ben) hu; assistant professor dr ruihong huang; professor and associate head for academics dr john keyser; senior associate dean for academic affairs and royce e wisenbaker professor dr valerie taylor; and chevron professor ii and regents professor dr jennifer welch ten students worked under hammond and goldberg as part of the texas a&m cyberhealthgis reu program which is a research program for undergraduate students interested in the areas of technology geography and health keyser and huang mentored two students during the undergraduate student research grant program which was an opportunity for students to be immersed in academic research and learn about graduate school many of the students who worked with amato and rauchwerger in the parasol lab were part of the computing research association for womens (cra-w) distributed research experience for undergraduates (dreu) program which is a highly selective program that matches students with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty mentors home institution there were also high school students from the rio grande valley who came to participate in the research program under amato and rauchwerger current computer science and engineering sophomore leslie escalante participated in the summer research program as a rio grande valley high school student and is now an active member of the departments honors program and holds an officer position in the student organization aggie women in computer science the summer reu experience was my first taste of the amount of time and effort needed to be a successful aggie escalante said beyond the specifics of the lab i also learned some imperative communication and understanding skills by observation and practice that i still refer to today: skills like preparing for elevator talks five-minute talks and presentations; basic networking; how to properly/effectively digest technical papers; and writing technical papers every experience has an impact and as i continue on my second year in a&m i'm happy the summer reu program was my first experience in aggieland another current student mustafa (aden) muhammad participated in the summer reu program as a high school student muhammad now serves on the texas a&m student senate and is active in the computer science and engineering branch of engineering honors additionally there were a few students from canieti the mexican national chamber of electronics telecommunication and information technology many canieti students also worked alongside taylor gutierrez-osuna rauchwerger hammond amato and hu these summer mentorship opportunities provided students with invaluable computer science learning experiences that are not always accessible where they live and exposed them to all that graduate studies in the department can offer them
1621,pictured in front of the nasdaq marketsite in times square are (from left) peter rodriguez dean of rices jones graduate school of business; brad burke managing director of the rice alliance for technology and entrepreneurship host of the annual business competition; blake teipel co-founder and ceo of trifusion devices; brandon sweeney co-founder and chief technology officer of trifusion devices; trifusion investor gene birdwell; and dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs in the texas a&m university college of engineering the 2016 winner of the rice business plan competition trifusion devices from texas a&m university's startup aggieland rang the nasdaq stock market opening bell in new york city on monday (oct 10) trifusion is a tenant at the campus business accelerator and was coached at the rbpc by mays business school professor don lewis with the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship (cnve) managing partner of startup aggieland trifusion devices technology promises to produce 3-d printed parts with mechanical properties that rival conventionally manufactured parts which would set the stage for a 3-d printing revolution their materials technology allows for the first time post-printing fit adjustment of the final socket this saves time labor and materials by eliminating the residual limb plaster-casting process and the current need for test-fit sockets the company can deliver a durable custom-fit device in a matter of hours instead of weeks trifusion devices won nearly $400 000 of the more than $17 million in cash and prizes awarded at the worlds richest and largest student startup competition april 14-16
1622,"mikayla barry senior biomedical engineering student at texas a&m university is a pioneer in more ways than one as texas a&ms first beckman scholarship winner and the first biomedical engineering student to be awarded a scholarship from the astronaut scholarship foundation (asf) she is no stranger to awards barry recently attended a public lecture and presentation with apollo 13 astronaut fred haise where she and another student received their scholarships from asf barry already has the distinction of being published twice as an undergraduate student and has played an active part through her research in the development of a life-saving polymer coating technology that could prevent clotting and infections that are common with implanted devices in addition to the many hats she wears as a researcher student and symphonic band performer the role she is most passionate about is that of a science technology engineering mathematics (stem) research ambassador which is in part what motivated her to apply for the asf scholarship i really liked the message of the asf organization because their focus is not only on advancing the field but being a representative of science to the larger community barry said that is something that i am very interested in doing barrys stem outreach is a part of the texas a&m university learning communities academic excellence undergraduate research national fellowships capstones and honors programs (launch) and helps get the message out that research at texas a&m is alive and well and both undergraduate and graduate students can participate her experience comes first-hand only one year into her degree barry began research work on developing a polymer coating that prevents bio-fouling or a process that occurs when the bodys proteins attach to things such as catheters and synthetic implants and have a negative reaction barry explains that once the body recognizes the proteins that attach to the implant the body will mark it as foreign and infections or worse can happen her aim is to prevent the process entirely the idea is that if you can prevent any sort of bio-adhesion or those proteins from sticking to the surface of the implant you can stop anything negative from happening barry said so it has applications in preventing bacterial infections blood from clotting and even applications in the marine industry that we can use which is all pretty exciting the work barry does now has shifted more into chemistry working with biomaterials such as silicone to make the implanted devices more biocompatible with my current application i am using this in blood for use with catheters barry said current catheters have a problem with clotting due to bio-fouling so instead of putting people on blood thinners we're trying to change the chemical surface properties of our silicone so that the proteins won't stick to the catheters at 22 barry is participating in work that is helping to improve medical applications for the world yet she is careful to not place it on a pedestal its really easy to characterize science specifically for being for the betterment of mankind but there are so many other things that fall into that category barry said ""i play the piccolo and i like to think that [my musicianship] betters people's lives as a part of the human experience we are all active in that betterment and my research experience is not particular to me; a lot of my friends are published as well looking forward barry is considering pursuing a position in academia or possibly doing research at a national lab but above all she wants to be a mentor barry admires her research mentor dr melissa grunlan for her technical expertise and her ability to mentor and provide guidance to others something barry hopes to emulate one day outreach gives me a special sense of fulfillment barry said helping people get started on the same path is great because from my perspective i know how rewarding research can be it transforms your college experience from just learning material into learning material through an application that leads toward the betterment of society towards the betterment of society any chance i have to participate in those activities or guide others to them is very fulfilling"""
1623,the defense sciences office at the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) has awarded dr james caverlee and dr xia ben hu a next generation social science (ngs2) grant to complete their collaborative research project helios named after the greek god with the ability to see the invisible along with being a part of the center for digital libraries caverlee is an associate professor and hu is an assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university the helios project aims to create new computational methods and algorithms to fill in the gaps of rapidly evolving spatial-temporal datasets which are datasets that measure both space and time these types of datasets are generally missing information which prohibit accurate assessments of time and location this research will lead to data multipliers which will mean that observed data can be used to extend the coverage and reliability of these partial observations this will lead to more accurate estimations for collective identity applications that rely on spatial-temporal datasets such as gps signals the ultimate goal of the helios project is to carefully model the hidden relationships among locations times and observations of human activities these relationships can then be embedded into a tensor based computational framework for uncovering the approximate complete data based only on partial observations the ngs2 program is divided into two phases a 24-month base period with one 18-month option period each phase will consist of two research cycles
1624,christopher mentzer manager of the unmanned systems r&d branch at the southwest research institute (swri) in san antonio recently visited the department of engineering technology and distribution (etid) at texas a&m university for recruiting and outreach meetings as part of his visit mentzer attended a team meeting for one of the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) programs capstone design teams that was held in the product innovation cellar he was there to offer advice and encouragement to intellimotion innovations the four-person team working on a follow-me vehicle-to-vehicle system development project mentzer received his bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from texas a&m in 2002 and later received his master of science from the same department under the supervision of dr reza langari mentzer currently manages design and development projects to create similar technology for swris federal government customers intellimotions project focuses on creating an initial test bed for a vehicle-to-vehicle communications and control (v2vc2) system using small-scale go-karts instead of passenger cars or trucks as is usually done the approach that caught the interest of general motors uses small scale electric vehicles that can be operated indoors or in highly confined spaces the vehicles travel at a maximum speed of 20 mph and provide a development environment for sensors embedded intelligence algorithms and systems integration at a reduced cost in addition the two-vehicle system draws attention to science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) outreach and recruiting the overall capstone project requires intellimotion to develop a wireless communications-based system that can collect operational information from the lead vehicle and transfer the data to the follow vehicle the vehicle will induce time delays based on speed to emulate the steering acceleration and braking of the lead vehicle additionally the team will implement an ultrasonic sensor to ensure the follow vehicle maintains a safe distance from the lead vehicle the embedded intelligence necessary for the lead vehicle is being designed and developed by intellimotion and a national instruments myrio unit is currently being used in the follow vehicle as part of the visit intellimotion demonstrated the current capability for the lead vehicle to monitor the position of the steering wheel as well as the position of the gas pedal and brake pressure and then to transfer the data using a zigbee wireless communications channel the vehicle is currently able to emulate all three of the control elements without the time delay associated with speed mentzer urged the team to select a hall effect sensor that would be able to count the teeth on the drive sprocket of each vehicle to augment the current sensors and actuators to improve overall control of the follow vehicle the team members have had a number of opportunities to talk with visiting high school students and teachers about their project and their decision to select texas a&m for their undergraduate education based on these factors etid is continuing the development efforts by providing sponsorship for a second capstone team starting this semester advance technologies innovations which includes brian hogan tyler lipperdt david moore and greg nallie will take over the project at the end of the fall semester it is currently planning the work that it will accomplish in the spring semester that will focus on replacing the myrio unit in the follow vehicle with its own embedded intelligence design and integrating the use of an inertial measurement unit in both vehicles
1625,looking to explore new horizons literally and figuratively 99 students from the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university traveled the world this summer to study the ways civil engineers build our world the department led four study abroad programs in spain italy and taiwan this past summer this marked the first civil engineering study abroad trip to taiwan with 14 students attending the inaugural trip living in taipei for five weeks the courses offered on the trip were taught by texas a&m faculty at the national taiwan university (ntu) campus located in taipei the trip was led by dr kuang-an chang professor and dr kung-hui chu associate professor who taught the classes and led cultural and technical visits founded in 1928 ntu is considered one of the most prestigious universities in asia through ntu the students enjoyed a world-class learning environment both in education and culture as well as opportunities to participate in research and cultural activities a civil engineering related technical visit to the yuansantze flood diversion project was arranged through ntus alumni network students were impressed by this impressive feat of civil engineering as the project diverts the keelung river through a tunnel under a mountain and into the ocean to prevent flooding in the keelung river basin the students saw a real structure of a flood mitigation project that diverts flow from a flood-prone river through a 40-foot diameter 15-mile tunnel under a mountain to the ocean on the other side as well as the sediment pool that minimizes sediment going through the tunnel said chang they also saw the other side of the tunnel where the water comes out the energy dissipation structure at the tunnel exit that minimizes erosion caused by the high-speed flow and discussed the environmental issues caused by the high volume of fresh water abruptly entering the ocean and its impact to a local fishery beyond the structural and water resources aspects this visit also highlighted the environmental aspects of civil engineering at the point where the river deposits into the ocean the combination of fresh water into a salt water environment has a large impact of sea life and fishing in the area students saw for themselves the impacts of such a project both beneficial removing the threat of flooding in the area and detrimental adverse environmental impacts it was very cool to get to apply what im learning toward real life especially from an environmental aspect getting to see how pollution affects the real world said crystal salazar a senior civil engineering student who participated in the trip studying in taipei presents a perfect opportunity for students to explore the culture and engineering profession in asia in a very safe and enriching environment beyond the classes and technical visits the students visited the taipei zoo maokong gondola a gondola lift system taipei 101 a supertall skyscraper the national museum of marine biology & aquarium kenting national park the national palace museum and the longshan temple students also had five days for free travel around taiwan and neighboring countries before this trip i never considered visiting asia and now i want to go everywhere in asia said salazar i feel like it opened more doors for me culturally texas a&m is currently in the process of finalizing an exchange program with ntu which would allow aggie engineering students to take classes in taiwan that count toward their degree
1626,this summer also marked the second year for the trip to italy and the 11 th year to spain the civil engineering program hosted two trips to italy led by dr luca quadrifoglio snead career development professor and dr ivan damnjanovic jl corky frank/marathon ashland petroleum llc faculty fellow the first was a three-week course based in the center of rome the trip included cultural visits to various locations in rome as well as to pompeii and florence and a technical visit to metro c a civil engineering firm the second was a five-week trip to trieste italy near venice students studied at the university of trieste one of the top 400 universities worldwide on this trip students had the opportunity to visit venice vajont dam/dolomites croatia and slovenia additionally the students visited dizzani/de eccher a large international civil engineering firm the yearly trip to spain is a group of 50 students led by dr joseph bracci professor in civil engineering dr francisco olivera associate professor in civil engineering and dr harry hogan professor in mechanical engineering the primary location of the trip is castilla-la mancha spain however students get to travel to bilbao san sebastian and valencia in spain as well as to porto portugal students had the opportunity to take a technical visit to the construction of the bypass tunnel of the undurraga reservoir for water supply of the city of bilbao and the canal de navarra for irrigation water supply for the navarra region it is a heavily immersive experience due to high levels of interaction with spanish students at the university of castilla-la mancha and the opportunity to live with a local host family for more information about on these trips please visit our opportunities by location page contributing author: ryan terry
1627,ahmed 'aziz' ezzat phd student and research assistant in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was selected to receive the best presentation award from the texas a&m energy conference for his presentation space-time modeling of asymmetric local wind fields the ultimate goal of this project is to bridge the gap between statistical modeling and engineering practice in wind energy systems by the characterization and modeling of complex real-world physical phenomena in wind dynamics ezzat said ezzats presentation addressed the exploratory analysis of wind dynamics in a space-time domain characterized by a dense grid of locations with close spatial and temporal proximity this work can be applied to a set of wind turbine measurements on a wind farm the interaction between the spatial and temporal components in wind dynamics is commonly overlooked by using separable fully-symmetric statistical models ezzat said our analysis suggests that wind dynamics in wind farms are asymmetric in nature while still in the early stages this research will provide a deeper understanding of wind dynamics and enable better forecasts and robust control strategies in wind energy applications the next step of this project is the development of space-time statistical models for the inference and prediction of wind speed profile and power production in wind farms ezzat explained the conference organized by the texas a&m energy research society in partnership with the texas a&m energy club covered all facets of energy during the span of three days being selected from more than 100 presentations this award is a step forward and a confirmation that as a research team we are headed in the right direction of genuine and novel research in the area of statistical modeling of wind power systems ezzat said ezzat studies the space-time statistical modeling in engineering systems under dr yu ding the mike and sugar barnes professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering with emphasis in the forecast understanding and control of wind energy applications
1628,the texas a&m university college of engineering and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) are hosting a national manufacturing day event on friday oct 7 beginning at 1:30 pm at the engineering innovation center on the texas a&m campus the event highlights the manufacturing capabilities of texas a&m that can be utilized by businesses in the community bryan and college station businesses and community leaders are invited to attend dr eleftherios iakovou tees director of manufacturing and logistics innovation initiatives and dr satish bukkapatnam director of the tees institute for manufacturing systems will give opening remarks and an overview of tees manufacturing capabilities following the remarks participants will tour the manufacturing facilities on the texas a&m campus
1629,the texas a&m university college of engineering has added to the strength of its teaching and research faculty with the addition five members of the national academy of engineering (nae) three of the members have already joined the faculty while two will come to texas a&m beginning this january dr bonnie j dunbar and dr robert skelton have joined the department of aerospace engineering and dr ignacio rodriguez-iturbe has joined the department of ocean engineering dr george pharr will join the department of materials science and engineering and dr thomas overbye will join the department of electrical and computer engineering both beginning in january dr bonnie j dunbar dunbar is a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor in the aerospace engineering department and also serves as the director of the tees institute for engineering education and innovation (ieei) dunbar who is a retired nasa astronaut came to texas a&m from the university of houston where she provided leadership in the development of a new integrated university science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) center she was an md anderson professor of mechanical engineering and she developed a new innovative course for the introduction of engineering to freshmen students she also directed the sicsa space architecture graduate program dunbar has devoted her life to furthering engineering engineering education and the pursuit of human space exploration dunbar became a member of nae in 2002 dr robert skelton skelton is a tees distinguished research professor in the aerospace engineering department skelton whose research focuses on integrating system science with material science to create new material systems came to texas a&m from the university of california san diego (ucsd) his contributions to innovative engineering serve humankind in outer space and earth skelton served for 21 years as a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at purdue university where he also directed the structural systems and control laboratory for purdues institute for interdisciplinary engineering studies from 1991 to 1996 at ucsd he founded the universitys systems and control program and became director of ucsds structural systems and control laboratory in 2006 ucsd named skelton the daniel l alspach professor of dynamics systems and controls in the jacobs school of engineering and professor emeritus in 2009 most recently skelton pioneered the mathematical description of tensegrity structures which combines tension and integrity to describe materials composed of strings and rods skelton became a member of nae in 2012 dr ignacio rodriguez-iturbe rodriguez-iturbe is a distinguished university professor and distinguished tees research professor in the department of ocean engineering rodriguez-iturbe also holds a joint appointment in the zachry department of civil engineering he came to texas a&m from princeton university where he was the james s mcdonnell distinguished university professor of civil and environmental engineering rodriguez-iturbe had a previous stint at texas a&m from 1993 to 1999 when he was a distinguished professor holder of the rp gregory chair professor and head of the civil engineering department his research interests include coastal ecosystems; hydrogeomorphology; ecohydrology; river basin functioning and organization; and stochastic modeling of natural phenomena rodriguez-iturbe became a member of nae in 1988 dr thomas j overbye overbye will join the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m as a tees distinguished research professor overbye is currently the fox family professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign (uiuc) where he has been since 1991 prior to joining uiuc he was employed with madison gas and electric company from 1983 to 1991 he served on the us doe power outage study team in 1999 and helped with its national transmission grid study in 2002 overbye is the original developer of powerworld simulator an innovative widely used software package for power system analysis and visualization and a co-founder of powerworld corporation his research interests are in the domains of smart grid cyber security renewable electric energy systems power system visualization power system analysis by computer methods power system stability and power systems operation and control overbye became a member of nae in 2013 dr george m pharr pharr will join the department of materials science and engineering pharr is currently the chancellors professor and mckamey professor of engineering at the university of tennessee he also holds a joint faculty position in the materials science and technology division at the oak ridge national laboratory pharrs research interests include nanoindentation and nanomechanical testing; thin film and small-scale mechanical behavior; mechanisms of fracture and flow in solids; and finite element modeling of indentation contact he will teach at both the graduate and undergraduate levels on nanomaterials and properties of materials pharr became a member of nae in 2014
1630,two researchers from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees)-agrilife center for bioinformatics and genomic systems engineering (cbgse) and the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university have received a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) that will allow them to explore the use of system theoretic approaches to carry out cancer drug identification dr michael bittners (left) and dr aniruddha dattas (right) grant identification of drug targets and their validation in cancer therapy design is a three-year $400 000 grant their project proposes a novel approach to combine pathway information concerning cancer cell life and death along with data on modes of cell response to drugs to develop models that would allow the identification and validation of decisive modulators of cell death bittner has tested some drug combinations in cancer cell lines datta said his basis for coming up with these drug combinations is his expert knowledge as a biologist what we want to do with this grant is to see whether we can use engineering methods to do the actual modeling and see whether those models suggest the same kind of combinations that he came up with as a biologist their project builds upon the recent robust induction of cancer cell death that bittner and his collaborators in the texas a&m school of veterinary medicine were able to experimentally demonstrate using canine cancer cell lines bittner worked with dr heather wilson-robles associate professor and dr fred a and vola n palmer chair in comparative oncology to successfully test his therapy on canine osteosarcoma a type of bone cancer in aging dogs the drugs in this case were chosen based on bittners expert knowledge the focus of their current project is to develop a systematic approach to identify highly potent modulators we want to see if we can make that knowledge systematic because it would have applications in other cancers and also agricultural genomics datta said im really excited about being involved in the research proposed in this grant because in this particular case bittner has already had experimental success so now the question is can we reverse engineer that and come up with bittners combination and perhaps more current cancer drugs targeted at checking cell proliferation have generally had limited success as cancer cells usually apply alternative mechanisms to bypass anti-proliferative drug activities however bittner and datta hope rapid and robust induction of cancer cell death may provide a more potent weapon against the disease most people are targeting how to prevent the cancer cell from multiplying and that has met with limited success datta said the wiring is so complicated inside the cancer cell that more often than not you test a drug that you think will work and the cell figures out a way to bypass the drug what bittner is trying to do is kill the cancer cells if you can rapidly kill all or nearly all of a patients cancer cells with a potent drug combination many possibilities arise a full cure via the initial cancer cell death a cure spurred by typical cancer cell killing via the immune system or the ability to apply the drugs again should the cancer recur thats whats exciting bittner agrees most cancer patients get three to four months longer survival with what is a considered a successful drug a very limiting and expensive situation for many cancer patients he said adding that because his goal is aimed at maximum elimination of cancer cells the chance of reoccurrence is reduced application of jointly developed methods could be used to identify other kinds of drugs which might well have powers that we havent figured out as biologists yet with their current grant the hope is that robles would continue to support their research with samples and information but the ultimate goal would be to secure another grant to fuel increased collaboration with the school of veterinary medicine and larger animals bittner a research professor with the tees-agrilife cbgse joined the center in january 2014 he is also associated with the translation genomics research institute (tgen) in phoenix where he served as co-director of computational biology from 2003-2013 prior to that he was with the national human genome research institute of the national institutes of health (nih) and previously worked for monsanto and amoco his research interests mainly center around cancer cell dynamics and with the relocation of his lab to college station tremendous opportunities have opened up for cancer drug identification and testing using canine samples datta the jw runyon jr 35 professor ii in electrical and computer engineering joined the department in 1991 he also currently serves as the director of the tees-agrilife cbgse and is responsible for developing research collaborations between the texas a&m college of engineering and texas a&m agrilife research datta's research focuses on robust adaptive control pid control engineering issues related to cancer genomics and most recently on plant genomics issues motivated by agricultural applications
1631,jana and quentin a baker 78 have established the jana and quentin a baker 78 faculty fellowship in mechanical engineering distributions from this endowment will be used to support the teaching research service and professional development activities of mechanical engineering professors at texas a&m university the bakers have been generous supporters of texas a&m for more than 20 years with contributions to the association of former students mays business school and the department of mechanical engineering quentin baker was awarded the aggie 100 entrepreneur award – civic honors in 2009 and 2010 he graduated with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering quentin is the president of baker engineering & risk consultant inc he and his wife jana currently reside in san antonio
1632,petro-king international co ltd has contributed $100 000 to the pete faculty gifts – valko fund expenditures from this fund will be used to support doctoral research in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university petro-king is a leading independent china-based provider of high-end oilfield services specializing in well drilling and completion
1633,rebecca l 03 and robert j bobby jee jr 02 have established the rebecca l 03 and robert j bobby jee jr 02 scholarship in engineering technology distributions from this endowment will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students pursuing an undergraduate degree in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university the jees have given to texas a&m over the past several years with contributions to the engineering technology and industrial distribution department and the 12th man foundation bobby graduated with a bachelors degree in engineering technology and his wife rebecca graduated with a bachelors degree in engineering industrial distribution both rebecca and bobby work at shell oil products us and currently reside in houston
1634,dr raymundo case has joined the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university as a professor of practice case comes to the department from conocophillips where he worked as a staff scientist specializing in assessment of risk of failure by corrosion during his time at conocophillips case received several awards including the 2013 conocophillips technology achievement award for preferential weld corrosion mitigation in the alaska kuparuk seawater injection pipeline and more recently the national association of corrosion engineers 2016 technical achievement award case will serve as the director of operations of the texas a&m engineering experimentation stations (tees) national corrosion and materials reliability center managing its ever-increasing industry-portfolio he plans to establish strong relationships with industry partners to leverage the centers research and education resources to help solve corrosion problems faced by oil and gas industries his research interests include corrosion mechanisms modeling and mitigation in super critical environments he is currently focusing on a corrosion damage distribution model for low alloy steels a stress corrosion prediction model for stainless steels effects of hydrogen sulfide on the pit growth kinetics in corrosion resistant alloys liquid metal embrittlement of corrosion resistant alloys and high strength titanium during exposure to metallic mercury case received a bachelors degree in materials science and engineering and a masters degree in physical metallurgy from universidad central de venezuela in caracas venezuela and a phd in corrosion science from the university of manchester in the united kingdom
1635,a team of researchers led by dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected for the second consecutive year by nasas johnson space center (nasa jsc) to continue development of an advanced passively morphing radiator concept for manned spaceflight solutions such as shape adaptive radiators have been identified in the nasa technology roadmaps as essential to the success of future manned missions such as proposed missions to mars thermal control is necessary to provide the crew with suitable living and working conditions as well as maintain specified temperatures for all of the equipment onboard the spacecraft thermal control in manned missions is particularly difficult due to the small range of acceptable cabin temperatures and the large variation in external conditions throughout a given mission a manned spacecraft in orbit will generate a much larger amount of heat than one in coast for example while on a trajectory to mars excess heat created on the spacecraft is rejected into space via the use of radiators a morphing radiator using shape memory alloys (smas) provides a lightweight way to adjust the heat rejection hartl first began working with nasa jsc engineers in 2013 on novel concepts for self-morphing radiators based on the unique characteristics of smas these materials are very strong and generate large motions as temperatures change they enable the possibility of radiator panels that open widely to space when heated and curl up closed when cooled
1636,smas actuators operate using a phase transformation so they can be made to shrink when heated which is the opposite of conventional thermal expansion the sma is coupled with composite panels to make the radiator placed on the outside the shrinking sma causes the panels on the radiator to open and release heat to the atmosphere when the environment is cooler the sma cools and expands causing the radiator to close and retain heat this process enables a fully passive thermal control system at a greatly reduced weight as compared to other options as a student working under hartl christopher bertagne was granted a nasa space technology research fellowship (nstrf) to focus on developing computational tools to better understand this concept bertagne has since graduated and joined the nasa/caltech jet propulsion lab (jpl) as a thermal engineer i believe the success we have had in designing understanding and eventually proving the feasibility of this novel concept was critical to placing chris in his dream job at jpl hartl said moving forward hartl will work with colleague john whitcomb professor in the department of aerospace engineering and student researchers to further design develop and demonstrate highly thermally conductive composite laminate panels capable of sma-driven morphing of special interest in the coming year will be improved thermal and mechanical design of the radiator panels and further improved analysis tools identifying the best design requires a mix of simplified models to quickly find the best candidates and then more advanced models to obtain more accurate performance predictions and to make sure we have not overlooked something said whitcomb thermally conductive carbon fibers are very stiff and brittle added hartl thicker panels transfer the most heat however morphing structures need to be compliant robust and generally thin one can see that the shape adaptive radiator represents a complex and contradictory design problem entities such as the boeing company and jpl have expressed interest in following the progress of the project to date nasa has provided more than $275 000 in support of this research
1637,between track practices student athletic advisory committee meetings kappa alpha psi activities and working in the office of the board of regents kohl anderson has little time to ponder the opportunities that arise the senior in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was surprised to get the call asking him to introduce texas a&m president michael k young in the upcoming state of the university address this job has created many great opportunities for me and is definitely one of my favorite things that i get to do while in college anderson said it is from working for the board of regents that i was blessed with the opportunity to introduce president young when he was told raymond boney director of university events contacted shawn price assistant media relations director for track and field anderson was honored to have been remembered and chosen for this event a while back i had to take mr boney back to the presidents office anderson said i had no idea i was more or less being interviewed the athlete runs in the 400 meter and 4x400 meter relay events for the texas a&m track and field team when anderson is not at work or the track he is usually studying for his rigorous courses i was drawn to industrial engineering because it has the perfect balance of engineering knowledge and versatility anderson said industrial is a very strong degree and can be applied into any field because no matter the business things can always get better that's what industrial engineering is about bettering and optimizing systems anderson plans to merge his degree in industrial engineering with a law degree to achieve his goal of supporting people through legal consulting i plan on going to law school after i finish my undergraduate degree anderson said my dream job would be owning my own law and consulting firm using both of my degrees to help people make their business as profitable as possible and also being able to support them legally anderson will take the stage to introduce president young to deliver the address focusing on the pursuit of excellence in transformational education innovation and impact to celebrate the 140th birthday of the university i am very blessed with this opportunity anderson admitted of course i am very busy but this is the kind of thing you make time for the state of the university address will be available for live streaming on oct 4
1638,lambert fick a doctoral student in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university received the akiyama medal for the best overall student paper as a part of the student paper competition at the international nuclear engineering conference (icone 24) held in charlotte north carolina ficks is the first north american student to receive the akiyama medal a prestigious award presented by the japan society of mechanical engineers (jsme) in the conferences 24-year history ficks paper reflected his research relating to a new conceptual design of pebble bed nuclear reactors and was one of more than 120 papers submitted at the conference ficks research is directed toward advanced nuclear reactors of complex flow within a pebble bed design an aspect that has traditionally represented a challenge for computational research groups these flows are complex to simulate using computational tools fick said we look at specific phenomena relating to turbulence kinetic energy the long term temporal instabilities and the basic engineering parameters with higher order statistics things of that nature that help us understand and apply the physics to design safer nuclear reactors fick is an intern at argonne national laboratory in chicago where he works with the labs nuclear engineering division dr yassin hassan head of the department of nuclear engineering serves as his faculty adviser my day is spent staring at computer screens doing simulations on the labs computing system which is pretty cool because this is one of the fastest super computer cluster systems in the world fick said we do very high degree simulations of these fluid flows on the order of thousands or tens of thousands of cpus at a time to do these calculations its pretty impressive stuff fick and the computational team use geometries to simulate these flows and delve into the physics behind these reactor designs based on the understanding they generate from the simulations they are able to extrapolate different developmental models to reduce computational costs to a design project after having interned at argonne for three years fick is hoping to pursue a position at the lab after receiving his phd and continuing his work related to advanced nuclear reactors we make some small incremental steps forward in our knowledge at a time but the fact that we work on spherical or complex domains with a lot of curvature is a pretty novel thing fick said im really interested in continuing this line of research since i feel that it really has some potential to impact the broad engineering community in a positive way
1639,for a living lt col daniel lehoski travels 20 miles per minute in three-dimensions at nine times the force of gravity while neutralizing threats from an early age the former civil engineering student enjoyed building things taking them apart and solving problems while dreaming of becoming an air force pilot attending texas a&m university was also a dream of his he was a member of the corps of cadets and earned his bachelors degree from the zachry department of civil engineering when i started at texas a&m in 1996 i saw a video of the early testing of the f-22 prototype and i was captivated by its performance lehoski said i still remember watching the video at evans library thousands of times at the expense of my freshman gpa and dreaming about flying the raptor he also learned from an early age the importance of serving others and developed a passion to serve the nation by watching his parents and grandparents texas a&m and the corps of cadets strengthened my drive to serve and solidified my convictions to pursue a career in the air force lehoski said after graduation he did not realize just how many of the things he learned in his engineering classes would be useful in his career as a pilot lehoski quickly learned just how wrong he was once he climbed in the cockpit on any given day in a raptor squadron you will hear discussions involving kinetic and potential energy radar attenuation trigonometry calculus and numerous other topics that seem more fitting for an applied engineering classroom than aerial combat tactics lehoski said every time he takes flight with his team he is driven by the mission and people he serves to perform the job beyond the best of his abilities for the 95th fighter squadron our mission is to provide air dominance for america and every flight presents new problems that have to be solved lehoski said it is problem solving while traveling at 20 miles per minute in three-dimensions at nine times the force of gravity while neutralizing threats and it never gets boring we work together each day to accomplish the mission in a super bowl caliber team of incredibly talented men and women that always find a way to get the job done lehoski commander of the 95th fighter squadron is most proud of his team receiving the raytheon trophy in 2015 the award is given annually to the top fighter squadron in the united states air force in a little over a year the squadron flew missions in england germany estonia lithuania romania iraq syria jordan poland and spain and supported multiple contingency operations all with 100 percent mission success lehoski said it was a tremendous accomplishment and i was fortunate to be part of it lehoski and fellow aggie col robert davis 95 helped kick off the 2016 aggie football season by aiding in and performing the flyover prior to the game and giving tours of their f-22 planes to over 600 cadets while things have changed a bit since he last stepped on campus the unique culture and atmosphere have remained the same incredible is how lehoski describes it hearing the national anthem from atop the press box the roar of four f-22s and the cheering crowd as we btho ucla will be a memory i never forget lehoski admitted i am appreciative for the incredible hospitality and support we received coming back to aggieland lehoski credits numerous people as having served as mentors in his life his parents being at the top of the list their example of hard work and integrity and the value of education they taught me have been the foundation for everything that i have done he said while at texas a&m dr calvin woods played a significant role as a mentor in lehoskis success and helping boost his confidence in finding a career post-graduation he taught me how to apply the math and science concepts which he taught better than anyone and is a skill i still use today to fly the f-22 lehoski said his diverse professional background made me realize that there are so many good options available for engineers which gave me a great sense of confidence after graduation aside from his life in the sky lehoski is most proud of two important women in his life my pride and joy are my wife 01 who has a career in education and my daughter 36 lehoski said my daughter can already identify f-22s and say ‘gig em the seasoned fighter pilot advises students to set the bar high with their goals and dreams after all the aggie network is right behind them along with the lessons and skills learned on campus the values academics and other education taught at texas a&m uniquely prepare aggies for success lehoski advised coupled with hard work there are no goals out of reach for graduates
1640,dr dinakar sagapuram assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was part of a team whose research was selected for the cover of the september issue of proceedings of the royal society a (prsa) the royal society is one of the worlds oldest and most preeminent scientific academies it has published the work of many renowned scientists including benjamin franklins famous kite experiment james chadwicks detection of the neutron and sir isaac newtons principia mathematica which formulated the laws of motion and the action of gravity the teams paper geometric flow control of shear bands by suppression of viscous sliding detailed the use of high-speed imaging and micromaker analysis of flow in cutting to deduce the fundamental mechanism of shear band instabilities in metals processing the research has led to a simple method to better control these instabilities we were interested in not only studying the shear banding problem that affects product quality and machine stability in manufacturing but also in ways to control the instabilities sagapuram said we demonstrated a simple geometric method to suppress shear band formation in machining it's possible to extend its application to other processes where shear banding can be an issue sagapuram is collaborating on the work with koushik viswanathan (purdue university) anirban mahato (indian institute of technology patna) narayan k sundaram (indian institute of science) rachid msaoubi (seco tools uk) kevin p trumble (purdue university) and srinivasan chandrasekar (purdue university) there still remain a lot of unanswered questions related to shear bands despite their discovery more than a century ago sagapuram said and i will continue to look for new approaches to control these instabilities the picture featured on the cover of the september 2016 issue was taken with a scanning electron microscope and shows the shear band structure of a metal chip formed during cutting for more information regarding the specific research click here
1641,representatives from texas instruments were on the texas a&m university campus recently for a ribbon cutting at the renovated texas instruments mixed signal test laboratory and product innovation cellar (pic) in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) the pic originally opened in 2013 as a 3 400 square-foot 24/7 project development and capstone resource in thompson hall for students in the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program the texas instruments mixed signal test laboratory next to the pic opened in 1998; when talks about renovating the lab began ti decided to go one step farther when we were looking at [renovating] the ti lab we realized there was this great opportunity in the pic as well said dr rainer fink associate professor in the eset program fink worked closely with ti representatives to bring the look and feel of modern laboratories to the new pic we wanted to make the feel between the ti lab and pic equivalent such that it flows together; jack kilbys work and art is highlighted throughout the pic as a motivating factor for our students said fink kilby a nobel prize winner was working at ti when he invented the integrated circuit eight eset students had the opportunity to visit with ti vice president of worldwide manufacturing operations kyle flessner and validation engineering manager marvin landrum both texas a&m graduates to learn about the company and exchange ideas be open to new opportunities even if you dont think you are the best candidate said flessner when talking about his journey from aggieland to ti vp theres no replacement for experience and i think thats why your lab-based final years [in eset] are so critical always do the best job you can in your current role dont look too far ahead of yourself flessner and landrum stressed how excited they were to work with eset not only to enrich engineering education but also to create a pathway to permanent employment at ti students shared their thoughts on working at ti utilizing the renovated mixed signal lab and pic and working towards graduation eset faculty students and ti representatives gathered in the pic to celebrate the grand opening flessner spoke on the history of texas a&m and ti highlighting the importance of the relationship and its impact on etid students ti and beyond what makes this week so special it was 58 years ago on sept 12 that tis very own jack kilby unveiled the first working integrated circuit shaping the future of electronics what electrical engineers do and of course changing the course of history through the thousands of products that have since been invented based on semiconductor technology said flessner and it was 20 years ago that we began a collaboration with texas a&m with the ti mixed signal lab changing the relationship with ti and tamu and developing new test methods that have since been used by ti and by the industry flessner went on to highlight some of the achievements made possible by the partnership ti validation technical leaders and eset faculty collaborated to enhance the mixed signal test track to add validation a new focus area for ti he said this adds an important dimension to the eset curriculum so students can fill emerging needs in ti another example is bridge-to-test a new continuing education class that fills an important training gap and allows young engineers to accelerate their ramp by learning critical test engineering skills the goal is to speed up their onboarding process so they can add value to ti faster ti support of the eset mobile integrated stackable layers program is another example of how we are working with a&m to ensure undergraduates and faculty are removing barriers to low cost space exploration using ti parts flessner also highlighted the fact that two recent eset graduates vince rodriguez and dakotah karrer were part of the capstone team dvdt that won the 2016 texas instruments innovation challenge in july both rodriguez and karrer now work at ti and taught a class for current eset students on the ti launchpad hardware
1642,dr b don russell distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has received the philip sporn award from the international council on large electric systems (cigre) for cumulative career contributions to the advancement of large high voltage electric systems in the united states russell is the first texas a&m faculty member to receive the award russell is an internationally recognized expert in real-time monitoring and analytic methods to diagnose failing apparatus in electric power systems he holds 15 us patents and multiple foreign patents for his methods to protect power systems and detect abnormal events technologies he has developed are widely sold in commercial products don russell is an expert in diagnostics for electric power distribution systems and is widely recognized as the worlds leading expert on high impedance fault detection said dr miroslav begovic head of the department of electrical and computer engineering the research team he leads has been credited with many transformational developments that shifted the research focus in our industry don has served our department for over 40 years and has demonstrated excellence in teaching research and service russell was previously recognized by cigre with its distinguished member award for significant contributions to the work of cigre internationally he was elected to the national academy of electric engineering in 1999 was recently inducted as a fellow of the national academy of inventors and is a fellow of six professional societies including the national academy of forensic engineers and the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) texas a&m has recognized russell with the university faculty distinguished achievement award in research and named him a regents professor in 2009 russell was elevated to the rank of distinguished professor at texas a&m russell has participated broadly in international activities in over 50 countries his national service includes president of the ieee power and energy society the largest organization of electric power engineers russell has received numerous awards including the outstanding engineering achievement award of the national society of professional engineers and the ieee halprin transmission and distribution award
1643,from left engineering students brian proksch steven kronk juan lozoya casandra ramos brooke rogers christopher vega and jason belmares are pictured on kyle field it is saturday in aggieland and thousands of maroon-clad fans are filing into texas a&m universitys kyle field anxiously anticipating the football game that will soon unfold on the turf beneath the bleachers are the unsung heroes the technicians videographers on-air talent and engineers that make up 12th man productions they are responsible for the video board shows tv shows highlight videos and other programming associated with texas a&m athletics when the aggies joined the southeastern conference in 2012 the university made a commitment to establish a facility that would provide sec network programming for espn part of kyle fields renovation included an $114 million production facility used by 12th man productions andy richardson assistant athletic director for 12th man productions knew with the expanded production capabilities would come a need for engineers i generally tell people i can tell time but i cant build a clock he said richardson turned to jesse janosky a broadcast engineer to recruit engineering students to assist with the nuts and bolts of making television magic the experience of a lifetime janosky is living his dream at 12th man productions the penn state university graduate spent years knocking on the doors of local news station vans begging for a chance to work behind the scenes his persistence paid off 13 years ago and he enjoyed an exciting career in sports television now janosky is thrilled to give young engineering students the same opportunities he had there are 12 engineering students who work part-time for 12th man productions running cables and completing many technical aspects of television production for all sporting events at the university a lot of these kids didnt even know that engineering television was even a thing janosky said one student hired last year has since graduated and is now working for nbc sports some of the students might want to do this for a living and some might want to do it just because its a cool thing janosky said neither is right or wrong we just want them to work for us and have fun learning how to learn for engineering students learning how to be a team player and solve problems is crucial chemical engineering student brooke roger said thats exactly what she has learned in her two years as a part-time employee for 12th man productions theres no chemistry involved in this but this is the best opportunity to learn how to be an engineer because of situations where you just have nothing to go off of but theres a problem and you have to figure it out roger said were learning how to learn brian proksch an electronic systems engineering technology student said his job at 12th man productions could potentially alter his career aspirations its something i hadnt even thought of doing before i came here to work proksch said i love getting to learn this stuff in a real world setting and im thinking of doing some broadcast work next summer the engineers arrive hours before kickoff to set up and troubleshoot when the game begins theyre on standby in case anything goes wrong it really prepares you for a real world situation said juan lozoya an electrical engineering student if theres a live event and something goes wrong we have to fix it we are able to think fast and be able to handle these situations jason belmares an electronic systems engineering technology student said his work for 12th man productions has benefitted him in the classroom in my major we do a lot of soldering and hands-on work wiring cables belmares said i definitely do that with this job so now when i go to class i know what im doing while biomedical engineering student christopher vega isnt soldering or running cables in his classes he said the experience still translates here youre put on the spot vega said you can diagnose and figure out a problem and carry on those problem-solving skills into the field that im actually going into in the end gaining worthwhile experience is what its all about they can walk out of here and put on their resumé that they helped us with espn productions richardson said we think its a great relationship weve established with the college of engineering that allows these students that have a real interest in the hands-on application of all of this to come over here and be involved we look forward to continuing to foster that relationship and have a steady stream of engineering students that are gaining that opportunity
1644,dr xingfu wu and dr valerie taylor from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university have received a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to conduct research that aims to improve energy efficiency of scientific applications on large-scale high-performance computing (hpc) systems by focusing on three key factors: execution time power and resilience wu is a tees research associate professor and taylor if the senior associate dean for academic affairs and royce e wisenbaker professor the grant is a collaboration with dr zhiling lan a professor of computer science at the illinois institute of technology the total grant is $500 000 with $300 000 to texas a&m and $200 000 to illinois institute of technology power execution time and resilience are paramount factors to consider in regard to the energy efficiency of parallel computing this research aims to develop effective techniques for co-modeling and quantifying the complicated tradeoffs among parallel application execution time power and resilience and to provide a tuning mechanism for user-defined metrics on hpc systems the experimental results and models they acquire will be used to build a framework called mummi_r which stands for multiple metrics modeling infrastructure with resilience this framework will be an enhancement to a previous nsf large project that taylor and wu were a part of mummi which was completed in collaboration with dr kirk cameron from virginia tech dr dan terpstra from the university of tennessee at knoxville and dr shirley moore from the university of texas at el paso while reducing execution time is still a major objective for high performance computing future parallel systems and applications will have additional power and resilience requirements that represent a multidimensional tuning challenge wu said fault tolerance techniques ensure that if there does happen to be a failure inside a system it will continue to operate correctly regardless because of hardware and software faults or silent data corruptions real-world scientific applications often rely on resilience techniques to successfully finish the long executions while fault tolerance and power capping techniques continue to evolve tradeoffs across execution time power efficiency and resilience strategies are not well understood existing fault tolerance studies mainly focus on the tradeoffs between execution time/overhead and resiliency whereas most power management studies focus on the tradeoffs between execution time and power understanding the tradeoffs among these three factors is crucial as future machines will be built with both reliability and power constraints said taylor the mummi_r project will advance the understanding of the relationship of power execution time and resilience on large-scale hpc systems this will aid in better design of parallel applications runtime systems and computer architectures in terms of energy efficiency and resilience
1645,the texas a&m university chapter of the american nuclear society (ans) visited the south texas project (stp) electric generating station in bay city texas while the station began a refueling outage for one of its operating units the students received a tour of the stations facilities and a unique view into what happens during a refueling process trips like this are helpful to our understanding of how a nuclear plant operates and also in visualizing what weve been learning in class said james bunsen a senior nuclear engineering student there are a lot of systems that you dont really visualize what they are like in the classroom so it helps put things in perspective the group was able to see the stations operating rooms one of the stations diesel generators the spent fuel pool and got a first-hand look at preparation procedures for removing the head of the reactor pressure vessel the students planned their visit during the refueling outage a process that occurs about every 18 months according to bunsen which allowed them the opportunity to see the station and its components up close we were actually pretty fortunate because one of our advisory council members tim powell wanted us to come down during the outage so we took advantage of that opportunity bunsen said powell is the executive vice president and chief executive officer of stp and was able to help facilitate the opportunity for the students one aspect of the station that the students found interesting was the sheer size of the equipment seeing a containment vessel that is in solid concrete that is four feet thick 40 feet underground gives you an appreciation for the true size of these components bunsen said that isnt something that comes across from just reading about this stuff in a textbook the trip also falls in line with the chapters goals of promoting nuclear literacy and education both to students of nuclear engineering and the general public the chapter hopes to continue to provide both its members and the general public avenues to learn about the nuclear engineering industry
1646,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a scholarship from the association of energy engineers (aee) lone star chapter dehghanian previously received an aee national scholarship which the lone star chapter matched the scholarship aims to encourage practitioners in energy engineering and energy management to further their education in the field dehghanian is advised by dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department and is the current leader of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the ieee pels-pes-ias he received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications dehghanians other honors include being accepted for participation at the prognostic and health management societys symposium being selected as a potential future leader by ieee receiving the sigma xi grant-in-aid-of-research receiving a 2nd place prize for best poster award at the 2016 ieee power and energy society (pes) transmission and distribution (t&d) conference and exposition a research grant scholarship from the american public power association under the demonstration of energy and efficiency development (deed) program being awarded the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship for the 2016-2017 academic year and being selected as the ieee industry application society electric safety workshop 2017 student program chair dehghanian also was selected for the smrp higher standards scholarship and a graduate student presentation grant funded by the association of former students and the office of graduate and professional studies at texas a&m
1647,high workload and stress are becoming major contributors to medical errors in modern nursing nurses interact with a wide range of medical equipment in a highly collaborative environment to provide care for multiple patients dr farzan sasangohar assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university is working to help nurses manage their workload by utilizing a smart watch to monitor nurses well-being and deliver an overall observation of a units workload and stress level this project is a continuation of my previous research on developing a technology to mitigate unnecessary interruptions to nurses in the icu sasangohar said one of the limitations of the technology we developed was that nurses had to push one of the buttons or a foot pedal to turn on a display that indicated their availability to handle interruptions several of the participating nurses reportedly experienced difficulty growing accustomed to the extra step involved in engaging the display the compliance rate of the initial prototype was very low the nurses engaged the tool without being prompted in only 31 percent of all high-severity tasks in this research we are investigating ways to make this task easier by introducing automation sasangohar said using smart wearable sensing the system can identify periods of high workload or stress and can turn the display on or off the work is still in the prototyping phase but will ultimately result in an intelligent system that automatically collects information from nurses about their stress and workload levels and communicates this information to several displays that inform their colleagues about their availability status the system will track key biometric data to identify changes in stress and workload across nursing shifts and critical tasks sasangohar explained this information will then be sent to a display that indicates a nurses availability sasangohar and his students are not only designing the watch but the entire intelligent system that picks up the information from nurses and sends it to other parts of the system wirelessly an example of other parts of the system are displays on top of each icu door which provide information about the availability of that nurse sasangohar said if you know the nurses are going through high periods of workload and that information is processed by our microsystem the display would automatically show the do not disturb or do not interrupt message outside of the room they are working in to maximize the time spent in assessing the workload of an entire unit the team is also working on technology used by nurses in charge or unit managers to provide a big picture view of the entire units workload let's say you have a nurse manager who is managing an icu of 17 nurses and 20 beds sasangohar said with just a glance they can see how many nurses are experiencing high workload so they can adjust their staffing level currently nurse managers go room by room to verbally assess their employees workload this development will enable the unit managers to have a birds-eye view of the unit decreasing wasted time used to manually check on each nurse sometimes the nurses are reluctant to talk about being overworked sasangohar said they don't want to admit they are not available most engineered systems do not engage the user in the development process as a result the users expectations are not met and the systems fail due to the lack of engagement and usability the user-centered design approach is the systematic process of involving users in the design and development process to ensure that the system is designed based on users mental model not the designers sasangohar said in this research we use a participatory design method that involves nurses throughout the process there are other applications of workload monitoring such as providing biofeedback to nurses allowing them to see a trend in their heart rate or workload patterns over previous shifts we are currently planning on a pilot study to be conducted at memorial hermann hospital where well have nurses in an icu unit try our tool while we observe sasangohar said i expect a large-scale feasibility study by the end of 2017 where all nurses in an icu will try wearing this tool for several weeks sasangohars research is a collaborative effort with dr steven sutherland and dr karen alexander at university of houston-clear lake and heather wallace at memorial hermann southeast hospital sasangohars phd students kunal khanade and carolina rodriguez and undergraduate students abby hutton and izayah allen have also contributed to the work
1648,dr noemi mendoza diaz assistant professor of engineering instruction in the first-year engineering program at texas a&m university was recently awarded a two-year grant totaling $150 000 from the national science foundation (nsf) the grant research initiation: exploring enculturation of engineering students in the first-year engineering program enables researchers to investigate the incorporation of the engineering profession culture at texas a&m particularly in the first-year engineering courses this award will positively impact the future of the first-year engineering program because it is devoted to analyzing the professional formation of engineers from an enculturation perspective said mendoza diaz principal investigator of the project the co-principal investigators on the project are dr jacques richard and dr tanya wickliff faculty members in the first-year engineering program and dr so yoon yoon an assistant research scientist with expertise in psychometrics and engineering education research with the institute for engineering education and innovation (ieei) which is a center within the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the team hopes to facilitate an effective process of enculturation to engineering during a first-year engineering program and inform the engineering education community of its findings
1649,research conducted at the advanced vertical flight laboratory at texas a&m university was featured in the ieee spectrum online magazine the project highlighted the micro cyclocopter was developed by aerospace graduate student carl runco and dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering weighing only 29 grams it utilizes the latest advances in microelectronics technology (including a 13 gram custom-designed autopilot for stabilization ) and carbon fiber composite construction as well as extensive experimental data for design and optimization
1650,the cyclorotor unlike traditional rotors utilizes a horizontal axis of rotation with the blade span parallel to this axis with the blades cyclically pitched such that each blade has a positive geometric angle of attack at the top and bottom of the circular trajectory a net thrust is produced the mechanism that generates this pitching motion allows instantaneous thrust vectoring capabilities one major advantage of the cyclocopter which allows the vehicle to fly in flight regimes unsuitable for traditional helicopters and multi-copters additionally recent studies have shown that a cyclorotor can achieve higher hover efficiency than a conventional rotor at smaller scales because of uniform life distribution and favorable unsteady aerodynamic environment along the blade span for these reasons the cyclocopter is advantageous for applications such as search and rescue operations and indoor to outdoor surveillance and reconnaissance in which high hover efficiency agility and gust-tolerance are needed runco has presented this work at several conferences and has won the american helicopter society 2016 robert l lichten award and the aiaa best paper award at the regional conference research at avfl is focused on next-generation hover-capable uavs the article on the ieee spectrum can be found here: http://spectrumieeeorg/automaton/robotics/drones/worlds-smallest-cyclocopter-brings-unique-design-to-microdrones
1651,three students from texas a&m universitys department of mechanical engineering placed in octobers aggies invent challenge aggies invent is a 48-hour challenge that gives students an opportunity to use their innovation creativity knowledge and passion to enhance the world of tomorrow the theme of the october event was internet of things which gave students an opportunity to develop devices and processing techniques and to add intelligence to addressable devices james oconnell of team guardian electronics helped his team create portable and wireless devices to improve the laundry process including alerting users when the laundry cycle is complete and when maintenance may be needed oconnell and his team won second place and a $750 prize julio garza was part of team hybrid which created a bluetooth-based id card and a mobile app as an upgrade from typical plastic identification cards hybrid received an honorable mention and a $250 prize aggies invent provides students with valuable experience in working with prototyping tools and in the end a developed product/solution that the team can be proud of students are selected to participate in the challenge based on their application materials aggies invent strives to give motivated students with a variety of skills and backgrounds a chance to propose their solution to a real-life problem/societal need and encourages them to take their solutions to market
1652,dr jn reddy the oscar s wyatt jr endowed chair regents professor and distinguished professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has received three new honors the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) presented reddy with its highest honor the asme medal the award which was established in 1920 recognized reddy for his eminently distinguished engineering achievement reddy also received the society of engineering sciences 2016 william prager medal which is awarded to those who have demonstrated outstanding research contributions in either theoretical or experimental solid mechanics or both additionally reddy was recognized as a web of science highly cited researcher which recognizes leading researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world reddy who came to texas a&m as an endowed chaired professor in 1992 is the author of more than 550 journal papers and 20 books several with second and third editions according to google scholar he has been cited 49 755 times on topics such as energy principles variational methods plates and shells composite materials mechanics of solids and the finite element method and its applications his pioneering works on the development of shear deformation theories have had a major impact and have led to new research developments and applications reddy stands by the belief that the hallmark of a successful engineer is to have a strong grasp of fundamental concepts and a creative-thinking capability to apply the fundamental concepts of the profession or discipline to solve real-life problems reddys current research deals with seven- and 12-parameter shell theories and nonlocal beam and plate theories using the ideas of eringen mindlin koiter and others reddy and dr arun srinivasa associate department head and the holdredge/paul professor at texas a&m developed a thermodynamically based strain gradient elasticity theory that contains mindlins model as a special case he is also working on internal polar continuum theories in which varying internal rates of rotations and conjugate movements that exist in all deforming homogeneous and isotropic continua are incorporated in the derivations of the conservation and balance laws it is shown that this theory leads to a more complete thermodynamic framework as it incorporates additional physics due to varying internal rates of rotation that is neglected in the conventional thermodynamic framework reddys earlier research focused primarily on mathematics of finite elements variational principles of mechanics shear deformation and layerwise theories of laminated composite plates and shells analysis of bimodular materials modeling of geological and geophysical phenomena penalty finite elements for flows of viscous incompressible fluids least-squares finite element models of fluid flows and solid continua some of the ideas on shear deformation theories and penalty finite element models of fluid flows have been implemented into commercial finite element computer programs like abaqus nisa and hyperxtrude
1653,carolyn day and rachel lucht students in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university helped the texas a&m equestrian team rise to the no 1 spot within the national collegiate equestrian association a ranking the aggies havent held since september 2012 day a fifth-year student knew being on equestrian team was the best way for her to continue riding horses throughout college she said that with a&m having the best engineering program out of any school with an ncaa equestrian team she knew a&m would be the best place for her to get the combination of academics and athletics she desired being a student athlete has been challenging but worth it day said there is nothing quite like the thrill of walking out of the arena after a great ride knowing that you defended your team and texas a&m i grew as a rider and a person through my involvement on the equestrian team and made amazing memories with an outstanding group of girls lucht a senior in the department was born and raised in the college station texas having grown up in a neighborhood where horses outnumbered the residents and aggie pride was instilled in all members of the community joining the equestrian team at texas a&m was a no-brainer for the mechanical engineering student being on the equestrian team gives me the opportunity to travel meet new people and ride different types of horses all over the nation lucht said being an athlete the free time that a normal student has is used for practice meetings workouts travel competition etc time management is essential to being successful in both athletics and academics luckily we have a great support system in friends coaches advisers and peers who are always willing to help us succeed for day and lucht the ranking acts as validation for the teams hard work dedication perseverance and determination to take texas a&m equestrian to the top spot
1654,dr lawrence rauchwerger eppright professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university served as program co-chair of the acm/ieee 25th international conference on parallel architectures and compilation techniques (pact) the conference was held sept 11-15 in haifa israel which is home to the technion – israel institute of technology pact brings together researchers specializing in architecture compilers applications and languages to present and discuss innovative research of common interest workshops tutorials and keynotes were held throughout the duration of the event for several years rauchwerger has served on the steering committee of pact and also chaired its technical program and organizational committee this year pact celebrated 25 years since it inception rauchwerger co-organized a companion workshop the workshop on architecture and software for emerging applications that was sponsored by the national science foundation and attracted the participation of top researchers from around the world
1655,for the third year in a row the society of women engineers (swe) chapter at texas a&m university received a swe outstanding collegiate section gold award at we16 the largest conference and career fair for women in engineering and technology the conference hosted by swe was held in philadelphia in october the award was the seventh gold award the chapter has won since 2008 said swe-tamu president bailey bauman this award is given based on the sections ability to meet swes strategic goals throughout the year bauman said this includes meeting specific goals in topics such as strategic planning communication member recruitment and retention society participation and region participation im proud of our texas a&m chapter for its work to win a national swe gold award said shawna fletcher director of the women in engineering program at texas a&m who serves as adviser to swe-tamu our students who are involved in swe have worked hard on their programs and serve as a model to other swe chapters across the nation its exciting to see that they were recognized at the national conference for their good work in addition to the gold award rachel unruh was awarded the outstanding collegiate member award unruh is currently pursuing her phd in biomedical engineering at texas a&m unruh serves as the graduate programming coordinator for the national swe graduate committee and has been actively involved in the organization since she was a freshman at baylor university receiving this award was a great privilege and i felt very humbled and honored to be recognized nationally for my efforts to expand opportunities for graduate student participation throughout swe and my local networking mentoring and youth outreach efforts unruh said through this award i hope people become aware of the variety of personal and professional development opportunities swe offers for students regardless of their stage in their academic pursuits the swe-tamu chapter is the largest in the gulf coast region with more than 500 registered members and about 200 active members each semester swe-tamu aims at growing the engineering profession and providing women engineering students with mentorship opportunities and several other resources to succeed bauman said we offer members a variety of events to accomplish these goals including professional development events corporate networking events mentorship opportunities with females in industry socials and get-togethers and k-12 outreach to introduce young girls to engineering bauman said swe events help female engineering students network with each other while also providing access to corporate representatives who can help students succeed in their collegiate and professional engineering careers in february swe at texas a&m will be hosting the swe region c conference for collegiate members and professionals it will be the final region c conference that is hosted more than 600 students and professionals from four states texas louisiana arkansas and mississippi are expected to attend
1656,dr brian e applegate associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university was recently elected a fellow of the optical society (osa) out of 177 member nominations osa elected 96 fellows for 2017 representing 19 countries the election is based off nominations by current fellow members applegate was elected for significant contributions to development of novel multimodal molecular and functional optical imaging approaches and innovations in 3-d cochlear optical vibrometry and for service to the optics community according to osa the number of fellows is limited by the societys bylaws to be no more than 10 percent of the total osa membership and the number elected each year is limited to approximately 05 percent of the current membership total founded in 1916 osa is the leading professional organization for scientists engineers students and business leaders who fuel discoveries shape real-life applications and accelerate achievements in the science of light through world-renowned publications meetings and membership initiatives osa provides quality research inspired interactions and dedicated resources for its extensive global network of optics and photonics experts
1657,kathryn tippey a phd graduate of the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was selected to receive the us department of transportation federal aviation association outstanding student researcher award for her work in investigating human factors of weather technologies in the general aviation cockpit the award recognizes her work on an on-going project with the federal aviation association (faa) while completing her phd under dr tom ferris the duo worked with the faa under the partnership for enhanced general aviation safety and sustainability (pegasas) katies contributions to this project went far beyond that of a usual research assistant ferris said she travelled to research sites made important design decisions and coordinated with several parallel research activities that were necessary to get the project off the ground tippey graduated with her phd in august 2016 and is a postdoctoral research fellow at the center for research and innovation in systems safety at vanderbilt university medical center the research involved the display size and orientation as well as the use of vibrotactile alerts in general aviation cockpits tippey said my intent is to work with the research and development of new treatment aids and devices for helping manage disease particularly chronic illnesses tippey will be honored as the sole recipient of this award at the transportation research boards annual meeting in january katies recognition is well-deserved ferris said it was a joy to work with her as an adviser and i am excited for the additional opportunities for both katie and i that stem from being recognized for this award
1658,the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) collaborated with the universidade federal do rio de janeiro (ufrj) to coordinate two events in brazil between nov 3 and 11 both events were sponsored by the us department of state's partnership for nuclear security (pns) and provided opportunities for nsspi to interact with brazilian professionals and students respectively and to provide outreach and training to these groups on the issue of nuclear security dr craig marianno nsspi deputy director and texas a&m university assistant professor of nuclear engineering and mr claudio gariazzo nsspi research engineer traveled to brazil to represent nsspi at these events the first event was a two-day workforce development workshop on nuclear security led by nsspi and ufrj for employees at the eletronuclear angra nuclear power plant (angra npp) in angra dos reis brazil twenty-eight eletronuclear employees participated in the workshop ranging from administrators to security and safety personnel the workshop consisted of lectures and exercises on the integration of safety and security as well as insider threat analysis the second event was the second annual nuclear security week event on the ufrj campus for undergraduate and graduate-level nuclear engineering students nsspi organized the first nuclear security week at ufrj in october of 2015 and the event's success motivated ufrj faculty to repeat the event in 2016 to include topics not covered in the original nuclear security week this year's event focused specifically on security culture cyber-security transportation security and security system design and involved course instructors from nsspi the university of brandenburg king's college london the university of sao paulo eletronuclear and the brazilian nuclear energy commission the subject matter experts presented lectures on brazilian security regulations transportation security cyber security consequence analysis nuclear forensics security culture and insider threat analysis and students had the opportunity to enhance their conceptual knowledge through two practical exercises gariazzo also lectured on the world institute for nuclear security and the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) and ufrj students gave presentations on the university's young generation of nuclear professionals group and the ufrj student inmm chapter and its activities at the end of nuclear security week all participants were given the opportunity to visit the angra npp
1659,changwon son phd student in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university won the best poster presentation award at the texas a&m conference on energy the inaugural event featured aspects of energy-related research conducted at texas a&m with diverse inputs from different disciplines this award was my first experience in getting recognition from an academic conference son said i learned a lot from this achievement including interpreting findings from my research and communicating with other colleagues in academia his presentation was titled the application of safety culture assessment framework into a bayesian belief network analysis the ultimate goal of my project is to provide a useful toolkit for improving safety culture in relation to the reduction of risks son said thus this research aims to shed light on the relationship among layers of factors including human technical organizational and societal aspects it will also provide a method that integrates all those factors for better socio-technical risk analysis due to the increasing threat of energy industries losing control resulting in undesirable disasters sons work addresses this challenge by paving the path for his future research in examining organizational and societal impact on the level of risks in energy industries son studies under dr farzan sasangohar in industrial and systems engineering and is co-advised by dr s camille peres from the texas a&m health science centers school of public health he is also a graduate research assistant in the mary kay oconnor process safety center within the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering department at texas a&m the mary kay oconnor process safety center is internationally known for excellence in safety research and their annual symposium attracts hundreds of academia industry and government leaders sasangohar said changwons poster was chosen out of many contenders which is testament to his outstanding research quality and communication im sure this award is the first of many for changwon
1660,the institute for operations research and the management sciences (informs) a national organization with a student chapter in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the informs 2016 student chapter annual award at the cum laude level we are very proud to receive our 10th consecutive award from informs said julie hammett current chapter member and chapter president-elect receiving feedback from our members has been a strength for improving and we are really looking forward to reaching even higher goals in the years to come the purpose of this award is to recognize the achievements of top student chapters across the nation officers from the texas a&m chapter were recognized at the informs annual meeting in nashville earlier this month led by zimo wang and faculty adviser dr alaa elwany the informs student chapter at texas a&m has been consistently recognized as one of the most active student chapters in the united states this award highlights the outstanding service and accomplishments of our student officers and would definitely encourage us to improve the student chapter to an even higher level said wang current chapter president since its creation in 2004 the student chapter has worked diligently to provide a community for graduate and undergraduate students interested in operations research management science and data analytics the officers promote and facilitate discussions about new and current topics in related research fields and create educational and career development opportunities for members this recognition serves as a clear message that our graduate students stand out as top talents and leaders among top peer institutions in the us and worldwide elwany said additionally it provides them with unique opportunities to further expand their professional networks which greatly facilitates their future involvement with more activities and leadership roles in leading academic and industrial institutions
1661,dr sonia garcia senior director of the access and inclusion program within the texas a&m university college of engineering was a keynote speaker at the national association of multicultural engineering program advocates (namepa) conference held last month at purdue university garcia serves as thought leader for college readiness on the namepa board of directors it was such a great honor to be asked to give a closing keynote at the national level to represent the college of engineering and to highlight the diversity efforts that we have achieved so far and the goals we are striving to reach garcia said virginia womack president of namepa said garcia represents the heartbeat of what namepa is about passionate academic leaders who stand in the gap of student access and success in engineering and stem fields as senior director of the access and inclusion program garcia works to recruit and retain underrepresented students in engineering from high school students through graduate students garcia leads efforts to promote engagement and community among future engineers during her speech garcia said she is frequently asked why it is essential for programs like access and inclusion to exist she cited statistics that 62 percent of scientists and engineers in the united states are caucasian that one in 10 stem professionals is a female from a minority group and that african-americans hispanics and native americans remain among the most underrepresented minority groups in engineering-related fields at the undergraduate master and doctorate levels our deans 25 by 25 initiative addresses the critical and growing demand for more engineers she said texas a&m engineerings 25 by 25 initiative is a transformational education program designed to increase access for qualified students to pursue engineering education at texas a&m and increase total enrollment to 25 000 students by 2025 if we take a look at texas as an example the texas workforce commissioners report projects a 19 percent engineering job growth in texas from 2012 to 2022 which equates to about 43 000 new jobs garcia said garcia said the leadership at the college of engineering believes success can only be achieved through inclusion thus the creation and development of various programs such as my position in access and inclusion women in engineering and programs geared toward increasing retention work toward the fulfillment of the 25 by 25 initiative she said garcia urged the audience to continue pushing the envelope we need to keep injecting innovative elements to our programs she said we must continue the outreach recruitment and retention we must continue partnering and collaborating with other like-minded organizations we need to keep sharing our contributions the programs we are developing or have developed and most important we must keep the passion and the love for what we do to build our future and the future of others womack said garcias speech highlighted the metric results of work diversity program directors do at texas a&m and other universities that use research-driven strategies for student success the importance of this work is illustrated by the results produced because of it womack said it is critical that we intentionally raise the profile of this work document and publish proven best practices and provide support and funding to make these opportunities available to a broader base of students for more information about the access and inclusion program visit the programs website
1662,metals travel forward in time at the ion accelerator laboratory a facility within texas a&m universitys department of nuclear engineering where researchers within the departments ion beam laboratory group are speeding up the clock on metallic alloys and steels the researchers are using ions as surrogates for neutron radiation to see in a short amount of time how stable these metals are after they endure conditions from decades of use inside a nuclear reactor we're essentially taking these alloys and irradiating with ions to achieve damage seen in reactor-like conditions said jonathan gigax a graduate assistant researcher who works under the labs principal investigator associate professor dr lin shao this is important because in current reactor facilities it takes decades to get to the levels of wear and tear that these metals will see in next generation reactors so we use ion accelerators because they can reach it much faster according to gigax there are a number of differences between ion and neutron irradiations that prevent one-to-one comparisons however numerous early studies and recent studies show that certain behaviors are very similar in both environments this helps qualify the technique and allows researchers to quickly screen a large number of candidate alloys the results provide an understanding of the unique properties that make certain alloys radiation resistant so that new alloys can be developed for use in reactor construction and help achieve efficient use of the reactors fuel to achieve optimum efficiency the reactor has to operate at a high burnup which places stress on the metals and alloys within the reactor to achieve highly efficient fuel burnups alloys that can resist microstructural changes from damage produced neutron radiation also known as creep and swelling are necessary to ensure a long working life for the reactor a good example of creep phenomena would be a filament in an incandescent light bulb gigax said the filament remains at a very high temperature for a long period of time and slowly deforms until it breaks the same thing can happen with steels at high temperatures or under large stresses so the idea was that we needed to develop an alloy that does not exhibit creep to a large extent the steels used in the reactor as a result of creep and swelling undergo deformation and change the operating behavior of the reactor single crystal metals are resistant to creep but are expensive to make and typically exhibit more void swelling than polycrystalline counterparts very small grains offer better swelling resistance but make the steel susceptible to creep gigax compares the phenomena to sand in an hourglass where the grains of sand are very fine and able to flow from one end of the hourglass to the other metals that have small grains are more susceptible to creep because the grains are able to more easily move at high temperatures and under stress especially while being bombarded by neutrons as opposed to larger grains that offer more resistance to solve this problem oxides can be alloyed into the metal to pin those boundaries in and make the movement of these grains more difficult while retaining the benefits of a fine grain structure with respect to void swelling according to gigax this would be akin to pinning some grains of sand in place within the hourglass preventing the grains from moving once you get all these results there are two things we can do gigax said we can look at what makes one alloy better than the others and then guide the further development of that alloy based on its positive qualities or once you identify a good alloy you can dedicate resources to having that put inside a nuclear reactor to test it in the exact conditions through the usage of the ion accelerators the time and cost commitment for reactor testing is dramatically reduced allowing the research to advance efficiently in addition to ensuring a longer working life and durability of these reactor materials these applications also have benefits for the consumer we are contributing to the energy needs of the nation gigax said by contributing to the development of materials that can take the added radiation stress of operating at higher more efficient fuel burnups which translates to more energy output per source of fuel were helping make cheaper and more accessible energy for the average consumer the research is funded by the us department of energy whose interest in this project leaves gigax with the feeling he and others on the research team are doing positive work that is benefitting the larger community a lot of our funding comes from government sources gigax said the whole idea here is that by getting funded through these projects we are very service minded towards the interests of the community and that couples nicely to the aggie spirit as aggies its good to feel like we are serving the interests of the community
1663,the continued rise in co2 emissions has fueled the search for cleaner greener energy sources to meet the growing energy needs of an increasingly modernized global population sources such as wind solar and geothermal are being increasingly used but dr kenneth peddicord professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university and director of the nuclear power institute (npi) sees nuclear power as a part of the answer peddicord believes that nuclear energy has characteristics that make it extremely attractive in meeting global energy needs a step in the right direction for both addressing environmental concerns and meeting our nations growing energy needs would be achieved through a greater utilization of nuclear energy as a clean and reliable power source peddicord said according to the us energy information administration the 440 operating nuclear reactors provide close to 20 percent of the worlds electric energy generation renewables such as wind solar and geothermal combined produce around 7 percent in the united states natural gas and coal account for 67 percent of the total energy supply for electricity by employing sources such as nuclear energy peddicord believes we can significantly decrease the 52 million metric tons of carbon dioxide produced every year in the states for electric power generation ideally we would use a mix of non-co2 emitting energy sources to meet our energy needs peddicord said alternatives such as wind and solar are intermittent and relatively expensive according to peddicord the expense of alternative energy sources is due to substantial economic subsidies and government policies that require utilities to accept solar and wind generated electricity at an economic penalty to rate payers new electricity generation needs are being met through natural gas because of its availability and low cost while natural gas does have reduced emissions compared to coal it still releases significant amounts of co2 which could be avoided with the adoption of cleaner energy sources such as nuclear energy currently nuclear energy facilities require long construction times and significant capital to build nuclear energy as an alternative energy option is further inhibited because it does not receive credit for being a co2 free emitting source as an energy source nuclear energy would benefit in an even playing field where the advantages of nuclear power as an around-the-clock base load electricity producer were recognized in meeting carbon emission goals the nuclear power institute is engaged in human resource development for the current nuclear power plants and potential new reactors in texas a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center headquartered at texas a&m npi is a partnership with industry teaching institutions at all levels civic and elected leaders key stakeholders and government agencies npi has developed programs for students at the undergraduate level in engineering and physics to provide them a background in nuclear power plant technology helping them to pursue careers in the nuclear industry npi has also worked with community colleges to establish degrees that prepare students for technician positions at operating nuclear power plants and with high schools to stimulate interest excitement and participation in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) while promoting awareness of the role of nuclear energy to contribute to future energy needs there is increasing interest and demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly electricity sources peddicord said nuclear is the only option that can provide stable continuous base-load power generation without co2 emissions the solutions to our problems are readily available the challenge is to implement them
1664,dr mladen kezunovic and lisa k akin were named recipients of the texas a&m university systems regents professor award and regents fellow service award respectively kezunovic is the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and serves as the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) smart grid center akin is the director of risk and compliance for tees the board established the regents professor awards program in 1996 and the regents fellow service awards program in 1998 to recognize employees who have made exemplary contributions to their university or agency and to the people of texas cliff thomas chairman of the texas a&m university system board of regents said the newest regents professors and regents fellows are vital members of the texas a&m system family who bring with them unique skills and perspectives these folks are integral to steering the system toward continued excellence chairman thomas said with them at the helm the universities and agencies under the texas a&m system can only keep improving texas a&m system chancellor john sharp said the new regents professors and regents fellows have proven their commitment to the systems success the recently recognized professors and professionals represent the best of our great system and higher education in texas sharp said their work consistently elevates texas a&m system campuses and agencies the regents professor award honors individuals at the rank of professor or equivalent whose distinguished performance in teaching research and service have been exemplary the award is the highest honor bestowed by the a&m system on faculty members the performance of those selected is considered meritorious and worthy of recognition of their achievements that had an impact on not only their institution or agency but also the community the state of texas and/or at the national and international levels the regents fellow service award honors and recognizes extension research and service professionals within the agricultural and engineering agencies health science center and veterinary medical diagnostic laboratory these professionals must have demonstrated a significant commitment and contributions to their respective agency by providing exceptional leadership in educational or program delivery/scholarship research or service that have resulted in significant impact and lasting benefits to the state of texas and beyond
1665,the 100 fastest-growing aggie-owned or aggie-led businesses in the world were recognized nov 11 at the 12th annual aggie 100 program and 37 of the 100 companies recognized are owned or led by graduates of the texas a&m university college of engineering the aggie 100 is sponsored by the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship in the mays business school at texas a&m i applaud and congratulate our former students who are among the aggie 100 for embracing the entrepreneurial spirit and mindset said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering it takes courage to set an idea in motion manage the highs and lows and see it through to ultimate success this year marks the 12th year for the award and to celebrate the milestone all honorees and past honorees were invited to attend an evening gala at the hall of champions at kyle field over the last 12 years a total of 217 companies owned or led by aggie engineers have been recognized by the aggie 100 2016 aggie 100 engineering companies: aaa technology & specialties co inc reid mcnally – mechanical engineering ‘65 accent wire-tie william sims – mechanical engineering 89 (me – civil engineering) ag|cm inc patricia gail anderson pe – civil engineering ‘78 argen polymer llc anthony bahr – petroleum engineering ‘91 attabox mike meinscher – industrial distribution ‘89 brazos valley bombers uri geva – computer science ‘98 broadleaf commerce llc brian polster – computer science ‘92 capital project solutions inc james pustejovsky - engineering technology – civil construction ‘85 credichapin alvaro stein – industrial engineering ‘82 cru ltd robert martinez – civil engineering ‘88 crystal mountain sel sahara (tx) llc richard r lonquist – petroleum engineering ‘88 brian d davis – petroleum engineering ‘88 ben h bergman – mechanical engineering ‘92 stephen l pattee – petroleum engineering ‘13 delta structural technology llc paul gugenheim – industrial engineering ‘73 diffco matt diffendal – industrial distribution ‘01 ecatholic josh simmons – industrial distribution ‘00 frogslayer llc kyle marshall – electrical engineering ‘06 grapevine dodge chrysler jeep ram ben keating – industrial engineering ‘94 hayden consultants inc rachel hayden – civil engineering ‘89 hmt engineering & surveying stephen hanz – civil engineering ‘92 kfw engineers george weron – civil engineering ‘97 craig fletcher – agricultural engineering ‘97 blaine lopez – civil engineering ‘96 lja engineering inc calvin t ladner pe – civil engineering ‘80 jeff collins pe – civil engineering ‘80 james moehlman – civil engineering ‘73 m-erg martha parker – bioengineering ‘95 miner corporation phil miner – ocean engineering ‘80 mp2 energy terry dodson – electrical engineering ‘87 ota compression llc grant swartzwelder – petroleum engineering ‘85 pinnacleart ryan sitton – mechanical engineering ‘97 jennifer sitton – mechanical engineering ‘97 premier coil solutions inc brett white – industrial distribution ‘99 ray rothrock – nuclear engineering ‘77 protection engineering consultants kirk marchand – civil engineering ‘79 ras a/c & heating services lance abney – engineering technology ‘93 refund retriever llc brandon byers – computer science ‘01 sabre commercial inc john p cyrier – mechanical engineering technology ‘95 shift administrators llc blake birkenfeld – computer science ‘06 sledge engineering casey sledge – civil engineering ‘93 superior delivery service a jh walker company jefferson walker – industrial distribution ‘12 texas swim academy robert bruce mcmordie – marine engineering ‘78 the wood group of fairway independent mortgage corporation matt wood – industrial distribution ‘99 trilliant surgical ltd jon olson – biomedical engineering ‘00 chat steitle – biomedical engineering ‘98 tropacaval media ben keating – industrial engineering ‘94
1666,many of our nations returning war veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) a psychiatric disorder that can occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event the number of veterans who were diagnosed with ptsd varies by service era for every 100 veterans who took part in the war in afghanistan about 11 to 20 percent experience ptsd in a given year researchers from the department of industrial and systems engineering school of public health and college of medicine at texas a&m university are collaborating to develop an intelligent information system for veterans with ptsd that has the potential to save millions of lives were designing a system that utilizes sensor-enabled wearable technologies to monitor ptsd patients remotely and to monitor their condition outside of a clinical setting said dr farzan sasangohar an assistant professor in industrial and systems engineering people with ptsd can suffer from what are known as arousal symptoms which causes them to constantly be on the look-out for any signs of danger and can lead to outbursts of anger or irritability or flashbacks to a traumatic moment these symptoms can happen at any time and make ones daily routine extremely difficult or in some cases impossible to get through to help manage their condition some veterans engage in in-person therapy sessions with a specialized clinician however with the rising popularity of sensor-enabled wearable technologies and the emergence of mhealth applications patients now have the ability to continue their care outside of their regularly scheduled sessions by completing periodical assessments and being engaged in therapeutic activities although ptsd apps are used by many they are standalone devices that have significant usability issues and do not have the ability to report helpful feedback to the clinician user engagement is a general limitation of current remote health technologies including current ptsd mhealth apps said sasangohar they do not provide a closed loop so no information is being sent to the clinician the new system the research group is developing will be able to passively collect continuous information on a patients well-being and send it to their clinician the information clinicians receive will help them make more holistic evaluations of their patients which then leads to more informed therapy sessions in addition to helping out clinicians using remote health technology is a more cost effective and efficient method for patients to get the help they need sasangohars new system will use wearable devices such as smartwatches and smartphones to identify episodes of non-normal activities (physical or biophysical) primarily using the patients heart rate during periods of hyper-arousal which is a state of increased psychological and physiological responses and will engage the patient in an interactive assessment to get an idea of their condition in that moment based on the patients answers the system will either route them to an emergency support system connect them to a clinician or engage them in an activity like relaxation or breathing techniques the system will have the ability to pick up a patients heart rate identify the patients physical state and use it to identify if a ptsd symptom is emerging the group has evidence that shows mental state change is correlated to heart rate variability the research group started work on this project in 2015 and is currently conducting validation testing on a prototype of the new system to ensure that when given to ptsd patients for field testing various noises from their surrounding environments will not adversely affect the physiological feedback once validation testing is completed and it has a final product the group would like to collaborate with the us department of veteran affairs in order to share the technology with veterans in july sasangohar received a seed grant from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the texas a&m university college of engineering and the texas a&m university division of research for his proposal effective management of ptsd: a systematic design and investigation of a novel ptsd information system for veterans this project is part of a portfolio of smart sensing projects in sasangohars cognitive ergonomics lab this new system will not only be able to help ptsd patients but also those with general depression or dementia the goal of all the projects is to provide affordable non-intrusive bio-sensing systems to improve patient safety in a wide range of healthcare environment solutions he said if i know the technology that i provide or contribute to will save even one life personally that satisfies me this kind of technology has the prospect of saving millions of lives it really paves the way for affordable solutions to improve the quality of care patient safety and help patients with mental disorders in general
1667,ninety percent of the global trade moves by sea and more than $4 trillion worth of cargo is transported annually on large container ships as commercial shipping continues to strengthen our economy naval architects are faced with a naturally-occurring phenomenon in container ships previously seen in small fishing vesselslarge amplitude rolling motion large amplitude rolling motion makes large container ships extremely unstable and vulnerable to crew and cargo accidents machinery failure structural damage and possibly capsizing large amplitude rolling due to parametric excitation occurs when the length of the wave is comparable to the ship length leading to especially pronounced variations in stability of the ship as it sails through rough seas the ship is alternately pushed from side to side andin only a few cycles elevated waves with rolling angles of more than 35 degrees are formedmaking it dangerous for the crew and the cargo the motion of a ship or offshore structure in waves has always been a fascinating problem for the naval architect said dr jeffrey falzarano professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university falzarano a naval architect by training has been studying the phenomenon in fishing vessels since his days as a graduate student large amplitude parametric rolling motion of container ships in head seas where the waves run directly against the course of a ship however is a relatively new problem he said it has posed severe concerns of ship stability falzarano along with former student dr amitava guha and graduate students dr abhilash somayajula and yujie liu has developed the marine dynamics laboratory (mdl) suite a series of software programs that predict the probability of large amplitude rolling motion reducing the likelihood of an accident caused by the rolling is considered a more effective approach than mitigating the consequences supported by the office of naval researchs environmental ship motion forecasting program the group is helping develop the next generation roll motion prediction tools for naval architects much of the stability criteria for ship design currently fails to account for the dynamic motions of the ship said somayajula the older criteria assume the waters are calm and so we need a new set of next generation stability rules based on the vessels dynamic response in realistic waves according to the researchers new and improved design and operation of container ships can effectively reduce the likelihood of large amplitude rolling motion occurring falzarano and guha developed mdl hydrod a frequency-domain tool that analyzes interactions of waves and structures the software program is a three-dimensional panel code that calculates first and second order wave loads and motion response at zero and forward speed in deep and shallow water falzarano and somayajula expanded on guhas work to develop simdyn a time-domain tool that uses the frequency-domain results of mdl hydrod the software program analyzes accurate models of the vessels motion in random waves simdyn considers concepts such as nonlinear hydrostatics nonlinear froude krylov forces and calculated roll damping to simulate the nonlinear and random vessel motions somayajula is currently applying this tool to analyze parametric roll of ships in irregular seas and solve the problem of optimization of ship design for safer more stable and efficient vessels falzarano and lius research extends guhas mdl hydrod program to consider multiple vessels it is designed to accurately evaluate the hydrodynamic responses of multiple floaters considering first and second order wave loads between multiple vessels side by side offloading and analysis of wave elevation between the vessels there is a tremendous amount of interaction between multiple ships of varying sizes because of the gap between them said falzarano this is not well predicted well in the models and we need to analyze experimental data to improve the prediction researchers say this potential flow software program addresses the need for a reliable tool seeking practical and cost-effective solutions in applications of offshore technology there is a growing interest in understanding how vessels interact with large waves and with each other and seeking for a reliable and economically efficient analysis procedures to accurately predict rolling motion falzarano and his team analyzed the model test data taken from experiments conducted on r/v melville a general-purpose oceanographic research vessel operated by the university of california san diegos scripps institution of oceanography the researchers are currently extending the mdl suite of software programs to study steady wave resistance in a ship the potential flow method is known for its efficiency and can used as an initial screening to identify promising candidates these candidates can then be further analyzing using more sophisticated techniques such as computational fluid dynamics or model testing this allows for the sequential use of these approaches in order to simultaneously optimize hull forms for motions and wave resistance (left) nonlinear pressure distribution on container ship in waves; (right) amplitude of linear hydrodynamic pressure over two us navy fast transport ships side-by-side their next step includes using the mdl suite to study other important problems such as offshore floating wind turbines and nonlinear wave loading from fishing vessels and container ships to offshore floating wind turbines we hope to make the oceans safer in general said falzarano i have been fortunate to work with excellent research collaborators throughout my career especially since coming to texas a&m watch simulation of large amplitude rolling motion of a container ship and an offshore platform
1668,for some going in to work is a necessary evil but for texas a&m university department of nuclear engineering alumnus micheal smith work at the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) is more than a job its a mission as a health physicist smith works daily to ensure public health and safety with his co-workers in the radiation protection and consequences branch in the office of nuclear reactor regulation smith earned his bachelors degree in physics from texas southern university before coming to texas a&m for his masters degree in health physics smith conducted his graduate research under the guidance of dr craig marianno assistant professor and deputy director of the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) smiths graduate studies were partially funded by the nrc fellowship program which ultimately influenced him to pursue his current position with the nrc the nrc fellowship program is designed to provide support for education and workforce development in the field of nuclear science within higher education institutions the program does not provide individual scholarships or fellowships but partners with institutions like texas a&m to provide funding for students with the idea it will act as an investment in the nuclear industry and workforce recipients must maintain satisfactory academic progress and serve six months in a field of nuclear related employment for each full or partial year of academic support the student receives this helps to ensure that the funds work to improve the nuclear industry in broad fashion the program has other benefits for students smith credits the program with allowing him to focus his energy and time solely to his studies without having to worry about funding i was just able to focus on my research and what i was interested in my school work and gaining the knowledge necessary to be able to contribute to the workforce after graduation said smith whether i wanted to work for the nrc or somewhere else it just allowed me to maintain that focus to better prepare me for working after i graduated during his graduate studies smith conducted research in the fields of radiation protection emergency response and consequence management specifically smiths research pertained to the analysis of radionuclide deposition ratios around fukushima-daiichi following the nuclear disaster the goal of his research was to determine the validity of radionuclide deposition ratio assumptions made by dose assessors in training exercise assumptions pertaining to actual incidents in the event of a radiological incident dose assessors have the job of performing dose assessments that help with formulating protective action recommendations to protect the public in his current position as a health physicist for the nrc smith reviews license amendment requests from nuclear power plants while also providing guidance and support to regional power reactor inspectors with the goal of ensuring the safety of the people and environment around nuclear plants in his time at texas a&m he decided that he would like to pursue a career with the federal government which led him to a position with the nrc working for the federal government is my way of serving our country smith said i always wanted to do that and the nrc fit perfectly with my degree and my interests according to smith the environment within the nrc is very diverse and has provided him with the opportunity to work with collaborators from many different educational backgrounds smith most enjoys the aspect of his job that allows him to continue learning from the people around him for this reason smith says going to work brings forward new challenges for him every day im enjoying where im at right now learning and gaining knowledge from the experienced individuals around me he said i think thats what keeps me excited to come to work that im continually learning but at the same time contributing working for the nrc has been an amazing experience and the nrc fellowship program is a big reason why i work at the nrc now contributing author: ryan terry
1669,shawanee patrick isnt in it for the glory or a paycheck the wilmer texas native is currently working toward her phd in mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and while she doesnt have her future career mapped out just yet one thing is for sure she wants to make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities growing up in the countryside some of patricks fondest memories involve her grandmother a woman whose disability never kept her from playing hide-and-seek and spoiling her granddaughters with popsicles and sweet tea a brain aneurism decades before left her unable to walk and speak but through sheer determination and a lot of physical therapy elizabeth williams found a way to regain some of her mobility and speech she moved a little slower but she never stopped moving it made me have an appreciation and to not think differently of people who have physical disabilities patrick said it also made me want to help people who have those disabilities patrick received her bachelors degree in biomedical engineering from texas a&m in 2012 that same year she began working toward her masters degree completing her thesis project designing and analyzing a robotic prosthetic foot in 2016 now patrick is working on her doctorate and the development of an exoskeleton device that could help paraplegics walk matthew zurcher at central texas orthotics and prosthetics approached patrick and asked her to assist dr kelly lobb medical director of st josephs rehabilitation center inpatient and outpatient physical therapy programs with a new and improved device patrick readily agreed the exoskeleton device is still in the early design phase but would allow a paraplegic to move in an upright position using wheels for motion and one arm to control movements this device could help someone with paralysis increase bone density and muscle mass in turn decreasing the risk of other health problems arising as a result of immobility the future when many children think of an engineer or a scientist a certain picture comes to mind patrick said oftentimes that image is of a white male in a lab coat patrick however thinks of her mother glorida kennedy kennedy was the first female african-american engineer to work for at&t teletype in 1988 she pushed her three daughters to achieve the best grades they could and to always work their hardest when patrick asked for chemistry sets and books for christmas her mother always came through as an adult patrick now understands the importance of children seeing someone who looks like them achieving success in a field they themselves might like to pursue kennedy is now a principal at a primarily african-american elementary school in dallas and she likes to show her students pictures of her daughter working on robots these kids are talking about how they want to be an engineer and go to texas a&m cause they just never saw it as an option patrick said you never realize how important images are patrick and her mother would like to team up to show k-12 students that anyone can be an engineer and to encourage them to pursue their passions i always tell kids ‘you can do anything you can be anything she said but its easier to believe when you can see it in her free time patrick assists with activities hosted by the access and inclusion program in the college of engineering the program seeks to increase the diversity of engineering students by recruiting retaining and developing successful students from underrepresented populations she is also a member of the national society of black engineers patrick said its important to encourage children to be themselves anything that youre passionate about is not small she said im not necessarily trying to get everybody to be an engineer but i want everybody to see it as an option and do what it is that theyre passionate about and not think they are constrained to something just because they dont see someone like them doing it you can be the first somebody had to be the first and theres no harm in being the first in whatever it is
1670,james j cain 51 a long-time supporter and graduate of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was honored during a ceremony unveiling a commissioned portrait of cain and a display with his memorabilia cains long-term commitment to the department included over 30 years of gifts and contributions his estate gift has been transformative for mechanical engineering students and faculty as students earn their degrees they will spend hours in the study spaces laboratories and lecture facilities housed in the building that bears his name now as students enter the study space located on the second floor of the james j cain 51 building formerly the engineering physics laboratory building they will pass by a large portrait of the man who helped provide opportunities he never had a display case houses cains personal effects which span his time as a student on campus serving in the korean war working as a professional engineer at mobil oil and the dedication of the building the display will soon include his aggie ring bronze medal of honor and his high school national honor society pin speakers at the ceremony included dr ed davis former texas a&m university foundation president; dr andreas a polycarpou current head of the mechanical engineering department; dr gerald coté former biomedical engineering department head; dr anthony guiseppi-elie current biomedical engineering department head; and alexandra kleespie a family friend irvin kleespie his wife susie and their daughters alexandra and sydne kleespie accepted the honor on behalf of cain irvin kleespie met cain as a young man working in a grocery store cain became a mentor to kleespie and the two formed a friendship that lasted over 40 years also in attendance were the holders of the james j cain 51 professorship and recipients of the james j cain 51 student award the james j cain endowment for the department of mechanical engineering was established as a result of cains generous giving this endowment has established one chaired professorship held by polycarpou; two endowed professorships held by dr alan palazzolo and dr prabhakar pagilla; and outstanding graduate and undergraduate student awards student award recipients include undergraduate students kaci dove and yasushi mizuno and graduate students nafiz chowdhury and trevor terrill cain was the youngest of five children and was born and raised in sherman texas after completing high school cain attended texas a&m and received a degree in mechanical engineering during his long and distinguished career of more than 35 years at mobil oil cain was renowned for his desire to mentor students and faculty at texas a&m he took great pride in being a part of mobils college recruiting team often filling positions with aggie graduates not interested in seeking his own recognition cain generously gave the students and faculty of texas a&m his time knowledge expertise and financial support as a result throughout his 35 years as a mechanical engineer cain won almost every award texas a&m bestows on distinguished former students his longstanding commitment to texas a&m included his support of the association of former students for over 30 years his silver membership of the century club and his membership of the forsyth heritage society which recognizes friends and alumni of texas a&m for their generous support cains gifts have also benefited the corps of cadets the biomedical engineering department and the presidents endowed scholarship program
1671,dr choongho yu gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor ii in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and his graduate student group has developed a new concept of electrical energy storage: thermally chargeable solid-state supercapacitor this innovative supercapacitor allows charging to be completed using thermal energy in addition to the traditional electrical charging method for capacitors this is the first time that it has been discovered that a solid-state polymer electrolyte can produce large thermally induced voltage yu said the voltage can then be used to initiate an electrochemical reaction in electrodes for charging the thermally chargeable solid-state supercapacitor works by converting thermal energy into electrical energy and then storing it in the device at the same time for example human body heat or any heat dissipating objects that create temperature differences from their surroundings can be used to charge the capacitor without external electrical power sources the supercapacitor is also flexible in that it can be used as a power supply for wearable electronics and can be integrated into wireless data transmission systems to operate iot (internet of things) sensors iot is a concept of connecting various electronic devices and sensors for data communication and exchange which is particularly useful in real-time monitoring yu and his phd student suk lae kim used a physical phenomenon known as the soret effect using a solid-state polymer electrolyte in which a temperature gradient along the supercapacitor moves the ions from the hot side to the cold side generating high thermally induced voltage this thermally self-chargeable flexible supercapacitor powered by thermally diffused ions holds great potential to power electronic devices in a whole new way without the traditional external power supply or battery replacement yu said yu and his teams work was recently published in the journal advanced energy materials (doi: 101002/aenm201600546) the research is directly funded by the air force office of scientific research
1672,jeffrey jensen a former student of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named one of the association of former students 12 under 12 young alumni spotlight recipients each year the association of former students 12 under 12 young alumni spotlight recognizes 12 aggies who have graduated within the past 12 years for their outstanding accomplishments in business civic service and philanthropy and for representing texas a&ms core values of excellence integrity leadership loyalty respect and selfless service dr jensen is an outstanding recipient of the 12 under 12 young alumni spotlight said dr greg huff jensens adviser in the department he was an exemplary student throughout all of his degrees and i am very happy to have worked with him throughout his academic experience huff said that as a doctoral student jensen worked tirelessly to engineer a first-of-its-kind computer vision system for tracking coordinating and studying swarms of distributed intelligent systems like drones and unpiloted air vehicles as a result of his research new ways of providing communications (cellular internet etc) to remote or under-served areas are being developed harnessing the collective capabilities of these autonomous systems to achieve even more complex tasks this is just a small example of his many accomplishments because he is always looking for ways to innovate and change the world huff said jensens transformative ideas and tireless efforts to pursue his dreams are contagious and i think this honor will elevate his status as a role model for other aggies i am positive he will continue to play a key role in inspiring the next generation of aggies and continue in our tradition of lifelong learning and service jensen received his bachelors masters and phd in electrical and computer engineering from texas a&m his graduate research efforts focused on spatial signal control of random arrays using novel computer vision techniques for applications in drone/uav swarms additionally his further research pursuits include highly available control systems real-time redundant software control design patterns and mobile application development for science and engineering education initiatives he was active in the student engineers' council and traditions council during his time as a student at texas a&m he currently serves as vice president of architecture at arundo analytics where he is responsible for the design and implementation of a big data/machine learning framework for the oil and marine industries before joining arundo jensen helped found and advise two other companies raven standard llc an engineering services firm and wirestar networks an internet service provider in bryan/college station additionally he was an automation solution architect at siemens industry where he was awarded employee of the year for ingenuity and innovation jensen volunteers his time empowering young leaders as an ambassador for one young world and advises aspiring entrepreneurs in houston he is an active triathlete and is a supporter of the ironman foundation
1673,dr ulisses braga-neto associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was elected to the machine learning for signal processing technical committee (mlsp tc) of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) signal processing society for the 2017-2019 term the committee is at the interface between theory and application developing novel theoretically inspired methodologies targeting both longstanding and emergent signal processing applications central to mlsp is online/adaptive nonlinear signal processing and data-driven learning methodologies texas a&m has been making a concerted institutional effort to be a key player in the emerging area of data analytics for complex applications known popularly as big data the ieee mlsp tc is expected to play a central role in the next few years in shaping the ieee policies and approaches to big data braga-neto said i intend to contribute to this effort via my experience in statistical pattern recognition and signal processing for genomic research i also intend to represent and defend the interests of professionals in the area especially those of investigators at texas a&m braga-neto received his phd in electrical and computer engineering from the johns hopkins university in 2002 he joined the biomedical imaging and genomic signal processing group in the department in 2007 prior to that he was a post-doctoral researcher with the section of clinical cancer genetics at the university of texas md anderson cancer center from 2002 to 2004 and an assistant researcher with the oswaldo cruz foundation brazil from 2004 to 2006 his honors include receiving the nsf career award in 2009 braga-netos research interests include statistical signal processing and statistical pattern recognition with applications in the study of cancer and infectious diseases
1674,preterm birth is the leading cause of infant death and long-term neurological disease and 1 in 10 infants born in the united states is affected by preterm birth according to the centers for disease control and prevention the increasing public health threat of air pollution may be correlated to an increased risk of preterm birth researchers at texas a&m university including dr qi ying associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering are in collaboration with the national institute of child health and human development (nichd) seeking to improve the understanding of the connection between air pollution exposure and the health of pregnant women and newborns by developing an advanced air quality model providing solid statistical analyses that clarifies and quantifies this relationship this research is removing a major obstacle for environmental epidemiologists studying this field epidemiologists had been attempting to define this issue using insufficiently representative air pollution data that lacked time and spatial resolution most of their studies on the matter relied on inadequate data from central monitors that could neither sufficiently represent the spatial and temporal variation of air pollutants nor monitor a wide enough range of species to solve this problem a team of researchers at texas a&m has developed state-of-the-art improvements to the existing epa air quality models to predict the concentrations of a large number of gaseous and particulate pollutants at a very high spatial and temporal resolution that is models with improved visual clarity and precision in regards to time the specific model used for this project predicts a wide range of pollutants based on their estimated emission rates from the hundreds of different emission sources and the physical and chemical processes of air pollutants in the atmosphere ying is a major contributor to this research and serves as the principal investigator (pi) of the air quality modeling aspect of the air quality and reproductive health project with dr pauline mendola of the nichd who oversees the project as primary pi a unique feature of many of our models is the capability to quantitatively determine the contributions of different sources to overall pollutant concentrations says ying we applied our model to simulate the concentrations of particulate matter ozone nitrogen oxides sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide at ground level over the entire continental united states from 2001 to 2009 these simulated concentration levels were used to approximate the exposure of about 200 000 women to these pollutants during the full course of their pregnancy the major conclusion of this study was that mothers with asthma may experience a higher risk for preterm birth after being exposed to traffic related pollutants like carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides during their pregnancy the risk is particularly associated with exposure in the early months of pregnancy and just before conception these findings set the stage for further studies designed to help prevent preterm birth in this at-risk group says mendola it has long been suspected that air pollution could increase preterm birth risk however the high temporal and spatial resolution of the data produced by this new model allowed researchers to more accurately determine the most critical window of time when exposure can influence the risk of preterm birth these models produced by researchers and executed by the supercomputers at texas a&m will be highly influential in the understanding of the effect of air pollution on public health the results from these studies as well as studies that will be made possible with this model will allow the public as well as policy makers to understand and make informed decisions on emissions control public policy limiting air pollution through emission control could potentially protect the health of people worldwide in areas of unsatisfactory air quality the results of this study were published and can be found in the journal of allergy and clinical immunology contributing author: ryan terry
1675,the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university hosted its annual banquet honoring recent donors of endowed scholarships or fellowships recipients of former student awards and students who were awarded scholarships or fellowships on nov 3 the department posthumously awarded dewitt c greer 23 the distinguished graduate legacy award and recognized three recipients of the distinguished graduate award at the annual banquet the legacy award was established in 2014 to honor remarkable former students whose life-long contributions and service have had immeasurable impact on the civil engineering profession and society the inaugural recipient hb pat zachrys lifetime achievements serves as the benchmark against which future consideration of recipients are judged greer graduated with honors from the agricultural and mechanical college of texas in 1923 earning a degree in civil engineering and a second lieutenants commission in the united states army greer began his job at the texas department of transportation as an instrument man laying out a highway system for henderson county in 1936 greer moved to austin and was appointed by state highway engineer gibb gilchrist greers mentor in highway administration to head the departments division of construction and design under greers leadership the department launched a massive program of highway development resulting in the farm-to-market system and a system of interstate highways he expanded the texas highway system from 22 207 to 72 945 miles while viewed as a master road builder his greater passion was roadway safety for which he earned a reputation for integrity scholarships and grants were established by friends in his name at texas a&m and the university of texas at austin where he taught as a professor of engineering practice from 1968 until 1972 greer then served as a member of the texas highways and public transportation commission for 12 years in 1969 gov preston smith appointed him chairman of that commission a position he held from 1969 to 1972 when greer retired in 1981 the state highway headquarters building in austin was named after him he died on nov 17 1986 at his home in austin and was buried in the texas state cemetery the distinguished graduate award was established to recognize and honor former students who have excelled in the civil engineering profession highlighting their significant contributions and achievements this years distinguished graduates were fiona allen 82 george jed walker 83 and anthony tony boyd 74 allen is currently the northern regional manager of the trinity river authority (tra) of texas where she is responsible for the wholesale water and wastewater services for nearly 15 million people in the dallas/fort worth metroplex and sponsorship of three us army corps of engineers reservoirs she took over this position in march 2011 the first 20 years of her career were with the city of arlington she worked her way up and in 2006 was named deputy city manager of capital investment overseeing public works water utilities and environmental services in october 2009 she was named deputy city manager of economic development overseeing aviation convention center planning & development and the economic development office with the duties of supervising public works and water utilities added in 2010 she retired from the city of arlington in february 2011 and then joined tra walker serves as president and ceo of walker partners llc a civil engineering and surveying firm that he started in 2004 with project experience spanning from municipal roadways to water and wastewater projects to residential subdivisions and site improvement projects walker has become an expert in virtually all aspects of his field walker is involved with the texas society of professional engineers is a past president of the american society of civil engineers (central texas branch) serves as chairman of the transportation advisory committee of the city of waco is a board member of the metropolitan planning organization is a member of the texas floodplain management association and is on the board of directors of the waco chamber of commerce boyd joined lockwood andrews & newnam inc (lan) in 1977 and serves as senior vice president and director of lans infrastructure group under his direction the group provides an array of civil engineering services such as municipal water and wastewater utilities and treatment he is a leading authority in the field of program management including involvement with the initial 75 of the now 229 mile houston metros light rail transit system as well as the port of houston authority bayport terminal phase i program boyd was appointed to the board of directors of the science engineering fair of houston and chairman of astm f17 committee f1762 sewer subcommittee the department also recognized those former students who established an endowment in the past year acknowledged for their recent gifts were gw mitchell construction denise 76 & ken meyer 75 larhea nichols & ken riner 82 rachel & james jones 05 melissa 84 & john lindner 82 barbara & bud neely 74 rebecca & jed walker 83 granite construction patricia & allan hayes 75 and dr joseph e minor ‘59 there were 216 undergraduate and graduate recipients of scholarships and fellowships for a total of $577 050 most students attended the banquet giving them the opportunity to meet their donors and share in the evening as one of our distinguished former students aptly stated at the banquet the relationships developed while at texas a&m can last a lifetime said dr robin autenrieth head of the department our banquet brings together former students and their classmates and introduces them to students who wish to follow in their footsteps it is an event where we appreciate the impressive accomplishments of our former students who inspire the next generation of civil engineers contributing author: ryan terry
1676,bolon (right) accepting the outstanding graduate student award from m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering amy bolon graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering (msen) at texas a&m university recently received the college of engineerings outstanding graduate student award which recognizes graduate students who have demonstrated excellence in their field of study bolon was one of two students to receive the honor the college established the award in 2012 to recognize nominated graduate students in good academic standing scheduled to graduate in the next year since 2014 bolon has been the president of the materials advantage student chapter at texas a&m and co-founder of women in materials science a student organization in the department she served as the recruitment chair for the presidents council of student advisers for the american ceramic society for two years and has been active in several other organizations within the college of engineering and the college of science bolon also received the buck weirus spirit award that recognizes aggies who demonstrate high involvement create positive experiences throughout the aggie community impact student life at texas a&m and enhance the aggie spirit additionally bolon received the msen excellence in outreach award for her community service and outreach activities in materials science and engineering i have been extremely fortunate to serve as amys graduate adviser said dr miladin radovic associate professor and associate department head in materials science and engineering not only because she has proved herself as an excellent researcher but also as an exceptional leader who was always ready the help other graduate and undergraduate students in their professional endeavors bolon has devoted her graduate research to studying the mechanical behavior of oxide ceramics for solid oxide fuel cells she has published six peer-reviewed articles during her time at texas a&m this is such a great honor and im glad im able to represent the msen department said bolon i owe a lot to the department for their support and encouragement especially my adviser dr miladin radovic he encouraged me to go beyond my comfort zone to start participating in these activities and eventually take on leadership roles
1677,the vehicle technology office (vto) within the department of energy (doe) recently awarded a $12 million grant to a team led by dr perla balbuena professor and holder of the gpsa professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university dr jorge seminario professor and holder of the lanatter & herbert fox professorship in chemical engineering and dr partha mukherjee assistant professor and morris e foster faculty fellow ii in the department of mechanical engineering serve as co-principal investigators on the project the funding for the project understanding and strategies for controlled interfacial phenomena in lithium-ion batteries and beyond is part of a $57 million doe investment in 35 projects aimed at reducing the cost of and improving the efficiency of plug-in electric alternative fuel and conventional vehicles specifically most of the 35 projects are in support of the doe ev everywhere initiative that seeks to make plug-in electric vehicles as efficient and affordable as gasoline powered vehicles by 2020 the 35 projects fall into one of 11 different areas of interest for the vto balbuenas team will conduct research that falls under advanced battery materials modeling this will be a key area if the doe is to reach the goals of ev everywhere as the industry stands today the largest limiting factors in the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (evs) is the cost and efficiency of the battery there have been significant advances in lowering the cost and increasing the efficiency of ev batteries but there is still a gap between the ev everywhere goals and current technological capabilities the current research which is part of the doe battery materials research program focuses on the elucidation of reactions at the interface of the negative electrode (anode) and the electrolyte solution in particular the team will explore multiple issues arising from the extreme reactivity of lithium metal including formation of dendrites that eventually short circuit the battery these dendrites are microscopic fibers of lithium which sprout from the electrode and continue to grow throughout the life of the battery in addition the project will consider silicon as an alternative anode material silicon has great promise because of its capacity to store li ions at a rate and order of magnitude higher than that of the currently used carbon anodes rather than simply holding onto lithium ions silicon atoms combine with lithium ions creating an alloy which alters the structure of the anode this property allows silicon roughly 10-times the storage capacity of graphite however this property also presents the biggest challenge the lithium insertion causes the silicon crystal to expand up to three-times in volume the swelling of the silicon nanoparticles or of nanowires swelling during lithiation can eventually pulverize the nanostructures mechanical fracturing is also affected by interfacial reactions that take place because the electrolyte is electrochemically unstable and decomposes forming a film called the solid-electrolyte interphase or sei the properties of this sei film are a key factor for the successful operation of a battery with either lithium or silicon anodes to date researchers have yet to find the perfect electrolyte balance to form a sei layer that is both flexible and stable enough to withstand the repeated expansion and contraction cycles of the silicon anode and the dendrite formation on the lithium metal electrode this is exactly the problem that balbuena and her team will be taking on with this grant with the teams great experience in modeling at all scales from the atomistic to the continuum it expects to deliver major understanding and solutions for efficient ev batteries
1678,anas abu-odeh an undergraduate student in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university represented the university at the sixth research experiences for undergraduates (reu) symposium that was hosted by the council on undergraduate research in arlington virginia abu-odeh was a participant this summer in the department of materials science and engineerings multifunctional materials and presented the outcomes of his research conducted during the summer to national science foundation (nsf) program officers going to the reu symposium gave me an opportunity to interact with students from other reu sites across the nation said abu-odeh we explored cool and interesting topics such as using systems controls and mathematical modeling to understand biological phenomena or using 3-d printing to create new forms of tangible user interfaces dr raymundo arróyave associate professor in the materials science and engineering department supervised abu-odehs research which he presented at the symposium his research poster a constraint satisfaction problem approach to high-entropy alloy design highlighted constraint satisfaction problem approach a computational search algorithm that was used to search high-entropy alloy design space high-entropy alloys represent regions of unexplored alloy design space where the alloying elements share near-equiatomic concentrations said abu-odeh this differs from traditional alloys which typically have one dominating element all student attendees at the symposium were nominated by the reu sites they represented for having demonstrated outstanding performance in their summer research experience my reu summer research gave me experience in learning new software and materials science principles relating to my research said abu-odeh however the most valuable take away was that it gave me a chance to practice my presentation skills by having to constantly present progress reports to the msen reu group ­
1679,researchers from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university participated in the 2016 molten salt reactor (msr) workshop the workshop moving msrs forward – the next steps was organized and hosted by oak ridge national laboratory (ornl) on oct 4-5 the workshop built on the momentum of the 2015 workshop 50th anniversary of the startup of the molten salt reactor experiment (msre) the 2016 workshop focused on advances in msr technology commercial developments and licensing initiatives being undertaken toward advanced reactors and msrs since 2015 we are excited to have the opportunity to participate in the second workshop and showcase our msr-related efforts said dr pavel tsvetkov associate professor of nuclear engineering tsvetkovs research group is part of a department of energy (doe) sponsored multi-university collaborative research project focused on liquid-salt-cooled high temperature reactors the overall effort is led by the georgia institute of technology and includes researchers from georgia tech ohio state university texas a&m texas a&m university-kingsville and ornl while the overall project aims at an integral approach to address technology and licensing challenges our portion of the effort is focused on advanced instrumentation systems for these reactors and corresponding performance demonstrations in scaled and prototypical conditions including visual instrumentation fiberoptics and reconstruction approaches supporting technology development testing protocols and licensing evaluations said tsvetkov the texas a&m team presented two posters at the workshop one of the posters integrated fhr instrumentation approach for licensing characterization and validation won third place in the 2016 best poster award competition the team of jason hearne grace marcantel and ryan brownfield developed the poster we are considering instrumentation options taking advantage of the fact that molten salts are optically transparent and integrating those options with conventional and other advanced sensing technologies such as fiberoptics which we have already been testing since 2009 for applications in very high temperature reactors said dr gwyn rosaire a postdoctoral research associate at texas a&m who works with tsvetkov according to tsvetlov molten salt reactors are being pursued as one of the next generation nuclear reactor options offering economical clean nuclear energy ornl successfully operated a molten salt reactor in the 1960s to demonstrate the technology since then both domestically and internationally molten salt reactors have been growing in popularity due to their versatility and potential ways to both generate electricity and take care of nuclear waste thus yielding clean and sustainable nuclear energy according to tsvetkov msrs are at the forefront of advanced nuclear energy systems with strong interests from domestic companies and the international community i think the reason our poster did so well was that we were able to convey the importance of this research from the standpoint of gaining more knowledge of the reactor system as a whole rosaire said the idea is to use this to help further licensing of a molten salt reactor so we can actually build one of these and im looking forward to when that can happen
1680,the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university hosted its first scholarship banquet recently at the hilton college station and conference center charlie donaway senior academic advisor welcomed the faculty staff students and industry guests in attendance and dr sharath girimaji department head and holder of wofford cain chair delivered the opening remarks congratulating the scholarship recipients and thanking the scholarship donors dr robert randall wh bauer professor in dredging engineering introduced scott hindes president of the barrett and margaret hindes foundation; amy coates 93 student liaison for the marine technology society (houston section); bill kinney 76 principal consultant at kinney consulting; evan zimmerman 98 vice president and ceo of deep sea mooring as; mike ellis 96 vice president of oceaneering; and the award recipients ellis was invited to deliver the evenings keynote address randall and dr jeffrey falzarano professor in ocean engineering presented the scholarship certificates to more than 50 outstanding undergraduate and graduate students who excelled in their academic and research performance during 2015-16
1681,"dr peng li professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has received a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) and semiconductor research corporation (src) to help find revolutionary solutions that will enable more energy-efficient computing lis work is aimed at attaining brain-like learning performance by imitating how the brain represents processes and learns from information more specifically by developing models of computation based on the third-generation spiking neural networks and efficient adaptive processor architectures drawing inspiration from the human brain offers rich insights and opportunities for developing disruptive computing solutions desperately needed in todays machine learning and big data applications li said it will enable the development of novel information processing paradigms by mimicking key computational characteristics of the brain lis project will develop spike-dependent learning mechanisms to allow training of complex recurrent spiking neural networks self-adaptive processor architectures with integrated on-chip learning light-weight runtime learning performance prediction and energy management will be developed to maximize the energy efficiency of the proposed neural processors while providing a guarantee for learning performance li received nearly $500 000 for his project that was one of nine three-year projects awarded a total of $216 million by the nsf and src the topics to be studied range from advanced brain-inspired computer architectures like lis to hybrid digital-analog designs the goal of the program is to create a new type of computer that can proactively interpret and learn from data solve unfamiliar problems using what it has learned and operate closer to the efficiency of the human brain ""only disruptive breakthroughs can enable computers to perform as the human brain does in terms of problem-solving capability and lower power which for the human brain is less than a light bulb's worth of consumption "" said dimitris pavlidis nsf's directorate for engineering program director for the energy-efficient computing: from devices to architectures (e2cda) initiative computing capabilities in the united states rely on the continuous research and development of new computing systems with rapidly increasing performance however improvements in computing performance are severely limited by the amount of energy needed according to pavlidis the three-year projects consider simultaneously novel approaches including developing nanoscale devices and materials and integrating them into three-dimensional systems while inventing new computer architectures to process store and communicate data the initiative to create new types of high efficiency computing systems was detailed by the white house when it announced the nanotechnology-inspired grand challenge for future computing this effort also aligns with one of the nsf's big ideas for future investment as well as the national strategic computing initiative to advance the work at the human-technology frontier: shaping the future to learn more about the projects visit the nsfs website"
1682,joseph c brewer jr (pictured left) a former student of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was inducted to the national academy of construction (nac) brewer vice president and sadara chief implementation officer of dow chemical was inducted at the nac annual meeting in napa valley three hundred industry leaders were considered for membership and the 2016 class includes 30 new inductees the new members of the national academy of construction represent the best of the best of those who have distinguished themselves through stellar careers and contributions to the engineering and construction industry said wayne crew general secretary of nac our mission is to recognize these leaders and to share the academys reservoir of expertise in all facets of the built environment in service to our nation during his 36-year career at dow brewer has served in a multitude of engineering management and executive roles: design engineer project engineer design section manager engineering manager of continental operations company project manager in the netherlands and president of dow engineering company he has experience domestically and internationally including the equate joint venture in kuwait a $4 billion expansion project and the $16 billion sadara chemical program the largest chemical plant ever constructed in a single phase sadara is a joint venture of saudi aramco and dow in jubail saudi arabia he also is a contributing author to the dow global project methodology brewer earned his bachelors degree in electrical engineering magna cum laude from texas a&m the national academy of construction established in 1999 is an organization of industry leaders construction users engineers designers constructors consultants attorneys sureties and academics who have made outstanding contributions to the engineering and construction industry in addition to being a personal honor election to the academy allows members to volunteer their expertise to a variety of organizations governmental and nongovernmental for the betterment of the industry as a whole
1683,"swimming in cenotes exploring a new culture and learning engineering research practices make for a unique and high impact global experience this is exactly what students from engineering learning community introduction to research (elcir) program experienced over the past two summers in yucatan mexico the program has shown positive impact on the students self confidence global mindset and retention and will take place during summer 2017 again with the increased capacity for 60 students the elcir program which started in the spring of 2015 was possible thanks to the collaboration and partnership between the access and inclusion program dr sonia garcia senior director the halliburton engineering global program ms maria alves director and by the yucatan initiative project dr zenon medina-cetina principle investigator and associate professor of civil engineering the elcir regents program was funded by the tamus lsamp and by the louis stokes alliance for minority programs; while all laboratory visits are sponsored by members of the yucatan research consortium participating in the yucatan initiative project and all cultural activities was sponsored by the government of yucatan the elcir is a program linked to the colleges engineering success program under the access and inclusion program designed to support economically disadvantaged first generation underrepresented minority students it has been shown that global experience can greatly enhance a students college experience and make them more impactful after graduation; however the cost of this can hold students back from participation in such experiences through the tamus lsamp grant(s) regents scholars students were able to participate in this high impact global and research experience fully funded in 2015 when the elcir program was launched the objectives of the program were to expose freshman first generation and underrepresented minority engineering students to research by participating in a one-credit research abroad class this class provided students the opportunity to gain global research knowledge and cultural experience while allowing them to engage on research activities with researches from yucatan the results of the 2015 program were so positive that for 2016 the program was open to non-regents scholars as well meaning to any other engineering student who is not participating in the engineering success program as well the elcir program is open to students in the tamu qatar campus and will have at least 5 students from qatar participating in 2017 the goal of the elcir program is to prepare all students but particularly underrepresented minority students who are regents scholars for future international and research opportunities through the college of engineering the 2015 elcir program had the participation of 17 regent scholar students for the 2016 program the group grew to 46 students 28 freshman regents scholars and 18 freshman the 1-credit-course starts with multiple workshops during the spring semester where students learn about mexico and in particular about the yucatan peninsula the expectation of the program and receive all the travel and security orientations the highlight of the course is a two-week trip to yucatan mexico where students take the course ‘introduction to research taught by faculty members from the universidad marista in collaboration with dr medina-cetina in addition students visited a different research institution member of yucatan research consortium (siidetey) every day where they have ‘hands on experiences on research projects of the yucatan initiative led by faculty both in yucatan and texas a&m during their time abroad students also visit a number of cultural sites and tour the heart of the mayan civilization in yucatan learning about the intersection of the european and the mayan cultures and how they manifest in the regions own speaking food and customs which depart significantly from well-known landscapes and customs of northern and central mexico students learn about how proud of the resulting spanish and mayan mixture or ‘mestizaje defines the yucatecans of today and with that start to appreciate the cultural differences and simulates of different people for the students to leave a true intellectual footprint in yucatan a well-balanced schedule is designed and implemented including course contents and research experiences but also guided visits to yucatans main mayan archaeological sites such as chichen itza an archeological and world heritage site; the dzibilchaltun mayan site; the ruta puuc secondary roads connecting five well-preserved mayan archaeological sites finishing in uxmal the hearth of the mayan cultural expressions; and xcaret a natural sanctuary where the history of mexico combines with fun traditions and the splendor of the beautiful yucatan window to the caribbean after returning from mexico students become part of an online learning community and continue their research while also developing a research proposal from a topic they identify during the two-week visit to yucatan this one-credit graded course under the elcir program is concluded with a poster session in the fall where the students present their research proposal for the 2016 program the poster session took place in the fall where students presented their research to peer students faculty members and administrators of the college of engineering more than 100 people attended the poster presentation this study abroad had an amazing impact on me said sergio nevarez an elcir 2016 participant and regents scholar it gave me a broader understanding of real-world applications to concepts learned in class it also made me realize that i want to make a difference by being an engineer through setting a positive footprint in this world"" another unique aspect of the program is that during their time in merida rather than staying in a hotel students stay with local families and get integrated in the daily lives of their host mexican families one of the sundays is called family day and students spend the sunday as a typical mexican family sunday the students who participated in the past two programs said the trip was a once in a lifetime experience and a unique opportunity to combine research fundamentals new cultures and a study abroad in one trip the experience has inspired some of them to continue exploring new cultures and inspired others to lead by example as an engineer and through research many of the elcir students are still actively connected with their families private social media networks my first year in the engineering learning community as a regents' student has proven that i could have a bright future no matter what type of background i have come from as long as i was willing to accept the help offered to me and to work as hard as possible said brittany spriggs an elcir participant and regents scholar application for the 2017 program is currently open on the halliburton global programs website there is not a day that goes by that i do not think of and appreciate the professional cultural and personal value that the mexico [research] trip has proven to possess said spriggs"
1684,each year the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university participates in the anita borg institutes grace hopper celebration of women in computing (ghc) this year over 50 undergraduate and graduate students from computer science and engineering attended the event which was held oct 18-21 in houston ghc is the worlds largest technical conference for women in computing where the greatest minds in computing come together to recognize the contributions women have made to the field the event showcases the expertise of women in academia and industry in a variety of fields and offers opportunities for practitioners to be introduced to emerging technologies and trends this year the areas of focus were data science security artificial engineering wearables and internet of things (iot) the program also included sessions on career topics and on organization transformation ghc 2016 surpassed the expectations of cassandra oduola vice president of professional development for the computer science and engineering graduate student association (csegsa) this year i was able to network with people from google at the hop up and tech makers event she said i was also able to eat lunch with jeff dean the creator of tensorflow and mapreduce the event boasted prestigious keynote speakers such as ginni rometty ceo of ibm and megan smith united states chief technology officer computer science and engineering department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii dr dilma da silva and unocal and regents professor dr nancy m amato also gave talks during the event da silvas talk was titled finding your dream job with a phd amatos talk was titled gaining recognition for your accomplishments in academia grace hopper was in houston again this year and was the biggest it's ever been with about 15 000 attendees said seth polsley csegsa vice president of social in comparison with my experience from grace hopper last year there was a more noticeable focus on the career fair this time the companies that i spoke with sent hundreds of employees and the organizers moved talks from wednesday to thursday to give students and other attendees a chance to talk face-to-face with many engineers in industry those interactions were some of the best i had at grace hopper this year inspired by the legacy of admiral grace murray hopper dr anita borg and dr telle whitney co-founded ghc in 1994 the conference is produced by the anita borg institute and presented in partnership with the association for computing machinery (acm)
1685,to say dr andrew till has a lot going on is an understatement as a metropolis fellow postdoctoral researcher at los alamos national laboratory (lanl) the texas a&m university nuclear engineering alumnus works within the computational physics and methods (ccs-2) group on computational applications for energy discretization tills education was financed in part by the computational science graduate fellowship and the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) fellowship program which indirectly introduced him to his current area of research the nrc fellowship program is designed to provide support for education and workforce development in the field of nuclear science within higher education institutions the program does not provide individual scholarships or fellowships but partners with intuitions like texas a&m to provide funding for students with the idea it will act as an investment in the nuclear industry and workforce recipients must maintain satisfactory academic progress and serve six months in a field of nuclear related employment for each full or partial year of academic support the student receives this helps to ensure that the funds work to improve the nuclear industry in broad fashion the program has other benefits for students in tills case the one-year fellowship he accepted encouraged him to earn both his masters and doctoral degrees in nuclear engineering i found the nrc fellowship provided me the freedom to do research without having to worry about funding sources or taking on an extra workload till said my advisers and i were free to pursue topics based on their own merit instead of being forced to hew closely to existing projects as a student till was a part of the computational nuclear engineering group till and other computationalists would develop and test numerical methods that serve the field of nuclear engineering by helping researchers understand how neutrons move and interact within a nuclear reactor we care about these problems because they relate to reactor safety and performance till said we need computers to solve these problems because there are rarely pen and paper solutions two criteria we often use when analyzing a method are how fast it runs on existing and upcoming computers and how accurate it is at simulating relevant quantities for problems that we care about as an nrc fellow till researched energy discretization techniques for neutron transport which is the application of computational models in determining where neutrons are in an apparatus how quickly they are moving and where they are going to determine the behavior of a nuclear reactor core till explains that neutrons are able to travel at any speed less than the speed of light but when computationalists solve nuclear reactor problems on a computer they often approximate the neutrons as traveling at a finite number of speeds the computationalists take something that is continuous the neutron speed and make it discrete hence discretization tills advisers dr marvin adams and dr jim morel wanted till to look into new ways energy discretization is done for neutrons in the context of reactor analysis this impetus eventually led to a method that became his masters thesis and a generalization of that became his dissertation topic till is currently researching further generalizations into radiation transport as a postdoctoral researcher at first blush the environment [at lanl] is similar to graduate school till said i am mostly working with a mentor with other research-oriented postdocs or with staff members on large physics code projects unlike academia the national labs have an exciting mission aspect which tends to focus research and code development efforts tills current work as a postdoctoral researcher is invested in two applications of energy discretization one application is in time and space for problems where nuclear materials become hot enough to flow like liquids requiring thermal radiation transport to describe how energy and momentum is transported by photons produced as blackbody radiation this research has its application in laboratory physics and astrophysics the other topic is an extension of tills doctoral work in energy discretization methods but studies energy discretization of thermal photons instead of neutrons working at lanl in the computational physics and methods group has been a dream come true till said from a young age i wanted to work at a national lab and these past months have seen the fruition of those desires i would encourage any current students in nuclear engineering at texas a&m to think about interning at a national lab for a summer it offers a third option between academia and industry
1686,the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university hosted dr frank e talke an endowed chair professor at the center for memory and recording research at the university of california san diego for its 2016 fowler distinguished lecture series talke adds to the list of nationally recognized engineers and scientists who have been invited to lecture as part of the graduate program seminar class during his lecture mechanics and materials problems in medical device technology and information storage talke described materials issues and manufacturing techniques and presented an overview of current and future problems in the mechanics and materials area of information storage on hard disks talke is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the society of tribologists and lubrication engineers and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) he is the recipient of the first annual seagate tribology award the mayo de hersey award the stle international award and the asme medal talke is a member of the national academy of engineering and a member of acatech the academy of technikwissenschaften germany the fowler distinguished lecture series was endowed by donald fowler 66 and dr joe fowler 68 in 1999 donald fowler is the owner of fowler energy company which provides energy cost reduction services to users of electricity natural gas and wastewater joe fowler is president and co-founder of stress engineering services inc an engineering consulting firm that provides design analysis and testing services to a variety of industries
1687,from google maps to planetary cartography dr tim davis work on algorithms and software impacts our lives every single day this research has such a vast impact on our technology-driven world that you have likely seen the results of his work without even realizing it davis a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has dedicated his career to creating algorithms and software that can be used to solve large sparse matrix problems large matrices arise in many real-world problems in science engineering and mathematics and they tend to be mostly zero or sparse davis constructs algorithms and software for solving these types of matrix problems suitesparse is a package of sparse matrix algorithms davis created his solvers are widely used in industry academia and government labs including google the mathworks nvidia sandia national labs the us geological survey ibm mentor graphics cadence and in many open-source projects for example every time you use google maps and zoom down to the street-level view you are seeing the results of davis work the photos taken by google have gps coordinates but they aren't in the right place by passing through davis' solvers every photo on the planet in google streetview is placed in its proper position similarly the united states geological survey uses davis solvers to create maps of the moon mars and other planetary bodies by simply plugging in his solvers they are able to cut the time this would take from days down to minutes many commercial engineering software packages also use his solvers several companies use them to analyze the design of chips that go inside cell phones or laptops before they are sent to be manufactured there is no margin for error in these situations so using davis solvers prevents potential mistakes davis is currently applying his research on sparse matrix solvers to create new algorithms that rely on graphics processing units (gpus) to accelerate the solution to these problems gpus are computer chips that calculate mathematical problems primarily for rendering images gpus create the graphics in computer video games but they can also be used to solve hard problems in math and science gpus have many data processing cores that are very fast when they all work together doing similar work on different parts of the data applying sparse matrix computations on a gpu is a challenge however because the data layout of these matrices is irregular with the persistent progression of high-performance computing systems comes the need for ever-increasing performance this is where davis aims to go beyond what is simply needed and pursue the formation of better-than-commercial-quality software davis first began working on these types of problems when he was a graduate student at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign studying electrical engineering he began exploring the ways in which hardware could be created to get data from memory before the computer needed it my ideas turned out to be well-suited to matrix computations and sparse matrices in particular davis said i then got involved in the algorithms not the hardware and haven't looked back since this trajectory is reflected in my research history: all my degrees are in electrical engineering i'm in a computer science department and i do applied math davis has accomplished a rare feat – he is a fellow of all three of the corresponding professional societies: the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) for his work in electrical engineering the association for computing machinery (acm) for his work in computer science and the society for industrial and applied mathematics (siam) for his work in applied math davis works closely with many collaborators at texas a&m around the country and around the world with his students and postdoctoral student wissam sid-lakhdar he is creating new algorithms that exploit the gpu he is collaborating with dr dezhen song a fellow computer science and engineering professor on solving the sparse matrix problems that come from robotics when a robot takes images with a camera and stitches them together to create a 3-d model of the world around it it has to solve a sparse matrix problem he has recently started collaborating with simon foucart in the department of mathematics on a genetics problem and erick moreno-centeno in the department of industrial and systems engineering on finding exact solutions to optimization problems he also works closely with researchers at the university of tennessee the university of florida sandia national labs rutherford appleton lab in the uk nvidia microsoft yahoo! labs san jose state university and harvard i could never have predicted the impact of my work davis said when i started creating these matrix solvers in graduate school i saw a problem to be solved and had no idea my solutions would be so widely used my code is out there ‘in the wild being used by so many people to solve so many problems that i'm only aware of a small fraction of the ways it's being used every day because the code is so robust reliable and well documented i get very few bug reports or requests for help on how to use it so i don't always hear from my many users
1688,dr huilin gao assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was awarded an early-career research fellowship by the gulf research program the early-career research fellowship recognizes professionals at the critical pretenure stage of their careers for exceptional leadership past performance and potential for future contributions to improving oil system safety human health and well being or environmental protection gaos areas of expertise are water resources remote sensing and numerical hydrological modeling she has published over 30 peer-reviewed international journal papers and has delivered over 80 national/international conference presentations and invited talks her current research focuses on hydrologic monitoring and prediction climate change land cover water resources management and satellite remote sensing of water quantity and quality for more information on the gulf research program early-career research fellowship visit: http://wwwnasedu/gulf/fellowships/fellows-2016/indexhtml and http://www8nationalacademiesorg/onpinews/newsitemaspxrecordid=10072016
1689,since its inception 30 years ago texas a&m universitys industrial assessment center has educated more than 320 engineering students on how to successfully apply energy conservation techniques in real-world situations the center provides no-cost studies of manufacturing plants within 150 miles of college station analyzing a plants energy waste and productivity issues to date the center has served over 725 clients and saved texas manufacturers over $250 million dr bryan rasmussen associate professor and leland t jordan career development professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m will continue to serve as the director of one of the 28 us department of energy (doe) industrial assessment centers (iacs) during the next 5 years we will expand our efforts to service wastewater treatment facilities and assist clients in industrial cybersecurity rasmussen said the doe has allocated $35 million to set-up and operate 28 iacs in 25 states across the country texas a&m will receive $1575 million over five years to train engineering students and conduct energy assessments students working in the industrial assessment center have an unmatched opportunity for training and hands-on application of engineering design and analysis techniques rasmussen said our students are highly recruited and studies by independent organizations have shown that they receive higher salaries upon completion students working in the iac receive a doe certification and experiences that count toward professional certifications in energy management the texas a&m iac has also been selected to serve as the mentor for a new iac that will be hosted at the university of texas rio grande valley this will expand opportunities for manufacturing training programs in underserved areas and expand the technical assistance more information about the texas a&m iac jointly hosted by the department of mechanical engineering and the energy systems laboratory at texas a&m can be found at: iactamuedu and iacuniversity
1690,dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor and holder of william and ruth neely faculty fellowship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the van ness award from rensselaer polytechnic institute the award is presented annually to acknowledge a chemical engineer who has made seminal contributions to the profession each recipient also takes part in the van ness award lecture series upon receiving the award lutkenhaus presented two lectures an introduction to electroactive polymer-based batteries and capacitors and advanced functional layer-by-layer nanocoatings these reflect her research interests on polymeric materials for energy and functional coatings the van ness award is the latest in what is growing to be a large number of awards for lutkenhaus in 2011 lutkenhaus received a faculty early career development (career) award sponsored by the national science foundation (nsf); in 2013 lutkenhaus was received a us air force office of scientific research young investigator award; in 2014 she was awarded a kaneka junior faculty scholarship and named an acs pmse young investigator (the polymeric materials division of the american chemical society); in 2015 lutkenhaus was named a finalist in the energy category of the 2015 world technology network awards and became one of the first members of a new nsf research traineeship program data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) lutkenhaus completed her undergraduate degree at the university of texas at austin and earned her phd at the massachusetts institute of technology in 2007 before joining texas a&m's chemical engineering department in 2010
1691,the ieee power and energy society (pes) scholarship plus scholar award was presented to texas a&m university electrical engineering undergraduates kevin dwyer benjamin jack donald okoye and arshad zaman the ieee pes scholarship plus initiative recognizes highly-qualified electrical engineering undergraduate students with multi-year scholarships and assists in connecting them with relevant and meaningful career experiences since the program launched in 2011 723 students received 1 172 scholarships from more than 150 universities including ivy league colleges flagship state universities and prestigious engineering colleges this award includes a multi-year $2 000-$3 000 annual scholarship and opportunities for hands-on career experiences more information about the scholarship can be found here pes provides the world's largest forum for sharing the latest in technological developments in the electric power industry for developing standards that guide the development and construction of equipment and systems and for educating members of the industry and the general public members of pes are leaders in this field and they and their employers derive substantial benefits from involvement with this unique and outstanding association
1692,on tuesday (dec 20) preschoolers from texas a&m universitys becky gates childrens center will put on a holiday bake sale utilizing entrepreneurship principles taught by texas a&m associate professor dr malini natarajarathinam natarajarathinam from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) was invited by kay myers the tigers class teacher to speak with the class to share some business tactics everyone can understand – even preschoolers the class is tasked with putting on a holiday bake sale proceeds of which will go toward buying a gift for the class natarajarathinam initially worried that the kids may not understand the complex material was surprised at how rapidly they got it the first thing in any business plan that we teach here is knowing your value proposition said natarajarathinam i wanted to just talk about this one thing but ended up teaching almost all the elements of the startup business model canvas because they were just so interested and kept talking about it natarajarathinam was direct with the class: why should anyone buy from your store what makes it special one 4-year-old piped up we are right here! they dont have to go anywhere else to buy baked goods! this selling point known in business terms as proximity to customer was a very good answer but they werent finished our bakery is definitely gonna be yummy and fun and we look cuter than anyone else! said another who could argue with that with their attention captured natarajarathinam went on to teach them that what makes their store special is known as value proposition by the end of the class it almost became a magic phrase to them as they sang value proposition! value proposition! said natarajarathinam this is something that i teach in my classes but i never thought to put it that way value proposition is what makes a business special these kids taught me a clearer way to explain it moving on to other business principles natarajarathinam talked about who they wanted to sell to and how they would market themselves originally the bake sale was going to just be for the students family and friends now everyone is a welcome customer we could sell to all the parents (not just theirs) and other friends the babies dont have to buy but their parents can! said one child we can sell to strangers but we shouldnt talk to them but we can still tell them that they can pay us money a more cautious one said we can sell to the aggies! a bunch screamed and their target customer was agreed upon they can come to us on the aggie buses! thoroughly impressed natarajarathinam went on to share ideas on how they could reach these target customers via different engagement channels and working with business partners i taught them three main principles that day: value proposition (what makes them special) customers (who will buy their goods) and partners (who will help them make and sell their goods) natarajarathinam explained the only trouble the class had understanding was cost projections; according to them their cookies should cost about $100 each we were able to negotiate a better price thankfully natarajarathinam said parents and potential customers can breathe a sigh of relief the class even delved into hiring construction workers (teachers and parents) to help build their bakery and getting the proper permit from ms kisha (center director) to make sure everything was approved the childrens center regularly has faculty come in and share some of their expertise with the kids to keep them engaged and learn new things the students say what they are interested in that month and faculty who are willing to share their knowledge come and speak natarajarathinam was proud to say that this was her second presentation; previously she discussed other business principles with the class last year about forecasting demand at a lemonade stand for those interested in the class holiday bake sale the tigers class bake sale will be in front of the school from 3 - 4:30 pm all food sold will be nut-free
1693,hard work and dedication has paid off for three electrical engineering students who received a cumulative total of $27 500 in award money for their innovative wi-fi hotspot designs viasat a satellite broadband company held a semester-long wi-fi hotspot design competition with students in the texas a&m university college of engineering the students were challenged with designing a solar-powered wi-fi hotspot with a battery backup to be used in remote areas the goal of the competition was to help bring internet services to remote communities disaster relief areas and schools with a low-cost design we are extremely proud and excited of this partnership with the university and the tremendous work and creative minds of the students who participated in this competition said cody catalena general manager of viasat wireless services with an office comprised of many aggies it is always our goal to invest in the surrounding student community and the university that has made such a significant impact in our lives while concurrently thinking of new innovate solutions to bring connectivity to the previously untouched world nine student teams comprised of 13 engineering students participated in the viasat competition throughout the semester the teams worked closely with viasat and other industry experts on their designs to gain skills beyond the classroom all groups presented their concepts design approaches and plans to judges and two final teams continued developing their prototypes in the final month of the competition the first place team was awarded $20 000 for its innovation and second place received $7 500 in first place were cassidy shaver and hanzhi guo who designed a solar wi-fi hotspot that targeted markets in schools campgrounds and businesses their design addressed housing heat moisture and pressure stability and included installations for roof and pole mounting brandon allison came in second place with a solar wi-fi hotspot that addressed solar uptime and panel size and included installations for mobile trailer and permanent roof mounting
1694,in september the us department of energy (doe) announced the funding of six multi-year research projects to improve the understanding of methane hydrate system behaviors dr jihoon kim dr george moridis and dr yucel akkutlu dr jihoon kim assistant professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university is leading one of the six projects kim and fellow petroleum engineering professors dr george moridis and dr yucel akkutlu will advance capabilities to model hydrate systems so they are better understood these gas hydrate systems are a potential energy source but have many unknown factors hydrates frozen methane locked in ice crystals change form when subjected to natural environmental or production recovery factors reduced pressure and increased heat break the crystal formations through dissociation releasing water and methane the crystals are currently located in geologic formations found in permafrost areas and subsea deposits burning gas hydrate ice crystals photo courtesy of us geological survey gas hydrate problems are complicated compared to other geological problems said kim a model describing hydrates involves coupled flow thermal and geomechanical processes for accurate predictions of the behavior you have to create very strong and robust numerical simulators kims research interests include coupled flow and geomechanics in hydrate accumulations he is known in the hydrate community as a specialist in subsidence in the geomechanics of hydrate bearing systems as part of the project kims research team will collaborate with the korean institute of geoscience and mineral resources (kigam) in south korea and the lawrence berkeley national laboratory (lbnl) in california the collaboration in this case involves transfer of knowledge from a national laboratory to a wider base over here said moridis we are creating new capabilities both in our faculty and in our students at texas a&m in addition to being a professor at texas a&m moridis is an earth senior scientist and faculty associate in the energy geosciences division of lbnl he is head of lbnls hydrocarbon resource program and is in charge of research programs on unconventional resources including hydrates dr moridis has actually worked on the problem of flow behavior for a long time so we are using his flow simulator said kim im combining it with my geomechanical simulator but the couplings must be very rigorous and accurate this research is not only about numerical simulation but also about experiments dr akkutlu will lead geomechanical gas hydrate experiments kigam and lbnl will provide data on measured and recorded gas hydrate behaviors to texas a&m so kims team can create computer programs that predict hydrate reactions to changes in pressure and temperatures these simulations will also address production-related issues experiments will be done separately and those results will be compared to the modeling to ensure accuracy you cannot avoid geomechanics to understand natural gas production from hydrates said akkutlu similarly you cannot avoid the fluid in the pores and how it changes phases they are all intimately coupled both kim and moridis are involved in this problem my strength is multiphase flow phase change and fluids behavior its going to be an interesting integration we will do validations between the numerical results and the experimental results added kim experiments will be conducted not only by the lawrence berkeley national lab but also by texas a&m dr akkutlu will lead and manage them then we will predict the behaviors in an actual field in south korea as well as an actual field in alaska dr yuri makogon hydrates are not new to the petroleum engineering department dr yuri makogon an award-winning retired texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) researcher with texas a&m discovered gas hydrate formations in nature in 1965 makogon worked with the petroleum department for several years where he furthered his hydrate research other doe projects will also investigate production challenges of this vast source of natural gas and assess the role of gas hydrates in a global climate cycle kims is the largest doe project and the largest hydrate project in texas a&m history essentially this means texas a&m is poised to become part of a small but critical global gas hydrate community exploring the recovery and production of this potential energy resource assessing the potential for production of natural gas from gas hydrates is a very forward-looking research area because hydrates are the largest known methane resource on the planet said dr dan hill head of the petroleum engineering department if they can be assessed safely and profitably hydrates could become a big player in the natural gas supply for the future research is about being ahead of where we are right now its an exciting area for us to be in i hope its the start of much bigger things this is the kind of research you contract in order to address the needs of 20 to 30 years from now not today said moridis this is the reason national laboratories are focused on this because we are not working on todays problems but whats going to happen in 20 or 30 years we are in the development of a strong basis an intellectual basis for hydrate research here at texas a&m
1695,the national academy of inventors (nai) has named texas a&m universitys dr john l junkins among its 175 nai fellows for 2016 induction ceremonies are set for april 6 2017 at the john f kennedy presidential library and museum in boston junkins is the founding director of the texas a&m university institute for advanced study in the division of research as well as a distinguished professor a regents professor and holder of the royce e wisenbaker chair in the department of aerospace engineering in addition junkins is the director of the land air and space robotics laboratory and of the center for mechanics and control over a career that spans five decades junkins has made significant contributions to the navigation mechanics and control of aerospace systems which are documented in more than 400 articles and eight books early in his career junkins worked on concepts and inventions to support us space missions from laser range measurements made during apollo missions 15 16 and 17 in 1971 to 1972 junkins developed a precise model for the shape of the moon he later developed the first finite element representation of the earth's gravity anomalies which supported early inertial guidance methods for polaris missiles in more recent years in collaboration with his students junkins developed the laser-scanning electric whiteboard; the starnavii a split field-of-view star camera designed to enhance spacecraft navigation; the visnav a navigation sensor designed to improve the capability of spacecraft to rendezvous and dock; and a robot that mimics spacecraft proximity operations for research in earth-bound laboratories among other inventions he has developed many algorithms for spacecraft control including a novel way to use the earths magnetic field to maneuver spinning satellites; this was implemented successfully for the nova spacecraft junkins earned a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering from auburn university in 1965 followed by a masters degree in 1967 and a doctoral degree in 1969 both from the university of california los angeles prior to joining texas a&m in 1985 he held academic appointments at the university of virginia (1970-1977) and virginia polytechnic institute and state university (1977-1985) following four years as an engineering scientist with mcdonnell douglas astronautics company his current research interests include the dynamics and control of spacecraft; guidance navigation and astronautics; analytical and numerical methods; and smart sensor technology his research has received significant funding from the national aeronautics and space administration the us department of defense and the air force office of scientific research among others he is a member of the national academy of engineering and the international academy of astronautics and is an honorary fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) honors include the martin summerfield award for the best book published by aiaa in 2013; the aiaa guidance navigation and control award in 2006; the tycho brahe medal from the institute of navigation in 2004; the frank malina medal from the international academy of astronautics and the theodore von karman medal and lectureship from aiaa both in 1997; and the aiaa pendray aerospace literature award in 1990 junkins is the fifth texas a&m faculty-researcher to be selected since the nai named its charter fellows in 2012 the others are r bowen loftin former president of texas a&m; b don russell distinguished professor and holder of the harry e bovay jr chair in the department of electrical and computer engineering; marlan scully distinguished professor in the department of physics and astronomy; and the late christodoulos a floudas formerly the director of the texas a&m energy institute and holder of the erle nye 59 chair for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering a total of 757 nai fellows representing more than 229 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutions have been named the 2016 fellows account for more than 5 437 issued us patents bringing the patents held by all nai fellows to more than 25 000 election to nai fellow status is accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life economic development and the welfare of society
1696,"in the coming years the united states electric power grid will undergo a transformation as wind and solar energy become more prevalent in helping to meet the nations energy requirements the grid-x initiative at texas a&m university is addressing all these cutting edge challenges that hold the promise of revolutionizing the electric power industry the workshop on architecture and economics of the future grid was recently hosted by members of the initiative to showcase world-leading experts who shared their experience research and vision for the future of the electric grid it is predicted that homes of the future will be equipped with solar panels that are net producers of energy when the sun is shining rather than always being net consumers these renewable energy sources are unpredictable so residential commercial and industrial consumers will need to adjust consumption this is in contrast to the current situation where supply is ramped up or down according to demand additionally meters will need to be smart to bill consumers not just by total energy consumed but by how much they consume at what times and under scarcity conditions to serve as intermediaries in this process new business models of ""load serving entities"" are emerging this requires a rethinking of how electric power is priced both at the wholesale generation level as well as at the retail consumer level a smarter grid is needed to provide the appropriate information on the state of the grid to all participating real-time decision makers to prevent instabilities as well as increase efficiency during the workshop dr ross baldick (left) from the department of electrical and computer engineering at the university of texas at austin discussed ancillary services in the context of the full cost of the electricity project and wind variability and impact on markets in these presentations he discussed the recent transition of ercot from zonal to nodal market structure and its impact on reserve markets as well as the observed and potential impacts of increased wind production in texas dr michael caramanis (left center) from the department of mechanical engineering and division of systems engineering at boston university presented on dynamic locational marginal cost of power services on distribution networks with price adaptive distributed energy resources and strategic behavior in energy and reserve co-optimizing markets with distributed energy resource (der) participation he detailed some of the complexities presented by distributed energy resources such as solar power and potential market structures and operation dr pravin varaiya (right center) nortel networks distinguished professor in the department of electrical engineering at the university of california berkeley considered the impacts of virtual bidding on the ercot market and described a method for achieving optimal stochastic dispatch through direct multilateral trades he concluded that introducing virtual bidding had increased market efficiency and presented a model describing the impacts of virtual bidding on market operation dr david sun (right) chief scientist at the glarus group presented the art and science of power system optimization applications and grid 30: der-enabled industry transformation he shared his experience and advice about the art of connecting research results to business applications and discussed his views on how distributed energy resources will transform the electric grid graduate students and postdoctoral students participating in the texas a&m grid-x research program also shared their work covering a wide range of topics including demand response methods of operation for participants in future markets alternative market structures data-driven learning from market and pmu data and economically accounting for variability of renewables nearly 100 people attended the workshop including participants from texas a&m the university of texas at austin boston university the university of california-berkeley ercot abb centerpoint energy and the glarus group dr hung-ming chou dr pr kumar and dr le xie organized the workshop presentation slides are available at speakerdeckcom/gridxtamu"
1697,bo wang (left) and dr zixiang xiong (right) researchers in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the prestigious 2016 international conference on pattern recognition (icpr) best paper award xiong and wang won the award for their paper adaptive boosting for image denoising: beyond low-rank representation and sparse coding in the past decade much progress has been made in image denoising due to the use of low-rank representation and sparse coding in the meanwhile state-of-the-art algorithms also rely on an iteration step to boost the denoising performance however the boosting step is fixed or non-adaptive in their work xiong and wang perform rank-1 based fixed-point analysis then guided by their analysis they develop the first adaptive boosting (ab) algorithm whose convergence is guaranteed preliminary results on the same image dataset show that ab uniformly outperforms existing denoising algorithms on every image and at each noise level with more gains at higher noise levels xiong an ieee fellow joined the department in 1999 his research focuses on information signal processing over networks other honors he has received include the tees fellow award the tees select young faculty award the young investigator awards from the office of naval research and the us army research office the career award from the national science foundation the 2006 ieee signal processing magazine best paper award and top 10 percent paper awards at the 2011 and 2015 ieee multimedia signal processing workshops he received his phd from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 1996 wang received his bachelors degree from the special class of gifted young department university of science and technology of china hefei china in 2007 and his masters degree in computer engineering from santa clara university in 2009 he is a phd candidate in the department under the guidance of xiong his research interests include image/video denoising computer vision and deep learning icpr is an international forum for discussions on recent advances in the fields of pattern recognition machine learning and computer vision and on applications of these technologies in various fields
1698,meltem apaydin a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the best paper award from the 2016 international conference on intelligent biology and medicine (icibm 2016) apaydins paper robust mutant strain design by pessimistic optimization describes a novel pessimistic optimization framework to derive robust knockout strategies under model uncertainty to design mutant microbial strains for desirable outcomes apaydin and her co-authors including her electrical and computer engineering phd thesis adviser dr xiaoning qian have shown that the existing optimistic bi-level optimization methods for mutant strain design have fast degenerative performance in uncertain and incorporative environments the proposed pessimistic optimization leads to robust knockout strategies to achieve stable desirable in-silico performances the full paper will be published in bmc genomics the authors are currently seeking resources to experimentally validate the derived mutant microbial strains to demonstrate the potential of the proposed method in computational systems biology especially in metabolic engineering apaydin earned her bachelor of science degree in electrical and electronics engineering from anadolu university in turkey and her master of science degree in electrical engineering from texas a&m she is currently working on her phd thesis project in electrical engineering her research focuses on deriving robust optimization methods in machine learning with their life and materials science applications
1699,the zachry leadership program has selected its second cohort of sophomore engineering students to complete the five-semester certificate program the cohort is made up of 32 students who will begin program activities in january the zachry leadership program is a joint effort between the texas a&m university college of engineering and zachry group the purpose of the program is to further empower engineering students to become future leaders who are well-versed in free enterprise collaborative in their decision-making and humbly self-confident in their behaviors each student is awarded a $1 000 scholarship each semester while enrolled in the program seth sullivan recently joined the college of engineering as director of the zachry leadership program he graduated from texas a&m with a degree in industrial distribution in 2001 he also earned a masters degree in international affairs from texas a&m and a masters degree in business administration from the university of texas at san antonio im thrilled and humbled to join this unique program and to work closely with our partners at zachry to build a revolutionary leadership program for engineers he said sullivan said this program offers students an exciting experience to gain insight from industry leaders while also learning more about their own potential this group of students will be introduced to leadership principles like self-awareness empathy creativity and authenticity and will also learn about business and residentship he said these young people all have a passion for making a difference in the world and we want to empower each one of them to do so bob gresham vice president of engineering development at zachry group works closely in the curriculum design process for the zachry leadership program he often visits with the students throughout their five semesters in the program the zachry leadership program exposes engineering students to business community service and leadership insights that they otherwise may not learn until later in their careers gresham said they will also connect with professionals in the engineering field to help them better understand career opportunities and clarify their own career goals as someone who works in industry gresham said zachry group seeks employees who are well-rounded who communicate and connect well with others and who are humble yet self-confident this program exposes students to different experiences and perspectives that will help them learn about themselves and grow as leaders he said the first cohort began in january 2016 and will complete its certificate requirements in may 2018
1700,the industry advisory council for the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has established a contribution-based fund that directly supports faculty students and the mechanical engineering department (meen) as a whole the mechanical engineering advancement fund was created to provide a mechanism of support that would stay within meen and be distributed consistent with the priority needs of the department currently the mechanical engineering advancement fund distributes contributions annually per the following allocation schedule: 50 percent to faculty support (fellowships and recognition) 30 percent to undergraduate endowed student scholarships 20 percent to meen department strategic activities (excludes operating expense) if you wish to help support the department through the mechanical engineering advancement fund contributions may be made electronically by postage mail or through jeremy quast the meen development officer if available please leverage your companys gift matching process online giving instructions through the meen website click on mechanical engineering advancement fund through the texas a&m foundation website contributions by postage mail send your check and write on the check memo line mechanical engineering advancement fund complete a matching company form if applicable and include in the envelope include written instructions directing the contribution to the mechanical engineering advancement fund (a copy of this note can also be used) mail to: the texas a&m foundation 401 george bush dr college station tx 77840 contributions directly to mechanical engineering development officer a third option is to provide a check directly to jeremy quast the mechanical engineering department development officer quast will ensure your contribution is credited to the mechanical engineering advancement fund the industry advisory council for the meen department encourages your consideration for support we sincerely thank you for any contribution you elect to make
1701,dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university is the principal investigator on a team that was recently awarded a $200 000 contract from lawrence livermore national laboratory the contract is part of a $1 million grant from the department of energy and a new manufacturing training program build4scale to help cleantech entrepreneurs bring their prototypes to the marketplace the team is comprised of elwany dr michael johnson and dr bimal nepal from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m cleantech entrepreneurs commonly struggle with moving their ideas from the prototype stage to mass production due to the lack of targeted training to address this issue elwany said our team will work with the build4scale team to close this gap through building a training regimen to support the scale-up of hardware production courses will provide engineers and entrepreneurs with steps to expand production including product design material selection quality control sustainability supply chain management and working with vendors we will leverage our expertise to develop content focusing on material selection and advanced manufacturing processes johnson said knowing the various technologies available and getting access to design will enable entrepreneurs and engineers to quickly get a viable product and bring it to the marketplace trainings will include an online element and will eventually be offered nationally through startup incubators the manufacturing extension partnership (mep) universities community colleges and national labs for more information click here
1702,effective medical care depends on the availability of appropriate facilities and the proper application of technology processes and training more than 50 students from across the university joined together to design medical applications to improve that medical care at the most recent aggies invent competition aggies invent promotes an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m university it gathers invited students provides them with the needs statements submitted by sponsors allows them to self-select teams and gives them access to industry mentors and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours maxim integrated and the texas a&m health science center sponsored aggies invent: medical applications in addition to providing needs statements representatives were on hand to serve as mentors and judges throughout the weekend team elevate received first place for its pressure-based weight measurement device to accurately assess the weight of a wheelchair-bound individual from their bed team members included amanda bass joseph coll françois-stéphane domchueng and austin lu from biomedical engineering james oconnell from mechanical engineering and robert shannon from chemical engineering max ortiz and cody mcdonough (manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology) elizabeth henderson (general engineering) chris gillett and joshua guillory (business) and sarah bohac (biomedical sciences) took second place their innovation can you see me now helps virtually connect the elderly with their families to combat the increasing rate of depression amongst the elderly victoria nguyen and andrea hernandez (biomedical engineering) nicholas hercl (electrical and computer engineering) ryan jones (mechanical engineering) and roxana khozein (college of medicine) took third place with their innovation medphone their device measures heart rate blood pressure ekg heart and lung sounds and temperature with only a smartphone headphones and the bell of a stethoscope the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively the eic and aggies invent also offer support for students to continue working on their project the judges for the weekend were dr katherine brakora instructional assistant professor texas a&m hsc college of medicine; dr saurabh biswas associate professor of practice department of biomedical engineering; kristopher ardis executive director for micros security & software at maxim integrated; dr jennifer freeman assistant professor at the ut southwestern medical center; and clayton ware senior principal member technical staff maxim integrated
1703,faculty and staff members of the zachry department of civil engineering were recognized for their contributions to the department at the departments annual holiday party on dec 9 recipients include: zachry excellence in teaching award: dr anthony cahill birdwell excellence in teaching award: dr kuang-an chang truman jones excellence in graduate teaching award: dr h c chen research impact award: dr gretchen miller and dr stefan hurlebaus service impact award: dr james kaihatu mr robert appleton and dr stuart anderson leadership impact award: dr yunlong zhang and dr scott socolofsky outstanding staff award: ms sherry hoffman outstanding new staff award: mr david dillon and mr chris grunkemeyer
1704,dr alan palazzolo james j cain professor i in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university phd candidate xiaomeng tong and former student dr junho suh won the american society of mechanical engineers' (asme) journal of tribology 2016 best paper award the team was presented the award for its paper rotordynamic morton effect simulation with transient thermal shaft bow at the society of tribologists and lubrication engineers (stle) tribology frontiers conference which was held at the drake hotel in chicago the teams paper focused on the morton effect which is characterized by an asymmetric journal temperature distribution slowly varying thermal bow and intolerable synchronous vibration levels this effect is in some cases the nemesis of successfully operating critical turbines and compressors in petrochemical power utility and manufacturing plants which may have severe economic consequences said palazzolo the teams paper improves the accuracy of morton effect simulations by replacing the existing equivalent mass imbalance model with a more realistic thermal shaft bow model rotor permanent bow and disk skew are synchronous excitation sources and are incorporated in the dynamic model to investigate their influence on the morton effect a hybrid beam/solid element finite element shaft model is used to provide improved accuracy for predicting the rotor thermal bow and expansion tong is a phd candidate in mechanical engineering at texas a&m his specialty areas include rotordynamics fluid film bearings and the morton effect currently tong has published four archival journal papers based on his phd work suh received his phd in mechanical engineering from texas a&m in 2014 and is presently an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at the hankyong national university in korea his specialty areas include rotordynamics fluid film bearings and the morton effect palazzolo is an asme fellow and professional engineer in the state of texas he has co-authored 80 archival journal publications in the areas of rotordynamics fluid film bearings and seals energy storage flywheels magnetic bearings active vibration control drillstring vibrations motor related vibrations and direct fuel injectors palazzolo has been principal investigator on approximately $9 million of funded research at texas a&m this is his second journal of tribology best paper award having received his first in 2014 on the subject of three-dimensional thermodynamic morton effect simulation part i & part ii with the help of suh contributing author: samantha k ramirez
1705,students from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university took second place in the 2016 american nuclear society (ans) national design competition during the 2016 american nuclear society winter meeting and nuclear technology expo in las vegas the four-person team collaborated on a nuclear reactor design for a deep space exploration mission to europa one of the moons of jupiter partnering with an adviser from ad astra rocket company the team consisted of students joe kelsey tyler hughes andres morell-pacheco and nicholas whitman the team sought to couple a gas-cooled reactor as a power source for the variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (vasmir) created by ad astra while meeting the power concerns of the system and accounting for variables that would affect performance in space the idea was that using the new capabilities that vasimr offers coupled with the high-density power source of nuclear power such a mission could be feasible kelsey said europa was chosen because it is one of the few locations in the solar system that could possibly support extraterrestrial life having large reservoirs of water beneath the frozen crust the team determined the trip would be feasible because the vasmir system has promising advantages in fuel efficiency the vasimr system when paired with the appropriate power source is able to generate thrust at higher exit velocities and thus more efficiently than conventional chemical rockets pacheco said when paired with a highly-efficient nuclear power source a vasimr driven rocket system could be used for an efficient alternative to chemical propulsion and solar powered propulsion systems for researchers this translates to quicker access to deep space research materials and opportunities in a shorter amount of time in addition to shortening overall mission timelines for comparison traditional chemical fuel sources could achieve travel to mars in six months where a plasma-based rocket powered by nuclear fuel could achieve the same distance in less than 40 days hughes who helped develop the thermal hydraulic model for the teams reactor explains that while nuclear applications have been applied to space travel before the team saw a greater range of capabilities with the vasmir system despite the challenges one critical issue pertaining to the use of the vasimr is the need for a reliable electric power supply hughes said this power supply needs to be near one megawatt to achieve the amount of propulsion necessary to be competitive with travel times achievable by traditional chemical rockets we believe the vasimr system is one of the most promising technologies developed to achieve manned space missions in reasonable travel times nuclear power has been applied to space systems before but previous space reactors have not provided nearly the amount of power required by the vasimr system the students conducted the project as part of their senior capstone course on nuclear design taught by dr karen vierow kirkland associate department head and associate professor who designed the course to encourage participation in and meet the requirements of the competition according to kirkland the teams face more than just technical challenges one of their learning experiences in the senior design course is to have regular team meetings while working around peoples' schedules kirkland said people have to work together share data and promote each other these are something i like to call group dynamics issues which present challenges to working together and creating a unified team and collective project while this project only delved into a theoretical design it still displays an opportunity for the professional development of the students and a demonstration of their expertise i think it was very beneficial to participate in this competition said whitman who was responsible for designing the nuclear reactor core it gave us a very good opportunity to get feedback and criticism for our project in addition to presenting their work at the competition the students are also required by kirkland to display their work in front of the department faculty advisory council members and others in industry to demonstrate their grasp of their work design teams from texas a&m have either won or been competition finalists four times in the last six years something kirkland attributes to the exceptional quality of the students and rigor of the course i think that this says our students are highly regarded by the technical community kirkland said this design competition is a national competition none of our faculty are organizers at this competition so our teams are being chosen by other technical experts who are evaluating a large number of teams i think that speaks very highly of our teams in terms of technical competency and teamwork
1706,students faculty and staff from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university attended the 2016 american nuclear society (ans) winter meeting and nuclear technology expo in las vegas the theme of this years winter conference was the application of nuclear science and technology toward sustainable energy issues the department hosted a booth at the conference for those interested in the nuclear programs and facilities the conference included over 500 technical sessions and provided networking opportunities for students researchers and faculty to meet with professionals in the nuclear field from all over the world a highlight of this years winter meeting was the inclusion of the high temperature reactor technology (htr) conference an international conference focusing on technological advances within high-temperature gas cooled reactors and heat technology the conference also hosted the 2016 ans design competition in which an undergraduate team from texas a&m was selected as a finalist and came in second place faculty and students within the department continue to hold leadership positions and maintain active involvement within ans including contributions toward conference proceedings chairman positions and contributions within their given fields dr sunil chirayath a research assistant professor within the department and the director of the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) is associated with both ans reactor physics division and the nuclear nonproliferation policy division chirayath contributes extended abstracts to conference proceedings to both the ans winter and summer meetings dr yassin hassan is the department head and full professor within the department he is a ans fellow and was awarded the ans seaborg medal in 2008 recognizing his contributions to the peaceful use of nuclear technology hassan has contributed more than 300 ans summaries one of the largest for any ans member since the society was established dr mark kimber is an assistant professor within the department and is currently the vice chairman for ans national honor society alpha nu sigma during the annual ans winter meeting alpha sigma nu organizes a student poster competition in previous years the competition has drawn anywhere from 30 to 35 posters from undergraduate and graduate student competitors respectively in the 2016 winter meeting there were 68 total presentations the top three presentations from both the undergraduate and graduate categories receive a cash prize dr jean ragusa a full professor within the department and the associate director for the institute for scientific computation (isc) is serving his second term on the executive committee of the mathematics and computations division of ans ragusa will serve as the co-chair of the technical program for the divisions next international mathematics and computations topical meeting in 2019 dr pavel tsvetkov an associate professor and faculty graduate adviser within the department is involved within nine divisions of ans primarily with the reactor physics division of which he was previously chairman as a chairman tsvetkov would set the election ballot for division officers he has also served an active role in ans as the vice chairman of the ans book publishing committee which manages ans book publications
1707,dr bruce gooch associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently asked to participate in a pearson education documentary series the series showcases professors and those who have inspired them to pursue their dreams gooch currently teaches a video game design and development course at texas a&m for which he requires students to build games in teams and deploy them in online marketplaces such as the android store for one of the lectures i show them how to write press kits and press releases for their games gooch said this semester i thought that i would show the students how i got media attention for my products when i was doing startup companies instead of just talking about it he wrote a response to a casting call for this documentary series and sent it in along with a press kit about himself a few days later he received a call expressing interest in his story the mini documentary focused on gooch titled cracking the code to creativity centers around what led him to ultimately establishing a new shading algorithm called gooch shading
1708,gooch and his adviser dr elaine cohen from the university of utah co-wrote a research paper on the three fundamental shading algorithms in computer science this research led to the inception of gooch shading which became the fourth known shading algorithm cracking the code to creativity is part of a larger campaign created by pearson called inspiring teachers
1709,there are certain defining moments in life – events that mold us into the individuals we continue to grow to become brent lyon chairman of the department of industrial and systems engineering advisory council at texas a&m university recounted several that have shaped his life and career lyon knew from an early age he was not cut out for a repetitive job and wanted a career that required more mental work rather than physical i had worked some jobs as a teenager where minutes seemed like hours and my mind was continuously wandering and others where i was mentally engaged doing something interesting lyon said for me the contrast was significant lyon began his academic career as a computing science major but quickly realized this was not the career path he had always envisioned at the end of that first spring semester i moved back home for the summer lyon said on the drive back to fort worth i had a very rational and critical self-conversion where i realized that some of my natural tendencies and talents were not in line with my chosen major by the end of that drive home i decided to not only get out of computing science but to begin a major in industrial engineering it was a natural fit for me lyon realized he had an attraction to the making and manufacturing of things was naturally wired to seek out the most efficient means of accomplishing a process and had a creative curiosity about the world around him he went on to serve as president of the american institute of industrial engineers student chapter now the institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) student chapter shortly after graduation lyon was asked a question posed to most new graduates whats one of the main things you learned in school he quickly answered that he learned how easy it was to be wrong as an undergraduate student lyon learned how small or simple math mistakes made early in a series of calculations could create a massive error in the end number or conclusion and how an assumption based on his own knowledge without any real data or having worked through the details of whatever it was could end in such great error having been conscious of how easily i could be wrong without realizing it i had caused myself to not be very confident in my opinions comments or conclusions he said it took me years to gain that confidence in myself and my thought processes i wish i had known early on that an understanding of the risk for error is not the same as being confident in yourself lyon was also wrong in what he thought a perfect marriage for him would include and look like sometimes being wrong works out better than being right i remember the day at the msc bookstore backpack drop-off when i accused the cute young lady working there of having looked in my backpack when she asked ‘its brent isnt it lyon said she claimed wed met a month or so prior i still think she looked in my backpack within a year he would be engaged to marry that girl from the bookstore when i was in school i was convinced that i would end up marrying an engineer lyon said three months before i graduated i met an agricultural journalism major on our second date the word marriage entered our conversation and within six weeks our engagement was official she is no engineer but i did get that exceptional model marriage that just clicks weve been married over 30 years now my marriage to jane is my greatest accomplishment upon graduating lyon accepted a job offer with halliburton services in palestine texas as a field engineer-in-training unfortunately his graduation was perfectly timed with the collapse of the oil industry in the 1980s his six-month training program quickly turned into an indefinite program working for halliburton was very difficult for me lyon said i can still be caught saying there are 168 hours in a week and you can work them all that was a comment i learned all too well even if 160 of those hours were spent sitting in a truck waiting to do eight hours of work he also quickly learned that things could always be harder or worse his days at halliburton taught him to have a sense of gratitude that has remained with him to this day after eight or nine months i was laid off lyon said there were three people in the room when that happened and i was the only one smiling that was four weeks before my wedding in bryan so i moved back to college station and got a gap job framing houses learning skills ive used my entire life during this time between permanent jobs the thought of graduate school entered lyons mind with a bit of encouragement from a special mentor he decided to continue his education in industrial and systems engineering one of my greatest mentors was dr jim hennigan and i made the mistake in those weeks right after my wedding of coming up and visiting him on campus lyon said it was partly for myself and largely for a man who had been a mentor and someone we all admired that i found myself in graduate school lyon decided to take hennigans advice and further his education with a masters degree in industrial engineering but he wanted to do it right i was and am naturally the kind of guy who is comfortable standing along the wall at a party watching without interacting with anyone else lyon said so as a personal prerequisite for entering grad school i purposed that i would always have to sit on the front row as to be more engaged with the professor and to not be intimidated by anyone else it worked i was much more engaged i often purpose with intent to sit on the front row no matter how uncomfortable i am walking in front of everyone else to get there during his graduate studies lyon was also a teaching assistant in the engineering technology department upon completing his masters degree in a year and a half lyon entered the aerospace and defense industry at general dynamics in fort worth texas which is now a lockheed martin facility in my 31-year career at lockheed martin everything i have done would fall under the academic banner of industrial engineering lyon said i did a lot of information systems design work in the early days of manufacturing resource planning in our industry and ive done just a lot of projects in ‘fix-it and ‘make things better kinds of things then in the last 12 years i have actually been the senior manager over the industrial engineering function for the aeronautics line of business within lockheed martin from the beginning of his career lyon carefully guarded the time he had with his family and was diligent in not letting the job take over his life when i was a young man i once heard dr james dobson say that of all the people he had counseled on their death beds not one of them ever said they wished they had worked more or made more money but many of them wished they had spent more time with their family and had better relationships with them lyon said as a young man i set my goals where work and professional achievement would not come at the expense of my family most proud of the difference he has made in the world around him lyon takes great satisfaction in considering himself a giver often i told my kids when they were growing up that there are two basic types of people: givers and takers lyon said i always admonished them to be givers that too is something i purposed for my life as a young man the famous aggie ring is lyons prized possession like most former students after all once an aggie always an aggie we have my father-in-laws ring from the class of 1939 and my mother-in-laws ‘sweetheart aggie ring from the same time and they are held in great value by our family lyon said in addition to the aggie rings belonging to my wife and myself two of our four children have their own aggie rings as well as our daughter-in-law lyon advises current students to identify things they really enjoy doing and things they are naturally wired for while discovering how they define success try to find a career that fits those answers he said in addition to those realize that relationships are the keys to success dont ever sacrifice them in addition to finding the right career for him lyon is passionate about serving the community in which he lives and the industry in which he works in his local community he served on the school board for two terms and as president of the board his last two years he serves his religious community as a member of the elder board in the church he also continues to serve the manufacturing industry as a site examiner of applicants for the shingo prize for excellence in manufacturing award from the shingo institute finally in recent years he has rekindled an early interest in physics and spends part of his time studying topics in quantum mechanics for me its less about what i get and more about what i give lyon said what makes a difference to the world around you and to the people you love is the good that you do character matters today lyon serves as the chairman of the industrial and systems engineering advisory council the entire council dedicates its time and resources to make the industrial and systems engineering department the college of engineering and texas a&m the very best they can be i think that we members of the council have much to give to the department from many years in industry lyon said a career in industry and one in academia are very different i think by having an active advisory council who has some understanding of academia both the department and the faculty can benefit from the relationships and interactions
1710,dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the 2017 outstanding young manufacturing engineer award from the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) the award recognizes manufacturing engineers who have made exceptional contributions and accomplishments in the manufacturing industry sme is one of the key professional societies that focuses on my specific field of research: additive manufacturing and 3-d printing elwany said while receiving recognition from such a prestigious institute is a great honor on the personal level it is more importantly a reassuring indicator that the advanced manufacturing research being conducted by texas a&ms faculty at large is well received by national leaders in the field elwany joined the industrial and systems engineering department at texas a&m in 2013 before that he was a research engineer with general motors and an assistant professor at eindhoven university of technology in the netherlands his research focuses on the modeling monitoring and control of advanced manufacturing processes with emphasis on additive manufacturing processes for metal parts
1711,­as a graduate student in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university karla gonzalez coronado is passionate about helping make the road to graduate school a bit smoother for her peers when approached by dr sonia garcia senior director of access and inclusion to be part of a minority graduate student focus group gonzalez coronado was excited and ready to begin making a difference for future minority graduate students this was really exciting for me because as a minority student it is sometimes difficult to find role models in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) careers gonzalez coronado said i also truly want to help first-generation college students see graduate degrees as an obtainable goal the duo along with the help of other students and faculty members began discussing ways texas a&m and the texas a&m college of engineering could help minority students successfully attend graduate school with the help of garcia and a grant specifically for pilot programs with similar goals a committee was formed to organize trajectories toward graduate school a two-day event about graduate school at texas a&m outlining the application process the team consisted of dr garcia dr michael demkowitz dr samuel meriwether juan rodriguez tajuanada montreuil jules henry and myself gonzalez coronado said we worked for four months to organize and implement the necessary tasks to make sure the event was a success from the very beginning gonzalez coronado initially helped with the creation of the application and goals of the program encouraging students to apply to graduate school in the college of engineering at texas a&m and even posing for a few pictures for new promotional materials industrial engineering taught me to be organized and how to make sure things flowed properly and efficiently gonzalez coronado said these skills came into play greatly when gathering current students for the speed mentoring session during the inaugural event in november we are really proud that we had a total of 36 prospective students participate twenty six were from out of state and 10 were from the texas a&m college of engineering gonzalez coronado also recruited current graduate students to act as mentors throughout the two-day event that hosted prospective students the prospective students attended workshops about preparing for graduate school and funding opportunities for graduate school as well as what steps to take next for the application process visiting students were also given opportunities to ask current graduate students about their experiences in the college of engineering my goal for this event is that texas a&m decides to hold it every single year so our graduate population increases with hispanic native american and african american students enrolled in engineering graduate programs gonzalez coronado said this event is a part of the texas a&m college of engineerings access and inclusion program whose mission is to increase the diversity of the college by recruiting and supporting students who come from historically underrepresented population groups in texas or students whose backgrounds and experiences will contribute and enhance the overall diversity of the college of engineering
1712,aggies are known for being genuine helpful and hospitable two juniors in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university follow the same desire to serve others in their own unique way sara lance and kevin lee are reaching outside the typical realm of industrial engineers to make a difference in the lives of others lance 18 developed a passion for camping in fifth grade when she embarked on her first adventure her middle school science teacher was also a full-time canoe guide and gave students the opportunity to experience the outdoors for a day concluding with a big dinner in the great outdoors that kind of started off my love for camping lance said it clears my head getting away from everything; laying on the ground in the fresh air total primal style just de-stresses its my form of meditation outdoor camping has been more than a hobby and meditation for lance while at home in colorado during the summers she worked for her retired science teacher now she is the vice president and boatswains mate of students serving scouting (sss) the co-ed outdoor service organization supports scouting in the brazos valley area juggling outdoor camping and engineering is quite difficult lance said i often wish there were more than 24 hours in a day leading young boy scouts and showing them the great outdoors has made lance reflect on how not too long ago she was in a very similar situation the past has been a great motivator since she wants others to experience the same fun and excitement as she once had camping brings out personalities in people and makes you enjoy the simple things like skipping rocks on a river lance said i notice other people stop worrying about their problems just by being outside its such a cool thing to see during the camping trips sss divides responsibilities among the organizations officers lance helps with preparing all materials for boy scout events additionally she has used skills learned in the classroom to create procedures to unpack gear more efficiently when arriving at a campsite we try to assign activities we enjoy it allows everyone to enjoy the trip more lance said answering and instructing eager kids has in return improved my communication its another reason camping is such an important part of my life while lance is serving in the outdoor frontier lee has been involved in the ever-increasing digital frontier websites like youtube twitch ign and others have made video game tutorials a popular niche of the online community lee ‘17 saw an opportunity to focus on the less popular games while using support characters which are also less popular in the games themselves lee developed a youtube channel jinokami to host tutorial videos for other gamers with like interests the channel has over 70 tutorial videos on different massively multiplayer online role-playing games i picked a not so popular character and tried to showcase what i had learned lee said it is my way of giving back while promoting something i enjoy his videos provide tips and tricks to conquer the game along with some good background music his simple yet effective video style has earned his channel more than 100 000 views whenever i see people watching my videos i feel shocked and elated lee said people are encouraging and positive in the comments and sometimes ask for the name of the background song which is usually an indie song lee advises that people should initially pursue youtube as a hobby instead a worthwhile income only a very small fraction of the total youtubers become famous and can make a living doing videos popular youtube channels are more like communities they form around personalities but lee pointed out that social media plays a large role in popularizing something fans and viewers can interact and communicate with their favorite youtube personality through facebook twitter and instagram lee said so the more people we have making fun helpful and interesting videos the better the community is going to get alongside his industrial engineering major lee is pursuing a minor in sociology he chose sociology because he hopes it will help him stand out when he enters the job market as well as optimize the style content and delivery of his videos when researching video creation and information delivery a lot of parallels are drawn with classrooms and lectures lee said it made me aware of the time my instructors and professors devote to their craft sociology has allowed lee to see the impact of his videos while industrial engineering classes improved the efficiency of his video making time management is one of the foundations of industrial engineering and conveying information under time constraints can be tricky my human factors class has helped me to conduct more effective research when looking for new ideas and techniques for editing and creating the videos lee said my sociology classes have expanded my knowledge of people and their interaction with each other to better serve and expand my followership video game tutorials are going to continue to be a hobby of lees but he realizes the impact he is making by populating the world wide web with unconventional videos he is encouraging the breaking of norms jinokami to some viewers has been the safe haven of learning and help lance and lee chose to serve two polar opposite industries but have a united goal of helping others whether that be helping a young boy scout set up his tent or helping a random stranger defeat the latest video game boss not motivated by grades money or pride lance and lee enjoy their hobbies and want to share them with those willing to listen and accept help
1713,do you have a back-burner project you cant seem to get to how about giving a senior capstone design team a shot the senior capstone design program offers senior engineering students working in teams the opportunity to learn a top-down systems design process that encourages innovation and has real world applicability these design projects take place over a two-semester sequence of courses and provide a bridge between core engineering courses and a working career by applying engineering principles to practical problems sponsors are needed whether individual or corporate to supply projects student teams can design prototype and test over two semesters additional project types include exploratory studies conceptualization and analysis and simulation nondisclosure agreements and/or intellectual property protection are available to the sponsors upon request to cover the costs associated with the student team expenses a $12 000 contribution is requested for gifted support or $18 000 for the contracted projects for more information on how to sponsor a senior capstone design project in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university please contact joanna tsenn phd at 9794588443 or joannatsenn@tamuedu pictured: multi-constituent fuel mixing and metering system with constant gaseous output design sponsored by e-controls
1714,dr john niedzwecki cain 13 chair and regents professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was recently honored with the 2016 distinguished alumni award from the school of engineering at his alma mater the catholic university of america the award recognizes outstanding alumni and their achievements and contributions to the field of engineering niedzweckis leadership while head of the department of civil engineering at texas a&m played a key role in his recognition he is the first former student in the higher education field to receive the award niedzwecki has been a faculty member at texas a&m for more than 30 years he was instrumental in spearheading the launch of a national science foundation offshore technology research center for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and the texas a&m university system niedzwecki specializes in offshore civil engineering with interests in deep-water offshore and coastal structures multi-body marine hydrodynamics statistical analyses of model basin and oceanographic field data and most recently the effects of lightning strikes on offshore structures catholic university has a special place in my heart said niedzwecki there was this dialogue between the students and the faculty and i think it was all about trying to find out on an individual level what excited us that made a big mark on me in my career and how i interact with students contributing author: ryan terry
1715,"the texas a&m university student chapter of the society of petroleum engineers (tamu-spe) is an organization with deep historic roots from its inception as a petroleum engineering geology club in 1932 to its current chapter affiliation with spe the forward-thinking goals it fostered through the years prove how dedication to service and academic pursuits creates a positive future for student members the 2016-2017 academic year is no exception to this successful strategy through workshops events and a mentoring program tamu-spe hopes to hone its members skills and talents to increase their chances of landing jobs the chapter also encourages outreach to texas a&m and the community where members help others and learn to help themselves in return professional and technical skills tamu-spe is really the bridge between the classroom and the industry said alex lambros current president of the texas a&m chapter our purpose is to enhance our students technical skills enhance their professional skills and connect them with the industry we want to absolutely complement what were learning in the classroom with what were willing to bring to the industry to differentiate our students in the marketplace tamu-spe started the year with a resume workshop that brought in so many students it went well past its allotted time the students were able to use their new resumes during the career enhancement event in one day the career enhancement event provided the opportunity for more than 500 petroleum engineering students to meet with 27 companies some businesses were new to the event not the usual exploration and production companies and exposed the future engineers to careers outside the box but still involved with petroleum its not your typical career fair where students come in and talk to companies said lambros the companies come in and educate our students on what they are offering and whats unique about their company we view it as very important that the student knows what the company is what they believe in and what they offer before talking to a recruiter the chapter hopes to provide a new soft skills workshop in the spring for its members the workshop will involve writing professional emails and other communications and offer tips on public speaking lambros stressed the need for the workshop citing an online spe international survey which revealed these are two skills companies want from engineering students in addition tamu-spe will continue to host lunch and learns each month where companies with specific products or skills host a talk while students ask detailed questions service to texas a&m and the community tamu-spe members provide assistance to engage a program where high schools make arrangements with the texas a&m university college of engineering to have their juniors and seniors tour departments on campus tamu-spe volunteers talk to these students about texas a&m and guide them through a lab in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering tamu-spe members regularly participate in the big event the largest one-day student-run service project in the nation students complete service projects such as yard work window washing and painting to show their appreciation to the surrounding community the chapter also adopted a street in college station this year which it will clean up on a regular basis the tamu-spe members also support their fellow students and people worldwide through the student mentorship program and service to a student organization called build the student mentorship program pairs 29 upper classmen with incoming students to guide them through internship and industry experiences ""we all started somewhere and made some mistakes to get to where we are today said kyle soares a tamu-spe member and director of the program more often than not we probably had someone help us along the way the program allows mentors to give back to underclassmen by providing insight into what it really takes to get hired from a student's perspective"" build is a student organization that takes old decommissioned shipping containers and turns them into hospital clinics the containers are then shipped to third-world countries for use the service comes in when actually converting these shipping containers to medical clinics lambros said it takes weeks to do that and what were going to do is send student groups to the build location hopefully we can help them with at least one container i havent found a student initiative on campus that i think is more incredible than this i really am amazed by the logistics of everything they have it all worked out and its great especially for us because [the petroleum industry] operates in some of these third-world countries and its important that were giving back to them outstanding student chapter tamu-spe was recently named an outstanding student chapter at the spe annual technical conference and exhibition in september this prestigious award recognizes student chapters with exceptional programs in industry engagement operations and planning community involvement professional development and innovation i joined spe because i thought it would be fun said brian redick a graduate student in the department ""i discovered much more than camaraderie in addition to top-tier instruction and research texas a&m petroleum engineering has a few things down better than anyone else the program in conjunction with tamu-spe has built and maintains an incredible network of oil and gas professionals i've experienced great professional growth and had many opportunities because of the department and texas a&ms vested interest in all students texas a&m petroleum engineering truly opens up a whole new world to each student"""
1716,dr valerie e taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs and the royce e wisenbaker professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been named a fellow of the association for computing machinery (acm) taylor was honored for leadership in broadening participation in computing a total of 53 individuals were honored by acm the worlds largest computing society for major contributions in areas including artificial intelligence cryptography computer architecture high performance computing and programming languages acm will formally recognize its 2016 fellows at the annual awards banquet to be held in san francisco on june 24 2017 as nearly 100 000 computing professionals are members of our association to be selected to join the top one percent is truly an honor said acm president vicki l hanson fellows are chosen by their peers and hail from leading universities corporations and research labs throughout the world their inspiration insights and dedication bring immeasurable benefits that improve lives and help drive the global economy taylor who is also a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) is the former head of the computer science and engineering department having served in that role from 2003-2011 she was appointed the senior associate dean for academic affairs in 2013 she earned her bachelors in electrical and computer engineering and her masters in computer engineering both from purdue university she received her phd in electrical engineering and computer science from the university of california berkeley in 1991 from 1991 through 2002 taylor was a member of the faculty in the electrical and computer engineering department at northwestern university additional information about the acm fellows the awards event as well as previous acm fellows and award winners is available at http://awardsacmorg about acm acm the association for computing machinery (wwwacmorg) is the worlds largest educational and scientific computing society uniting computing educators researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue share resources and address the fields challenges acm strengthens the computing professions collective voice through strong leadership promotion of the highest standards and recognition of technical excellence acm supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning career development and professional networking about the acm fellows program the acm fellows program initiated in 1993 celebrates the exceptional contributions of the leading members in the computing field these individuals have helped to enlighten researchers developers practitioners and end users of information technology throughout the world the new acm fellows join a distinguished list of colleagues to whom acm and its members look for guidance and leadership in computing and information technology
1717,jun kyun oh a doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university presented his graduate research to pepsico incs research and development professionals at journey through science day the event which was hosted by the new york academy of sciences (nyas) and pepsico inc in new york city included 49 other early career scientists from across the nation i am fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet and network with pepsicos r&d professionals and discuss their sustainable food safety needs said oh i learned about practical applications of various materials in food packaging ohs research surface modification of food processing and handling gloves for enhanced food safety and hygiene highlighted how altering the coating on gloves used for food handling could make pathogens less likely to stick foodborne illness is a constant issue for food handlers and while gloves are preferred they are still not a fool-proof way to protect consumers from possible contamination said oh the advanced coating that i am testing gives the gloves superhydrophobic characteristics and the bacteria-repellent quality of these gloves has proven to deter both salmonella and staphylococcus aureus strains of bacteria oh attributes his success at the event to his graduate adviser dr mustafa akbulut associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and co-advisor dr luis cisneros-zevallos associate professor in the department of horticultural sciences in the college of agriculture and life sciences contributing author: haley posey
1718,dr paul mario koola has joined the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university as a professor of practice koola has more than 30 years of combined experience in teaching engineering and broad interdisciplinary research and development of complex interacting systems koola has prior teaching experience at the indian institute of technology madras department of ocean engineering he has more than17 years of small business innovative research experience at kbsi managing a wide range of interdisciplinary projects he has developed and implemented complex and diverse technologies such as ocean wave power plants data analytics machine learning data fusion and visualization in the domains of missile defense aging aircraft ship corrosion and paint degradation ndi/nde image mining aircraft carrier autonomous aircraft integration decision sciences and cyber physical systems and instrumentation koola is a us fulbright scholar a german alexander von humboldt fellow and a danish danida scholar during his time at iit madras he helped build one of the worlds first bottom-standing offshore wave power plants the hydrodynamic design of which was part of his phd thesis this unique practical experience coupled with international exposure drives his passion to educate the next generation of engineers to develop innovative solutions to the worlds problems koola currently serves as the interim coordinator for freshman engineering at texas a&m university at galveston motivating and instilling aggie values to future budding engineers his vision for teaching is to introduce interdisciplinary systems thinking and new and innovative concept generation to the next generation he is a proponent of experiential learning using student-led projects that can be sponsored by establishing strong relationships with industry partners his current research interests include applications of systems engineering machine learning and ai targeted to the marine domain including novel ocean infrastructure some of these are smart energy absorbing structures (seas) energy stations at sea renewable energy powered autonomous ocean exploration vehicles and marine cyber security koola is a mechanical engineer with a phd in ocean wave energy from the indian institute of technology madras he also has an mba from the mays business school at texas a&m he currently advises startups and small businesses across the globe
1719,dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is the co-pi on a new $42 million tissue chip testing center established at texas a&m the center which is one of two established by the national center for advancing translational sciences (ncats) of the national institutes of health (nih) will provide a way to test and validate the performances of developed tissue chips the second center has been established at the massachusetts institute of technology a large number of potential medications fail during human clinical trials because they are found to be either toxic or do not have much effect tissue chips also called organ-on-a-chip or microphysiological systems are hybrid microsystems that contain both microfabricated structures and human cells to mimic the multi-cellular structure of human organs these tissue chips are designed to mimic the function of organ systems and are expected to be used in high-throughput drug screening and toxicity screening assays to faster and more accurately predict the effects of candidate drugs vaccines or biological agents the newly established testing center where han is participating tex-val: texas a&m tissue chip validation center is led by dr ivan rusyn professor in the department of veterinary integrative biosciences at texas a&m and funded by a $42 million u24 cooperative agreement grant from nih han has been developing microfluidic organ-on-a-chip systems especially brain-on-a-chip systems to facilitate drug development for treating neurological disorders his expertise in microfluidics and organ-on-a-chip systems will be instrumental to the success of the center since the center will be charged to test up to 12 different tissue chips with various drug compounds the center will test how reproducible accurate and reliable these developed tissue chips are and also test whether the tissue chips reproduce the human physiological responses when tested with drug compounds this stage is critical in moving tissue chips towards widespread use this center grant is providing a unique opportunity for tissue chip developers such as myself to directly interact with toxicology researchers on campus as well as the pharmaceutical industry consortium and the regulatory agencies such as fda by providing a critical test bed for the emerging area of tissue chips han said han director of the nanobio systems lab and an expert in microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technologies joined the electrical and computer engineering department in 2005 his research is at the interface of micro/nano technology and life sciences with interest in solving grand challenge problems in the broad area of health and energy through the use of micro/nano systems technology and multidisciplinary team effort he received the outstanding professor award from the department in 2012 a tees fellow award in 2012 the eugene webb faculty fellow from the college of engineering in 2014 an engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research in 2014 the e d brockett professorship award in 2015 and the dean of engineering excellence award in 2016 for more information visit: ncats/nih website kbtx article and video texas a&m department of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences news reel
1720,christopher curry a freshman general engineering major at texas a&m university won $100 000 in tuition money during the dr pepper tuition giveaway at halftime of the atlantic coast conferences (acc) championship game on saturday (dec 3) curry a graduate of waco midway high school won the tuition assistance during an on-field competition where contestants had to throw footballs into a giant dr pepper can to be eligible for the competition curry first had to detail how he would change the world in 350 characters or less and encourage friends and family to vote for him once he had 50 votes he was required to submit a video in his video curry claimed he was the long lost son of dr peppers crazy concessionaire character larry culpepper and detailed what he would do if he were to win the $100 000 prize id use it to pay for my engineering education so that one day i can design innovate and bring modern technology and plenty of ice-cold dr pepper to underdeveloped countries worldwide curry said in the video with my degree i will develop an engineering firm with a focus on philanthropy utilizing scientific advancements to improve quality of life in the global arena the video also included a robot that curry who wants to major in mechanical engineering built and coded so that it would bring him a can of dr pepper from the video entries dr pepper picked 16 finalists who then competed at one of four conference championship games acc big 12 southeastern conference (sec) or big ten over the past eight years dr pepper has awarded more than $8 million in tuition money helping students across the nation achieve their dreams
1721,dr zenon medina-cetina associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university presented to high school teachers regarding hazard assessment of natural threats during the european geosciences unions (egu) annual geosciences information for teachers (gift) americas program every year hundreds of k-12 teachers and university professors come together for discussion and discovery on natural threats like earthquakes volcanoes meteors and other disasters since 2003 egu has hosted the annual gift americas program this year egu-gift celebrated its third meeting in merida yucatan mexico the event focused on the recent discoveries of the international oceanographic drilling program (iodp) in the chicxulub crater located in the northern region of yucatan mexico the egu-gift program is designed for top-level scientists studying natural threats to make presentations to k-12 teachers who have been awarded scholarships to attend the event is a mutual opportunity for the researchers to share and teachers to update their knowledge in earth sciences and education trends and practices the workshop has proven to expedite the time it takes for teachers to learn about the new scientific discoveries in earth processes jaime urrutia-fucugauchi of the instituto de geofisica de la universidad nacional autónoma de méxico (unam) was head of the organizing committee for egu-gift medina-cetinas research on stochastic geomechanics for risk assessment introduced the use of computational particle mechanics to simulate the earth impact of the asteroid that created the chicxulub crater this presentation was co-authored by tam duong doctoral student at texas a&m and a member of the stochastic geomechanics laboratory (sgl) medina-cetinas presentation was based on a collaboration between his research group in the sgl at texas a&m and urrutia-fucugauchis at unam it focused on simulating realistic scenarios that would reproduce current geological conditions at the chicxulub crater based on a probabilistic experimental design involving millions of likely impact simulations which would result in the current geological formation at the chicxulub crater the objective was to define the likely scenarios that contributed to what is hypothesized to be one of the most significant mass extinctions of life on earth 65 million years ago as well as to understand the current implications of the impact on climate change and present day geological events for more information about the stochastic geomechanics laboratory visit sgls website for a closer look at the sgls impact simulations of the asteroid impact at different angles (simple crater simulations) visit sgls youtube channel
1722,"dr nancy amato regents professor and unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was the invited speaker at the 2016 ethel ashworth-tsutsui memorial lecture which was sponsored by the college of science educational outreach and womens programs office additionally engineering graduate students yanpu zhang and rana soltani-zarrin received awards during the event amatos presentation ""sampling-based motion planning: from intelligent cad to crowd simulation to protein folding "" detailed motion planning and its application in many domains such as robotics animation and virtual prototyping and training amato also described sampling-based planning and some variants developed thus far zhang from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering was recognized as the 2016 recipient of the ethel ashworth-tsutsui memorial award for research while soltani-zarrin from the department of mechanical engineering received the ethel ashworth-tsutsui memorial award for mentoring zhang and soltani-zarrin each received a $500 check a memorial plaque and a certificate of recognition the awards are presented by women in science and engineering (wise) to highlight research and mentoring efforts by women on the texas a&m campus in honor and remembrance of ethel ashworth-tsutsui a longtime faculty member of the texas a&m department of biochemistry & biophysics tsutsui was a founding member of wise and cared deeply about the retention and recognition of women in the university's graduate programs both the awards and the event are sponsored by wise the college of science the division of research the office of graduate and professional studies and the office of the vice president and associate provost for diversity women in science and engineering at texas a&m is an organization of graduate students staff and faculty from various science and engineering backgrounds the group was created to address specific problems faced by women in non-traditional fields"
1723,amanda bass joey coll françois-stéphane domchueng and austin lu students in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university were part of the winning team at the most recent aggies invent competition the team which also included mechanical engineering major james oconnell and general engineering major robert shannon developed a method to accurately weigh individuals who are bound to a wheel chair the systems in place today require the cooperation of multiple people and can cause a great deal of discomfort to the individual being weighed assistants and nurses must pick the patient up out of their chair zero out the wheel chairs weight once it is placed on the scale and then place the patient back in the chair the new system developed by the first-place team utilizes a pressure-based weight measurement device that allows weight to be obtained while the patient is lying down in their bed the measurement is then uploaded with the use of a bluetooth connection and a smart phone aggies invent is a 48-hour intensive design experience offered at the engineering innovation center (eic) a 20 000-square foot rapid prototyping lab on the texas a&m campus teams compete for cash awards ranging from $500 to $1 000 within a specific theme the end goal is to provide students the opportunity to acquire skills essential to becoming successful innovation leaders and support them in founding startup companies to view a video explaining the winning teams project visit: https://youtube/3d6qeml1f8g for more information on aggies invent visit: aggies invent
1724,the texas a&m university college of engineering provided 38 students from around the nation the opportunity to learn about the benefits of earning a graduate degree in engineering trajectories toward graduate school organized by access and inclusion and engineering graduate programs brought students who are historically underrepresented in engineering to campus for a two-day event the focus of the event was to provide students with the tools and support needed to successfully apply to graduate school whether or not they should choose to apply to texas a&m dr karan watson provost and executive vice president welcomed the students with a keynote address she drew from her own personal experiences as a female native american who went against the grain to pursue a doctorate in engineering during a time when doing so was mostly unheard of a graduate degree offered watson opportunities she would not have had otherwise she said along the way she discovered that teaching was her passion i get to do engineering i get to manage i get to finance things i get to mentor and i get to teach watson said theres no way i could have had all those options in one job except for going forward and going to grad school watson told the students that graduate school isnt for everyone but for those who choose it a graduate degree can propel their careers in ways they may not have anticipated watson joined the texas a&m faculty in 1983 and has served as a regents professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and the department of computer science and engineering in 2011 she was appointed provost and executive vice president of the university whats important is that you find your passion she said mengistu zebulan a sophomore mechanical engineering student at the university of colorado said graduate school was never an option he had considered instead he always thought hed go straight into the workforce but seeing all these people and meeting everyone and hearing all their stories and seeing the different opportunities out there it doesnt necessarily have to end at a bachelors he said university of arkansas junior theodore christian said he is now considering applying to texas a&m christian who is from arlington texas said he likes the idea of moving closer to home for graduate school im really interested in the programs here particularly the aerospace program he said ive been to a few grad preview days and this has been the best one christian said hes considering pursuing a phd and would like to focus on rockets and propulsion university of california san diego student sandra fuentes who would like to pursue her doctorate in materials science was also interested in learning more about graduate programs at texas a&m so far i find that there is a lot of support for minority students and just for students in general she said i would definitely consider coming here during the event students received guidance on preparing applications and finding financial support they also participated in speed mentoring sessions with current engineering students and interacted with faculty and graduate advisers dr michael demkowicz associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering participated in a similar program at massachusetts institute of technology when he joined the faculty at texas a&m he met with dr sonia garcia senior director of access and inclusion and worked with her to co-found trajectories toward graduate school during the event demkowicz spoke to students about strategies to become a competitive graduate school candidate he said when a certain group of students is underrepresented among the graduate school community the college can miss out on great phd and master of science candidates if we want to recruit the best students for our graduate programs we have to make a special effort to make sure that students from historically underrepresented groups have all the information guidance and encouragement they need to make an informed decision about applying and to craft winning applications he said garcia said she received positive feedback from the event it was very exciting to host such a dynamic group of students and see their excitement about pursuing a graduate degree in engineering she said it is imperative that we give historically underrepresented engineering students the support and tools they need to further their education by diversifying our classrooms and workforce we are bringing a multitude of talents and perspectives to the table that might not have been present before many people contributed to the success of this event including dr samuel merriweather associate director of the louis stokes alliance for minority participation jules henry senior academic adviser for the department of materials science and engineering and karla gonzalez coronado a graduate student students from the following universities attended the event: texas christian university tuskegee university the university of maryland syracuse university the university of arkansas the university of connecticut the university of texas at el paso the university of california san diego the university of colorado boulder california state university of sacramento the university of texas rio grande valley virginia tech university the university of south florida and texas a&m university
1725,the texas a&m university student chapters of the geo-institute and structural engineering association of texas recently hosted a workshop on the application of fast lagrangian analysis of continua in 3 dimensions (flac3d) computational modeling in geotechnical and structural engineering augusto lucarelli senior engineer at itasca consulting group inc the developing company of flac3d was the guest speaker the workshop emphasized the utility of the state-of-the-art numerical simulation tools in flac3d these tools allow engineers to better study understand and design structures with the highest levels of efficiency and safety users of the program have been able to enhance their designs improve weaknesses and in some cases prevent disastrous errors one of the main goals of the workshop was to provide an in-depth understanding of numerical simulation tools to graduate students who will soon be responsible for the design of various structures over the course of the workshop lucarelli gave five lectures each about a different application of flac3d a numerical modeling software for geotechnical analyses of soil rock groundwater constructs and ground support flac3d has applications in civil engineering as well as mining geotechnical excavations soil rock and more lucarelli spoke on numerical modeling in geotechnical engineering slope stability foundations and soil improvement finite element application and retaining walls excavations seismic and liquefaction and lastly tunnels and subways the workshop set out to introduce the application of flac3d a typical geotechnical engineering software to the graduate student body as well as faculty members by providing a unique experience of direct interaction between students faculty members and a senior engineer in the developing company the event was able to showcase and discuss state of the art applications of numerical simulations in the geotechnical and structural engineering industry contributing author: ryan terry
1726,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr xingyong song the corrie and jim furber 64 faculty fellow in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution the endowed faculty fellowship was effective jan 1 song is an assistant professor in engineering technology and industrial distribution with a joint appointment in the department of mechanical engineering song joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in september 2015 he received his bachelors degree from harbin institute of technology in china his masters degree from the korea advanced institute of science and technology in south korea and his phd from the university of minnesota twin cities songs research interests include: dynamic system and control theory; unconventional oil and gas production system automation and control; green automotive propulsion/energy conversion systems; mechatronic system/fluid power system design; and renewable energy production/extraction enabled by advanced control
1727,monitoring and controlling technical systems through the internet could be the next phase of space exploration and the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university is a leader in developing a system to suit nasas needs the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) senior capstone team enclave electronics is tackling this project members include matthew greco project manager erin prucha and ryan sharpe hardware engineers jonathan presley and xuan gao software engineers and matthew johnson system integration engineer
1728,organizations such as nasa have realized the potential of a system like the team is working on and are very interested in the success of its efforts the internet of things (iot) is a developing area of technical interest said greco this is also one of the technologies that nasa is interested in pursuing for space exploration in the future nasa requires an iot capability of sending and receiving data via the internet integrated into a robot vehicle we are partnering with another capstone design team of mechanical engineering students in qatar to modify the robots mechanical aspects and make it moon ready giving nasa even more of an incentive to pick our project the digital systems teaching and research (dstr) robot (disaster) will be demonstrated to nasa as a prototype for what it could use for a proposed future lunar exploration a user of this internet of things (iot) system will be able to collect sensor data remotely via the internet and send movement command to the dstr robot from the user interface sharpe said our system the wireless iot for sensortag (wits) platform will demonstrate the cloud control movements send terrains similar to lunar landscapes for testing function as a prototype for future iot projects and utilize mechanical expansions for the dstr a texas instruments sensortag that includes a total of 10 sensors will control the wits platform enclave will add additional sensors and communications to track and communicate with satellites this tracking module is capable of having 52 channels which means it can track up to 52 satellites johnson said the more satellites you have the better it can do its mathematical calculations to determine its physical location sensor and control commands will be held in a repository on a thingworx cloud that can subscribe to sensor control commands for the wits platform the sensor data will be collected from the wits platform aggregated together and be sent out as a single packet to the thingworx cloud presley said the thingworx cloud will be able to store at least a days worth of real-time sensor data and transmit real-time control commands the development of a prototype began at the end of the fall 2016 semester when the texas a&m team joined forces with the capstone team from qatar we sent the entire set of dstr design files to the team of engineers in qatar so they could 3-d print the parts and assemble the same model we are looking at here greco said one of their team members will also be trying to help us understand the mechanical aspects of what they are doing and how it may affect us or if we need to make changes in addition to the collaboration with the qatar students grecos team has enlisted the help of faculty members from the department at the college station texas campus dr [joseph] morgan is our sponsor and customer but we also have dr byul hur as our technical adviser greco said dr hur really knows how the communication should go and is guiding us on that part we have also talked with mr matthew leonard who is in direct contact with the qatar team regarding how much the robot should weigh as a retired nasa program manager he has been a great resource and wealth of knowledge for what nasa will need the team is eager to meet with nasa in the future to propose the dstr robot but is currently focused on making the necessary developments while it would be really cool to present this to nasa we know that our team may not get that opportunity greco said this is a massive project that still needs a lot of work to be completed we are all so thankful to have had this capstone design opportunity and to work on this groundbreaking project with a team of students on the other side of the world
1729,when you think of art mathematical algorithms may not be the first thing that comes to mind dr tim davis set out to show the world that mathematics can in fact be beautiful he is merging the two disciplines by crafting algorithms that convert songs into something you can actually see davis a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is the creator of suitesparse the widely-used package of sparse matrix algorithms davis collects sparse matrices from real world applications to test his solvers and to understand their performance in collaboration with dr yifan hu principal research scientist at yahoo! labs these matrices are converted into images via the open source graph visualization package graphviz for this to work electrical charges are placed on the nodes and springs on the edges a physics simulation is then performed to find a low-energy state long edges are displayed in blue and short edges in red these images are not only scientifically useful to gain a better understanding of how these matrices react in various scenarios but also they are exquisite in their own right as a result of this work davis was asked by organizers of the london electronic arts festival to create similar images from sound bites he was excited to take on the challenge because of his passion to share with others his love for math and the beauty he sees within the code with this algorithmic translation of music into artwork i am able to give a glimpse into the beauty of mathematical software that everyone can see not just me davis said by capturing time and frequency and remapping that into a new domain of space and color davis was able to build a new mathematical algorithm that captures the visual essence of an entire piece of music in a single image each line in an image is a note at a specific point in time in the music low notes are displayed in blue and high notes in red
1730,the genre of the music can be seen in the images regular meshes appear in some images because of the regular beat of jazz or modern music fuzzy complex graphs appear from very complex orchestral music math is so incredibly beautiful; it just takes the right eyes to see it davis said or it needs translation into a medium that everyone can see that is what i have tried to do with my algorithmic artwork there is no true visualization of any one piece of music part of the artistic process resides in creating thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of images and selecting the one that best represents the song davis suitesparse code which is currently being used by many institutions and organizations to solve large matrix problems continues to be successful due to its unwavering reliability davis said that the only way he can achieve the level of reliability for which his code has come to be known is to ensure that it is beautiful in his own eyes in addition to turning music into art davis is also a published poet to view his artwork and poetry visit http://notesartstudiocom
1731,jonathan bower pe masce is a 2017 new faces of civil engineering - professional honoree and a project engineer at la fuess partners inc he graduated from the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university with his bachelor's in 2010 and his master's in 2012 since childhood jonathan has been fascinated by the built environment inspired in part by time spent on job sites with his grandfather a general contractor for jonathan civil engineering will always be a creative profession and he helps young students to see that through volunteer work with programs like asce's civil engineering club this article was written by ben walpole and originally appeared on the asce news website jonathan browers official title with the asce texas sections dallas branch is civil engineering club champion – emphasis on champion brower has been mentoring students and scheduling an array of civil engineering lectures at woodrow wilson high school in dallas since 2013 thats nearly four years of service for juniors and seniors in the civil engineering and architectural design classes almost every friday for four years champion indeed theyre fun to be around i really appreciate that time brower said being passionate about what i do i love sharing that with high school students brower a project engineer for la fuess partners in dallas has been selected by asce as one of the 2017 new faces of civil engineering – professional brower helped set up the ce club at woodrow wilson four years ago aligning his presentations with class curricula he helps students with letters of recommendation or college applications sometimes he just talks to them about sports – he was a state tennis champion as a student at el paso cathedral high school and recently qualified for the boston marathon when i get to go there and show them pictures of projects im working on theyre so interested and excited brower said it reminds you of how cool engineering really is so it definitely energizes me his biggest role now involves scheduling local engineering professionals from a variety of disciplines as guest speakers some talk about their jobs others bring activities for the students
1732,the teacher has told me after some of the presentations he still hears the students talking about it the next day brower said and a lot of the time im just like the students at the presentation i love sitting there learning about what the speakers doing i dont know what a water resources engineer does in their daily life so from a professional standpoint im meeting engineers and other contacts that i never would have otherwise brower followed his uncle and grandfather into the civil engineering profession he credits them along with a particularly inspiring high school physics teacher with not only building his interest in civil engineering but also his desire to give back to students at la fuess brower recently completed work on several buildings that are part of an office/retail development near dallas he enjoys combining design work with construction administration ive been happy starting to take on more responsibility with my projects doing a lot of the design on my own brower i really like the construction work too the fast-paced problem-solving side he plans to continue working with local students as well i think thats going to be a constant in my career brower said id like to see it just continue to grow – other schools id really like to see the program grow throughout dallas asce will honor brower and all 10 new faces of civil engineering at the 2017 opal gala march 16 in arlington va
1733,"nearly a year to the day after hosting the spacex hyperloop pod competition on the texas a&m university campus students from the tamu aerospace hyperloop team joined nearly 30 other teams in southern california for the next phase in the ongoing quest to develop a functional hyperloop design although the aggie team was not selected to test its pod on the spacex test track aerospace engineering doctoral student dean ellis said it was still a great opportunity to interact with their peers in the competition and showcase their work to industry representatives as well as the public ""it was the culmination of a year and a half's work "" ellis said ""just being in this competition was a privilege with this project we were able to apply all the theoretical knowledge toward something real it's one thing to read about it in a book; it's another thing entirely to actually build it"" set to graduate in may ellis said while he won't be able to participate in any more phases of the competition he is grateful for the opportunities it has provided him ""to me this was like an engineer's dream "" ellis said ""we started from scratch brainstorming about creating something innovative and completely different and we took it all the way to a final product i'm proud of the dedication and perseverance that the team members had we've had very committed members"" adonios karpetis associate professor of aerospace engineering and one of the faculty advisers for the team said texas a&m plans to continue its involvement in the competition as it moves into its next phase this summer karpetis said he is particularly proud of the levitation system that the team has developed during the competition an innovation that he believes will prove crucial as students continue development on more complete designs ellis said he foresees the spacex competition continuing in the coming years becoming more complicated until a team is able to complete a working prototype ellis said he hopes the experience and exposure texas a&m has gotten from the competition will encourage officials to seek out more opportunities like it ""hopefully it encourages the university to keep taking part in projects like this "" ellis said ""i think it benefits everyone when the (texas a&m) name gets out there and the university gets to showcase the kind of programs that it has"" pictured aboved: the members of the tamu aerospace hyperloop team are from left: dr moble benedict adelin destain farid saemi dean ellis kevin garcia mauricio coen sreekanth konamaneti and dr adonios karpetis this story was reprinted with permission from steve kuhlmann and the eagle"
1734,drs scott socolofsky lufthansa kanta and stefan hurlebaus of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded 2016-17 college of engineering faculty awards socolofsky professor was chosen to receive the williams brothers construction engineering fellow award for outstanding engineering contributions in 2003 he became an assistant professor at texas a&m and now serves as a professor and division head of environmental water resources and coastal engineering in the civil engineering department he researches laboratory and numerical methods in multi-phase flow lake aeration direct ocean carbon sequestration dynamics of subsea oil spills shallow flow stability mixing at tidal inlets and coastal oceanography kanta instructional assistant professor is being honored with the instructional faculty teaching award she earned her ph d in civil engineering from texas a&m in 2009 she began her professional career as a post-doctoral research associate soon thereafter kanta teaches courses in water resources and fluid dynamics her research interests focus on urban water demand management infrastructure sustainability and resilience assessment and management evolutionary computation and agent-based modeling hurlebaus professor will be awarded the tees faculty fellow award he joined texas a&m in 2005 his research has directly impacted the safety and reliability of infrastructure through better diagnostic techniques novel mitigation measures to prevent failures due to fatigue and fracture and smart structures to prevent damages from extreme events m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will formally recognize all award recipients at the faculty and staff awards banquet in may
1735,dr bruce wang associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university recently won two grants as a principal investigator through the federal university transportation center (utc) program funded by the federal department of transportation (dot) as mandated in the fixing america's surface transportation act (fast) 2015 nationally fast authorizes about $75 million each year for five consecutive years to fund 35 centers a total of 212 applications were received in may 2016 in this competition wang and his co-workers dr yunlong zhang co-principal investigator professor and assistant department head for graduate programs and jim kruse texas a&m transportation institute program manager center director and research scientist are on two winning utcs a five-year total of about $175 million will be awarded to texas a&m from the dot as well as matching funds the first of the two utcs is led by the university of arkansas along with five other consortium members with a focus in maritime transportation infrastructure the second utc is led by florida atlantic university studying freight mobility modeling along with five other consortium members fast designated a significant portion of the funding to freight transportation wang formerly served as the transportation research board (trb) committee chair for at015 freight panning and logistics for six years and was twice nominated by the cluster of 13 trb freight committees for the trb blue ribbon award for advancing freight research the new utc funding will support recruitment of additional phd students and allow exploratory research of cutting-edge theories and methods in contemporary freight transportation and logistics
1736,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr michael johnson the charlotte and walter buchanan faculty fellow in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution the endowed faculty fellowship was effective jan 1 johnson is an associate professor in engineering technology and industrial distribution and the program coordinator for the manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology (mmet) program in the department johnson joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in august 2007 he received his bachelors degree from michigan state university and his masters degree and phd from massachusetts institute of technology johnsons research interests include: cost modeling and analysis of product development and manufacturing systems; computer-aided design methodology; product development project management; and engineering education
1737,within the last 100 years a shift in the united states economy has occurred previously the workforce was comprised of predominantly farmers today less than 3 percent of the workforce is in the agricultural sector to accommodate this shift manufacturing productivity must increase dr andrew johnson associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university is looking for ways to increase productivity in manufacturing and other historically important sectors to allow those needs to be met more efficiently the huge productivity improvements in the agriculture sector allowed people to reallocate their efforts to other endeavors johnson said all of those people who used to be farmers can now make music study science or cancer johnson began his research with a focus on the technical and mathematical issues related to estimating production functions to measure efficiency and productivity and found challenges in the data sets while testing the methods for example the us census bureau sends out a survey to facilities that do some form of manufacturing johnson said this is to get a sense of just how manufacturing is growing or doing in the us the census bureau conducts a census every five years in which every manufacturing facility in america is surveyed then in the four years in between the bureau takes 15 percent samples of the manufacturing industry while this is done randomly bigger facilities are sampled more heavily we are trying to help them understand if the survey of 15 percent is large enough johnson said the first question is: if what you're interested in is population characteristics for the census is 15 percent enough to give an accurate characterization the census bureau gathers the data from manufacturers large and small and requires a security clearance for academic institutions to use the data this helps assure companies that the information collected will only be used in confidential research studies it's not only that you need a security clearance but if you are going to access the data you have to go to a census bureau data center to do the research johnson said when you're done doing your analysis someone within the facility evaluates whether it is acceptable to let out for publication or let out for public consumption about three or four years ago the census bureau research data center was opened on west campus at texas a&m prior to that time the closest data center was located in chicago illinois it has been my goal for four years or so to get a project through this security clearance process johnson said since the data centers are largely driven by economists and my research focuses have been a little bit different it has been a challenge to match my proposals to their research needs johnson decided to begin his research in countries where similar data is also being collected to better understand what he could offer to the us census bureau chile makes their information publicly available to the world and i have a joint appointment with a university in japan that gave me access to japans census data johnson said johnson and his graduate students began using the data sets from chile and japan to prove their ideas and the questions they could answer for the us with the data from the us data center by looking at the japanese data and chilean data were answering the question in those data and indicating to the us census that we could provide similar insights for their data too johnson said in addition to determining if a 15 percent sample is adequate johnson is also personally interested in determining if the productivity improvements drive competition or if they help current establishments survive one of the hypothesis we are testing is the economics theory that says that when competition goes up productivity should also increase johnson said due to his work in japan and chile johnson attracted the interest of researchers in colombia and mexico one collaborator is working at the central bank of mexico and has access to these two data sets johnson said so now were starting some collaborative projects between my laboratory and her group johnson recently visited yale university to present his results for japan and chilean he and the director of the new haven census bureau data center identified similarities in the data used in projects recently performed at the new haven data center as potential for integration and collaboration opportunities in the future johnson is currently going through the security clearance process and hopes to begin his project on texas a&ms campus in the fall of 2017 meanwhile his laboratory continues to develop insights related to japan and chile to follow his research please visit his laboratorys website at wwwandyjohnsonguru
1738,four faculty members from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have been named recipients of the 2016-17 college of engineering faculty awards m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recently announced the recipients who will be formally recognized at the faculty and staff awards banquet in may dr amine benzerga professor and director of the center for intelligent materials and structures (cimms) has been named a william o and montine p head fellow benzergas research concerns the deformation and fracture behavior of advanced materials including metallic alloys polymer composites and architectured materials this approach involves integrating experiments with physics-based modeling and computation from atomic to macroscopic scales benzerga also serves as co-pi on the nsf-sponsored international materials institute (imi) known as the international institute for multifunctional materials for energy conversion dr moble benedict assistant professor will receive the dean of engineering excellence award – assistant professor level benedict joined the department in 2014 he received his phd in aerospace engineering in 2010 from the university of maryland and his bachelor and masters of technology from the indian institute of technology bombay his areas of expertise are in design development and autonomous control of high performance next generation aircraft at small (mavs/uavs) and full scales energy efficient green aviation and high efficiency vertical axis wind turbines dr gregory chamitoff professor of practice and former astronaut will receive the instructional faculty teaching award chamitoff joined mission operations at the nasa johnson space center in 1995 and was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1998 in 2008 chamitoff served as the flight engineer and science officer for a 6-month mission aboard the international space station in 2011 he served as a mission specialist on the last flight of space shuttle endeavour chamitoff also performed two spacewalks and has logged more than 198 days in space dr helen reed professor will receive the tees faculty fellow award she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being named a fellow of the aiaa the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) she received the atwood award from the american society for engineering education and aiaa the minnie stevens piper professor award from the state of texas and was inducted into the academy of engineering excellence and the committee of 100 in the college of engineering at virginia tech as well as receiving the kate gleason award from asme in 2013 she was named a presidential professor for teaching excellence (in perpetuity) as well as a regents professor (in perpetuity) and in 2014 she was awarded the texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching at the university level and was named holder of the edward pete aldridge 60 professorship
1739,overcoming poverty adversity and obstacles in life israel escamilla jr a graduate of the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university earned a place in the 2017 twelve under twelve young alumni spotlight sponsored by the association of former students as a freshman escamilla had no idea where his career and life would lead him when i first started college i had and continue to have an overall vision versus a dream job escamilla said at the end of the day i ensure that my actions of today are ones that my future self will thank me for his vision is to pursue the highest professional and personal development and growth that will enable him to be the best leader possible escamilla recalls his first exposure to industrial engineering during his freshman year in an introductory engineering course the professor asked for those going into industrial engineering to raise their hands escamilla said five out of the class of 70 students raised their hands the professor then went on to say that these individuals would be the people the rest of us would most likely be reporting to that was when my industrial engineering career began a born leader escamilla diligently committed himself to his studies and the relationships developed during his time on campus aggie ring day finally arrived in november 2010 which is his favorite tradition due to the rite of passage into the powerful aggie network once the piece of gold is placed on the finger this special day became extra special to escamilla four months later i did not know this at the time but this would be the last picture and celebration i would share with my dad before he passed from cancer the following march escamilla said i am grateful that through this amazing texas a&m tradition i was able to share this unforgettable moment with my dad my aggie ring and this memory will always carry incredible significance in my life while many special memories were created while he called aggieland home escamillas favorite was his graduation day because it marked the glory achieved from reaching the top of a very challenging climb i remember celebrating with my loved ones and closest friends reminiscing about the many stories we shared and knowing that this was a result of constantly persevering through extreme adversity escamilla said this was a game-changing moment for me and my family it was a moment that set the trajectory for my career and the quality of life for the future escamilla generations after graduation escamilla began his career with p&g gillette|venus brands as a supply chain manager he was responsible for delivering north america results enabled through managing a global supply chain in addition to gaining critical supply chain skills and knowledge i learned that a portfolio of great advocates will trump a portfolio of powerful brands any day escamilla said this role shaped my perspective on my most important factor when accepting an assignment – whose leadership im under for me ‘getting on the right bus is the difference between the value i bring to my company being recognized and rewarded versus not the young professional still holds tightly to his family roots and remains true to his background growing up as an immigrant from mexico among numerous other traits and accomplishments escamilla is the first-born son eldest of four first generation english speaker and aggie graduate my greatest accomplishment is being a game-changing pioneer for my family escamilla said i have followed my vision of developing myself as the best servant leader possible focused passionately on building relationships and learning from great people and i move forward in life with a growth mindset his employer did not overlook his servants heart positive attitude and work ethic escamilla received both the p&g ceo award and the emerging leader award in the same year the awards positively reassured escamilla that he was moving in the right direction to achieve his vision my two managers at the time matthew mcclish and erene karras enabled me to receive these honors by greatly advocating on my behalf escamilla said i am blessed and thankful to be surrounded by leaders who are the best of the best and who consistently set an example of professional excellence that inspires me to be better and achieve more while he is honored to have been selected to receive the awards from his employer escamilla is most proud of his deep understanding of where he came from who he has become why he does what he does and his faith that there is someone much greater than him at work in his life knowing that i have worked as hard as i could to attain my goals that i have humbled myself to accept the wisdom and mentorship from those who have come before me and that i have stayed true to my faith through the toughest trials and tribulations in my life is what i am most proud of escamilla said these qualities cannot be defined by career success awards received resumes or linkedin profiles but rather in ones perseverance through the tough times and their dedication to the ones that mean the most to them escamilla is thankful to have had many influencers and mentors in his life but credits david and claire northcut as being among the greatest the pair supported escamillas dreams believed in him and encouraged him through the toughest times in his life they have been a special part of my life since i was allowed out of the english as a second language (esl) class and into normal english speaking classes back in elementary school escamilla said they taught me the importance of building a sound faith foundation and getting an education which would enable me to reap exponential benefits and knowledge that would remain with me for the rest of my life as a result of his strong admiration for the northcut family escamilla developed a desire to serve the underprivileged youth in cincinnati and champion their success he became involved in the ymca black and latino achievers program and was awarded the ymca achiever award as a result of the northcuts championing his success while he was growing up escamilla now serves as chairman of the board for the cincinnati ymca where he represents p&g and continues advocating for the youth escamilla believes that enduring through adversity as difficult as it may seem at the time is the greatest indicator of character i remember that pain is only temporary and that the steeper and more challenging the climb the higher the view and greater the glory escamilla said my encouragement to all my beloved aggies is to keep on fightin the good fight
1740,students in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university embarked upon an adventure to egypt during the winter break as part of the college of engineerings study abroad program the trip was the first during the winter semester that included all departments from the college of engineering led by dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department 14 aggies spent 18 days hosted by the industrial and management engineering department at the arab academy for science and technology located in alexandria egypt in addition to studying the isen 370 – production systems engineering course the aggies interacted with local students from the institute and visited multiple historical sites in alexandria (the second largest city) and cairo (the capital) students met with the president of the host institute the dean of the engineering school the department head of industrial engineering and the director of international programs highlights of the trip included visiting the great giza pyramids and the sphinx the library of alexandria egypts antiquities museum hosting king tuts treasures and 180 000 ancient egyptian artifacts the royal gardens of montazah and the royal jewelry museum students also had a unique opportunity to visit old cairo which hosts the intersection of judaism christianity and islam the visits have been featured in five daily newspapers including al-ahram newspaper the oldest daily newspaper in the middle east which was established in 1875 they will also be featured in al youm al-sabe the daily newspaper ranked by forbes as the best media outlet in the middle east for three years in a row
1741,the research of dr daniel alge assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been featured on the cover of the acs journal biomacromolecules alge joined the faculty of texas a&m in august 2014 in addition to his primary appointment in biomedical engineering he has a courtesy appointment in materials science and engineering alge and colleagues were recognized for their research paper describing an innovative method for synthesizing protein-functionalized hydrogel microparticles with tunable bioactive properties protein functionalization is of general interest for imparting biological activity to synthetic materials a key requirement for many biomedical applications this is challenging because proteins are fragile and susceptible to damage during chemical synthesis alges group has overcome this challenge by using click chemistry which encompasses a toolkit of high fidelity chemical reactions that are selective efficient and proceed under mild conditions click chemistry offers numerous advantages for biomaterials synthesis said alge chief among these is better control over the physical and chemical properties of biomaterials that ultimately determine their performance due to its advantages click chemistry is currently an important topic in the biomaterials field alges paper is one of several on clickable biomaterials that have recently been published in biomacromolecules and other leading journals their work is distinguished by the specific reactions they used we want the methods and materials we develop to be broadly useful said alge to ensure this we have intentionally chosen click reactions that offer control but are also synthetically accessible and can be implemented on a larger scale alge envisions a number of applications for the biomaterials they are developing a future goal of his lab is to engineer these microparticles which can be injected into the body non-invasively to guide the healing and regeneration of damaged tissues a major goal in our lab is to develop enabling materials for regenerative medicine said alge if we are able to translate our new method to therapeutic proteins like growth factors it will constitute significant progress toward this goal and could lead to some important advances for more information regarding the article visit: http://pubsacsorg/doi/abs/101021/acsbiomac6b00990 for more information about dr daniel alge visit: /biomedical/people/alge-daniel
1742,sirajum munira a masters student in transportation engineering in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and akm abir a recent graduate of the department were selected as finalists in the transportation research board (trb) 2017 transportation analytics contest a group of trb committees focusing on travel-demand forecasting organized the contest in collaboration with airsage to analyze multi-day travel-demand in the form of origin-destination matrices gleaned from cell phone wireless signaling data of 16 entries from around the world munira and abir were chosen as one of five teams to present their work at the trb 2017 annual meeting under the advisement of dr xiubin wang associate professor in the civil engineering department munira and abir developed an interactive web application that can utilize cellular location data in order to determine geographic extent and temporal variation of vehicular traffic in a given area the interactive data visualization tool provided graphical representation of the travel characteristics within the study area using quantitative maps and graphs the team presented its work to the adb40(1) emerging methods subcommittee in washington dc on jan 10 contributing author: ryan terry
1743,dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and his student research team from his multifunctional materials and aerospace structures optimization (m2aestro) lab helped organize and run the aiaa foundations generation stem event in grapevine texas the event was held in conjunction with the 2017 aiaa scitech conference and exposition generation stem was designed to engage and stimulate middle school students by offering interactive activities such as participation in mini design competitions and challenges engaging demonstrations from various aerospace companies and opportunities to discover aerospace findings that are impacting everyday life planning for the event which included nearly 250 middle school students was first initiated in april 2016 when the potential for providing grade school students in north texas the experience of a major international engineering conference became evident i believed that if this most important aerospace conference was going to be hosted in our state we had best do everything we could to share it with some of our future engineers and scientists hartl said working with the aiaa foundation hartl identified granbury middle school as a strategic partner in making this event happen because of the strong technology curriculum of granbury isd this was an amazing opportunity for our students said ryan ellis a granbury teacher and 2003 texas a&m graduate it is one thing to discuss engineering concepts with them but to see how people are currently putting those concepts into practice is priceless for our students our students saw and experienced things that gave them a better understanding of what engineering is and we cannot thank texas a&m and dr hartl enough for helping make this a reality on the day of the event 10 hands-on science experiments were prepared by aiaa foundation employees while an additional four to five demonstration tables were configured by such participants as lockheed-martin the university of texas-arlington and the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m students of the m2aestro lab assisted by aerospace students francis phillips and maziar izadi demonstrated aerospace engineering research topics such as shape memory alloys and tensegrity structures to the students they also staffed the science experiments and provided the majority of the volunteer support for the overall program the students passion for learning reminded us why we first aspired to this career said ryan patterson a graduate student in the m2aestro lab pictured top right: granbury middle school teacher ryan ellis '03 explains to his students the importance of research in engineering pictured bottom left: the aiaa generation stem event hosted nearly 250 students and included hands-on science experiments in addition to a number of sponsored technology demonstrations including a table from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university
1744,dr chao ma assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university is thinking small to make a big impact in the field of laser manufacturing how big big enough to be used in a wide array of manufacturing disciplines pharmaceutical processing energy storage biomedical implants and even outer space in a paper published in nature communications ma and a team of researchers from the university of california at los angeles and missouri university of science and technology shared their success of using nanoparticles to create effective control of melting and solidification behaviors of materials the dilemma facing laser manufacturing today is increasing the melted zone depth while simultaneously minimizing the heat-affected zone size during melting and solidification typically a larger melted zone leads to a larger heat-affected zone weakening the overall material in the melting and solidification process the material is fused but the strength of the heat-affected structure decreases we used nanoparticles to fine-tune thermophysical properties as well as melting and solidification behaviors said ma the resulting material could be stronger and have a better surface finish specifically ma and his team added aluminum oxide nanoparticles to pure nickel changing the way the nickel reacted to laser heat the melted zone depth of the metal was increased by 68 percent while the corresponding heat-affected zone decreased by 67 percent these results provide a basic launching point of sorts for other researchers to use we published this fundamental knowledge so a lot of people in the manufacturing field can use it in their own processes – we want to create an impact says ma as a researcher into the transformative field of additive manufacturing ma is excited to utilize the department resources found at texas a&m specifically in the manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology (mmet) program in engineering technology and industrial distribution mmets new state-of-the-art renishaw am 400 is a powerful and flexible additive manufacturing machine that is the best of its kind in the world with mas research and the renishaw machine texas a&m can be a source for customized nanoparticle-reinforced metal parts that could be used in outer space or even biomedical implants not only are the parts custom so are their tailored microstructure the impact of this research goes far beyond mas field of laser manufacturing including laser welding laser cutting and laser additive manufacturing [our research] can be utilized in arc welding and electron beam manufacturing said ma ma stated that the microstructure phenomena his team is researching could be utilized outside of the manufacturing field including pharmaceutical processing and energy storage with more research to come ma and his team are excited to say this is just the beginning of their exploration into advanced manufacturings newest discovery
1745,the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university will host its annual student paper contest on saturday (jan 28) in the richardson building each year junior senior masters and phd students in petroleum engineering give oral presentations on research papers they write concerning a petroleum engineering topic they have studied the subjects are petroleum engineering problems the undergraduate students have selected for themselves often based on work they did in summer internships and the graduate students research projects panels of industry judges assess the quality and professionalism of the students work the objective is to assist students in developing the skills to present their findings in oral and written form in a professional setting many former students and companies hiring texas a&m petroleum engineering students have stated their belief that this contest is one of the most important professional development opportunities the department provides since it began over four decades ago this local contest has grown significantly in the number of students participating industry support and sponsorship and has become a time-honored event dr duane mcvay director of the contest is assisted by staff coordinators kathy beladi and phaedra hopcus and leads a team of volunteers the day of the contest this year he expects 470 students to compete in 26 sessions before 115 industry judges and 26 faculty moderators shown in photo: 2015 division winners who advanced to regional competition standing with faculty mentor dr michael king (center) session winners on jan 28 will compete in the division runoff contest the following saturday first and second place winners from the seniors masters and phd divisions at texas a&m will advance to the society of petroleum engineers (spe) gulf coast north america regional competition held in houston on april 1 spe coordinates 14 regional student paper contests using the same undergraduate masters and phd divisions the regions are: africa asia pacific canada eastern north america europe gulf coast north america middle east mid-continent north america rocky mountain north america russia and caspian western north america south america and caribbean south asia and southwestern north america shown in photo: 2016 regional winners who advanced to international competition regional first-place winners advance to the international student paper contest held in october during the 2017 spe annual technical conference and exhibition in san antonio first place international division winners have their research papers published in the conference proceedings since 1993 texas a&m students have won first place in the international contest 13 times at the undergraduate level 14 times at the masters level and 14 times at the phd level
1746,the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure summit had a successful inaugural event last week on the texas a&m university campus the summit brought together experts from government private industry and academia to debate and share ideas about protecting the united states from growing cybersecurity threats around the world overall the three-day event had a theme of optimism keynote speaker dr john launchbury director of the information innovation office at the us defense advanced research projects agency said he believes its a battle that can be won despite what people may read in the news other keynote speakers included: ray rothrock chairman and ceo of redseal and former general partner at venrock the venture capital arm of the rockefeller family dan ennis former director of the threat operations center at the national security agency (nsa) rhonda maclean ceo maclean risk partners and former chief information security officer (ciso) for the boeing corporation bank of america and barclays plc global retail and commercial bank in london for more about the issues discussed the bryan-college station eagle was on hand for the event and covered both the keynote from launchbury and the keynotes and panel discussions launchbury says issues serious but solvable: http://wwwtheeaglecom/news/local/texas-a-m-speaker-cybersecurity-issues-serious-but-solvable/article_bf2447fe-0c66-5dfb-907a-dce09af8bba4html cyber experts debate security priorities at texas a&m summit: http://wwwtheeaglecom/news/local/cyber-experts-debate-security-priorities-at-texas-a-m-summit/article_6f3ab464-aad8-575a-a38a-e9a1bd87db99html the event was sponsored by the lynde and harry bradley foundation and hosted by the texas a&m college of engineering and the bush school of government and public service the event organizers were the texas a&m institute for advanced study and the texas a&m cybersecurity center a join partnership between texas a&m and the texas a&m engineering experiment station the second cybersecurity of critical infrastructure summit is currently scheduled for april 2018
1747,"dr alexei poludnenko associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has received the american physical society's (aps) 2016 françois frenkiel award the aps division of fluid dynamics (dfd) presents this award to young investigators in recognition of significant contributions to fluid mechanics that have also been published during the previous year in either physical review fluids or physics of fluids the international award was presented to poludnenko during the 69th annual dfd meeting in portland oregon and consisted of $1 000 a certificate citing the accomplishment and travel/registration expenses to attend the annual meeting poludnenko was invited to present a plenary talk from his award-winning research ""high-speed turbulent reacting flows: intrinsic flame instability and its effects on the turbulent cascade"" poludnenko earned his phd in physics and astronomy from the university of rochester in 2004 and worked as a research scientist at the university of chicago (2004-07) and as a research associate/physicist at the naval research laboratory (2007-16) before joining texas a&m in the fall of 2016 his research in chemically reacting flow using high-performance computation complements and augments the combustion/propulsion/turbulence research in the department poludnenko is the second faculty member in the department to win this award dr diego donzis associate professor received the prestigious award in 2013"
1748,a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) has partnered with higher education institutions from across the southern united states to form the transportation consortium of south-central states (tran- set) a research consortium funded by the department of transportation (dot) the researchers from tees will focus on projects associated with the use of multifunctional materials in new component construction remote sensing of signals potentially generated by these materials development of new environmentally friendly cement alternatives and the understanding and investigation of corrosion in aging infrastructure components dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor i and department head in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university will lead the tees team the consortium has the potential to highlight next generation materials needed for safer and smarter transportation infrastructure said karaman we need new and improved materials to develop our infrastructure and im excited that our faculty will be joining other research from across several southern states dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering will work with karaman to design optimization and development of embedded smart material sensors i am excited to work with this local texas a&m team in addressing materials and mechanics challenges in an area that is new and exciting to all of us hartl said i also look forward to our interactions with the other trans-set members dr aydin karsilayan associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering will develop new methods for broadcasting sensor signals at low powers dr miladin radovic associate professor and associate department head in the materials science and engineering department will develop new polymer-based concrete substitutes for reduced greenhouse gas emissions dr homero castenada associate professor in the materials science and engineering department will be involved in addressing new methods for corrosion control and mitigation in existing transportation structures dr marwa hassan of louisiana state university will lead tran-set which will address novel materials and innovative construction methodologies as applied throughout the transportation infrastructure it will also include economic limitations by considering research topics with strong potential for transition to implementation the dot will support the consortium with $25 million for the first year and determine future funding based on research success in addition to tees other members of the consortium include arkansas state university baton rouge community college navajo technical university new mexico state university oklahoma state university prairie view a&m university texas a&m university the university of new mexico the university of texas at arlington and the university of texas at san antonio preliminary results include experimental prototypes of shape memory alloy sensory particles embedded in a structural material (left) and the ability to computationally locate damage as sensed by these particles (right) contributing author: lorian hopcus
1749,dr sonia garcia recently presented two posters at the world engineering education forum and global engineering deans council 2016 in south korea garcia who is the senior director of access and inclusion in the texas a&m university college of engineering presented on global opportunities for study abroad recruiting international graduate students and research abroad opportunities for first-generation college students the theme of the conference was engineering education for a smart society the main aspect of smart society according to the conference website is to make our society be more intelligent with new digital technologies engineers are crucial to applying the new digital technologies emerging today and they must be educated and trained through innovative education garcia presented the poster elcir – engineering learning community introduction to research: global opportunities to low-income first generation students authored with maria alves director of the haliburton engineering global programs as well as matthew pariyothorn dr david de sousa and dr zenon medina-cetina the elcir program was created with the intention of increasing the number of students participating in research and studying abroad more specifically low-income first generation underrepresented minority students in sum the purpose of the elcir program is threefold: expose sophomore students early in their studies and careers in engineering to research; immerse students in cultural and global research; and provide students with the basic tools to prepare them for future research opportunities with the college of engineering and/or to pave the way into graduate studies the poster highlighted how the program was implemented the outcomes and the impact on the students based on the analyses of a pre and two post surveys the focus was on the global competencies developed by the students as a result of the program the second poster presented by garcia targeted international graduate recruiting – a case study for recruiting mexican students was authored by alves medina-cetina martha ortega alicia navarrete alonso and victor camara the college of engineering collaborated with canieti the mexican national chamber of electronics telecommunication and information technology on a pilot program to increase the number of high-quality graduate students recruited from mexico the poster presented the recruiting and selection process the implementation and the results of the three years of the program insights into this project can serve as a model for international student recruitment
1750,"one thing we can all agree on is social media has drastically altered the way we interact with each other and the world around us this societal shift has brought to light the need for awareness of the risks that surround it as quickly as the landscape of social interaction changes new threats emerge while there have been extensive studies on traditional methods for targeting a mass audience such as television print and search engine advertising there remains a significant gap in the understanding of the vulnerability of social systems to collective attention threats dr james caverlee associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is devoted to creating a world where every online interaction can be trusted with assurances on who and what you are dealing with a few examples of collective attention threats are breaking news viral videos and popular memes that can quickly spread misinformation propaganda and malware because of these like never before users are involuntary accomplices to the spread and success of these new hazards it is imperative to develop new techniques to detect analyze model and defend against collective attention threats in large-scale social systems caverlee said the overarching research goal of this project is to develop the framework algorithms and systems for analyzing modeling and defending against emergent collective attention threats in large-scale social systems since users are typically dependent on the system operators to provide protection caverlee and his team are working to build a threat awareness application that will serve as an early-warning system for users this countermeasure will prevent or mitigate the effects of these potential threats youtube itself is responsible for monitoring and expelling videos that are conduits to spam and malware; twitter attempts to block spam accounts and messages once it collects sufficient evidence caverlee said this one-size-fits-all method ignores individual risk profiles and suffers from either blocking too much content or allowing all content instead we propose to develop a personalized awareness app that will communicate to each user their exposure to collective attention threats the way the app will work is that on opening a users twitter timeline for instance the app will highlight tweets that are associated with a threat this will give each user more control over their social experience the idea is that the app may be able to sample evidence of collective attention threats early in the lifecycle of a collective attention phenomenon for example sampling and labeling spam tweets from a trending topic based on this early evidence the app will be able to identify and eliminate developing threats as a result of these threats growing and changing so rapidly caverlee recognizes the need to have a continually upgraded design his team will provide its initial thoughts on the most relevant features influencing and predicting threats and will continue to explore the most computationally efficient features in order to maintain the responsiveness caverlee began studying this topic in the mid-2000s by looking at web spam that led to the study of emerging social systems such as facebook and twitter and the creation of ""social honeypots"" to lure social spammers and content polluters taking this further caverlee has also studied how online spaces can be manipulated by online campaigns and crowdsourced attacks the ultimate goal is to build a scientific foundation for the deep understanding of these new threats including new algorithms frameworks and systems; give companies new tools to fight back against threats within their systems; and to give users themselves new power to make sense of their online experience caverlee said this research is conducted in collaboration with dr anna squicciarini associate professor at pennsylvania state university and is supported by the air force office of scientific research (afosr) as part of a three-year effort"
1751,texas a&m university graduate and astronaut michael e fossum has been appointed as the new vice president and chief operating officer of texas a&m university at galveston fossums appointment is effective march 1 fossum a 1980 texas a&m mechanical engineering graduate recently announced his retirement from the national aeronautics & space administration (nasa) in 2013 fossum received the outstanding alumni honor award from the college of engineering fossum worked for nasa since 1983 and was selected as an astronaut in 1998 he is a veteran of three space flights logging more than 194 days in space including more than 48 hours in seven spacewalks his most recent role at nasa was as assistant chief for the international space station born in sioux falls south dakota fossum grew up in mcallen texas he attended texas a&m and was a member of the corps of cadets earning a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering and receiving his commission in the us air force in 1980 after completing a master of science in systems engineering from the air force institute of technology he was detailed to nasa johnson space center where he supported space shuttle flight operations in 1985 he graduated from air force test pilot school at edwards air force base and went on to serve first as a flight test engineer in the f-16 test squadron and later as a flight test manager at the air force flight test center fossum resigned from active duty in 1992 to work for nasa as a systems engineer in 1997 he earned a master of science in physical science (space science) from the university of houston clear lake he retired as a colonel from the us air force reserves in 2010 among his many honors and awards fossum has received the nasa exceptional service medal and two nasa spaceflight medals as well as the us air force meritorious service medal with two oak leaf clusters he is especially proud of his boy scout awards which include distinguished eagle scout silver beaver and vigil member of the order of the arrow
1752,dr patrick shamberger assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the new materials educator award from the materials division of the american society of engineering education (asee) shamberger who is also the undergraduate degree program director in the department was nominated for the award by dr ibrahim karaman head of the department the award recognizes exceptional achievements in materials science engineering education made by early career professionals the nomination package submitted by professor ibrahim karaman was very impressive and distinguished you out of a large number of highly qualified nominees for the award wrote the committee we were particularly impressed with your highly-viewed video lecture series available on youtube your work in establishing an undergraduate minor in materials science at texas a&m university your leadership in developing a new bachelor of science curriculum and your work in engineering education research shamberger will receive the award at the asee annual conference this june in columbus ohio he has also been invited to give an honorary lecture about his experience in materials education engineering shamberger has been a faculty member since 2013 and received his phd in materials science and engineering from the university of washington his research interests include science and engineering of phase transitions functional materials thermal energy storage transport and conversion he is actively involved in undergraduate science and engineering education and mentoring
1753,"bharadwaj satchidanadnan a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university won the best student paper award in the 9th international conference on communication systems and networks (comsnets 2017) in bangalore india satchidanadnan co-wrote the paper ""on minimal tests of sensor veracity for dynamic watermarking-based defense of cyber-physical systems "" with his phd adviser dr pr kumar from the computer engineering and systems group their paper addresses the problem of secure control of networked cyber-physical systems more specifically they consider the problem of controlling a physical plant with multiple inputs and multiple outputs where the sensors measuring some of the outputs may be malicious the malicious sensors can collude and report false measurements fabricated possibly strategically in order to achieve any objective that they may have such as destabilizing the closed-loop system or increasing its running cost in his paper satchidanadnan proposes a general technique termed dynamic watermarking which allows the controller to detect such malicious sensors in the system and prevent them from causing performance degradation satchidanandan earned his masters degree from the indian institute of technology madras india where he worked on wireless communications between may 2015 and august 2015 he interned at intel labs in santa clara california where he worked on interference cancellation algorithms for next generation wireless networks his research interests include cyberphysical systems power systems security database privacy communications control and signal processing"
1754,the texas a&m university college of engineering will lead a new south central regional robotics innovation collaborative part of the advanced robotics manufacturing (arm) innovation hub announced friday (jan 13) by the department of defense american robotics inc an independent institute founded by carnegie mellon university will lead the institute the arm institute joins the manufacturing usa network in its collective effort to help revitalize american manufacturing and incentivize companies to invest in new technology development in the united states the use of robotics is already present in manufacturing environments but todays robots are typically expensive singularly purposed challenging to reprogram and require isolation from humans for safety the arm institutes mission is to create and deploy robotic technology by integrating the diverse collection of industry practices and institutional knowledge across many disciplines to create a robust manufacturing innovation ecosystem we are excited to participate in this sustained contribution to arms public-private partnership in support of the expansion of advanced robotics for our nations manufacturing growth said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system this represents a significant investment in the robotics manufacturing space texas a&m already has some of the nations most outstanding faculty and researchers in the field of robotics and soon our new rellis campus will provide them and their research partners with premier test bed facilities and training space over the past year texas a&m engineering has been chosen to lead two other manufacturing usas nationwide initiatives texas a&m and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) are leading the gulf coast regional manufacturing center one of five regional centers located across the country as part of the clean energy smart manufacturing innovation institute in addition the texas a&m energy institute a partnership between texas a&m and tees has been selected to lead the modeling and simulation efforts of the rapid advancement in process intensification deployment manufacturing institute of the american institute of chemical engineers having texas a&m leading this effort in robotics for advanced manufacturing is going to have significant and long lasting impact opening new avenues for education for our students and positively impacting the economies of our community state and nation said michael k young president of texas a&m university the robotics-manufacturing consortium headquartered in pittsburgh is comprised of more than 220 partners from state and local governments industry universities community colleges and non-profit organizations partner organizations contributed $173 million combined with $80 million in federal funding the substantial cost matching reflects the importance the us robotics community places on this institute and its value to us businesses academia and state and local governments as the lead of the south central regional robotics innovation collaborative we look forward to advancing the arm institute mission to improve us competitiveness in manufacturing through development of smart collaborative robotic solutions said m katherine banks vice chancellor of texas a&m engineering texas a&m engineering has strong existing partnerships with two-year colleges and key state agencies that support workforce development and education opportunities we will leverage these and other resources and develop new robotics curricula and training activities for manufacturing the arm institute joins the manufacturing usa institute network a program with industry academia and government participants who co-invest in the development of innovative manufacturing technologies and capabilities each manufacturing usa institute focuses on a technology area critical to future competitiveness – such as additive manufacturing integrated photonics or smart sensors the federal government has committed over $1 billion matched by over $2 billion in non-federal investment tees brings a network of regional expertise in engineering and design manufacturing and robotics for collaborative manufacturing to bridge the gap between innovative research and industry need by offering workforce training skills development and stackable certificates based on local robotics and manufacturing demands tees is uniquely able to create career pathways across all educational levels to increase the number of qualified employees in the industry dr prabhakar pagilla the james j cain professor ii in mechanical engineering at texas a&m served as principal investigator from texas a&m on the proposal and also represented texas a&m engineering at the announcement in washington dc dr ben zoghi professor in engineering technology and industrial distribution and stavros kalafatis professor of practice in electrical engineering actively participated in the proposals development and industry partnerships dr dimitris lagoudas deputy director of tees and senior associate dean for research in the college of engineering continuously provided guidance and support throughout the long proposal effort and championed texas a&ms participation in this multi-university partnership for more information regarding manufacturing usa please visit https://wwwmanufacturingusacom/
1755,recent advancements in automotive aerospace and power generation industries have inspired materials scientists to engineer innovative materials ceramic metal composites or cermets are an example of a new and improved class of materials that can enhance transportation and energy conversion technologies cermets combine useful properties from each of their primary constituent materials such as high temperature stability of ceramics and machinability and ductility of metals however cermets are effective only if their constituent materials do not react with each other during their processing researchers at texas a&m university have developed a rapid and efficient technology that enables processing ceramics and metals together into cermets with little to no reaction between constituent materials this breakthrough opens the possibilities for development of new and superior composite materials most ceramics and metals are unstable when combined at high temperatures and are known to react with each other leaving the final composite materials with undesirable properties such as brittleness or low temperature resistance this severely limits the number of new composite materials that can be developed for our growing needs said dr miladin radovic associate professor and associate department head in the department of materials science and engineering radovic along with dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor i and head of the materials science and engineering department and former doctoral students dr liangfa hu and dr ankush kothalkar and morgan oneil an undergraduate student in the department of mechanical engineering have developed the current-activated pressure-assisted infiltration (capai) method to combine ceramics and metals resulting in stable high performance composites in only nine seconds the capai method combines ceramics and metals with little to no reaction between constituent materials it uses electric current to instantly heat the metal and applied pressure to drive the molten metal into foam made of ceramic in their initial study the researchers selected aluminum for its light weight corrosion resistance and popularity in automotive and aerospace industries and ceramic foams of titanium aluminum carbide (ti2alc) for their good fracture toughness electrical and thermal conductivity and combined them into lightweight cermets with high strength and good temperature stability the electric current and the pressure together provided simultaneous heating and pressure that actively drove the molten metals into the ceramic preform said radovic the fast and controllable heating rate which was as high as 700 degrees celsius offered an easy and efficient way to avoid reactions between ceramics and molten metal the researchers discovered that the resulting composite (ti3alc3/al) was lightweight with competitive mechanical properties at both ambient (room) temperatures and elevated temperatures it was 10 times stronger at room temperatures and 14 times stronger at 400 degrees celsius than aluminum alloys and was less prone to severe degradation after exposure to high temperatures both aluminum and titanium aluminum carbides challenged the conventional methods for producing desirable composite materials because they react to each other at temperature that is well beyond that needed to combine them in the composite material said radovic the capai method allowed processing novel ceramic-metal composites which could not otherwise be obtained using powder metallurgy and conventional infiltration techniques radovic is optimistic about the limitless opportunities that new and advanced composite materials will offer for both economical and sustainable manufacturing on an industrial scale the research was supported by grant awarded to texas a&m university researchers by the us air force office of scientific research multidisciplinary research program of the university research initiative (muri) read more about the research in scientific reports
1756,dr sean mcdeavitt associate professor of nuclear engineering and director of the nuclear science center (nsc) at texas a&m university and dr ryan mcclarren assistant professor of nuclear engineering and associate director for the institute for national security education and research (inser) have been named as recipients of the 2016-17 college of engineering faculty awards mcdeavitt is the recipient of the george armistead jr '23 service award and mcclarren received a tees young faculty fellow award m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will formally recognize both recipients at the faculty and staff awards banquet in may mcdeavitt is the principal investigator and founder of the fuel cycle and materials laboratory (fcml) within the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m his research interests include nuclear materials science fuel behavior and processing and high temperature materials science in addition to other areas of study the fcml has been a vehicle for more than $15 million in research expenditures since 2006 and has impacted a variety of technical areas mcdeavitt was named the director of the nsc in 2014 and helped to evaluate and develop the safety culture and operating standards employed at the nsc mcdeavitt has served texas a&m for more than 10 years both in research and teaching roles mcclarren is a part of the computational methods development research group within the department his research interests include uncertainty quantification numerical methods for radiation transport multiphysics simulation and high performance computing among other areas of study mcclarren has developed a strong research portfolio in uncertainty quantification and predictive science for computer simulations that has been recognized both nationally and internationally mcclarren also partners with the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) on work regarding the intersection of science and policy and his contributions have benefitted tees efforts in multidisciplinary research mcclarren has served texas a&m for eight years both in his efforts to educate others and conduct multidisciplinary research
1757,dr marcelo sanchez associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and his team of researchers are paving the way for new engineering applications that will shape the future of energy production and storage from new possibilities in geothermal and hydrocarbon resources to better storage applications for nuclear energy the implications of this research are exciting and far reaching although soils and rocks are hardly viewed as groundbreaking exploring the untapped potential of geomaterials like these is the primary goal of sanchez and his team the team is studying the behavior of geomaterials under complex conditions involving thermal hydraulic mechanical and geochemical actions through the teams research it hopes to make possible both the production of new energy sources and also the safe storage of nuclear waste this field of study known as geotechnics is particularly important because of the increase in future energy demands associated with economic development and population growth worldwide this type of research plays a crucial role in the continuing development of the design of nuclear waste repositories advancing the design of geological carbon-dioxide sequestration and enhanced geothermal systems and assisting energy production from existing and new sources the interest in these applications is relatively new so the response of soils and rocks in extreme environments was not well known prior to recent progress in research the team from texas a&m has contributed with new experimental evidence and advanced numerical models to expand the previously limited range of existing knowledge in this area previous models in this field have disregarded the effect of the material fabric on the analyses involving geomaterials subjected to extreme circumstances this cannot be considered valid however when dealing with complex geomaterials like expansive clays hydrate bearing sediments and fractured soils and rocks the research conducted by sanchez and his team focuses on enhancing the capability of the existing tools by incorporating the details of micro-scale geomaterial into the macroscopic models by inserting the microscopic details the researchers have been able to begin bridging the gap between micro-scale geomaterial behaviors and macro-scale engineering problems like storing nuclear waste producing geothermal energy and more the numerical models produced at texas a&m have been recognized for their advanced and vigorous approaches that explicitly consider both the micro- and macro-scale structures in clayed materials in addition to these advances the team has also developed a state-of-the-art model for sediments containing gas hydrates and proposed a novel numerical technique to model pre-existing and evolving cracks in geomaterials the challenges created by the ever-increasing demand for energy solutions as well as for resilient and sustainable civil infrastructure continuously expand the need for more advanced knowledge of soil and rock behaviors driven by these societal needs and the engineering applications associated with them the researchers at texas a&m painstakingly study the response of geomaterials subjected to unprecedented solicitations this involves researching high thermal gradients very large fluid pressures and significant confinement stresses thermal gradients involve heat shocks above 400 degrees fahrenheit investigated in geothermal and nuclear waste disposal related applications the fluid pressure studies consist of pressures above 25 mega pascal which is approximately 247 times regular atmospheric pressure high confinement applications are vast from nuclear waste disposal to truly anything located deep in the ground requiring high stress geomechanics is at the core of the modern infrastructure and energy challenges and our group is working hard to keep texas a&m at the forefront of the research advances said sanchez contributing author: ryan terry
1758,each year the texas a&m university veteran resource & support center polls graduating student veterans for the one faculty or staff member who helped them the most during their time on campus in december three members from the department of industrial and systems engineering were recognized dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean emeritus and senior professor in the department dr guy curry professor emeritus and jeana goodson academic adviser in the department were among those recognized for being an inspiration mentor confidante and a positive influence to the student veterans every time a student veteran takes a seat in my office i find myself admiring their level of dedication and determination to earn their degree and provide for their families goodson said it is a great honor to be recognized as someone who has helped a person that has and continues to sacrifice so much for our freedoms
1759,dr lewis ntaimo associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and former phd student tanisha cotton were awarded second place in the institution for operations research and the management sciences (informs) minority issues forum (mif) inaugural paper competition this award is a very big recognition in the operations research field ntaimo said tanisha worked very hard creating new models and algorithms to help in decision making while taking into account unknown or stochastic risks this award is for their paper a computational study of mean-risk stochastic linear programming this work was published in the mathematical programming computation journal last year tanishas work has been applied to different applications including managing air traffic in the military when supplies need to be delivered ntaimo said weather and conditions on the ground are constantly changing and very unpredictable the algorithms developed in this work makes it possible for the deliveries to be made at the best time taking into account all unpredictable risks the work can also be applied in the energy and power planning industry when cotton completed her phd in 2014 she began working with the veterans affairs office and is now seeking opportunities to return to the academic and research setting the award was presented at 2016 informs annual conference in nashville tennessee the occasion brought together both collaborators informs is a national organization and the largest of its kind in the world for professionals in the operations research management science and analytics fields texas a&m is also home to an active student chapter that was recently awarded the annual student chapter award at the cum laude level
1760,dr xiong zhang a former student of the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the international award for innovation in unsaturated soil mechanics at the third european conference on unsaturated soils this award was given by the international society of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering technical committee tc-106 in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the development of a photogrammetry-based method to measure total and local volume changes of unsaturated soils during triaxial testing this new capability makes the characterization of the properties of an unsaturated soil sample a matter of a few hours rather than the days or weeks it took using older models zhang an associate professor in the department of civil architectural and environmental engineering at the missouri university of science and technology earned his phd in civil engineering from texas a&m in 2004 he began his doctoral studies at texas a&m after earning a masters from the china institute of water resources and hydropower research in his time at texas a&m zhang was a graduate research assistant from 2000 to 2004 a graduate teaching assistant from 2003 to 2004 and a postdoctoral research associate from 2004 to 2005 while a postdoctoral research associate zhang worked with dr robert lytton benson chair professor in civil engineering who is a co-author of the research the award was received for zhang completed the innovation in 2015 while serving as an associate professor at the university of alaska fairbanks contributing author: ryan terry
1761,seniors in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university enroll in the capstone senior design course to apply their education to real-world problems currently facing businesses the students gain valuable experiences while sponsor companies benefit from the facultys research and expertise zane gruznina cms deployment manager at cameron a schlumberger company collaborated with a team during the fall 2016 semester in which the team was introduced to a very specific problem regarding implementation progress tracking through weekly conference calls and on-site visits the students solution for gruznina will provide the ability to focus peoples time on analytics and implementation rather than manual data mining the students programmed a tool that is user friendly intuitive and easy to use gruznina said we were limited to the use of microsoft tools so that the end users in the manufacturing locations do not need to learn a new program they were able to develop the system based on the programming skills acquired in classes at texas a&m coupled with the detailed processes they learned in their undergraduate curriculum to implement the system their solution provided an alternative to this specific tracking method that will not require additional training on the plant level interacting with a team which is eager to provide a solution was the most beneficial part of the experience gruznina said individual and corporate sponsors supply projects for student teams to design develop and test prototypes over a 15-week semester teams of four to five students meet with and discuss areas of concern with the sponsor company then propose methods for verifying analyzing and solving those problems students submit a final report at the conclusion of the semester containing observations analysis and recommendations to the company for more information about sponsoring a senior capstone design project contact jose vazquez at 979-458-2385 or vazquez@tamuedu
1762,dr lewis ntaimo associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university former phd student julian gallego-arrubla and curt stripling of the texas a&m forest service were awarded this years informs section on energy natural resources and the environment (enre) best paper publication this award means so much to julian and i ntaimo said when he was a phd student julian admired those receiving awards like this one and aspired to be on the list of recipients one day the award recognizes their paper wildfire initial response planning using probabilistically constrained stochastic integer programming this work was published in the international journal of wildland fire we partnered with the texas forest service to help decide the most efficient way for them to deploy their resources in the event of a wildfire outbreak ntaimo said this problem is very complex because there are many things that can impact the way a fire starts and how it spreads across the landscape we developed a stochastic program with probability constraints to allow them to account for a given level of risk involved while operating within their tight budget gallego-arrubla is an analytics manager with at kearny inc a consulting company in chicago stripling is a geospatial systems coordinator with the texas a&m forest service together with his boss thomas spencer stripling provided expert experience to help gallego-arrubla and ntaimo create the new stochastic model for the service to use in the future the award was presented at the 2016 informs annual conference in nashville tennessee informs is a national organization and the largest of its kind in the world for professionals in the operations research management science and analytics fields texas a&m is also home to an active student chapter that was recently awarded the annual student chapter award at the cum laude level **photo from left to right: dr antonio j conejo (ohio state university) and dr hayri onal (university of illinois)
1763,during the 2016 american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) conference in san francisco the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university hosted a reception to honor the life and legacy of professor christodoulos a floudas during the reception a video tribute that included many of floudas former students colleagues and family members who discussed his impact on the field and his life as a whole was shown the video included interviews with many prominent members of the chemical engineering field including dr nicholas a peppas of the university of texas at austin dr mm faruque hasan of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering dr m nazmul karim the head of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering dr peter dimaggio of imperial college london and dr marianthi ierapetritou the head of the chemical and biochemical engineering department at rutgers university among many others the highlight of the event came as dr ignacio e grossmann the rudolph r and florence dean university professor of chemical engineering at carnegie mellon university shared memories of his time as floudas phd adviser i really consider myself extremely fortunate for having had such an extremely bright student said grossmann it is very clear that to a large extent the reputation that i have earned in the field is due to chris floudas we have had a tremendous tremendous loss in the process systems engineering area the only consolation that we have is that he will have his legacy through his work through his papers and of course through his students that he so passionately informed below you will find the video tribute that was shown during the event you can watch a recap of the aiche reception with the entirety of grossmanns remarks on youtube
1764,dr elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the american institute for medical and biological engineering (aimbe) the college of fellows is composed of 1 500 individuals who are recognized as outstanding bioengineers in academia industry and government and have distinguished themselves through their contributions in research industrial practice and/or education fundamental to their achievements is the common goal of embracing innovation to improve the health care and safety of society cosgriff-hernandez was elected for her outstanding contributions to biomaterial and tissue engineering research in the areas of biodegradation characterization biomaterial development and scaffold fabrication cosgriff-hernandez joined the biomedical engineering department in 2007 only the top 2 percent of medical and biological engineering leaders are chosen as fellows of the aimbe aimbe is the authoritative voice and advocate for the value of medical and biological engineering to society it is an organization of leaders in medical and biological engineering consisting of academic industrial professional society councils and elected fellows aimbes mission includes communicating objectively with and responding to us and state government agencies as well as lawmakers an induction ceremony will be held on march 20 in washington dc to welcome her into the college of fellows
1765,"the texas a&m energy institute a joint partnership between texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will be leading the modeling and simulation efforts of the rapid advancement in process intensification deployment (rapid) manufacturing institute of the american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) this coalition announced dec 9 by the department of energy (doe) will be the newest and 10th member of the nations network of manufacturing usa institutes earlier this year the doe called for the establishment of a manufacturing innovation institute on modular chemical process intensification for clean energy manufacturing to date rapid has enlisted 75 companies 34 academic institutions seven national laboratories two other government laboratories and seven non-governmental organizations from all regions of the country these partners have committed to cost shares that leverage the does $70 million contribution over five years with total project spending exceeding $140 million rapids partners come from energy-intensive industries and range from small to large enterprises the new institute will transform the us industry by creating a manufacturing renaissance around innovative modular process-intensified manufacturing while concurrently developing the next generation of a highly skilled labor force leveraging the benefits of a public-private partnership between industry university national laboratories federal state local and not-for-profit entities the rapid institute will provide open access to shared research development and demonstration facilities and improve us manufacturing competitiveness through collaboration and partnership across industries national laboratories and universities rapid will enable transformational improvements in energy efficiency and us manufacturing productivity said dr glen a laine vice president for research at texas a&m the successful partnership we have forged between texas a&m and tees through the energy institute will continue to produce research programs and technologies that improve and impact peoples lives christodoulos floudas was the primary driving force behind this effort and he worked tirelessly to make texas a&m engineering a major partner in this initiative said dr dimitris lagoudas deputy director of tees floudas who served as director of the texas a&m energy institute passed away in august having the opportunity to lead such an institute supported by our outstanding faculty within texas a&m is a great tribute to chris legacy and the reputation for excellence texas a&m and tees have built in the field of advanced manufacturing"" the texas a&m energy institute will lead the rapid manufacturing institutes efforts in the enabling technology area of multi-scale modeling simulation optimization and control preliminarily involving 11 texas a&m faculty members as well as researchers at six other universities this work will center on the rapid demonstration of energy efficiency through process intensification technology in computational space thus providing expedient screening of competing technology concepts and step-by-step justification of proceeding with technology development the texas a&m energy institute has assembled a world-class team of faculty experts in all areas of process intensification modeling simulation optimization and control said dr stratos pistikopoulos interim co-director of the texas a&m energy institute and the primary investigator of texas a&ms efforts in the consortium the breadth of the ability of our collaborators and our team at texas a&m on this project to take a process intensification solution from concept to design to testing to optimization and control – toward the development and deployment of process intensification process solutions – is unmatched in the world the texas a&m energy institutes ongoing efforts in leading the gulf coast regional manufacturing center for the clean energy smart manufacturing innovation institute the ninth member of the nations network of manufacturing usa institutes will be closely aligned and integrated as both institutes are seeking improvements efficiencies and energy consumption reductions in the same industries additional information about the rapid manufacturing institute and its objectives can be found at wwwprocessintensificationorg"
1766,dr robert skelton tees distinguished professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) mechanics and control of flight award for 2017 the award presented for an outstanding recent technical or scientific contribution in the mechanics guidance or control of flight in space or the atmosphere honors skeltons lasting contributions at the interfaces of mechanics and control of flight and leading the world in analysis design modeling and control of tensegrity structures he received a medal and certificate of citation during a recognition luncheon at the aiaa science and technology forum and exposition (scitech 2017) on jan 10 skelton pioneered the mathematical description of tensegrity structures derived by combining tension and integrity the term tensegrity describes materials composed of strings and rods his papers have explained the tensegrity nature of the cytoskeleton of red blood cells and of the molecular structure of natures strongest tensile material the spider fiber tensegrity materials can change shape by altering their string tension this ability to adapt allows tensegrity to produce materials systems that can modify their acoustic electromagnetic or mechanical properties in addition tensegrity structures may include built-in actuators sensors and power-storage devices this versatility makes tensegrity an attractive alternative to conventional design skelton joined the department in 2015 he became a member of the national academy of engineering in 2012 he is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and a life member of the alexander von humboldt foundation a non-profit foundation in germany established to promote cooperation in international research
1767,dr alan waltar former head of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university and past president of the american nuclear society (ans) has collaborated with dr donald todd a nuclear engineer with pacific northwest national laboratory (pnnl) and dr pavel tsvetkov associate professor of nuclear engineering and faculty graduate adviser at texas a&m to revise waltars 1981 book fast spectrum reactors the original book co-authored by dr albert reynolds has served as a major reference book for fast reactors systems worldwide major updates to the book include additions on transmutation physics a process used to incinerate nuclear waste and advances in fuel and materials technology including metal fuels and cladding materials capable of operating under high temperatures and at a high burnup additionally the book details new approaches to design and reactor safety involving passive safety technologies and new chapters on gas-cooled and lead-cooled fast spectrum reactors according to the authors major international interest has been revitalized in the topic of fast reactors in recent years the authors say they are fortunate to have attracted what they deem is an exceptionally strong multi-national cadre of world-class fast reactor specialists to provide key updates to the original book the book was published by the springer publishing company in 2011 and is available worldwide the book was translated into japanese in 2016 by a team of nuclear engineering experts led by dr naoyuki takaki while serving as a department head at texas a&m waltar helped to establish the department as the largest nuclear engineering program in the nation waltar served more than 30 years at the westinghouse hanford company and after leaving texas a&m was the director of nuclear energy at pnnl he currently serves as a consultant to government sponsored and international nuclear organizations and private nuclear firms tsvetkov has served at texas a&m for more than 11 years his research interests include advanced energy systems design methods instrumentation and control as well as challenges in energy sustainability and societal implications of nuclear power dr alan waltar with dr naoyuki takaki at the book opening ceremony in japan in nov2016
1768,four texas a&m university engineering students have been named university innovation fellows (uif) by hasso plattner institute of design (dschool) at stanford university a program to empower students to help their peers gain an entrepreneurial mindset and creative confidence momore adesanmi (chemical engineering) kanika gakhar (aerospace engineering) jusung lee (computer science and engineering) and mack ragland (mechanical engineering) are among 169 students from 49 institutions in the newly selected group they completed training to join the university innovation fellows a global program that empowers student leaders to increase campus engagement with innovation entrepreneurship creativity and design thinking supporting our uif students provides them with tremendous opportunities for professional growth and it empowers them to start new initiatives strengthening our engineering entrepreneurial eco-system said magda lagoudas executive director for industry and non-profit partnerships the students were selected to represent texas a&m engineering and spent several weeks completing training on innovation and entrepreneurship leadership practices and how to be change agents on campus the students left training with the confidence that they can implement a real solution and make a positive impact on campus the uif program puts an emphasis on innovation entrepreneurship and being leaders on campus the students have several initiatives they hope to implement on campus throughout the year their goals are focused on promoting innovation and entrepreneurship activities in engineering some people are entrepreneurs at their core but it takes a lot to discover it said ragland its intimidating and youre not told what to do but entrepreneurship adds so much value to yourself and to others the fellows hope to encourage students to learn what entrepreneurship means in engineering and how they can get involved within the college they recognize that freshmen are often apprehensive about becoming involved but they want to breakdown that barrier they want to help students discover the different pathways they can take while in college to become more innovative and to become entrepreneurs we are truly excited about the contributions of the texas a&m fellows faculty and administration to this movement said leticia britos cavagnaro co-director of the university innovation fellows program stanford universitys hassoo plattner institute of design (dschool) and the uif program has trained 776 students from 164 universities since its inception
1769,texas a&m university will host the 2017 quantitative bioimaging (qbi) conference jan 5 – 7 on its campus in college station texas the international qbi conference brings together researchers in the field of engineering biophysics biology and chemistry who study the quantitative aspects of microscopy this years conference which is in its fifth year will host international speakers and leaders within the industry and will expose the newest emerging research texas a&m is hosting the qbi conference for the first time with previous conferences being held in the netherlands france and new mexico dr raimund j ober biomedical engineering and molecular and cellular medicine professor at texas a&m is coordinating the conference the conference brings many of the leading researchers to texas a&m to present and discuss their research said ober this is a unique opportunity for our students to be exposed to the latest developments in this exciting and fast moving field the conference is open to all texas a&m undergraduate and graduate students and will offer a glimpse into the world of quantitative bioimaging for more information and details visit: http://wwwquantitativebioimagingcom/
1770,the american nuclear society (ans) student chapter at texas a&m university organized and attended the texas nuclear student delegation (tnesd) on feb 12-14 in austin texas the trip was led by texas a&m students and was established as a mirror initiative to the nuclear engineering student delegation where students from across the nation visit washington dc to advocate to policymakers regarding nuclear engineering education and industry-related topics the goal of the trip is to be the voice of and represent the nuclear engineering students here in texas said victor ibarra jr vice president of the texas a&m student chapter of ans but we take a broader approach so that anything regarding education we also take into account and advocate for the 2017 delegation marks the second tnesd since the initial delegation in 2015 where ibarra then a freshman went with five other nuclear engineering students to advocate to policymakers at the state level this year ibarra and students from other ans student chapters came together to organize the event this years delegation had 13 delegates and was comprised of students from texas a&m the university of texas at austin and texas a&m university-kingsville for ibarra and the other texas a&m attendees it was good to see the delegation grow this was a big issue i saw at the first conference because we wanted a lot of other schools with engineering programs to participate but they didn't seem interested at the time ibarra said im glad to see it growing and hope it continues to do so as interest has grown the students hope the conference also grows as an outlet for improving the understanding of policymakers and others regarding nuclear engineering the students also seek the advice of legislators on what they can best do to make an impact we want to inform these policymakers work with them and learn from them about this legislative process so that it can reach some point of impact ibarra said we have a lot of students learning about the legislative process through these experiences and how important this is and how they can have more of an impact as normal residents i think it does wonders for all of the delegates that were involved according to ibarra there are policies currently governing nuclear engineering that were set in place generations ago as nuclear engineering students the delegates hope to spur a progression toward informed change to craft future policies that will better benefit the industry and nuclear engineering students for ibarra his experience as a delegate has inspired him to one day pursue a career in politics where he feels can make a difference i think that participating in tnesd and getting closer to government affairs will lead me down a path that will let me work for some sort of government agency and act as a liaison to inform policymakers ibarra said i want to get a job somewhere in a political area so that i can be a liaison for the nuclear industry and start advocating for taking america in a more accepting attitude toward nuclear energy and its applications
1771,texas a&m university alumnus peter maginot ‘09 is using some of the most powerful computing technology in the world to validate computer modeling computational tools to make sure they accurately reflect the physical phenomena in real-world experiments computational methods research involves using mathematical computations to both generate computer modeled simulations of real-world phenomena and to validate those same computational tools making sure that the computational methods accurately reflect variables in the real world such research has applications in reactor design astrophysics inertial confinement fusion and many other specializations as a graduate student maginots research focused on thermal radiation transport where as objects increase in temperature they emit photons absorb more photons and continue to increase in temperature applying computational methods to these principles allows for simulating phenomena such as a supernova where the environment cannot be replicated here on earth but can be simulated computationally maginot received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in nuclear engineering from texas a&m where he was the recipient of both a department of energy computational science graduate (csg) fellowship and a nuclear regulatory commission fellowship dr jim morel professor of nuclear engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for large-scale scientific simulations (class) and dr jean ragusa professor of nuclear engineering and associate director for the institute for scientific computation served as his phd chairs maginot currently conducts research at livermore lawrence national laboratory where his work involves trying to solve a difficult set of equations that describe how photons interact with and change the medium such as a national ignition facility target capsule that the photons are passing through we use experiments with items that have to be physically true and a lot of our simulations get close but there are a lot of things that they don't factor maginot said we cant do all the experiments that we want to do so we try and validate our models and improve on them until we match the experiments we have done so that we can use these tools to do simulations on the experiments that we cannot do my work here is almost a direct extension of the things i did at a&m except on a bigger scale maginot said at a&m i focused on 1-d very simple geometry here we are only concerned with geometry applied in real life such as multi-dimensional 2-d and 3-d geometries the way a lot of this works out is that if something works in 1-d it's not a guarantee it's going to work in multi-d so it's been kind of like going from walking to sprinting in some sense maginot has come to enjoy the impact he is making in his research and the team aspect that he finds is part of working at a national laboratory we solve very challenging problems using resources unlike many others in the world he said it's challenging and you have to be driven and work hard but i feel like it's very rewarding i think its being able to master a very small piece of a very big puzzle that only a few other people in the world really understand and really know how it affects things once it comes together you can kind of figure out that you did this little piece but when you magnify it with the other work we see tangible results and benefits
1772,youth from the boys scouts of america (bsa) are used to exploring the wilds of nature and going on adventures but the texas a&m university student section of the american nuclear society (ans) is helping them discover a whole new kind of adventure with the nuclear science merit badge workshop the ans student section hosted the scouts early in february and provided facility tours guided instruction and hands-on activities to help them understand the basics of nuclear science and earn the nuclear science merit badge ans's primary goal is the promotion and outreach of nuclear science and engineering to the general public said andrew foster external committee chair for the ans student section at texas a&m we want to interface with the public and dispel some of the myths regarding nuclear technology and providing this to the bsa is an excellent way to do that the program hosts scouts twice a year in the fall and spring with nearly 30 attending each workshop the scouts and their parents are shown facilities operated by the department of nuclear engineering and listen to lectures take exams and incorporate hands-on activities toward the completion of the merit badge the goal is to have the scouts complete all the requirements for the merit badge before the end of the one-day workshop taking their lead from the merit badge curriculum much of the material is delivered in formats that are easily digestible to the scouts if you look at the bulk of the student population at our university that are taking nuclear engineering it is challenging for them as young adults in their twenties foster said so the idea of what we want to teach these early teens is much smaller than the scope of that we work in analogies like if the nucleus of an atom is a baseball then the electrons can be found somewhere around the distance of the bases helping them understand in very basic concepts what is going on the workshop also features instruction on the basics of nuclear radiation nuclear power and jobs that exist within the nuclear industry one of the benefits of the workshop according to foster is that it encourages the scouts to develop a desire for continual learning i think a lot of times the big things we see out of this workshop is that depending on the socio-economic status of the kids that come college is not always an option foster said for them to come out and see the facilities and the science some of these kids start to become interested in the idea of pursuing college that is always great to see while the workshop helps both the bsa provide merit badges to scouts and promotes the ans mission of increasing public nuclear literacy one of the secondary goals of the workshop is dedicated to creating engineers that will impact the future at the end of the day the questions they ask and the interest they show makes it worth it foster said the big idea is that if we can take some of the fear of nuclear power away and dispel those myths we can show them how good this can be if we can get these kids into the right mindset maybe one of those kids will design the next great space reactor or small modular reactor who knows
1773,dr jim e morel director of the center for large-scale scientific simulations (class) and professor of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university has been recognized as a recipient of the gerald c pomraning memorial award the award recognizes key contributions within the field of computational methods and its applications to the field of nuclear engineering the award is presented by the mathematics and computation division of the american nuclear society (ans) morel was designated as a recipient for his contributions to the development of discretization and multi-level solution techniques for neutral and charged particle transport on unstructured and structured meshes with adaptive refinement monte carlo methods and hybrid deterministic methods as well as discretization and solution techniques for the radiation-hydrodynamics equations in april morel will provide a presentation on some of his research at a banquet hosted by the international conference on mathematics and computational methods applied to nuclear science and engineering in korea morels contributions to both the department of nuclear engineering and the field of nuclear engineering are well documented morel has served as the director of class for 10 years facilitating and promoting multidisciplinary multiphysics computational research collaborations among texas a&m faculty across a broad range of departments as well as collaborative work among other universities and national laboratories morel has been a professor at texas a&m since 2005 where he has taught both undergraduate and graduate engineering courses and continued to pursue research in the areas of computational transport methods computational radiation-hydrodynamics methods and computational multiphysics methods prior to his service at texas a&m morel served as a staff member group leader and in a variety of other positions within los alamos national laboratory (lanl) providing direction for research projects project leadership and other duties morels established career has also included service at sandia national laboratories among other positions morel has previously been recognized as a fellow of ans and received the department of energy weapons program award of excellence and the lanl distinguished performance award
1774,the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m university regrets to announce the death of dr karl hedrick a faculty fellow in the class of 2015-16 hedrick died on thursday feb 23 2017 after a battle with cancer he is survived by his wife carlyle he was 72 no other details were immediately available hedrick was renowned internationally for his developments in non-linear control theory and its applications to transportation including automated highway systems power train controls embedded software design formation flight of autonomous vehicles and active suspension systems the nation has lost a great innovator and one who helped design the future of automated travel said dr john l junkins founding director of the hagler institute in addition the institute has lost a great friend and texas a&m has lost a brilliant addition to our faculty when hedrick was selected as a faculty fellow in 2015 he was the holder of the james marshall wells academic chair and a professor of mechanical engineering in the college of engineering at the university of california berkeley during his term as a faculty fellow hedrick worked with faculty-researchers and graduate students in the college of engineering and with researchers at the texas a&m engineering experiment station at the completion of his term hedrick accepted a position at texas a&m and was scheduled to join the faculty during summer 2016 he postponed his move to summer 2017 due to his illness hedrick earned his bachelors degree in engineering mechanics at the university of michigan in 1966 he earned his masters and doctoral degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at stanford university in 1970 and 1971 respectively he was a member of the national academy of engineering the society of automotive engineers and the american institute of aeronautics he won numerous prestigious awards and wrote two books and more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles in addition to his groundbreaking work in nonlinear control theory hedrick also made important contributions to nonlinear estimation and control -- this news release was originally posted by the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m university: http://hiastamuedu/about/news/hagler-institute-announces-death-of-karl-hedrick-pioneer-in-automated-transportation-and-2015-16-faculty-fellow
1775,"nuclear waste is a reality whether remnants of nuclear weapons or the byproducts of nuclear power plants while we arent at risk of an attack from a giant radioactive lizard nuclear waste can still pose threats to human health dr zachary grasley an associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university conducted experiments for the savannah river national lab (srnl) in hopes of preventing nuclear waste leakage the waste in question is relatively harmless especially compared to what we see in comic books and movies but it is a waste that must be safely disposed of the best way to safely store and contain this nuclear waste is by mixing it into a cement grout and storing it in large concrete vaults grasley is studying the permeability of nuclear waste grout mixtures to prevent nuclear materials from escaping through solidified grout into the environment the srnl contracted grasley to run these experiments because of his state-of-the-art permeability testing method what once took weeks to test can now be accomplished in minutes with this test developed at texas a&m the original construction of the system was funded directly by the texas a&m engineering experiment station ""i developed a prototype of the permeability measurement system as a phd student at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign i then built a more advanced second generation with dual testing capabilities both hollow and solid cylinders once i arrived at texas a&m "" said grasley these tests involve taking hollow or solid cylinders of various grout samples developed by srnl saturating them with water and subjecting them to high levels of water pressure inside of a pressure vessel immediately after the pressure on the surface of the sample equalizes to the pressure the vessel was subjected to causing the material to contract the pressure level inside the sample remains much lower however because the solid structure of the grout is bearing most of the pressure because liquids flow from high pressure areas to lower pressure areas water will begin to flow into the pore network of the sample if the pressure is sustained as water permeates the material it begins filling the pores in the sample causing it to expand and regrow the rate at which the sample expands after the initial contraction allows for an accurate calculation of the permeability of the sample this process takes less than an hour compared to previous testing techniques that could take weeks to complete by developing this testing method grasley has significantly reduced the time and effort required to understand the permeability of these different grout mixtures produced by the srnl this means previously unknown information about these samples can now be determined in minutes as the srnl produces various grout mixtures containing nuclear waste materials it is vital to understand the rate at which the nuclear materials can escape from them this is actually pretty critical because it turns out that small changes in the mixture can cause an order of magnitude change in permeability said grasley that is important because if you have an order of magnitude change in permeability it leads to an order of magnitude change in the time scale that it takes for the material to leach out an integral part of grasleys research team is phd student jeffryd rose who was responsible for the actual testing and reporting of the project this project fit with roses doctoral research which focuses on measuring permeability of cement based materials as a part of my phd research i built a setup to measure the permeability of cement based materials so measuring materials with similar composition was a great application of my own research said rose this project offered me the opportunity to apply my research to a practical problem going beyond theory which is why this research project was so important and meaningful to me rose expects to graduate from his doctoral program after completing the fall semester of 2017 roses findings were sent to srnl to evaluate and apply to future waste containment methods this research is a matter of both environmental safety and human health the goal is to find the best way to contain these potentially harmful materials to ensure that they do not leak into the environment groundwater or surface water the test grasley developed and his collaboration with srnl are ensuring the safe disposal of nuclear waste and continuing to open doors for further exploration of nuclear energy contributing author: ryan terry"
1776,with mentorship and funding opportunities on the line in addition to a chance to present at the annual south by southwest (sxsw) in austin next month the stakes were higher than ever at the latest aggies invent in a special one-day aggies invent students had eight hours to create basic prototype solutions for their selected topic related to the intelligent future the teams selected will compete at texas a&m invents for an intelligent future at sxsw where they will have 48 hours to assemble and test their ideas the three teams headed to sxsw showed promising early solutions to different challenges that the intelligent future presents for one group that is retrofitting new technologies onto old devices to bring them into the internet of things for another they aim to use modern manufacturing capability to inexpensively scale down complex sensor systems into a small everyday device to provide life-saving information and for the third its bringing modern materials and manufacturing technology together in a way that hasnt been done before the three teams of four students were selected from a pool of 32 students on nine teams they will be in austin march 11-12 to work on their innovations and present them to a group of industry judges competing for award funding the first team of students includes magy avedissian petroleum engineering; nga tang medical student; and joey wippold and kurt parizek biomedical engineering the second team includes philip bowie electrical and computer engineering; coleman fincher mechanical engineering; wesley kuehn manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology; and jana soares mba candidate the final team includes momore adesanmi chemical engineering; bhavani bedre shankar computer science and engineering; james oconnell mechanical engineering; and pavan shetty electrical and computer engineering aggies invent promotes an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at texas a&m university it gathers invited students provides them with the needs statements submitted by sponsors allows them to self-select teams and gives them access to industry mentors and support from the engineering innovation center (eic) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours for more information and to sign up to receive email updates about texas a&ms participation in sxsw visit sxswtamuedu for more information on sxsw visit sxswcom
1777,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr richard miles (left) dr thomas overbye (center) and dr zhijian zj pei (right) texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professors peis appointment was effective aug 27 2016 overbyes was effective jan 1 and miless was effective feb 15 miles is a joint professor in the departments of aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering which he joined on feb 15 as part of the guri grant initiative he is a member of the national academy of engineering miles will establish and lead the center of excellence in interdisciplinary optical and laser detection systems for national security and safety at texas a&m one application of his innovative research is the development of state-of-the-art instrumentation for remote detection that will identify hazardous gases and dangerous contaminants such as anthrax or the ebola virus hidden explosives such as ieds and/or greenhouse gases and pollutants overbye is a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering which he joined jan 1 as part of the guri grant initiative he is a member of the national academy of engineering his research interests are in the domains of smart grid cybersecurity renewable electric energy systems power system visualization power system analysis by computer methods power system stability and power systems operation and control pei is a professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering which he joined in august 2016 he brings years of experience from working in industry academia and government environments and was named a society of manufacturing engineers fellow and american society of mechanical engineers fellow he received a national science foundation (nsf) directors award for excellence program director and an nsf career award his interests include cybermanufacturing systems additive manufacturing and subtractive manufacturing processes
1778,dr eduardo gildin from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university is the recipient of one of the 2016-17 college of engineering faculty awards he has been named the charles h barclay jr 45 fellow eduardo gildin has established himself in the forefront of research that applies fundamental mathematics to solve a variety of complex problems in petroleum engineering said dan hill department head it is gratifying to see this recognition of dr gildins contributions by being named a fellow of the college of engineering gildin an associate professor and a foundation cmg chair in reservoir engineering has been with the department since fall 2009 he directs the reservoir dynamics and control group and currently teaches courses in reservoir simulation numerical methods and high performance computing he received his phd in aerospace engineering from the university of texas at austin gildin has research interests in the mathematics of reservoir simulation numerical methods for control model reduction of large-scale systems finite element modeling numerical analysis and optimization with an emphasis in petroleum engineering problems and drilling automation in particular he is interested in the mathematics and application of the real-time closed-loop reservoir management paradigm m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will formally recognize all recipients at the faculty and staff awards banquet in may
1779,the work of two directors of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) turbomachinery laboratory (turbo lab) and a research engineer has been recognized with a best paper award by the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) structures and dynamics committee the paper was presented at the asme 2016 turbo-expo turbomachinery technical conference & exposition in seoul south korea last june the turbo lab offers graduate engineering education through the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university dr luis san andres mast-childs chair professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and associate director of the turbo lab and dr dara w childs lt jordan chair professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m and director of the turbo lab along with stephen phillips a research engineer for the turbo lab earned the distinction for their paper a water lubricated hybrid thrust bearing: measurements and predictions of static load performance the paper detailed the design construction operation and test results of a hydrostatic thrust bearing test rig for validation of an advanced computational physics tool the authors stated in the paper that the ultimate aim of the research was to advance reliable predictive tools to design fluid film bearings lh2 and lo2 lubricated for cryogenic turbo pumps asme recognizes the impact and permanent relevance of state-of-the-art research said san andres who was the lead author of the paper earning a best paper award is a recognition that a particular paper contains key ingredients such as critical and honest appraisal of prior art recognition of the need and description of the tools and methods to tackle the issue toward its successful resolution a detailed exposition of measurements and predictions and validations and significant conclusions quantifying the advances not merely qualifying them the research put forth in the paper validates the predictions of performance of thrust hybrid bearings for turbo pump applications using a reliable experimental data base san andres and childs are asme fellows childs won an asme best paper award in 2009 and 2015 and san andres has received the honor from the organization with asme best paper awards in 2003 2005 2008 2010 2011 and twice in 2012 san andres specializes in rotordynamics of turbomachinery structural vibrations and computational mechanics he is the founder of the asia turbomachinery & pump symposium in singapore (atps) the select training and networking opportunity for professionals in turbomachinery pump and related industries atps is approaching its second year after an inaugural event which drew more than 900 attendees from 38 countries childs has studied rotordynamic issues related to rocket-engine turbopumps and commercial turbomachinery for more than 50 years he has pioneered the growth of the annual turbomachinery & pump symposia (tps) in houston which began in 1972 as the turbomachinery symposium on the texas a&m campus tps is widely recognized as the premiere learning and networking opportunity for industry professionals the 2016 event drew more than 360 exhibiting companies and 5 000 attendees from 40 countries childs will retire as director of the turbo lab in september 2017 after 33 years of service san andres will succeed childs as turbo lab director
1780,"the polymer nanocomposites laboratory at texas a&m university directed by dr jaime grunlan is working with scientists at the sandia national laboratory to reduce or eliminate arc faults and corrosion in solar cells corrosion in photovoltaic cells which convert light into electricity can damage connections and reduce or destroy the ability to generate electricity sandia labs recently issued a press release detailing multiple approaches to corrosion research which has been picked up by several news outlets the specific goal of grunlans research with sandia is to prevent arc faults which are discharges of electricity that can occur when electrical connections are corroded initial testing suggests the thin clay-based nanocomposite coatings developed at texas a&m could also be used as anti-corrosive layers within the cells to improve durability/lifetime the coatings developed within grunlan's research group are being evaluated as barriers to moisture and corrosive gases testing is being done at sandia as part of the larger durable module materials national lab consortium (duramat) which is seeking to benefit the photovoltaic industry its exciting to see how our long-term research in gas barrier and flame retardant coatings is being used to improve the efficiency and longevity of solar cells we are solving complicated problems using low-cost and environmentally benign materials which is an added bonus grunlan said in the release erik spoerke of sandia's electronic optical and nano materials department compared the development of these nanocomposite films some of which can be 100 times thinner than a human hair to building a house ""it's about assembling those structures in the right way so that you can use inexpensive materials and still get the benefits you want "" spoerke said ""if you build a house it's not just piling together the drywall and two-by-fours and shingles you've got to use the two-by-fours to make the frame set the drywall on the two-by-fours and assemble the shingles on the roof"" the overall goal of the research is to bring down the long-term cost of solar panels and solar technology being able to slow down corrosion in solar panels using inexpensive materials like clay so that they last longer and stay efficient could help facilitate faster adoptions of solar technology grunlans project with sandia is an industry-sponsored project through the texas a&m engineering experiment station grunlan is the linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the texas a&m department of mechanical engineering photo: grunlan (center) discusses the behavior of a clay solution to phd students ryan smith (left) and yixuan song these clay solutions are used in producing clay-based nanocomposite thin films and coatings for the sandia project"
1781,"last month more than 200 volunteers participants coaches and parents attended the inaugural first lego league qualifier at first baptist church in bryan each year an overarching theme is announced that teams must try and tackle – this years being ""animal allies"" six teams from the event will advance to the invitational round where they will compete again hoping to rise up the ranks to go to the international competition the event was a mixture of engineering team-building creativity and of course lots of fun dr malini natarajarathinam associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university was the primary organizer for the event and was very proud its success we had approximately 70 volunteers help throughout the day with 20 fll teams and 11 fll jr teams competing – about 250 attended total! natarajarathinam worked with fungineering president dr jeremy steinshnider to bring an fll qualifier to the brazos valley there were several teams in houston austin dallas and san antonio but nothing in bryan-college station said natarajarathinam in order to see if there was enough interest in the region she announced a local informational session and held it on campus expecting a small group natarajarathinam was blown away when more than 200 people showed up asking what they could do to help bring fll to bryan-college station first baptist church in bryan offered to host the qualifier and the event was set in motion i was amazed at how smoothly the event went for it being our first year hosting said steinshnider my favorite part was the parade of teams at the beginning and seeing all the costumes that the teams were wearing steinshnider stressed the overwhelming benefits that the first program provides kids today first is really good at getting kids excited about stem through a fun and challenging robotics competition additionally they learn how to research a problem brainstorm solutions and present their findings in front of judges giving them a glimpse of what real scientific and engineering research is like gail peterson instructional coach with bryan isd brought students to compete and said it was a fantastic experience [the qualifier] provided an opportunity for my students to compete with other local students to problem solve to work together as a team and improve their communications skills my students had a great day! natarajarathinam wanted to give heartfelt thanks to women in engineering director shawna fletcher students nina rodger and claire rowan as well as pk-12 engineering education outreach director shelly tornquist for their help and management in making the event a success for more information on fll events in the bryan-college station area going forward visit the tamu first facebook page and website"
1782,"bharat mahajan a phd student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university received the john v breakwell student award for travel to the 27th american astronautical society (aas)/american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) space flight mechanics meeting held in san antonio texas feb 5-9 the award of $1 000 was in support of his travel to present two papers exact normalization of the tesseral harmonics and ""analytic solution of perturbed relative motion with zonal and tesseral harmonics "" which he co-authored with his advisers drs srinivas r vadali and kyle t alfriend who are professors in the department mahajans research involves artificial satellite theory with zonal and tesseral perturbations and its applications to long-term propagation of satellite relative motion he has a master's degree in aerospace engineering from missouri university of science and technology at rolla his research interests include analytic satellite theory formation flying attitude control and the three-body problem"
1783,"students in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university were recently announced as a semi-finalist team in the shell ocean discovery xprize competition the multi-national team comprised of students and professors is now one step closer in their pursuit of winning the global competition to advance ocean technologies for rapid unmanned and high-resolution ocean exploration and discovery another team with ties to texas a&m x994 from austin also advanced to the testing round both teams are advancing to the competitions round 1 testing where they will test their autonomous underwater vehicles mapping technology down to 2 000-meter depths in the ocean this fall dylan blakeslee team leader and senior ocean engineering student is confident in the work that has been completed thus far and optimistic about the future successes in store for them we have a lot of work to be done between now and september but we have an amazing team and support from leading companies in the industry as well as the texas a&m ocean engineering department blakeslee said with the continued support and invaluable advice from deep down inc ceo ron smith and oceaneering we will build ‘marlin a vehicle that will change the way we think about the ocean dr sharath girimaji head of the ocean engineering department and holder of the wofford cain chair ii supports involvement in the many experiential learning opportunities available to students outside of the classroom participation in innovative competitions such as the shell ocean discovery xprize add great value to their educational experience girimaji said this really helps our students become book smart as well as street smart dr robert randall wh bauer professor in dredging engineering commended the students on their hard work in designing such technology while collaborating with industry partners mike ellis vice president of subsea projects at oceaneering international llc which is sponsoring the team is impressed with what the team has accomplished ""oceaneering is proud to support the texas a&m ocean engineering team in their pursuit of the shell ocean discovery xprize ellis said the challenge of long duration autonomous exploration of our oceans provides the perfect framework for students to apply their knowledge and abilities toward an amazing goal x994 the only other team to advance from texas was cofounded by three texas a&m former students david ryan studied biomedical engineering and his x994 cofounders matthew meyer and ryan thomas hold masters degrees from texas a&m in geological oceanography x994 is optimizing robotic mapping of the ocean through advancements in software artificial intelligence and data analytics we are all extremely honored to be a part of such a prestigious competition and at the prospect of unlocking the mystery of the ocean blakeslee said the texas a&m team includes hunter adams sudikshya bhandari marlon batistella dylan blakeslee aniket bonde luis cardoso mitchell disbrow tucker folsom nathaniel franklin pankaj goel prashant gundale pranjay gupta jessica heath brian hubbard micah hutcherson sambong jang chung-kuk jin jacob kennedy hansung kim jaewon kim jin-young kim sejin kim susmitha kotu nirup kumar aishwarya mahadevan garrett malatek animesh mathur nabil moosajee chinenye nwagbara zachary ratliff jeevan reddy levi roady vinit shah rahul sharma gabe tatman graciela villalpando and kamel wetie charlie donaway ronald smith randall and girimaji are supervising the team the final round of the competition will take place in fall 2018 up to 10 qualifying teams that proceed to round 2 will split a $1 million milestone prize purse a $4 million grand prize and a $1 million second place prize will be awarded to the two teams that receive the top scores for demonstrating the highest resolution seafloor mapping after meeting all minimum requirements for speed autonomy and depth the $1 million national oceanographic atmospheric administration bonus prize will also be awarded to the team that can trace a chemical or biological signal to its source"
1784,payman dehghanian a phd student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is among 20 young scholars from across the globe who have been selected to attend the next generation of research in electric power systems seminar in april at tsinghua university in beijing this is the second consecutive year that he has been invited i am excited to present my research and undergo creativity training to solve the major challenges of the future electricity grids said dehghanian dehghanian is in the final year of his graduate studies and is advised by dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor in the department dehghanian is currently president of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the ieee power and energy society power electronics society and industry applications society he received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart-grid applications in february dehghanian co-chaired the inaugural 2017 texas power and energy conference on campus which was the first student-run power engineering conference in the state of texas dehghanians other honors include being awarded a scholarship from the association of energy engineers lone star chapter being selected as a potential future leader by ieee receiving the sigma xi grant-in-aid-of-research receiving a second place prize for best poster award at the 2016 ieee power and energy society transmission and distribution conference and exposition receiving a research grant scholarship from the american public power association under the demonstration of energy and efficiency development program being awarded the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship for the 2016-17 academic year and being selected as the ieee industry application society electric safety workshop 2017 student program chair dehghanian was also selected for the society for maintenance and reliability professionals higher standards scholarship and a graduate student presentation grant funded by the association of former students and the office of graduate and professional studies at texas a&m
1785,ali pourghorban saghati a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is among 12 elite graduate students from across the globe to have been named a recipient of ieees microwave theory and techniques society (mtt-s) graduate fellowship he is the first texas a&m graduate student to receive this fellowship saghati received the fellowship for his research proposal near-field microwave sensor for contact-less ultra-wide-band dielectric spectroscopy conducted under the supervision of his adviser dr kamran entesari an associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department saghati has been the primary author of eight publications in high-impact ieee peer-reviewed international journals and conferences his recent paper on microwave miniaturization techniques was listed as the most popular paper of ieee transactions on microwave theory and techniques in january 2016 he received his master of science degree with honors in electrical engineering from ferdowsi university of mashhad in iran in 2014 and he is currently pursuing his phd in electrical engineering at texas a&m his research interests include miniaturized rf/microwave passives and antennas reconfigurable multiband and broadband antennas and microwave chemical sensing suitable for lab-on-a-board applications saghati was a recipient of the departments graduate student scholarship in 2014 and the l fouraker fellowship in 2016 the fellowship will be presented during the student awards luncheon at the 2017 international microwave symposium in june in honolulu hawaii
1786,three from the texas a&m university college of engineering have been appointed as university distinguished professors the recipients are dr kyle t alfriend tees distinguished research professor in the department of aerospace engineering; dr m katherine banks professor and holder of the harold j haynes deans chair in the zachry department of civil engineering; and dr alan needleman tees distinguished research professor in the department of materials science and engineering the title which is bestowed in perpetuity is among the highest honors awarded to texas a&m faculty members the 2017 university distinguished professor honorees join a select group of more than 90 current faculty members who hold the prestigious title the designation denotes a faculty member who is pre-eminent in his or her field has made at least one seminal contribution to the discipline and whose work is central in any narrative of the field and is widely recognized to have changed the direction of scholarship in the field university distinguished professors represent the highest level of achievement for our faculty said dr karan l watson provost and executive vice president they are recognized as pre-eminent scholars in their fields and their accomplishments are exemplified by seminal contributions to their respective disciplines they demonstrate to the world the high quality of scholarship underway at texas a&m university dr kyle t terry alfriend alfriend joined the faculty of the college of engineering in 1997 he earned his phd in engineering mechanics from virginia tech before coming to texas a&m alfriend served on the faculty of cornell university conducted postdoctoral research at the nasa goddard space flight center and held positions with the naval research laboratory cia office of development and engineering and the naval postgraduate school alfriends primary expertise is astrodynamics his diverse career experience includes research development and management in the private sector government and academia he is recognized for his theoretical contributions applied research and leadership in satellite orbital mechanics and spacecraft attitude control alfriend is a member of the national academy of engineering an honorary fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) and a fellow of the american astronomical society (aas) he has received the prestigious aiaa mechanics and control of flight award and aas dirk brouwer award in 2016 he received the aiaa guidance navigation and control award that is given to one person every other year and he received a distinguished achievement award for research from the texas a&m association of former students alfriend has published one book two book chapters and more than 280 journal and conference papers in astrodynamics his paper the state transition matrix of relative motion for the perturbed non-circular reference orbit has been cited more than 200 times dr m katherine banks banks also serves as vice chancellor and dean of the college of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station banks received her phd in civil and environmental engineering from duke university and joined the faculty of the texas a&m university college of engineering in 2012 she previously served on the faculty of the lyles school of engineering at purdue university served as head of the department of civil engineering and directed two research centers and one state-supported center she is a pioneer in the field of phytoremediation of organic contaminants having published the first article assessing microbial degradation of petroleum degradation in the rhizosphere and conducted the first large-scale trial of phytoremediation of petroleum contaminants in california virginia new jersey and texas banks is also recognized as a leader in phytostabilization of metal contaminants publishing on the mobilization and uptake of heavy metals in the rhizosphere in addition she is a recognized leader in applied biofilm research her earlier work evaluated the competition of bacterial species in biofilm and more recently focused on developing tools to assess microbial activity at the nanometer scale she created a unique biofilm water recycling system to be used by nasa in a future mars mission banks is a member of the national academy of engineering and is a recipient of the margaret petersen woman of the year award and the rudolph hering medal both from the american society of civil engineers she has published 107 peer-reviewed articles 37 peer-reviewed proceedings and book chapters has over 200 presentations and has been responsible for $24 million in research funding dr alan needleman needleman joined the faculty of the college of engineering in 2015 he earned his doctorate in engineering from harvard university following a career spanning almost 45 years with service at the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) brown university and the university of north texas needleman was a member of the inaugural class of texas a&m university institute for advanced study (tias) fellows in 2013 needleman is a preeminent leader in the area of mathematical modeling of materials his contributions include the development of a ductile fracture computational methodology the development of cohesive surface methods for fracture analysis and creation of a framework that enables the use of discrete dislocation plasticity to solve general boundary value problems he is a member of the national academy of engineering and the american academy of arts and sciences needleman is the recipient of a number of top honors and awards including a guggenheim fellowship the timoshenko medal from the american society of mechanical engineers the prager medal from the society of engineering science and the drucker medal from the american society of mechanical engineers he was recognized by the institute for scientific information as a highly cited author in both the fields of engineering and materials science his work has received more than 20 000 citations texas a&m president michael k young and the texas a&m foundation will host a reception on april 26 recognizing the new university distinguished professors and honoring all of the university distinguished professors
1787,"students from texas a&m universitys ieee power and energy society power electronics society and industry applications society joint chapters hosted the inaugural 2017 texas power and energy conference (tpec) feb 9 and 10 on campus the conference was the first one of its kind in the state of texas and was completely student-run more than 100 participants from industry and 17 universities from across the globe attended the event dr glen a laine vice president for research at texas a&m kicked off the conference with his opening remarks which was followed by dr narasimha reddy associate dean for research in the college of engineering who welcomed and introduced the power systems and energy community to texas a&m traditions the electric power industry is rapidly changing with lots of new research helping to drive this innovation said dr thomas overbye professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and tpec adviser texas is certainly a leader in this effort so it is exciting to have a conference here on campus in which researchers including students can present their latest work the keynote speakers at the conference included cheryl mele senior vice president and chief operating officer of the electric reliability council of texas; dr robin podmore president of incsys corporation and co-founder of ieee smart village; kenneth mercado senior vice president of electric operations for centerpoint energy; dr mark laufenberg senior vice president of powerworld corporation; and dr wei-jen lee vice president of the ieee industry applications society dr le xie associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department and tpec adviser led and moderated a panel discussion about the future of power and energy and its impact on society with dr mladen kezunovic eugene e webb professor and regents professor in the electrical and computer engineering department; dr robert hebner research professor and director of the center for electromechanics at the university of texas at austin; dr wei-jen lee professor and director of the energy systems research center at the university of texas at arlington; and dr masoud barati an instructional faculty member in the cullen college of engineering at the university houston twenty-eight technical papers were presented at the conference and submitted to be included in the ieeexplore database the conference provided an opportunity for researchers especially graduate students to present and publicize new and interesting research quickly to a wide range of audiences both at the conference and through the ieeexplore archive said adam birchfield conference student chair and graduate student in the electrical and computer engineering department the students involved in the leadership committee gained experience in organizing a successful high-quality technical program and coordinating to create an event that would be valuable for industry and academic attendees alike"" the students put countless hours of hard work and dedication to the success of this conference said xie this is yet another great example of leadership and service by a texas a&m student organization"
1788,dr kyle t alfriend tees distinguished professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed a university distinguished professor the title which is bestowed in perpetuity is among the highest honors awarded to texas a&m faculty members for more than 40 years alfriend has been making key contributions to the understanding of the flight mechanics and control of space vehicles his career includes an unusually rich mix of experience in academia industry and government alfriends innovations appear prominently in subjects as diverse as analytical celestial mechanics; satellite formation flying; attitude dynamics and control; surveillance of space; probabilistic problems in astrodynamics including probability-of-collision formulations used by nasa to ensure safety of manned space flight; and application of space systems to intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance while his primary expertise is astrodynamics alfriends diverse experience includes research development and management in the private sector government and academia papers from every phase of his career continue to be cited regularly at conferences and in journals alfriend joined the faculty of the texas a&m college of engineering in 1997 he earned his phd in engineering mechanics from virginia tech before coming to texas a&m alfriend served on the faculty of cornell university conducted postdoctoral research at the nasa goddard space flight center and held positions with the naval research laboratory cia office of development and engineering and the naval postgraduate school his many honors include election to the national academy of engineering election to the international academy of astronautics and a citation for a navy meritorious civilian service award he is an honorary fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) and a fellow of the american astronomical society and has received both the mechanics and control of flight award and the dirk brouwer award from these societies in 2016 alfriend received the aiaa guidance navigation and control award that is given to one person every other year and he received a distinguished achievement award for research from the texas a&m association of former students alfriend has also received the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) international scientific cooperation award for his decade-long efforts to organize the us/russian space surveillance workshop series he continues today as one of the two principal american organizers of this unique contribution to international understanding in addition to his academic and industrial posts alfriend has served as editor-in-chief of the journal of guidance control and dynamics and the journal of the astronautical sciences and as associate editor of the international journal of celestial mechanics and dynamical astronomy
1789,dr daniele mortari professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been invited to deliver a plenary lecture at the 57th israel annual conference on aerospace sciences march 15-16 in tel aviv and haifa israel the conference covers all areas of aerospace sciences attracting about 500 participants from academia and industry mortari will speak on from art to science: the satellite constellation evolution he will focus his talk on the recent approaches to design satellite constellations complete with animations the flower constellations theory evolution began with luigi broglios sistem quadrifoglio a four-satellite configuration to study how the upper part of the atmosphere the troposphere is affected by solar activity in 2003 mortari generalized some properties of this constellation and created the original theory of flower constellations this new way to design satellite constellations has generated interesting subsets such as the shape-preserving constellations the rock around orbits and the two-way orbits because of number theory mathematical properties the theory has been generalized to the 2-d and 3-d lattice versions and finally to the necklace problem the mathematics behind the design process uses number theory relationship unexpected untapped and unexplored constellations can be created not only to improve the existing applications communications observation and gps but also for potential current and futuristic applications the art of designing orbits satellite constellations and formations will have a large impact on the future space mission architectures and concepts mortari works in the field of attitude and position estimation satellite constellation design and sensor data processing in addition he has taught in the school of aerospace engineering at the university of rome and in electronic engineering at the university of perugia he received his doctorate in nuclear engineering from the university of rome la sapienza in 1981 he is an institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and amerian astronautical society (aas) fellow aiaa associate fellow honorary member of ieee-aess space system technical panel and former ieee distinguished speaker he has published approximately 300 papers and has been widely recognized for his work including receiving a best paper award from aas/aiaa two nasas group achievement awards a 2003 spacecraft technology center award the prestigious 2007 ieee judith a resnik award and the 2016 aas dirk brouwer award
1790,dr daniel a jiménez professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was elected program chair of the 2017 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) symposium on high performance computer architecture (hpca) hpca offers attendees the opportunity to network with leaders in the area of high-performance computer architecture along with the international symposium on microarchitecture (micro) and international symposium on computer architecture (isca) hpca is considered a top-tier conference in computer architecture research with a very high impact as program chair jimenez had numerous responsibilities including selecting the technical program committee and external review committee managing the paper submissions and reviewing process overseeing the online discussion and response process organizing and holding the program committee meeting establishing the technical program and selecting a technical speaker for the conference he also appointed a program chair for hpca's industrial session of papers with a separate call for papers providing an industrial perspective not normally found in research papers the program committee consisted of 46 people from many different universities and companies representing several areas including north america europe asia and the indian subcontinent the external review committee had 94 people from all over the world who gave expert reviews during the technical program of the conference each author gave an 18-minute presentation jimenez also initiated a lightning round session where authors were able to deliver the main points of their presentation in 60 seconds with three slides dr steve keckler vice president of research at nvidia gave a keynote presentation on the cutting-edge research in big data and neural networks at nvidia hpca 2017 had record participation with 320 attendees it is held in conjunction with the association for computing machinery symposium (acm) on code generation and optimization (cgo) and the acm symposium on principles and practice of parallel programming (ppopp) for which computer science and engineering eppright professor dr lawrence rauchwerger served as program chair it was my pleasure to work with lawrence on arranging joint activities for the combined conferences jimenez said i was very honored to be elected as the program chair for hpca and i would be happy to serve again in a few years
1791,the research of dr wonmuk hwang associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been featured on the february cover of the cellular and molecular bioengineering (cmbe) journal hwang and his colleagues were recognized for the research article in vitro analysis of the co-assembly of type-i and type iii collagen the featured research focuses on the different types of collagen how they co-assemble in different ratios and with the help of other additive molecules generate an amazing diversity of biological tissues various tissues of the human body have been recently recognized as a biological ‘alloy or ‘amalgam hwang explained the knowledge of how their different components interact and control the resulting assembled structures is crucial for generating artificial tissues and developing better strategies for a wide range of applications such as wound healing and cancer detection and therapy collagen is the most abundant protein in humans and forms most of the solid tissues and structures although properties of individual constituent molecules have been extensively studied far less is known about how they co-assemble together initially hwang and his colleagues used the two most common collagen types collagen-i and collagen-iii he found that mixing them at different ratios and observing how they assemble using atomic force microscopy does not lead to behavior that is intermediate between the two collagen types assembling separately instead a subtle balance between their surface properties and propensity for assembly leads to more collagen fibrils forming rather than the assembly of pure collagen-i or collagen-iii the enhancement of nucleation is consistent with the increase in expression of collagen-iii during the wound healing process or development of an organism where rapid generation of fine and flexible fibrils would be desired for quantitative analysis of the experimental images hwang used the computer-aided feature extraction (cafe) software that he is currently developing this resulted in an impressive one-to-one match between the experimental image and the corresponding in silico model of the collagen fibril network which was selected for the cover of the journal the formation of ordered biological structures via molecular self-assembly is a topic that has fundamental as well as practical significance and due to the complexity of the system advanced computational analysis of imaging data is essential in this regard hwang feels image analysis and image-based modeling may see an explosive growth in the coming years for more information regarding the article visit: http://linkspringercom/article/101007/s12195-016-0466-3 for more information about dr wonmuk hwang visit: /biomedical/people/hwang-wonmuk
1792,dr lawrence rauchwerger eppright professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university served as program chair of the organizing committee for the 2017 association for computing machinery (acm) special interest group on programming languages (sigplan) symposium on principles and practice of parallel programming (ppopp) ppopp is the symposium for groundbreaking work on all aspects of parallel programming such as concurrent and parallel systems this includes multicore multithreaded heterogeneous clustered systems distributed systems grids clouds and large-scale machines as program chair rauchwerger was responsible for the technical program of the conference as well as appointing the area chairs and other members of the organizing committee other faculty members from computer science and engineering at texas a&m were also involved with ppopp 2017 in various capacities dr jeff huang an assistant professor served as publicity chair while dr nancy m amato unocal and regents professor was also a member of the program committee ppopp was held in austin texas feb 4-8 and was held alongside the 2017 international symposium on code generation and optimization (cgo) and the 2017 ieee symposium on high performance computer architecture (hpca)
1793,over 50 engineering students set out to make a difference in the lives of k-12 school children and teachers during the latest aggies invent which tasked participants to create and develop solutions to problems many schools and classrooms face today aggies invent an intensive design experience offered at the texas a&m engineering innovation center (eic) provides an environment made to inspire and support entrepreneurship and innovate thoughts between aggies students have 48 hours to create prototype solutions for issues presented at each aggies invent competition each event has a completely different theme keeping the students ready for a challenge the latest theme was education huckabee inc capital one and the texas a&m university college of education and human development sponsored the weekend event students from 12 different majors across the university and two students from the engineering academies participated in the latest competition first place went to pattern picasso their winning creation was a board game with interlocking puzzle pieces designed to teach numeric relations the team members were alejandra hernandez industrial and systems engineering; grace fan and ryan alderink computer science and engineering; kendel lipe biomedical engineering; jack clark computer science; and pulkit jain a masters student in industrial engineering second place went to frachouse who created mini games to teach fractions to elementary students the team was comprised of matthew brady and sebastian wever industrial and systems engineering; marissa laur and john sauer; electrical and computer engineering; alexandra beall general engineering; and clayton draughon computer science and engineering third place was awarded to the visualizers whose project teaches chemistry through the use of holograms the team was made up by robert shannon chemical engineering; binita patel and norbert yuma industrial and systems engineering; shurat talukder steven michael kouam kenmognie electrical and computer engineering; and suparna mukhopadhyay a masters student in civil engineering the top three winning teams were awarded $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively the eic as well as aggies invent offer support for students to continue working on their project in addition to the prize contributing author: jessica spence
1794,after working for more than a decade on hover-capable drones no bigger than the palm of a hand dr moble benedict and a team of researchers are studying the feasibility of scaling these concepts to larger unmanned aircraft (uavs) developing the next generation of uavs requires revolutionary vehicle concepts that are compact hover-efficient high-speed capable highly maneuverable with low acoustic-signatures and high gust tolerance benedict a professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and his team have been conducting pioneering research on these hover-capable micro aerial vehicle (mav) concepts for the army navy and nasa along with the university of maryland
1795,through this research benedict hopes to develop the next generation of propulsion systems for large-scale uavs he believes that these propulsion systems may have some performance advantages in terms of efficiency forward flight speed agility and gust tolerance when compared to conventional helicopter rotors so far the key outcomes from this research are the development of the first flying cyclocopter the only two-winged hover-capable flapping-wing aircraft in the 100-gram weight category and successful demonstration of hover to forward flight transition of a 250-gram quad-biplane these novel concepts have shown unprecedented performance over conventional helicopters at micro scales research at texas a&m will now focus on upscaling the cyclopcopter and flapping wing for larger vertical take-off and landing (vtol) capable uavs today large-scale uavs are used for intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance types of missions as well as carrying weapons systems and other large payloads they also have civilian applications such as aerial photography and potential package delivery vtol is highly desired for any of these applications a cyclocopter uses a cycloidal rotor consisting of multiple airfoils rotating around a horizontal axis to generate lift and thrust this makes it very maneuverable able to transition from a stable hovering position to high-speed forward flight without needing to pitch itself forward like a helicopter at small scales cyclocopters are able to utilize available 3-d space requiring a much smaller footprint than conventional helicopters resulting in a highly compact flying vehicle adam kellen an aerospace graduate student on benedicts team says developing cutting edge vtol uavs requires engineers to consider alternative propulsion methods to combat poor flight time the cycloidal rotors ability to operate at high-pitch amplitudes without stalling among other aerodynamic phenomenon at micro scales are key to its performance and are the focus of the current uav scale research benedicts team is looking at the feasibility of upscaling their cycloidal rotor to be used on larger vtol uavs weighing hundreds of pounds and whether they would be viable in small manned aircraft they are targeting test drones scaled up in size in the tens of pounds they will be looking at how the vehicles perform as the scale increases how they compare to helicopters and whether they become more efficient with scaling up biological flapping-wing flight offers superior maneuverability with excellent gust tolerance benedicts research will focus on understanding the underlying unsteady aeroelastic mechanisms present in flapping wings and how these would scale up with size benedicts goal is to understand why in nature only insects and the smallest of birds are capable of hover flight the team will develop some aeroelastic scaling laws and conduct some benchtop experiments using a scaled-up flapper around four times the size of the wing used on their 60-gram robotic hummingbird the goal is to measure the forces wing shape and flowfield around the wing this will help them understand the underlying physics on a scaled-up wing based on these results they will decide whether it is worthwhile to build a scaled-up flapping-wing uav scalability in both cases entails understanding how aerodynamics structural mechanics vehicle dynamics/stability/controllability and weight scales with size state-of-the-art test rigs will be designed and built to measure the aeromechanics of dynamically scaled rotor/wing models in a range of various sizes if this study proves that these concepts are indeed scalable up to a manned aircraft it could pave the way for the next generation of flying vehicles such as personal air vehicles air taxis and more benedict says photo: adam kellen holding the 29 gram cyclcopter and dr benedict standing next to the upscaled cyclorotor
1796,texas a&m universitys women in engineering program recently received funding to create the clare boothe luce scholars program the grant awards $250 000 to fund eight undergraduate students as they complete research within their respective departments the competitive grant was awarded to texas a&m because the university is an institution committed to supporting womens pursuits in academia and research said shawna fletcher the director of women in engineering the program benefits undergraduate students by providing an opportunity to pursue research for three years it also helps better prepare them for future academic success in graduate school established by clare boothe luce in 1987 the grant provided $7 million in funding to support women in stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) fields with 23 grant awards this past year these grants will provide opportunities and support for 89 women across the country in schools such as johns hopkins university and dartmouth college as well as the eight students from texas a&m the clare boothe luce grant provides stipends for students to perform up to 20 hours per week in research labs during the fall and spring semesters for three years the women in engineering program is targeting freshman and sophomore students with an interest in research that will lead them to pursue graduate education applications for this opportunity will be released in february with a deadline of mid-march the clare boothe luce foundation will confirm awardees in may and students will begin research starting in august 2017
1797,dr nancy m amato unocal and regents professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been honored with the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) robotics and automation society (ras) distinguished service award the ieee ras distinguished service award was established in 2001 and is presented to an individual who has performed outstanding service for the benefit and advancement of the ieee ras amato received the award for her innovative leadership on the ras electronic products and services board and for her work with the international conference on robotics and automation (icra) and international conference on intelligent robots and systems (iros) icra 2015 for which amato served as program chair broke many records and left a lasting impression on attendees she introduced a number of innovations to the conference several of which are now included in other symposiums including iros and the 2016 robotics: science and systems conference (rss) amatos research interests lie in motion planning computational biology robotics computational geometry animation parallel and distributed computing parallel algorithms and performance modeling and optimization she was named a 2015 association for computing machinery (acm) fellow for her contributions to robotics and leadership in broadening participation in computing she was also named a 2013 american association for the advancement of science (aaas) fellow and ieee fellow for her contributions to the algorithmic foundations of motion planning computational biology computational geometry and parallel computing she has served on several committees for various conferences and as senior director of engineering honors is actively involved in building a strong program at texas a&m
1798,dr ankit srivastava assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university was selected to receive the prestigious doctoral new investigator grant from the american chemical society petroleum research fund the grant provides start-up funds of $110 000 over two years for scientists and engineers within the first three years of their first academic appointment srivastavas proposal combines the recent advances in material modeling and computational methods to improve the fundamental understating of microstructure corrosive processes and crack growth resistance and pattern the energy transportation network of the united states consists of over 25 million miles of buried pipelines materials used in the pipelines degrade because of their constant and inevitable exposure to the environment this degradation process broadly called corrosion involves many complex processes and affects all material types the proposed work will lead to a computational framework that can be used as a tool to carry out ‘what if type studies for better lifetime prediction and designing material microstructures with improved properties and performance srivastava said the petroleum research fund was established in 1944 as a trust by seven major oil companies and was later re-established as the american chemical society petroleum research fund the society is charged with supporting advanced scientific education and fundamental research leading to further research directly impacting the petroleum field
1799,for researchers building what could be the worlds smallest cyclocopter a drone powered by two spinning paddle-wheel-like cyclorotors every gram counts the edges of each of the crafts eight rotor blades were made by hand-laying hair-thin carbon fiber strands preimpregnated with epoxy into a teflon mold along with a 07-millimeter-thick carbon rod for the center of the frame then they were baked in an oven at about 175 degrees celsius the frames were wrapped in 5-micron-thick sheets of mylar the thinnest available to create surface area each rotor assembly had to weigh the equivalent of five tic tac breath mints or 25 grams with each of the four blades on a rotor accounting for just 12 gram the total vehicle weight came in at just 29 grams coming up with this fabrication technique and making this ultralight blade that was a huge challenge says moble benedict a texas a&m university assistant professor who advised two of his aerospace engineering phd students carl runco and david coleman at the advanced vertical flight laboratory in designing and building the drone building super-light blades was the only way we were going to scale this thing down benedict and his teammates at texas a&m started flying the miniature cyclocopter in december 2015 and have continued testing the design under a us army program benedict and collaborators at the university of maryland had flown larger versions weighing 800 500 235 210 and 60 grams over the preceding 10 years knowing that cyclocopters might not be the only answer for miniature flight benedict and coleman also began flying a 62-gram flapping drone dubbed the robotic hummingbird for the army in 2015 they want to find the best solution to a deadly problem soldiers faced in afghanistan and one thats likely to come up in other locations where urban canyons and forest canopies play the role of mountains soldiers in afghanistan would get pinned down in a valley with limited knowledge of what might lie over the next ridge and with only a tenuous communications link to commanders by pulling a cyclocopter or a flapping drone from a rucksack and letting it fly from the palm of his or her hand a soldier of the future would gain a birds eye view with the aid of a 1- or 2-gram camera or the ability to relay communications via a network of other drones for aircraft technologists questions abound from which drone concept would work best in which circumstances to how cyclocopters and flapping drones would perform compared to conventional quadcopters and miniature helicopters especially when faced with the great bane of all micro air vehicles: wind gusts the us army hopes to answer those questions under a program called mast short for micro autonomous systems and technology which is based at the army research laboratory in adelphi maryland and is set to wind down this year mast pays universities and companies to develop miniature ground and flying robots that could pay off in 10 to 30 years for soldiers in the field concepts funded under mast include navigation sensors and joint robotic mapping schemes perching mechanics and adhesives alternative energy sources for micro vehicles quadcopters ducted-rotor aircraft fixed-wing aircraft with wings that can lengthen or shrink bee-sized flapping fliers and also benedicts cyclocopter and flapping-wing aircraft the main purpose of mast is to identify particular modes of propulsion worthy of further research but the army is also curious about the comparisons among the craft can these alternative configurations be more efficient; can they be more agile you can start to ask questions like: ‘is it useful to me to have it flapping because it looks like a bird; does that add some benefit says chris kroninger the microsystem mechanics team leader at the army research lab the army program ends in september though benedict and his team plan to continue their research on micro aircraft the cyclocopter produces lift and horizontal movement from the spinning cyclorotors each with four blades that tilt to 45 degrees of lift at the top and bottom of their cycles (12 and 6 on the clock) and to 0 degrees at 9 and 3 the tail rotor is a traditional-looking propeller that spins facing up to control pitch the flapping-wing drone has two nearly rectangular but slightly pointed wings that flap 22 times per second controlling its hover and horizontal movements the wings are translucent testing of the flapping and cyclocopter designs will culminate in august 2017 likely at the army research laboratory in maryland with the micro drones demonstrating hovering flying forward and performing basic maneuvers the researchers are also testing how fast the drones can fly how quickly they can maneuver and how they fly when hit by simulated wind gusts from a fan benedict says because of the obstacles that tiny drones encounter they are likely to be always moving and adjusting their flight so they must be agile kroninger says were interested in getting down in the urban canyon; were interested in moving under the canopy; the sorts of places where soldiers operate in those spaces youve got gusts and wind disturbances that are on length scales that are the size of the vehicles he says plus the tiny aircraft have to adjust to the change in aerodynamic forces that occur close to the groundalso theres an equivalent wall effect: if you get too close to a tree it will pull you in so you need an aircraft thats intrinsically agile and youre not going to do much steady flight at these small scales wind gusts are tricky for miniature unmanned aircraft because as the size of an aircraft is scaled down its aerodynamic force will drop by the size decrease squared while its inertia will drop by the size decrease to the fifth power benedict says thats why a manned helicopter is fine flying through 10- to 15-meter-per-second wind gusts while a toy helicopter cant fly through 2-meter-per-second gusts insects and hummingbirds can maneuver through wind gusts and their flapping-wing flight dynamics may hold the key to why that is possible benedict says traditional spinning helicopter rotors can be more efficient than flapping wings producing steady air flows but they can also fail to produce lift when that air flow is interrupted by a wind gust he explains the hummingbirds flapping wings produce an extremely unsteady flow field and theyre better able to create lift even when hit by a gust each wing creates a leading-edge vortex or a small whirlwind sitting on top of the wing which is an area of extreme low pressure that enhances lift the bird and flapping-wing insects can keep these vortices stable on the wing hummingbirds at the end of their wing stroke can time their wing rotation to produce either an upward or downward force and can reverse the pitch of their wing to produce upward thrust on both the downstroke and upstroke benedict says the birds wings can also capture energy from the wake of a previous wing stroke and hummingbirds can actively control their pitch roll and yaw and make adjustments based on their sensing the wind or the flow field on their wings flapping-wing drones are worth studying because of their agility and wind gust tolerance though not for efficiency benedict says the flapping-wing drone controls its flight path and its hover like a hummingbird would: by changing the length of one wings stroke relative to the other wing to control roll by tilting forward both planes of flapping to change pitch and by tilting one wings plane forward and the other plane back to change yaw one challenge with both cyclocopters and flapping-wing aircraft is their inherent instability the blades on a cyclorotor are always changing angles so the aerodynamics are unsteady and changing over time a 13-gram autopilot designed at the university of maryland by vikram hrishikeshavan and inderjit chopra controls both the 29-gram cyclocopter and the 62-gram robotic hummingbird with a microprocessor connected to a triaxial gyroscope and tri-axial accelerometer with both drones the microprocessor takes the raw data from the gyro and accelerometer and directs the aircrafts controllers motors and servos to automatically stabilize them the autopilot also allows the drones to send and receive data wirelessly and for the human pilot to provide higher-level commands on top of the automatic stabilization but without the stabilization a human pilot wont be able to fly these vehicles benedict says the flapping-wing drone was particularly difficult to design and fly because even slight changes to the design affected its response to controls significantly benedict says the intrinsic instability of the cyclocopter and flapping-wing concepts can actually be an advantage because designers have developed such a fast-responding control system to handle them kroninger says so in certain domains you can quickly move actuators and therefore achieve some level of high control authority cyclocopters compared to traditional helicopters and quadcopters are more agile because they can use thrust vectoring changing the pitch of the rotor blades as the blades rotate through a 360-degree cycle to directly push the aircraft in any of those 360 degrees benedict says cyclocopters are also more aerodynamically efficient with the aircraft producing more thrust per unit of power traditional helicopters and quadcopters tilt forward to fly forward so their advance ratio the forward speed divided by the fixed speed of the rotor is typically less than 03 while cyclocopters can achieve an advance ratio of 1 so they have the potential to fly faster than the helicopter and quadcopter moving by thrust vectoring instead of tilting also keeps the cyclocopter at a level attitude which could be an advantage for sensors it might carry benedict says and the entire blade of a cyclorotor produces thrust compared to just the tips of the rotors on traditional helicopters and quadcopters which means that cyclocopters can achieve the same thrust at a lower rpm and potentially operate with less noise than traditional helicopters and quadcopters the biggest disadvantage of the cyclocopter compared to traditional helicopters and quadcopters is that the rotors are heavier which drives up the weight of the empty cyclocopter benedict says but considering that helicopter technology is so much more advanced than the little-studied cyclocopter concept he thinks more research will close the gap i still think theres a lot of room for improvement with the cyclocopter to drive down the weight he explains we have an 80- to 90-year history on helicopters i feel its kind of unfair to compare the technology which is so mature the cyclorotor is still in the early stages benedict and his teammates were able to reduce the weight and increase the strength of the cyclocopter rotors by building the blades out of newer composite materials dropping an airfoil shape for the blades in favor of a flat insect-wing-like design and anchoring the blades on just one end instead of both the lower blade weight allowed for a lighter hub and arms in the rotor which were very heavy in earlier cyclocopter designs to withstand the spinning forces the team also performed extensive tests to determine the best blade design for maximum thrust and efficiency at the lowest rpm possible because the faster the cyclorotor spun the greater the centripetal force and its bending effect on the blades its not something you can just design without proper scientific understanding benedict says you need to know how the blade pitching kinematics affect your forces; how does it affect your efficiency this article first appeared in the february 2017 aerospace america magazine a publication of the aiaa the original article can be found here
1800,more than 20 qatari high school students unleashed their inner inventors and entrepreneurs recently as part of qatar invents a week-long academic enrichment workshop organized at texas a&m university at qatar and sponsored by maersk oil qatar shelly tornquist director of pk-12 engineering education outreach at texas a&m university helped organize the event along with rodney boehm director of aggies invent and associate professor of practice qatar invents based on aggies invent is an intensive engineering invention and design experience that engages high school students in hands-on projects that push their innovation creativity and communication skills a group of 22 students participated in the event where they were charged with developing novel solutions to energy and health care challenges then built prototypes to demonstrate their inventions we led them through an engineering design process that taught teamwork communications and interview skills and engaged them in three different design challenges that had their focus in qatar grand challenges said tornquist who added that the students worked even harder because they were working on projects that were important to their country the projects included cleaning dust off solar panels projects to aid the elderly and redesigning wind turbines students were very engaged and enthusiastic about the program and all continued to participate throughout the week – even though it was during one of their vacation periods at the end of the week final presentations were given to a panel of judges that represented maersk oil qatar and texas a&m at qatar faculty and current students who were impressed with the students knowledge and what they accomplished during the week an awards ceremony followed where students were presented individual and team awards in front of their parents overall the event was considered a great success its good that theyre having these programs while these students are still young so they can decide what fields they want to go into when they graduate it gives them clarity on what they want to do said mohammed sultan al-muhannadi father of qatar invents participant sultan muhannadi they will help the country in achieving the 2030 national vision goals that qatar has set forth that will help move forward the wheels of industry and business going into the future we received very positive feedback about the program tornquist said adding that their hope is to have a similar event in texas in the fall rodney and i learned a great deal about extending aggies invent to encourage stem interest in high school students and we want to bring it to texas for more information visit here
1801,a paper co-authored by dr prasad enjeti professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named the most highly cited research publication in qatar over the last decade clarivate analytics formerly the intellectual property & science business of thomson reuters released its decennial list of leading researchers in the middle east and north africa research conducted by enjeti and faculty members at texas a&m university qatar was noted as the most highly cited research publication in qatar the paper high-performance adaptive perturb and observe mppt technique for photovoltaic-based microgrids was published in ieee transactions on power electronics in 2011 it was co-authored by enjeti ti professor iii in analog engineering and associate dean for academic affairs in the college of engineering along with texas a&m qatar researchers dr shehab ahmed associate professor dr ahmed m massoud associate professor and dr ahmed abselsalam former postdoctoral research associate enjeti worked at the qatar campus from 2008 to 2010 when the research was conducted the paper has been cited more than 266 times to date in its report middle east snapshot: prolific institutions active fields clarivate analytics described how the list was determined based on a search of the web of science core collection covering january 2006 to september 2016 indexing more than 12 000 scientific and scholarly journals along with proceeding papers book chapters and other materials
1802,dr moo-hyun kim professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university is a recipient of the 2016 dean of engineering excellence award the award will be presented at an annual awards banquet in may kim is one of eight faculty members in the college of engineering to receive this honor in 2016 kims research includes floating offshore wind turbines nonlinear dynamics of offshore platforms wave mechanics and free-surface flows and smart offshore platforms/active control this is a much-deserved recognition for his contributions to ocen engineering said dr sharath girimaji professor holder of wofford cain chair ii and head in the ocean engineering department kim is using existing technology and experience in the offshore oil and gas industry to apply the designs of a multi-unit floating offshore wind turbine in order to generate economically competitive infinitely renewable no waste or carbon emission energy read more here author: shraddha sankhe
1803,the center for dredging studies in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university recently hosted the 46th dredging engineering short course forty-five participants from across the united states canada nigeria the united kingdom and gabon attended the weeklong course representing consulting firms the united states fish and wildlife service the united states army corps of engineers dredging contractors ports and state agencies the dredging course taught participants the fundamentals of dredging technical aspects of dredging projects dredged material placement beneficial use of dredged material engineering with nature beach nourishment cost and production estimating advance survey information environment laws contaminated sediment dredging and capping modeling on dredged material placement separation techniques dredge safety and various case studies a geotechnical laboratory demonstrating laboratory sediment experimental techniques the dredging laboratory demonstrating a cutter suction dredge simulator a model dredge in operation and sediment transport in pipes were part of the short course experience dr robert randall bauer professor and director of the center for dredging studies led the dredging course twenty lecturers from academia consultants the corps of engineers and dredge contractors assisted him ocean engineering staff members graduate students from the department and student assistants provided invaluable assistance for the execution of the short course the center for dredging studies was established in 1968 in addition to research and industrial testing the center's activities include teaching university courses and providing annual seminars and short courses concerning advances in dredging engineering technology more than 2 000 dredge professionals have participated in the dredging short courses
1804,dr john valasek a professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected by the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) as a 2017 aiaa fellow the aiaa confers the distinction of fellow upon 1 percent of its members in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics the work and leadership of the aiaa fellows and honorary fellows consistently ensures that todays aerospace dreams become tomorrows realities said aiaa president jim maser they are individuals who have each shown a tireless dedication to shaping the future of aerospace aiaa congratulates the members of the 2017 class of fellows and honorary fellows on their selection the induction ceremony will take place at the aiaa aerospace spotlight awards gala on may 3 at the ronald reagan building and international trade center in washington dc valasek who is the director of the center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems (canvass) in the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and director of the vehicle systems & control laboratory in the aerospace department has been with the aerospace department for 20 years he has served as chair of committee to 47 completed graduate degrees and his students have won national and regional student competitions in topics ranging from aircraft design to smart materials to artificial intelligence he teaches courses in atmospheric flight mechanics vehicle management systems modern control of aerospace systems cockpit systems and displays and aircraft design valasek has been actively conducting flight mechanics and controls research of manned and unmanned air vehicles in both industry and academia for 32 years previously as a flight control engineer for the northrop corporation aircraft division his research is currently focused on bridging the gap between traditional computer science topics and aerospace engineering topics and he is a patent holder and leading developer of flight control systems for autonomous air refueling of unmanned air vehicles valasek has also made contributions to the flight control of hypersonic air vehicles planetary entry vehicles morphing aircraft and cockpit systems and displays for general aviation flight safety he is currently a member of the aiaa unmanned systems technical program committee the aiaa intelligent systems technical committee and an associate editor of the journal of guidance control and dynamics valasek has authored or co-authored three books: morphing aerospace vehicles and structures (2012); advances in intelligent and autonomous aerospace systems (2012); and nonlinear multiple time scale systems in standard and non-standard forms: analysis and control (2014) valasek has been recognized for his teaching with awards at three levels: the 2014 asee/aiaa john leeland atwood award as the national outstanding aerospace educator; the thaman university professorship for undergraduate teaching excellence (2016); the university level texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award for teaching (2008) and a scholar of the montague center for teaching excellence (2001); the college of engineering level bp amoco teaching excellence award (2001 2003) and the thomas u mcelmurry teaching excellence award in the aerospace engineering department (2001 2004 2014) valasek serves as the faculty adviser for texas a&ms sigma gamma tau (sgt) chapter the aerospace engineering honor society he served as the national president for sgt from 2006-2008 as well as the faculty adviser to the texas a&m student branch of the american institute for aeronautics and astronautics from 2000-2009 and received the national faculty advisor award from aiaa in 2005 valasek earned a bachelors in aerospace engineering from california state polytechnic university pomona in 1986 and a masters with honors and doctorate in aerospace engineering from the university of kansas in 1990 and 1995 respectively
1805,each year m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university recognizes faculty members who have received fellowships for their impact on their department and the college as a whole the department of computer science and engineering had six faculty members receive a total of seven awards associate professors dr james caverlee and dr guofei gu received faculty fellow awards caverlee received the holleran-bowman faculty fellowship and gu received the charles h barclay jr 45 fellowship caverlee also received the dean of engineering excellence award along with dr tim davis and dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna professors in the department i am honored to receive this recognition and wish to continue to be part of texas a&m for many years gutierrez-osuna said professor of practice dr aakash tyagi received the instructional faculty teaching award he joined the department in fall 2014 after a career in industry working for intel assistant professor dr jeff huang received a tees young faculty fellow award i am filled with gratitude by this recognition and wish to pay homage to the efforts of my unsung heroes in the students teaching assistants and faculty who continue to encourage me to learn and improve in best serving our cse community tyagi said the award recipients will be formally recognized at an awards ceremony this spring
1806,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university presented a plenary talk to the annual plenary conference for nasa human research program investigators workshop (hrpi) in galveston texas a day earlier murphy gave a video-streamed talk for the human systems integration group at nasa johnson space center in her talks she presented her latest results in how to design safe and trustworthy robots that can work with humans her research has addressed the challenges of integrating humans and robots at disasters such as the 9/11 world trade center and the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident these disasters not only represent extreme environments in which robots can work but they also present extreme conditions for operators disasters are similar to the routinely demanding situations that arise as robots are being used to explore planets or work side-by-side with astronauts the annual nasa hrpi workshop is a gathering of over 1 000 professionals spanning 90 domestic and international universities historically the workshop aims to expand knowledge on how the human body reacts in zero gravity environments but attendees are increasingly interested in how robotics can help augment human capabilities while in space
1807,"a memorandum of understanding (mou) was signed between texas a&m university and the norwegian geotechnical institute (ngi) at the norwegian consulate in houston on nov 10 2016 the mou sets a framework for cooperation in joint investigations international projects scientific exchanges and training of personnel concerning the field of offshore geotechnical engineering on subjects of mutual interest consul general morten paulsen held a reception at the norway house to celebrate the signing of the mou a document that observes the longstanding collaboration between the two organizations ngi is the largest center for geoscientific expertise in norway with offices in houston oslo trondheim and perth said knut schrøder ngi's expert advisor in offshore geotechnics ngi has around 230 employees 80 percent of whom have masters or phd degrees and is recognized as a leading international center for research and consulting within the geosciences"" at the event texas a&m was represented by zachry department of civil engineering faculty dr charles aubeny professor and dr zenon medina –cetina associate professor aubeny and medina-cetina made technical presentations describing their past and current collaborations with ngi aubenys presentation geotechnical engineering for offshore renewable energy started the evening off speaking of the long track record of texas a&m and ngi collaboration and their works on floating offshore wind farms i think that if [the collaboration and mou are] formalized it provides more mechanisms for things like student internships and more industry involvement in our research in general aubeny said it could be a mechanism for getting professionals from ngi on our thesis and doctoral committees getting input on our research; academic research tends to be fairly theoretical so getting an industry perspective nudges us toward the more practical applications medina-cetina's presentation lessons learned at ngi 10 years later focused on the research he has been conducting over the years alongside his students including topics from probabilistic modeling of geotechnical structures to the use of haptic robots to dive into complex geologic processes we are signing this mou as a celebration of the numerous research collaborations between our institutions that are now being transferred to new generations of professionals in our research groups said medina-cetina also to reflect on our mutual interest in exploring new research opportunities that can transform into good current practices in industry"" from ngi schrøder presented a state-of-the-art review on offshore windfarms"
1808,the texas a&m university college of engineering boasts an impressive honors program of over 1 000 students the program is newly redesigned with this being the second year as a college-level program engineering honors provides students with unique opportunities to network with faculty and industry leaders in honors courses students are given individualized attention and curricular challenges that push them to reach their full potential within the engineering honors program there is an executive committee comprised of 18 students currently active in the program three students were recently elected as officers over the committee the goal of the committee is to not only uphold the quality of experience within the program but to also maintain contacts with industry partners kevin kmetz a sophomore biomedical engineering student is the chair of the executive committee as chair he oversees the committee and collaborates with the vice chairs of internal and external affairs to ensure that the standards of the program are continually met he also works closely with senior director of the engineering honors program dr nancy m amato and program specialist pauline wade the executive committee is committed to providing the most beneficial experience for honors students kmetz who served on the inaugural executive committee last year is excited about the opportunity to once again lead and serve engineering honors the people you surround yourself with are going to be great at a&m but it is especially evident in engineering honors kmetz said everyone around you is going to be challenging you one thing i really like about honors classes is the feeling that you arent competing against your classmates you are working with them in engineering honors we are part of a team kmetz currently works alongside phd student lindsay woodard in dr melissa grunlans polymeric biomaterials laboratory after graduation kmetz plans on pursuing orthopedic device design and would ultimately like to own his own bioengineering or medical device company freshman general engineering student whitney souery serves as vice chair of internal affairs on the executive committee in this role she is in charge of managing the types of programs and events held by engineering honors with the overall goal being to foster a greater sense of community among honors students i think [engineering honors] is a way to enhance your engineering degree souery said yes you are learning how to be an engineer already but its better preparing you and challenging you in more ways souery currently works under dr corey j bishop assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering in the pharmacoengineering lab she is interested in a career as a medical scientist with a specialty in drug and gene delivery zach hardy a junior nuclear engineering student has participated in engineering honors for over a year and serves as the current vice chair of external affairs he believes that participating in the program is a route to success participating in the engineering honors program is probably one of the best things you could do because you get to develop relationships with your professors hardy said they typically assign projects that go beyond the scope of the course and into the scope of another which vastly benefits your performance in future courses despite pursuing their individual interests and dreams each of these three committee members are working together to elevate the experience for students in engineering honors among many requirements students must complete at least 18 hours of honors credit in courses offered by the college of engineering or college of science maintain a high-level grade point average and participate in undergraduate research and various program activities because of the quality of students involved in the program these requirements are seen less as drudgery and more as unique and exciting opportunities to grow for more information about the engineering honors program visit https://engineeringtamuedu/programs/eh
1809,undergraduate student researcher cailin oconnell placed first in the 2017 society of women engineers region c conference for her project on studying the connection of trace elements of zinc and their ability to be used as treatment indicator for treating cancer to ensure accurate radiation dosages certain trace elements have the possibility to negate the effects of dangerous free radicals that can be created in the body during radiation and oconnells project is breaking fundamental ground in helping to understand how these elements may open pathways to better treat patients oconnells participation in this research project is supervised by rihana bokhari a kinesiology doctoral student working under a research grant from nasa in relation to space biology research dr susan bloomfield professor in the department of health and kinesiology at texas a&m is the principal investigator on the project when youre exposed to radiation free radicals are created in the body and zinc makes those free radicals which are missing an electron fulfilled by giving them an electron oconnell said if this doesn't happen free radicals can go on to create a chain reaction where they take an electron from a water molecule and that water molecule goes on to take an electron from another water molecule and so on dna is surrounded by water so you have this issue where you get problems like carcinogenesis where you have cancer that starts in the body because of irregularities in dna oconnell explained that through the teams experimentation they hope to use this data with zinc as an example to create a diagnostic tool for determining how trace elements at specific quantities in the body can help or hurt patients so it can be applied to future research the mechanisms of how the trace elements effect the absorption of free radicals within the tissues are not yet entirely clear but oconnell is excited to have contributed to what she views as fundamental research that may one day lead to something better the research which began as a part of texas a&ms summer research grant program has contributed to her professional success by helping her secure an internship with oak ridge national laboratory this summer there is not a lot of research in this area so we are breaking new ground on this right now o connell said were trying to find this threshold where we are causing more good than harm with these treatments it is very cool for me to think that someone could read my research in a journal one day and that could become a stepping off point for them just seeing all the cumulative buildup of this knowledge is cool and i've been excited to be a part of that this project is sponsored by nasa via the space biology grant the grant number is nnx13al25g
1810,from left to right: chris menefee independence contract drilling; andy hendricks patterson-uti energy; wendolyne castillo treasurer texas a&m chapter; ron lee noble drilling; zack aldelamy secretary texas a&m chapter; jerome schubert texas a&m; corey wittig chairman texas a&m chapter; jason mcfarland iadc president; zachary matous vice-chairman texas a&m chapter last year when members of the international association of drilling contractors (iadc) houston chapter interviewed texas a&m university students for scholarships one petroleum engineering undergraduate asked if iadc had any student organizations at the time they did not but as of january iadc now has its first-ever student chapter - at texas a&m the inquisitive student corey wittig is its chairman for years iadc had been considering ways to reach out to the next generation of industry professionals said ron lee iadc adviser for the new student chapter if you look at our stakeholder map for iadc a key element thats missing is a formal vehicle for engaging with the next generation of young professionals petroleum engineering students zachary matous wendolyne castillo and zack aldelamy also serve as leaders in the chapter together with wittig they plan to promote networking and engagement between students and industry professionals whenever you get into the industry when you get your first job out of college you wont be going in blind wittig said youll have these connections these associations already built into your college experience dr jerome schubert associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and faculty adviser for the chapter of iadc is excited to see the new chapter begin this student chapter welcomes anyone interested in the drilling industry all disciplines of engineering and business students said schubert we want to promote cross disciplinary interaction wittig said we want to engage students that may be typically isolated within their departments were trying to get them to engage together so that theyre more prepared for whenever they get into the industry and actually have to engage on a multidisciplinary basis with different types of people the goal of the chapter is to provide students with interactive opportunities through networking events and professional development activities the chapter held its first introductory meeting in february it has since hosted a well control class taught by randy smith of smith mason and co the chapter is currently working with independence contract drilling to schedule a trip to a drilling rig in april the more the industry lends its support the more the chapter will be able to succeed and the better-positioned iadc will be to create student chapters at other universities having an organization like iadc at the student level allows students to really understand what kind of career opportunities are out there and where they might fit in the professional oil and gas industry said andy hendricks 2017 iadc chairman texas a&m is a great place to kick off the student chapter for iadc and we expect to be able to grow it to other universities after this has become a model for how to make it work for more information see the original article on the iadc drilling contractor online news website
1811,networks of people materials and logistics can be found everywhere in life while they are very common they can be used to represent interactions between entities in many important complex systems including social biological telecommunication transportation and energy dr sergiy butenko professor in the department of industrial and system engineering at texas a&m university is collaborating with a group of materials scientists to identify groups of mutually substitutable elements that could be used in critical technologies such as faster more powerful computing devices while attending the annual meeting of the mathematical modeling and optimization institute in 2015 butenko had the opportunity to visit with dr marco buongiorno-nardelli from the university of north texas their conversation led to butenkos involvement with the project muri: topological decompositions and spectral sampling algorithms for element substitution in critical technologies i felt that network-based modeling could be helpful in addressing some of the problems he discussed and shared some of my ideas with him butenko said this seemed to have gotten his attention as several months later he invited me to join an interdisciplinary team of researchers other universities involved include duke university central michigan university and the university of maryland we propose to essentially treat the materials as a ‘social network where individual materials are thought of as ‘people and two materials are ‘friends if they share something in common butenko said this new treatment of materials provides a convenient way of navigating the complex materials databases similar to the way online retailers help customers explore products by suggesting comparable products to view this approach will allow the researchers to suggest similar materials to an interested user in the online database aflowliborg this approach could lead to the discovery of cheaper materials with desirable properties which could replace their more expensive counterparts in various devices and products butenko said the commonality of networks makes them an attractive topic of theoretical and algorithmic research but close collaboration with domain experts is crucial to ensure the results are meaningful when it comes to specific applications of the methods developed working with this group rekindled my enthusiasm and belief in a fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration butenko said the project sponsored by the office of naval research will end in the summer of 2018 the team of interdisciplinary researchers are currently testing different network models with the aim of identifying groups of materials that could be further examined in the experimental setting
1812,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university served on the beyond bb-8: when robots start acting human panel at the south by southwest (sxsw) festival in austin texas one of dr murphys robots a lifeguard assistant robot named emily which is being used in greece to prevent drownings by boat refugees was on display during the discussion panelists delved into a new wave of artificial intelligence research deep learning which has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and change the approach to rescue missions they also discussed the impact risks and massive shift deep learning will bring to industry and everyday life other panelists included david fuller ‘94 chief technology officer of kuka roboter gmbh and computer science and engineering former student; lauren silverman health science and technology reporter/blogger at the national public radio (npr) station kera; and scott niekum assistant professor and director of the personal autonomous robotics lab (pearl) at the university of texas at austin murphys work with emily was featured in nprs science friday which was based on an interview after the beyond bb-8: when robots start acting human panel at sxsw murphy is a founder in the field of rescue robotics and currently directs the center for robot-assisted search and rescue
1813,four texas a&m university college of engineering faculty members attended a reception on march 6 hosted by governor greg abbott in austin the reception honored the researchers recruited through the governors university research initiative program (guri) and officials from three texas universities at the texas governors mansion the honorees from texas a&m were dr girish saran agarwal dr richard b miles dr thomas j overbye and dr george m pharr iv agarwal is a professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering and a fellow of the royal society in the united kingdom his research at texas a&m is in theoretical quantum optics particularly the interaction of laser light with atoms and in developing applications for this technology miles is a tees distinguished professor in the departments of aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering and a member of the national academy of engineering (nae) miles will establish and lead the center of excellence in interdisciplinary optical and laser detection systems for national security and safety at texas a&m one application of his research is the development of state-of-the-art instrumentation for remote detection that will identify hazardous gases and dangerous contaminants such as anthrax or the ebola virus hidden explosives such as ieds and/or greenhouse gases and pollutants overbye is a tees distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering his research interests are in the domains of smart grid cybersecurity renewable electric energy systems power system visualization power system analysis by computer methods power system stability and power systems operation and control pharr is a tees distinguished professor in the department of materials science and engineering and a member of nae pharrs research interests include nanoindentation and nanomechanical testing thin film and small-scale mechanical behavior mechanisms of fracture and flow in solids and finite element modeling of indentation contact dr leif andersson from the college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences was a 2016 guri recipient but was unable to attend the event anderssons research area is molecular and comparative genetics which has many applications in animal breeding and veterinary medicine enacted in 2015 by the 84th legislature the guri is a grant-matching program that assists eligible institutions of higher education in the recruitment of distinguished researchers last year governor abbott announced the recruitment of nine distinguished researchers to texas a&m university the university of texas at austin and the university of houston texas universities stand apart as a model for the nation for developing groundbreaking innovations driving our states powerful economy and improving quality of life around the world said governor abbott thanks to our nine internationally renowned researchers recruited by the guri initiative ideas that begin in texas will help transform the world these brilliant minds have put texas universities on a path to national and international prominence and we must continue to ensure texas is on the cutting edge of research and development
1814,renowned scholar dr george m pharr iv has joined the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university as part of the governors university research initiative (guri) which is aimed at bringing the best and brightest researchers in the world to texas dr pharr has pioneered the field of nanomechanical characterization of materials and has contributed to the nanotechnology revolution said dr ibrahim karaman department head for the materials science and engineering department i consider him and i believe many of my colleagues would agree with me as the father of nanoindentation a robust technique to determine mechanical behavior of materials in nanomaterials the oliver-pharr formulation for nanoindentation has accelerated the mechanistic discoveries in the field of nanomaterials he will make a significant impact in the growth of our young department by mentoring our faculty and students and guiding us to think out of the box and pharr is eager to get started making an impact he said that along with some equipment hes bringing from tennessee some nanomechanical equipment that hes building with national science foundation funds and the new guri funds he plans to put together a research team and build state-of-the-art lab facilities in the giesecke engineering research building what attracted me to come here at this point in time is the opportunity to build a new laboratory and assemble what we need to take the next steps in this research he said were ordering the latest and greatest equipment to try to build up this facility in a significant way where it will be used not just by me but by my team and people from this department and from around this campus pharr anticipates working with many researchers from department-level collaborations to broader university-level ones already hes talked to researchers in aerospace mechanical chemical and even the geology department ive talked to a lot of people in a lot of departments who use these techniques that ive developed theyre anxious to start collaborating and im anxious to collaborate with them he said theres a group of geologists thats very interested in this too theyre trying to understand what causes earthquakes and theyre now thinking that the basic events that trigger an earthquake occur at the nanomechanical scale so our techniques may allow them to probe the behavior of geological material from the earths crust and how they deform and fail at the micron scale theres also great potential for collaboration in the materials science department he said this is a new department which is also whats exciting about moving here in this department there is a strong contingency of people that do research in the area of mechanical behavior strength of materials mostly at the macro scale; theyre natural collaborators with me hopefully five years from now people will say the best place in the world to (study small scale mechanical behavior) is texas a&m university pharr a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor was previously chancellors professor and mckamey professor of engineering at the university of tennessee and held a joint faculty position in the materials science and technology division at the oak ridge national laboratory he became a member of the prestigious national academy of engineering in 2014 enacted in 2015 by the 84th legislature guri is a grant-matching program that assists eligible institutions of higher education in the recruitment of distinguished researchers last year governor greg abbott announced the recruitment of 10 distinguished researchers to texas pharr was among five of the faculty who joined texas a&m (four in the college of engineering) the grant awarded to texas a&m totaled more than $20 million
1815,carolyn walther a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was named the international winner of the american helicopter societys (ahs) prestigious 2017 robert l lichten award competition walther works with dr moble benedict in the advanced vertical flight laboratory (avfl) and her project involves force and flowfield measurements on a cycloidal rotor in a water tank at matched reynolds numbers to unravel the underlying unsteady aerodynamic mechanisms on the blade operating at ultralow reynolds numbers walther won the award for her paper experimental and computational studies to understand unsteady aerodynamics of cycloidal rotors in hover at ultralow reynolds numbers she will be honored at the annual grand awards banquet at the 73rd ahs forum in fort worth texas in may the robert l lichten award is given once a year it was established in 1975 to honor the memory of robert l lichten an outstanding rotary-wing engineer and the societys 22nd president it recognizes new and innovative research in the area of vertical flight and encourages ahs members who have not previously presented begin making public the results of their work through presentations at the local level each of the 10 ahs regions around the world is eligible to select a regional winner from which an overall international winner and runner-up are selected
1816,the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center will host the fifth annual smart grid workshop on the texas a&m university campus april 18 the center established the workshop after receiving a $1 million grant from the national science foundations big data spokes program to extend collaboration and innovation using big data for the smart power grid area the center invites attendees to participate in panel and focus group discussions in addition to a student poster session there will be ample opportunities for meeting experts from academia industry and national labs as well as international partners said dr mladen kezunovic director of the smart grid center and eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering early registration for the workshop ends march 31
1817,just before spring break students in dr sam villareal's two sections of engr 112 freshman engineering at texas a&m university demonstrated their projects and excitement during an in-class robot competition villareal senior lecturer in the department of electrical and computer engineering conducted a unique class project made possible through the support and cooperation of the freshman engineering program texas instruments (ti) and the mobile integrated systems laboratory (misl) within the department of engineering technology & industrial distributions electronics systems engineering technology program (eset) the purpose of the class project is to implement the design fabrication and validation of a multidisciplinary system of systems by teams said villareal in this way students experience the fun aspects of engineering while meeting common engr 112 learning outcomes working in four-person teams where each student accepted the leadership responsibility for different subsystems including mechanical power control and communications over 90 percent of the teams successfully fabricated and integrated their raw materials into the system known as the digital systems teaching and research (dstr pronounced disaster) robot the teams conducted their first system demo by racing in simple laps (first round) and figure 8 routes (second and third rounds) using non-optimized control software these functional demonstrations represented the first-stage of the students experience of an engineering system of systems dstr robots with names like blue haboob ace dj-dstr and shinigami attempted to outmaneuver their competitors and win the competition teams competed in heats of three robots which created lots of fun and excitement in determining the best of the best when it came to functional operation of the student systems cathy wicks ti manager of university relations was on hand to award prizes to the top three teams in both classes although the teams were provided a non-optimized version of the dstr control program for this first demo/competition the crowning moment may have been during the third round of competition in the afternoon class team 12--megan ostrander joshua costa brett houston and ian cichy--developed their own energia code and begged to use it in the competition said villareal i permitted this only after they passed through the first and second rounds of competition using the standard ‘non-optimized code its rewarding to see first year engineering students excited to engage the technology the class was stunned by how fast their robot moved and how it was able to spin-in-place added wicks not bad for a team of freshmen in undeclared majors villareal said after only eight weeks of working together to create a system of systems this team finished their own optimized code in just 48 hours
1818,the dstrs four-wheeled articulated suspension platform was designed by former misl student herbert baumgartner 09 the ti-based launchpad embedded hardware/software and the android/ios app were developed by former misl student vince rodriguez 16 current eset-misl students alexis crandall 17 and colby ryan 14 have continued the development of dstr and are providing educational and construction support for villareal in his two sections ti has funded previous msil projects and is funding and providing technical support for both of villareals current engr 112 sections villareal has even more motivating and experiential learning for his freshman engineering students for example during the first stage of the project development students collected data via usb-connected ti microcontrollers and analyzed these data using matlab students will next collect data wirelessly from their own mobile platforms to investigate static properties dynamic forces energy conservation and power efficiency in this second stage of the project students will not only analyze their own data using matlab but will also perform comparative analysis of their own systems with other teams systems in their class because of villareals efforts from initial measurements and use of hand and power tools at the engineering innovation center the students are learning by direct hands-on experience that engineering is an exciting and demanding yet rewarding and satisfying career
1819,dr john matyjas technology advisor of the computing and communications division at the air force research laboratory (afrl) in rome new york presented his perspective on the future of the interdisciplinary nature of electrical and computer engineering during a leaders and innovators speaker series seminar in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university matyjas seminar focused on the innovation development and maturation of secure communications networking and information management technologies a timely reliable and mission-responsive air force network is critical to the translation of sensory data into actionable information and for assuring tailored communications globally said matyjas to build future elastic network capabilities that can respond to the mission and threat environment we cannot rely solely on a data-neutral network the future lies in affordable extensible interoperable communications architectures that intelligently distribute information in a robust way and enable shared situational awareness and timely decision-making ultimately to assure the mission matyjas was named an afrl fellow last year he studies dynamic multiple-access communications and networking software defined rf spectrum mutability statistical signal processing and optimization and neural networks matyjas is the recipient of the 2015 air force associations technology manager of the year award the 2015 afrl scientist of the year award the 2012 ieee r1 technology innovation award and the 2010 ieee international communications conference best paper award from 2012-14 he served on the ieee transactions on wireless communications editorial advisory board he is an ieee senior member secretary of the ieee mohawk valley section chair of the ieee mohawk valley signal processing society and member of the tau beta pi and eta kappa nu engineering honor societies
1820,dr weiping shi professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been elected fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) for his contributions to modeling and design of very large scale integration (vlsi) interconnects ieee fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement the grade of fellow is conferred by the ieee board of directors upon a person for achieving an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the ieee fields of interest the total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting membership dr weiping shi is well-known for solving long-standing unsolved problems his research has a profound impact on both academic theory and state-of-the-art of industrial products said dr jiang hu professor in the electrical and computer engineering department and group leader for the computer engineering and systems group ieee fellow is a big honor that he genuinely deserves shis research interests include electronic design automation (eda) vlsi and design and analysis of algorithms his current projects include modeling layout synthesis and testing his research has been funded by the national science foundation (nsf) the semiconductor research corporation arp/atp texas instruments intel and ibm shi received his doctoral degree from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign and his bachelors and masters degrees from jiaotong university in china shi began working at texas a&m in 2000 he is a world-renowned expert on integrated circuits and eda in 2012 he created a new course computer engineering entrepreneurship which teaches students how to start a software company run it and successfully exit shis previous honors include an ibm faculty award best paper awards from the design automation conference and asia and south pacific design automation conference and a research initiation award from the nsf
1821,the department of physics and astronomy and department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university invite audiences across texas the nation and even the world to get up close and personal with science and technology this spring at the 2017 physics & engineering festival an entertaining and informative weekend scientific extravaganza for all ages no fees or tickets are required for the free annual event scheduled for saturday april 1 from 10 am to 5 pm at the george p mitchell '40 physics building on the texas a&m campus activities will begin at 10 am with hands-on science exhibitions and engineering technology demonstrations and conclude with a 4 pm public lecture by internationally recognized astrophysicist and ted senior fellow dr lucianne walkowicz an astronomer at adler planetarium and a leader in the national science foundation-funded large synoptic survey telescope (lsst) involving texas a&m astronomers
1822,all events are hosted by texas a&m physics and astronomy in partnership with several other campus units including the departments of aerospace engineering (aero) chemistry mathematics and atmospheric sciences as well as the brazos valley museum of natural history throughout the day festival participants are encouraged to unleash their inner scientists aboard a square-wheeled bicycle run through a pool of cornstarch and try their hands at generating electricity or shooting balloons with lasers -- four of the nearly 200 fun experiments and displays illustrating basic scientific and engineering technology-related concepts and principles all exhibits are manned by texas a&m faculty staff and students for the fifth consecutive year the festival will showcase dozens of exciting new demonstrations built by student teams affiliated with the university-funded deep (discover explore and enjoy physics and engineering) program hundreds of deep students undergraduate and graduate have been involved in creating the new demos during the years and many will be on hand to present their work in addition to exhibits the daylong festival will feature three fantastic bubble shows (11 am 1 pm 2:30 pm) by internationally acclaimed bubble artist and physics showman keith johnson whose work has been featured on national geographic tv and the discovery channel as well as in commercials print ads movies and venues across america attendees also will have the opportunity to meet 1996 nobel prize-winning texas a&m physicist dr david m lee and nasa astronaut and professor dr bonnie dunbar a veteran mission specialist and payload commander with the space shuttle program who flew on five missions each will present a lecture session set for 1 pm and 2 pm respectively in the stephen w hawking auditorium other special events on tap include large hadron collider virtual tours at 11 am and noon; four performances of the low-temperature physics extravaganza at 10:30 am noon 1:30 pm and 3 pm; and a presentation on claude shannon pioneer of the information age at noon in room 108 of the jack e brown chemical engineering building finally a texas-sixed five-barrel depth charge featuring 1 000 plastic balls will close out the exhibition portion of the show at 3:30 pm outside the mitchell physics building at 4 pm walkowicz will deliver a keynote presentation the search for life in the universe in the second-floor primary lecture hall of the mitchell physics building in addition to discussing the recent boom in exoplanet discoveries walkowicz will explore their prospects for habitability along with the surprises nature may yet have in store for humanity prior to saturday's events harvard university physicist dr david weitz will team up with local celebrity chefs peter madden ( mad taco) and mitch siegert (truman chocolates) for a free public lecture physics of cooking on friday (march 31) at 7 pm in the second-floor primary lecture hall of the mitchell physics building tickets are not required for the kickoff event in which the trio will demonstrate some of their favorite cooking techniques and explain the underlying science of their delectable work the talk is based on a popular course offered at harvard that is a collaboration between science professors and chefs all events are sponsored by the texas a&m university system the department of physics and astronomy the george p and cynthia woods mitchell institute for fundamental physics and astronomy exxonmobil the willard and anne levin foundation ahmed mahmoud '87 and michele mobley '87 and susan sheskey the event is an affiliate festival of the 6th annual usa science and engineering festival as well as a member of the science festival alliance for the latest details regarding the 2017 physics & engineering festival including event directions and parking information please visit http://physicsfestivaltamuedu
1823,dr honghuang lin a former graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received third place for the best paper award at the 29th annual design and verification conference (dvcon) in san jose california this month lin also placed third place at 2016 dvcon last year lin a design verification engineer at texas instruments inc (ti) along with ti researchers zhipeng ye and asad khan co-authored the paper machine learning-based pvt space coverage and worst case exploration in analog and mixed-signal design verification in the paper they propose a machine learning-based coverage model to achieve more reliable analog and mixed-signal verification with respect to process-voltage-temperature (pvt) variations using an adaptive exploration method the researchers showed that it is possible to reach a more accurate estimation of the worst case pvt configuration with an affordable simulation cost more than 750 conference attendees voted on the recipients of the awards for best paper out of numerous submissions so winning an award for their research paper is considered quite an honor honghuang joined texas instruments in dallas last year and has played a major role in leading some of the design verification efforts at texas instruments since said dr peng li professor in the electrical and computer engineering department and lins graduate advisor lin received his bachelors degree in automation from tsinghua university beijing china in 2011 and his doctoral degree from texas a&m in computer engineering in 2016
1824,dr sharath girimaji a professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university is helping mentor a team of seven students ages 10 to 14 from the houston area to solve a problem concerning the interactions of people and animals through the for inspiration and recognition of science and technology (first) lego league program coaches janice yoo and katie kelley owner of woodlands robotics lead the team of students bricksmart from the woodlands texas who have chosen to focus their project on the issue of boat propellers harming animals under the water they were very interested in ocean animals and started looking into problems associated with them and found how impactful boat propellers can be to animals through physical impact noise pollution as well as turbulence and how it also impacted many different species from the bottom of the food chain up to a whale kelley said with hours of initial research and visits to texas a&m university at galveston and the national oceanic and atmospheric administrations (noaa) national marine fisheries service sea turtle laboratory in galveston the team began looking at three solutions to the boat propeller problem thats where texas a&m has been very helpful in talking with the kids and trying to brainstorm kelley said the team contacted girimaji the wofford cain chair ii and department head in the ocean engineering department who was already working on the same problem at a theoretical level with his students our kids had already started working on prototypes and he invited us up to show him what we already had yoo said he was incredibly moving and insightful and the kids walked away completely blown away they became focused on the dyson bladeless fan and started looking at how that could work in water bricksmart returned home energized and with a deeper level of understanding of how the water is different from the air why the dyson fan concept could work and reasons their other ideas were not as promising they soon developed a working prototype and were invited by girimaji to demonstrate it at the offshore technology research center in college station requests for help such as the one bricksmart sent are not uncommon girimaji said however i saw something different with this group that really excited me that difference was their initiative to learn everything they could before coming to me their determination inspired me to help them and hopefully support their road to solving this animal/human interaction problem we demonstrated our prototype for a group of graduate students there and showed them how little turbulence there was yoo said they gave us some more advice and the kids were excited about that there are 29 000 first lego league teams across the world bricksmart has competed in two competitions thus far earning the champion title in each the two top teams out of a total of 236 from the houston area will compete at the first world festival in april here 109 teams from all over the world will compete world festival will have about 19 000 kids pushing robots all over houston kelley said nasa is usually there with their cars william from the black eyed peas has attended in the past as well bricksmart was also invited to submit a proposal to global innovation a separate competition through the first program if selected the team could be one of the top 20 teams to go to washington dc and potentially win xprize money to further develop their solutions while learning about the patent process from the us patent office beyond the competition the students have realized their potential in pursuing a college degree due to the interaction with girimaji and students in the ocean engineering department one of our students who may or may not have thought about going to college in the future finally feels like he has met people who understand him kelley said the competition is great but getting them on campus and thinking about those kinds of things is also very important first promotes science technology engineering and math (stem) fields for kids ages 6 to 18 through exciting competitions with applications in various fields teams are expected to design build and program robots using lego mindstorms technology then compete against thousands of other teams on a table-top playing field dean kaman and others developed the first program to get young people not only excited about stem but the events themselves are meant to sort of raise a stem kid to the level of a basketball star kelley said this is what makes these kids tick yoo said this is what they enjoy
1825,"unmanned vehicles could soon help provide first responders more context of unknown surroundings in crisis situations thanks to dimas gonzales and alejandro suazo two undergraduate students in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university dr jyh-charn lui professor in computer science and engineering tasked his students with designing and implementing a project that showcased the principles taught in his microcomputer systems course such as signal processing and system design gonzales and suazo took the project and ran with it in order to dispel the negativity often associated with unmanned vehicles they decided to build a tool that would demonstrate the potential of their use in emergency situations the duo decided to create a 3-d rendering system that utilized drone video capture in the hopes to ultimately provide emergency services more context of unknown surroundings they developed an automated system to generate 3-d point maps from footage manually captured on their phones by using structure from motion (sfm) a process that approximates 3-d structures from 2-d images they were able to create a point hub to generate an approximation of the target area the goal was to create a drone that would have the capability to record and transfer video to a central server this was complex and took a lot of effort to complete once finished the drone was able to autonomously capture video of any real object and run a mathematical analysis on the footage to generate a 3-d model oftentimes our classes limit our project's scope such that most students can reasonably complete said assignments gonzales said dr liu gave us the opportunity to really push ourselves but he focused on making sure that we learned for ourselves how not to lose sight of our limitations this project gave me much satisfaction knowing that the skills i've learned the past few years are applicable in real applications which are both interesting and progressive when utilizing emerging technologies suazo said upon graduation suazo plans to work at usaa as a software engineer and continue to grow as a programmer while earning his masters degree in business administration gonzales will begin his career as a software developer for capital one i am delighted to see that dimas and alejandro used this opportunity to fully explore their potential in this class liu said it is a very rewarding feeling to see so many students succeed in this class"""
1826,dr melissa grunlan associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university was awarded a $19 million grant from the national institutes of health (nih) to continue the development and testing of a newly developed material that shows promise in the field of regenerative medicine the material is designed to precisely fill and promote healing of cranial bone defects and gaps in the skull that occur due to an injury a birth defect or surgery the project which started about five years ago addresses the limitation of materials used to treat bone gap defects most commonly this is currently done with a bone graft surgically harvested from the patient such as from their hip the limitation associated with this method is that the rigid bone graft cannot be readily manipulated to fit within the irregularly shaped bone defect due to the lack of fit and good contact with neighboring bone tissue defect healing is compromised this is like trying to fill in a missing puzzle piece with the wrong piece grunlan said these bone defects can cause tremendous functional problems and aesthetic issues for individuals so it was recognized that a better treatment would make a big impact the new material is a scaffold that temporarily supports bone healing and then dissolves leaving behind a healed bone defect this is a shape-shifting foam that becomes malleable when exposed to warm saline allowing it to perfectly conform and be press fitted into the irregular bone defect once in place the foam becomes rigid and stays tightly fitted within the defect this good fit is predicted to enhance bone integration and healing that is currently lacking in other treatment materials the nih grant was awarded in february to grunlan and her co-investigators dr w brian saunders and dr roy pool professors from the college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences; dr michael moreno professor from the department of mechanical engineering; and dr mariah hahn professor from the rensselaer polytechnic institute the grant will help support research focused on improving scaffold material properties that are critical to ensuring the best healing potential about the department of biomedical engineeringcommitted to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative medicine medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1827,at the most recent aggies invent students solved the problems of the future focusing on infrastructure and architecture students were challenged to incorporate the latest technology 3-d printing drones and robotics as they competed to create the most innovative and compelling solution for building horizontal or vertical buildings this theme pushed students to think ahead into the next 100 years and anticipate the drastically different and advanced technology of the future that would be incorporated into a job site at aggies invent students are given only 48 hours to solve the issue presented to them and create a prototype each aggies invent theme is different to keep students ready to tackle the next big issue this competition is an environment built to host inspiration and support entrepreneurship and innovation in first place was it's a climb which consisted of petroleum engineering senior abrar alshaikh mechanical engineering sophomore mauricio bailey civil engineering freshman erick zaruma mechanical engineering junior jesus maltos and masters candidates in industrial engineering komal koya and hemik parikh the team developed a sensor that attaches to a ladder to indicate if the ladder is not placed correctly this device will help stop falls from ladders responsible for a quarter of all falls in construction and will prevent $11 million from being lost in accident costs each year second place went to green is the new black made up of civil engineering student kush daxesh patel applied math sophomore diana aviles computer science freshman justin rodriguez and civil engineering masters candidates nidhi raut yash menaria and akash bajaj green is the new blacks project focused on recycling plastic for new uses constructing roads and pavement third place was awarded to aggieland dynamics sophomores alexander perry in nuclear engineering cameron rivera in electrical engineering cooper burner in mechanical engineering industrial engineering graduate student nitlin vingnesh mechanical engineering junior humberto rocha and austin oneal in construction science the team created a construction helmet designed to prevent its wearer from overheating by incorporating technology that warns the wearer when they are at a dangerously high temperature this invention will improve the safety measures already being taken on a construction site the top three winning teams were awarded $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively and will gain global exposure through aggies invents partners joeris and jb knowledge sponsored the weekend written by jessica spence
1828,what if you could change the way students are educated and inspired suparna mukhopadhyay a student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university worked to do just that at the aggies invent on education held feb 3-5 in partnership with students from the department of teaching learning and culture in the college of education and human development students from the texas a&m college of engineering worked to develop solutions to issues encountered in classrooms and schools to make a difference for the 54 million k-12 students in the united states mukhopadhyay a graduate student specializing in environmental engineering worked with a team called the visualizers her team of six was comprised of students from different engineering backgrounds: electrical chemical industrial and computer engineering the teams vision was to infuse virtual reality into the learning process according to their research one of the most frequently failed courses in high school is chemistry seeing the need for improvement in this area mukhopadhyay and her team decided to find a solution that allowed students to better visualize difficult concepts like the molecular orbital theory of the valence shell electron repulsion theory using the rapid prototyping facilities at the engineering innovation center they were able to build a device that successfully projected 3d holograms that help students more successfully visualize and understand molecular structure mukhopadhyay helped her team build and test the prototype using autocad and aided in researching the feasibility of the use of 3d holograms in high schools including a cost-benefit analysis of the implementation of such a project their team placed third overall i enjoyed the brainstorming sessions a lot because it was there that we came up with an idea that could possibly change the way chemistry is being taught in high schools said mukhopadhyay aggies invent was a wonderful experience and i would highly recommend that students participate in future editions contributing author: ryan terry
1829,dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor and holder of the william and ruth neely faculty fellowship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been invited to participate in the world economic forums young scientists program in dalian china in june the young scientists program is part of the annual meeting of the new champions the meeting one of four major annual meetings focuses on innovation science and technology and brings together the next generation of fast-growing enterprises shaping the future of business and society and leaders from major multinationals government media academia and civil society the young scientists are honored for their contributions to advancing the frontiers of science engineering and technology and benefit from a tailored program that exposes them to policy leaders decision-makers and entrepreneurs lutkenhaus will be one of 50 scientists under the age of 40 from all regions of the world and a wide range of fields to offer perspectives on the latest and emerging global trends the meeting theme this year is achieving inclusive growth in the fourth industrial revolution
1830,in order to remain safe robots are commonly used to reach what human hands cannot often a robot is used to uncover victims from rubble or bring them safely to shore these helpful hands can even reach a world far beyond our own – outer space dr dezhen song a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is working on a collaborative project with nasas johnson space center to develop localization and mapping algorithms for an astronaut robot (robonaut) to make better use of the crews time and to perform dangerous tasks in lieu of a human to utilize all tools and facilities developed for human astronauts the team is working together to build a human-like robot with similar body configurations such as arms and hands due to the lack of gps signals the current robonaut prototype cannot localize itself in the international space station (iss) most tasks performed by robonaut are limited to the vicinity of the robot to enable further functionalities such as transporting items in the iss or performing panel maintenance the robot needs to move around the station this also means it must establish a mental map of the visited region and localize itself in the process in the field of robotics this is known as simultaneous localization and mapping (slam) slam is part of the robot perception capability song said our study is to try to bring better and more accurate information to the robot to facilitate its decision process so that more smart robots can be developed for different applications if successful we can significantly increase the robots ability in handling different environments which will have significant impact on manufacturing daily life defense and many other areas that can benefit from the increasing capability from mobile robots a reliable low-cost slam capability has been an obstacle for many robotic applications in the past a camera is a low-cost sensor compared to laser range finders but the drawback to using a camera is lighting and baseline limits in calculating stereo information since cameras measure bearing instead of absolute size they have difficulty measuring distance one idea to combat this is to use two or more cameras with known baselines to provide distance reference; this is known as stereo vision however the joint coverage region between fields of views of the two cameras is too limited to be directly useful therefore during the process robonauts head will be activated from side to side this will allow it to scan the surroundings to enlarge the field of view by using neck encoder readings the team can track robonauts head scanning motion there is an inertial measurement unit (imu) installed in robonaut that delivers body movement information an imu also helps establish view correspondence when robonaut is moving the primary challenge with this research project lies in combining the multiple camera views and other sensors with different uncertain characteristics to provide robust slam results interest in these developments extend beyond the space and aeronautics industry and into one that is a bit more grounded they are interested in using our motion-sensor based technology in detecting railway status for better and low-cost railway maintenance song said this project first came about in 2005 when the group developed slam algorithms for vehicles while developing an autonomous motorcycle for the defense advanced research projects agency grand challenge along with their partnership with nasa the group is also collaborating with industry contacts and texas a&m faculty on their research for robonaut they are working with dr tim davis a professor in the computer science and engineering department to improve visual slam optimization algorithms using sparse matrices and dr jun zou an associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department to develop a new line of ranging and communication sensors for underwater robots
1831,researchers with the fuel cycles and materials laboratory within the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university are working to make big impacts on energy efficiency with small materials level changes the group is creating porous fuel pellets for use in reactors as opposed to the currently used solid pellets to extend fuel life possibly reduce waste and increase the amount of energy the reactor can get out of the fuel the project is a joint initiative with collaborators at the georgia institute of technology and idaho national laboratory graduate student researcher yesenia salazar works under the groups principal investigator dr sean mcdeavitt associate professor of nuclear engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations nuclear science center salazars job is to work with copper powder and produce the fuel pellets and test them under various pressures and scenarios to see how they perform in reactor-like conditions salazar works specifically with copper because its properties can be translated into digital code more easily which is an important aspect for the computational side of this project involving modeling the behavior of the fuel pellets our overall goal is that when we make this pellet we take measurements for the porosity that it has salazar said were trying to be able to have pores that are more or less homogeneous where they are not just in one section of the pellet if we can get more or less homogenous pores we test them at these different pressure and temperature levels to see how they would perform inside a reactor setting the pores in these fuel pellets are meant to help counteract a phenomenon that occurs during nuclear power generation where after a short time the pellets begin to swell because of the gases and fission products that are expelled during the energy generation process this expansion if continued beyond a certain point becomes dangerous not only in the process of producing energy but also when the fuel source eventually has to be removed delaying the expansion of these pellets is where the pores come in we believe that if you have even just a little bit of porosity introduced into these pellets those gases that are coming out and that swelling is happening will accumulate to make up for the space in those pores salazar said it works very similar to the way a kitchen sponge works soaking up all the water it can before its pores are full at which point it expels the water we want to delay the expulsion as long as we can salazar they would like to see an increase of at least 5 percent in comparison with the lifetime of current fuel cells it is not known how long it will take for the expansion of the gases and fission materials to fill up the space in those pores before they start expanding which could differ depending on the type of reactor and fuel source used while the full potential is yet to be determined the guiding principle is getting the most usage possible out of the fuel while it is in the reactor regardless when we do take the fuel out it will be more dangerous than it was when we put it in salazar said we want to be able to use this research to leave that fuel in longer which will increase the efficiency and allow us to delay taking out this material because we are getting more out of it per ton according to salazar the average lifespan of a nuclear fuel cycle can last anywhere from 16 to 36 months and researchers are hoping that the pellets may extend the process at least an additional week or more this increase may seem nominal in relation but it translates into significant energy production per ton of fuel inside nuclear reactors are several hundred fuel pellets in dimensions of centimeters which have the rough energy equivalent of a barrel full of oil according to the us energy information administration (eia) even the re ginna nuclear power plant in new york the smallest nuclear plant in the united states can generate 508 megawatts of power an hour with an extra week of power this becomes 85 344 megawatts per week if the plant is operating full time at maximum capacity which based on public information from the eia has the potential to power 7 983 homes per year on average the potential of nuclear power is truly humongous salazar said this research is really great so far and can have even greater results years from now but i feel like those results can only be empowered if the general public's view is more accepting of the benefits of nuclear energy
1832,"students from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university attended a daylong tour of the comanche peak nuclear power plant on feb 21 a look inside the working end of the nuclear industry that few have the privilege to view the tour which is part of the students senior nuclear engineering capstone course provided them with the opportunity to see how their classroom knowledge translates into the real world my intention with this visit is that we wanted to have all of our undergraduate students see a nuclear power plant before they graduate "" said dr karen-vierow kirkland associate department head and associate professor of nuclear engineering who teaches the course ""it helps them understand the magnitude of the facilities and to get a better understanding of the scope and the high level of safety that is involved in this kind of work"" the tours given by the plants staff also provided the students with an overview of the layout of the plant the types of regulatory agencies the plant works with and energy capacities and also work opportunities both within the plant and in other parts of the nuclear power industry students were able to see the plant's turbine buildings go into the radiation controlled area and interact with a simulator that is an exact replica of the plant's control room for some students who have prior industry experience the trip gave them a different perspective ive been able to go back and see how things have changed over a period of time after not being there said andrew foster external committee chair for the american nuclear society (ans) student section at texas a&m as a graduating senior this has helped me to look at what the industry changes in terms of security radiation protection practices and other aspects of the plant the feel of the plant is very much the same but there are minute details that change and those serve as indicators of the overall performance of the plant the students visit locations such as comanche peak because it is important to provide students with an understanding of design work and its importance to the power industry design work in my mind is paramount at a power plant because you are either designing a plant from the ground up or you're a caretaker of a plant and you want to put an addition in foster said you have to wonder how you can make that work within the system it's not as easy as legos; you have to design what you want to build the trip can also provide some students affirmation about their career goals and aspirations for me and others going to a power plant is a reassuring thing because the coursework that we work at is not the easiest foster said theres a lot of late nights blood sweat and tears and a lot of questioning is this really what i want to do this can happen with any college student but getting the opportunity to go look at one of these places every so often helps to reaffirm that passion for the work *the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m acknowledges with gratitude the efforts of ken peters chief nuclear officer at comanche peak power plant as well as the efforts of former students lily raabe cameron singleton cody lemons and many others who organized and made this trip possible for the students"
1833,texas a&m engineerings graduate program was again ranked 11th overall nationally in the latest us news & world report survey americas best graduate schools 2018 the college also ranked seventh among public institutions individual programs ranked were: aerospace engineering 7 (4 public); agricultural engineering 2 (2); biomedical engineering 39 (20); chemical engineering 27 (17); civil engineering 12 (8); computer engineering 21 (11); electrical engineering 22 (13); industrial engineering 13 (10); materials 39 (25); mechanical engineering 17 (8); nuclear engineering 4 (3); and petroleum engineering 3 (2) computer science which was last ranked in the sciences category in 2014 was 40th nationally and 23rd among public institutions
1834,civil engineering graduate students were able to witness the latest in pavement recycling technology at the rellis campus feb 23–24 as the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) demonstrated next generation equipment students with the civil materials student organization (cmso) at texas a&m university were also able to interact with personnel who supervise and construct rehabilitated pavements the mission of cmso is to enhance the students learning experience with seminars and field visits in the area of infrastructure materials oftentimes students learn about some of the newest techniques in the classroom setting but to see them in operation and be able to speak with the people who are directly involved with the procedures is certainly worthwhile explains research scientist stephen sebesta of ttis flexible pavements group the pavement recycling equipment used in the demonstration is computer controlled and recycles the roadway while applying a new pavement using the recycled material all in the same process texas department of transportation (txdot) personnel were on-site for the demonstration as they learn to use the equipment and prepare to apply a research section of pavement in the austin district the activities were supported as part of txdot research project 0-6880 article originally posted on march 2 by tti here
1835,during the weekend of feb 17-19 the society of women engineers (swe) at texas a&m university hosted the final region c conference where hundreds of students and professionals from across texas louisiana arkansas and mississippi congregated to network and engage in professional development opportunities such as research poster competitions and keynote speaker presentations this years theme innovative women: channeling your creativity inspired attendees to surpass thinking outside the box and instead recreate the box by designing new ways methods processes and technologies to influence people across the globe janeen judah chevrons executive sponsor for swe was the keynote speaker for the event judah currently serves on the petroleum engineering industry board at texas a&m and on both texas a&ms and the university of houstons college of engineering advisory boards the successful event was organized by conference chair and region c head megan rodriguez; public relations chair megan bates; gradswe committee chair prerna jain; merchandise committee chair adriana martinez; recruitment committee co-chair rebecca whiteman; recruitment committee co-chair millie kriel; events committee chair abby brown; sponsorship committee chair mubina toa; registration committee chair anjali singal; texas a&m swe chapter president bailey bauman; texas a&m swe chapter treasurer misha roznowski; and platinum sponsor and director of women engineering at texas a&m shawna fletcher national swe is disbanding the regions this year so this was the last ever swe region c conference said rodriguez it was definitely a rewarding experience to meet past region governors and presidents that have helped swe region c get to where it is now and to commemorate all that they had done at the conference i really enjoyed getting to network with other swe sections and learning more about full-time job opportunities by talking to the speakers and corporate sponsors said bauman who is also a computer science senior at texas a&m about 450 students attended and 16 companies sponsored the event workshop sessions covered topics such as innovate like a leader gaining respect in a male-dominated workplace software technologies - next generation 3-d design and starting international affiliate groups swe is dedicated to helping women achieve success in engineering academically personally and professionally with an active membership of over 300 students the texas a&m section of swe serves the student body the community and the college of engineering
1836,dr ravishankar iyer a former student in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently named an intel fellow intel fellow is one of the highest levels of achievement one can attain within the company this prestigious distinction is given to less than one percent of employees who exemplify tremendous technical achievement both within the company and industry fellows provide strategic technical leadership and guidance and represent the company at a variety of industry events currently iyer is the director of technology for new business initiatives in intels new technology group he leads technology innovation and incubation efforts and has made significant contributions in low-power system-on-chip wearable/iot devices as well as high performance multi-core server architectures that include novel accelerators and microcontrollers platform qos innovative cache/memory hierarchies emerging algorithm and workload characterization and performance analysis iyer has published more than 150 papers has around 40 patents granted and actively participates in conferences and journals most recently he is serving as general chair for the 2017 international conference on parallel architectures and compilation techniques and also serves on the executive committee of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) technical committee for computer architecture he received his doctorate in computer science from texas a&m and is an ieee fellow he was also presented the computer science and engineering distinguished former student award in 2015
1837,dr xia ben hu assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university received a national science foundation (nsf) grant for his novel research which centers around the development of network embedding algorithms for analyzing large-scale and complex attributed networks attributed networks widely exist in various network information systems such as social networks academic networks and health care systems while traditional network nodes display user-to-user relationships on social networks paper-to-paper citations for academic networks and doctor-to-doctor relationships for health care networks attributed network nodes also show an additional set of attributes such as user demographics paper contents and doctor expertise while most existing studies focus on plain network embedding in this project we propose to investigate a novel problem of attributed network embedding by tackling challenges brought by large-scale and complex attributed network data hu said there are many challenges with large-scale complex attributed networks first many real-world attributed networks contain thousands of features which translate to millions of nodes and edges edges are links between the vertices or nodes of a network for example facebook users update over 600 000 pieces of information each minute; twitter has 319 million active users and as of 2012 20 billion edges second instances in attributed networks are connected with each other through common research interests or shared geographical locations existing network embedding methods are built upon the assumption that instances are independently distributed and equally weighted this is not the case with attributed networks because of these challenges traditional network embedding algorithms cannot be directly applied to large-scale and complex attributed networks hus project will complement the white house big data research and development initiative to accelerate the emerging field of data science by generating a new class of theoretical and practical network embedding methods to analyze large and complex network data this research aims to successfully develop new formulations of algorithms which will transform existing network embedding algorithms the developed algorithms can be used in industrial applications in social computing health informatics and enterprise systems
1838,"five engineering faculty members were part of the inaugural class of presidential impact fellows which were recently announced by texas a&m university president michael k young the 2017 honorees from the texas a&m college of engineering are dr melissa a grunlan dr arum han dr arul jayaraman dr raymundo arroyave and dr zachary grasley ""today we acknowledge a new investment in the excellence of select faculty who through their scholarship personal commitment and results demonstrate they are rising to meet the challenges of their field and demonstrating impact towards creating a better world "" said young ""i am proud to name these faculty as the inaugural presidential impact fellows"" the program was established to recognize rising stars in their respective fields and those who embody the universitys commitment to advancing knowledge through transformational learning discovery innovation and impact for texas and the world twenty-four faculty members from across texas a&m's 16 colleges and schools two branch campuses and comprehensive university libraries were honored with this award grunlan is an associate professor and director of undergraduate programs in the department of biomedical engineering her laboratory focuses on developing new polymeric biomaterials for medical devices and regenerative therapies she has produced coatings hydrogels elastomers and porous foams from hybrid systems based on combining inorganic and organic polymers her projects include the development of self-cleaning membranes for implanted biosensors clot-resistant coatings for blood-contacting devices and scaffolds for bone repair and for the regeneration of osteochondral interfaces han is a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering director of the nanobio systems lab and director of the aggiefab nanofabrication facility he is an expert in microfluidic lab-on-a-chip and organ-on-a-chip technologies and his research focuses on the interface of micro/nanotechnology and life sciences with an interest in solving grand challenge problems in the broad area of health renewable bioenergy and biomanufacturing jayaraman is associate department head director of the graduate program and holds the ray b nesbitt endowed chair in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering his research interests include molecular systems biotechnology specifically on using integrated experimental and modeling approaches for investigating problems in human health and medicine; systems biology of cytokine signaling in inflammatory diseases; inter-kingdom signaling interactions between bacteria and human cells in gi tract infections; and development of microfluidic model systems for combinatorial drug screening and vascular tissue engineering arroyave is an associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering and directs the computational materials science lab which uses computational materials science tools to investigate material properties at different scales of length and time his research team uses a variety of simulation methods to investigate the fundamental properties of complex materials more recently he has worked on developing tools and frameworks for the accelerated discovery and development of materials grasley is an associate professor and peter c forster faculty fellow i in the zachry department of civil engineering and is also a faculty member in the materials science and engineering department his research interests include behavior and modeling of porous materials durability and sustainability of cementitious materials and mechanics and thermodynamics of concrete the presidential impact fellows program includes the use of the honorific title for life and an annual stipend of $25 000 each for the next three fiscal years to accelerate each recipient's pedagogy research and service impacts identified by his or her dean and confirmed by academic leadership these faculty members are considered candidates for continued or new national and international acclaim and will utilize this honor to participate in national dialogue advance their scholarship and create new partnerships ""this honor furthers our belief that these faculty are and should be considered among the nation's very best and will enable greater recognition for their excellence "" said dr karan l watson provost and executive vice president the 2017 recipients were honored officially at a ceremony on march 7"
1839,dr valerie e taylor texas a&m university college of engineering senior associate dean of academic affairs is now serving a three-year term on the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) committee on opportunities in science (coos) coos appointees advise the aaas directorate for education and human resources (ehr) programs on initiatives and projects related to enhancing the status and accelerating the advancement of minorities women and people with disabilities in science and engineering professions the committee also advises the aaas capacity and career centers i look forward to the opportunity of serving on the committee on opportunities in science and being deeply engaged with the american association for the advancement of science taylor said in 2017 ehr project development will focus on the following: developing stem outreach activities including resident science projects that engage aaas members and prospective members in their local communities; development of electronic resources and platforms for the classroom (pre-k – college and informal environments); international stem education collaborations particularly for women and developing countries; stem education funding policy research and evaluation especially as related to college and university retention and workforce diversity; higher education institution-level transformation (particularly as related to undergraduate stem curriculum; graduate student and faculty diversity policies and practices; and stem pre-service teacher education); conferences for stem undergraduate and graduate students including student oral and poster research presentations; and leadership development and networks for scientists and engineers with disabilities
1840,bonnie bustos-rios refers to herself as a professional suggestion-maker laura olivarez considers herself a tour guide for academics both were recently honored for their unique skill sets with a best of uac symposium 2017 award at the university advisors and counselors (uac) symposium at texas a&m university bustos-rios and olivarez are general engineering advisors assisting freshman engineering students as they embark on their collegiate careers from assisting them as they select a major to connecting them to the resources they need to succeed these advisors have found an innovative way to serve the nearly 4 000 freshman engineering students at texas a&m by advising them virtually via the video chat service webex the advisors presentation tales from the cube: creating a virtual advising space was well attended during the uac symposium general engineering advisors at texas a&m have found much success with virtual advising and its a trend that might catch on at other universities we are truly here to meet students where they are bustos-rios said we recognize they are busy and spend much of their time online their online time is best used when the exact information they need is distributed in an engaging way in a short period of time by initially advising students virtually general engineering advisors can help remove unnecessary barriers that may stand in the way of student success we dont want a face-to-face meeting or a large in-person group advising session to interfere with their already busy class schedule tutoring supplemental instruction or extra and co-curricular activities bustos-rios said virtual advising sessions serve as good introductory events which help them prepare for face-to-face meetings with us after meeting with students via video chat general engineering advisors have found they can have more effective fruitful advising sessions during their in-person appointments i love to interact with students and get them connected to the right resources or show them all the great opportunities our college has to offer olivarez said adding that virtual advising is just one more way for her to do her job effectively they grow so much while attending college and seeing how they change from young eager freshmen to confident aggie engineers makes me proud of our engineering program and the part i play olivarez and bustos-rios have also presented at the texas academic advisor network conference the university advisors and counselors symposium the 2017 nacada: the global community for academic advising and the 2017 teaching with technology conference they will present at the partnering with institutions on a vision for engineering transfer student success conference in april
1841,texas a&m universitys presence at the south by southwest (sxsw) festival in austin this week will include robots developed by current and former students from the electronics systems engineering technology (eset) and multidisciplinary engineering technology (mxet) programs mobile integrated solutions laboratory the digital systems teaching and research (dstr) robots which are articulated-leg suspension platforms that can be controlled by a cell phone or other wi-fi-enabled devices will be part of the robot raceway that visitors to the texas a&m house will have the opportunity to drive the original designers of the dstr robots were herbert baumgartner 09 who designed the mechanics of the robot and vince rodriguez 16 who led the development of the texas instruments-based embedded intelligence communications and android/ios controller application for sxsw 2017 current students alexis crandall 18 colby ryan 14 and salvador echeveste 16 have added upgrades to the robots including the ability for the robots to be driven using first-person video control and high-definition goggles it is exciting to play a part in demonstrating the cool things that are happening in the texas a&m college of engineering ryan said having the opportunity to work with the engineering innovation center on such a high-visibility project is both rewarding and motivational in addition to participating in the sxsw activities the mobile integrated solutions laboratory has agreed to continue its robotics stem outreach summer workshops started last year currently the lab will conduct one dstr workshop for the youth adventure program offered by the college of education and human development but the group hopes to add even more workshops in the near future another eset capstone team is working on adapting a dstr robot for lunar sample recovery that group is going to the johnson space center on april 13 with four mechanical engineering students from texas a&m university at qatar to present final designs for a possible lunar exploration mission in 2018 whether it is teaching a dstr short course working with nasa on using dstr on a lunar exploration mission or now supporting texas a&m at sxsw the opportunities i have had as an undergraduate student in the eset program are preparing me not only for my upcoming summer internship but for a career in engineering when i graduate crandall said for more information on texas a&ms presence at sxsw visit sxswtamuedu
1842,researchers with the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are making it easier for the visually impaired to read by manufacturing high quality adhesive labels through portable 3-d printers so that braille can be found on a variety of consumer products the project led by assistant professor of instruction dr tanil ozkan is unique in not only the benefits it is providing for this specific population but also in its high-impact instructional approach for undergraduate engineering students giving them the ability to be actively engaged in research development and distribution the goal was to have my undergraduate students engaged in every step of the project ozkan said with any kind of product development or innovation it is always the case that when you start learning things and get more experience you kind of become rigid in terms of what you can and cannot do young minds don't have these restrictions and in many cases not knowing anything about the rules is exactly what you need for great innovation the work ozkan and his students are doing initially began with working to provide labels in braille directly on the packaging of everyday consumer products such as shampoo and eating utensils according to ozkan due to the dynamics of the american consumer market it has been difficult to get distributors to include braille labelling on their packaging additionally the standard 3-d printing polymers used in applying the 3-d printed braille to the packaging is not reliable to solve this problem the team created durable adhesive labels to allow easy printing and adhesion to the packages we've also had a former undergraduate and current graduate student here at texas a&m yasushi mizuno develop a non-contact sensor technology which detects surface curvature and height differences on the plane of the labels so that optimal process parameters can be determined with the digitally generated surface within the software for the subsequent 3-d printing ozkan said this allows the labels with the braille to fit the surface well ozkan and his students were able to develop a portable and compact type of 3-d printer that allows the labels to be printed easily a major concern according to ozkan was to ensure that the technical expertise needed to operate the machine was not beyond that of the everyday person which is uncommon among 3-d printers that are commercially available we have developed some software and written our own code that would basically create these braille characters and then place them with the desired size font on the label ozkan said this still requires some level of technical expertise so what we are thinking is that if we combine this technology with a portable 3-d printer this can be taken to schools nursing homes and public libraries where the blind and visually impaired members of our society have access to other services in addition to their work in braille 3-d printing ozkan and his students are also working on a unique method that will allow all consumers including the visually impaired to read expiration dates on products by touch the method involves using a color changing polymer which is encased in gel the permeability of the polymer will change and dissolve over time allowing the visually impaired to determine the shelf life of a product based on how firm the gel is for common consumers the severity of discoloration would be the indication of the remaining shelf life before a products expiration date the next step in circulating products like this and the 3-d printed labels will involve ozkan and his students working with regulatory bodies and organizations that handle braille standardization and consumer health to increase the awareness of these issues and make the technology available to those who need it texas a&m has a nice tradition of doing this kind of leading work for the good of society ozkan said our students seem to be very much aware and interested in these kinds of technologies which will assist all those who need it i think it is very useful and helpful for the students to gain such an experience doing this because this process is essentially the same as what these students will have in their engineering careers in terms of product development combining technologies and working together in a coordinated way in order to get the best outcome photo caption: (top photo) the team working on 3d printing of braille labels (from left to right): cullen chovanec tanil ozkan madeleine horelica and joshua vandervort (bottom photo) example of a braille label on a shampoo bottle video: highly durable and waterproof braille labels can be attached to any surface for details of the process please watch the video
1843,the research of dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor and holder of the william and ruth neely faculty fellowship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was featured on the cover of the january issue of advanced materials interfaces the research article thin films: water-based assembly of polymer–metal organic framework (mof) functional coatings examined and proved the viability of creating layered polymer-metal organic framework (mof) coatings on fibers this research is significant for many reasons mofs are gaining attention for their great variety in size structure and functionality the main feature that makes mofs appealing however is they exhibit high uniform porosity and surface area this makes mofs ideal for use in gas storage gas purification gas separation catalysis and can potentially be used as sensors supercapacitors and semiconductors the problem is that mofs natively exist in powder form rendering them unsuitable for coating purposes further current coating methods require high temperatures and possibly the use of highly toxic organic solvents lutkenhaus and her collaborators were able to solve the temperature and toxic material problem by developing a new layer-by-layer method bonding positively charged mofs and negatively charged polymers in a water suspension the new coating has been successfully applied to silicon glass flexible plastic and cotton confirming that mofs can be applied to a wide variety of surfaces the research team has filed a provisional patent for the new process and the article is on the journals most accessed list
1844,this post originally appeared on the texas a&m energy institute website the institution of chemical engineers (icheme) a global professional membership organization for chemical biochemical and process engineers and other professionals involved in the chemical process and bioprocess industries with a membership exceeding 44 000 members in over 120 countries has chosen to honor the life and accomplishments of professor christodoulos a floudas posthumously by awarding him the prestigious sargent medal named after roger sargent former president of icheme and courthaulds professor of chemical engineering at imperial college the medal was launched in 2014 to recognize a major contribution to research in the area of computer-aided product and process engineering sargent thought by many to be the founding father of process systems engineering has a huge influence both through his research and his many students and academic tree the two previous awardees of this honor are professor costas pantelides a professor of chemical engineering at imperial college and the managing director of process systems enterprise ltd who received the honor in 2015 as well as professor ignacio grossmann the rudolph r and florence dean university professor at carnegie mellon university and floudas doctoral advisor who received the award in 2014 floudas was specifically selected for substantially influencing and shaping the field of process and systems engineering we award people who are best in their field people who have made a difference people who have inspired others we do this because chemical engineering matters and without their contributions society wouldnt benefit said ichemes director of policy and publications claudia flavell-while floudas was the director of the texas a&m energy institute and the erle nye 59 chair professor for engineering excellence in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university until august 2016 when he passed away while on vacation with his family in greece he previously served princeton university for 29 years and was the stephen c macaleer 63 professor in engineering and applied science emeritus and professor of chemical and biological engineering emeritus at princeton born in ioannina greece he earned a diploma of chemical engineering from aristotle university of thessaloniki in 1982 and a phd in chemical engineering from carnegie mellon university in 1986 studying under professor i e grossmann during a career that spanned four decades he became a world-renowned authority in mathematical modeling and optimization of complex systems his research interests were at the interface of chemical engineering applied mathematics and operations research with principal areas of focus including multi-scale systems engineering for energy and the environment chemical process synthesis and design process operations discrete-continuous nonlinear optimization local and global optimization and computational chemistry and molecular biology he was the recipient of numerous awards and honors for teaching and research including election to the national academy of engineering in 2011 selection as a member of tamest (the academy of medicine engineering and sciences of texas) in 2015 and induction as a corresponding member of the academy of athens in 2015 among other recognitions floudas was the recipient of the nsf presidential young investigator award in 1988 the 2001 aiche professional progress award for outstanding progress in chemical engineering the 2006 aiche computing in chemical engineering award and he was named a thomson reuters highly cited researcher in 2014 for the 11 years between 2002-2012 and again in 2015 about icheme with a membership exceeding 44 000 members in over 120 countries and offices in the australia new zealand singapore malaysia and the uk; icheme aims to be the organization of choice for chemical engineers it promotes competence and a commitment to best practice advances the discipline for the benefit of society and supports the professional development of its members icheme is the only organization to award chartered chemical engineer and professional process safety engineer status
1845,researchers with the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are making the best use of our energy waste turning one of our most potent pollutants and greenhouse gasses carbon dioxide (co2) into hydrocarbon fuels that can help the environment and solve growing energy needs we're essentially trying to convert co2and water with the use of the sun into solar fuels in a process called artificial photosynthesis said dr ying li associate professor of mechanical engineering and principal investigator in this process the photo-catalyst material has some unique properties and acts as a semiconductor absorbing the sunlight which excites the electrons in the semiconductor and gives them the electric potential to reduce water and co2 into carbon monoxide and hydrogen which together can be converted to liquid hydrocarbon fuels the first step of the process involves capturing co2from emissions sources such as power plants that contribute to one-third of the global carbon emissions as of yet there is no technology capable of capturing the co2 and at the same time re-converting it back into a fuel source that isnt expensive the material which is a hybrid of titanium oxide and magnesium oxide uses the magnesium oxide to absorb the co2 and the titanium oxide to act as the photo-catalyst generating electrons through sunlight that interact with the absorbed co2 and water to generate the fuel the project is still in the fundamental research stage one of the challenges with this technology is that the current conversion efficiency of converting co2and water into renewable solar fuels remains low less than a few percent according to li the conversion process also takes considerable time and the material can only absorb a fraction of the emitted sunlight for li and his team solving these issues revolves around engineering more efficient materials with nano-scale structures and advancing the reactor design so that the materials placed within the reactor can absorb sunlight in the most efficient manner there are also other considerations said doctoral student huilei zhao a student contributing to the ongoing research in lis research group concentrated sunlight exposure can lead to a higher conversion efficiency and weve found that if we operate at a higher temperature with this reaction the conversion efficiency can be dramatically increased the project is a part of a five-year research grant and career award for li from the national science foundation and is currently in its third year by the end of the project li hopes to have developed a higher level of conversion efficiency and determine if the process can be commercially viable there are two different ways to quantify the efficiency said li what is the fraction of the solar energy we are storing into fuels or what is the fraction of co2 being converted to fuels in either case we need to achieve a near 10-percent efficiency to make the process economically competitive li explains that the commercial viability of this material is crucial and while fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas remain cheap low conversion rates do not serve to make the material attractive in meeting national energy needs he says however that too many people are thinking in the short term we may think in the current stage that this technology is not competitive with fossil fuels li said but if we think in the long run our fossil fuels can only support our energy needs for maybe a couple hundred years if we use them at the current rate what will happen after that we will still need these liquid hydrocarbon fuels to power our machines vehicles and airplanes electricity made through renewable resources alone will not be enough because we cannot store and transport it effectively therefore we believe this new technology of producing renewable hydrocarbon fuels is important in dealing with both global climate issues and our need for sustainable energy
1846,dr byul hur assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) at texas a&m university is serving as a principal investigator on research to fight diseases like the zika virus as part of a recent $10 million centers for disease control grant given to texas a&m agrilife my role in this research is serving as one of the project leaders with other experts exploring the development of custom wireless network systems for zika-related research and commercialization efforts to provide tools to fight against these types of diseases says hur hur is working with drs zach adelman and kevin myles from the department of entomology as well as drs mark lawley and madhav erraguntla from the department of industrial & systems engineering they have been conducting research on the effect of environmental factors on diseases exploring wireless monitoring systems and networks for data analysis and modeling hur is a new faculty member in the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program at etid he received both his master of science (ms) and doctor of philosophy (phd) degrees from the university of florida in electrical and computer engineering his research interests include mixed-signal/rf circuit design and wireless system development rf test and measurement automation and environmental and biomedical data measurement and analysis prior to joining the faculty at texas a&m hur served as a courtesy faculty of ece lecturer and post-doctoral associate at the university of florida the college of engineering at texas a&m university is actively conducting research to fight vector-borne diseases such as zika virus it recently held an innovate against zika competition where students produced 12 solutions to combat the virus in just 48 hours
1847,renowned scholar dr thomas overbye has joined the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university as part of the governors university research initiative (guri) which is aimed at bringing the best and brightest researchers in the world to texas overbye a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor is a member of the prestigious national academy of engineering prior to joining texas a&m in january 2017 he was the fox family professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign he received his bachelors masters and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the university of wisconsin-madison in 1983 1988 and 1991 respectively his research interests are in the domains of smart grid cybersecurity renewable electric energy systems power system visualization power system analysis by computer methods power system stability and power systems operation and control in the fall he will begin teaching on topics related to power distribution and generation before starting his academic career overbye was employed with madison gas and electric company from 1983-91 he is the original developer of powerworld simulator an innovative widely-used software package for power system analysis and visualization and a cofounder of powerworld corporation he is also the recipient of the alexander schwarzkopf prize for technological innovation a university of wisconsin-madison college of engineering distinguished achievement award and the ieee power and energy society outstanding power engineering educator award
1848,from left to right: gibran hashmi abhishek punase dr j roger hite (spe gulf coast north america region director) darcy spady (2018 spe president) isaac zhukovsky asif ahmed miranda jones tian liu and vanessa ndonhong a group of petroleum engineering students from texas a&m university made a name for themselves in the regional petrobowl qualifications in february facing down other north america region teams to secure a spot to compete internationally the petrobowl team of the texas a&m student chapter of the society of petroleum engineers (tamu-spe) includes five students: abhishek punase isaac zhukovsky asif ahmed miranda jones and tian liu together with their two coaches gibran hashmi and vanessa ndonhong these aggies hope to make a great showing at the international petrobowl contest held during the 2017 spe annual technical conference and exhibition (atce) this october in san antonio texas we competed against 23 other teams from the us canada and mexico said hashmi a petroleum graduate student five teams were supposed to qualify for the petrobowl at atce and our team was the second among those five the top five teams from the north america region are the national autonomous university of mexico texas a&m university oklahoma state university the university of kansas and the university of tulsa petrobowl competitions pit spe student chapter teams against each other in a series of quick-fire rounds answering technical and nontechnical industry-related questions in regional qualification the north america teams were divided into four different pools each team had a chance to play all other teams in their pool at the end of the pool rounds the top two teams from each pool were selected to compete in the single elimination round the tamu-spe team played a total of eight matches in the competition there are five members for the team altogether but at any given time only four of them play said hashmi we switch around the team with our three younger members rotating for the two spots beside the two more experienced members petrobowl contests began in 2002 due to popularity a two-stage pilot program was introduced in 2013 to transition the contest into a global event by 2015 it went international with the introduction of six regional qualifier contests the tamu-spe team in the 2013 competition won third place the highlight of that competition was the spirit and support of students in the crowd giving a true 12th man series of yells to encourage their fellow aggies
1849,laughter and excitement could be heard around the room as 60 elementary students filed into the college station hilton feb 23 for the second annual discovere girl day event the texas a&m university college of engineerings women in engineering program in collaboration with pk-12 engineering education outreach hosted the event to introduce second through fifth grade girls to the wonders of engineering women in engineering director shawna fletcher said early exposure is key these students know about other career fields but not engineering she said they need to know about all the different engineering options especially those that they dont usually self-select girls are good at engineering; they just need to be given an opportunity to explore shelly tornquist director of pk-12 engineering education outreach said the event is a great opportunity to spark an interest that can lead young people on a pathway toward engineering engineers use math and science to solve problems creatively tornquist said that being said we see that engineering activities can be the first time math and science makes sense to our young people women in engineering staff and ambassadors volunteered to teach activities to the girls from building pneumatic machines to building speakers and learning about the transfer of energy with newtons cradle participants also learned about the engineering design process when they were asked to think of a problem that they wanted to solve they had to come up with possible solutions sketch a design and use glow sticks to build a prototype while the girls worked with hands-on activities parents attended a parent session where fletcher and tornquist discussed effective ways to engage young girls in engineering activities they were very interested in how to support their daughters in engineering and beyond fletcher said we discussed many of the gaps and challenges to supporting women in non-traditional fields and what they can do about it women in engineering program staff developed the activities and organized this event
1850,women in engineering a program offered through the texas a&m university college of engineering held a graduate recruitment event feb 17 students from across the country came to meet with faculty staff and students from nine departments to learn more about engineering for the event 22 prospective students were invited to attend a luncheon where they had the opportunity to speak with department representatives then visit the campus for department and lab tours they also engaged in evening activities that showcased the city of college station by meeting current students faculty and staff and touring the renowned laboratories and facilities this recruitment event allowed prospective graduate students the opportunity to see first-hand what texas a&m engineering has to offer this event changed my view as a future grad school applicant by allowing me to see and experience what its like as a grad student at (texas) a&m which is so much more than any website or information pamphlet can provide alone said biomedical engineering student whitney souery interacting with the current graduate students and seeing the facilities and labs really allows for the students to visualize themselves studying here at (texas) a&m which i believe is what makes the event so successful in terms of future student recruitment women in engineerings vision is to create an environment that fosters support and development of women students and faculty the program incorporates inclusive practices to elicit meaningful and lasting changes in the engineering culture and workplace as a whole this was the first event offered by the women in engineering program and we hope to offer the event next year said program director shawna fletcher we are interested to see these students become part of the aggie family
1851,students raced against the clock to invent new technology and innovations to help improve veterinary patient outcomes and pet life as a whole at the latest aggies invent veterinary care is constantly evolving but isnt perfect there are many issues veterinarians face on a daily basis that can be improved teams of randomly-grouped students worked together on their needs statement giving each group a different problem to solve in the mix of innovations was a version of a fitbit for animals a device to record the urinary behavior and health of a cat and a 3-d printed organ to aid training veterinary students on difficult procedures the students are given just 48 hours to brainstorm create and present their innovation to a group of expert judges first place went to pawty pals with their cat-tracking device that records the urinary behavior of cats to catch early warning signs of disease this team included miranda george masters student in biotechnology iran ramirez senior from civil engineering sarah jacobson senior from biomedical engineering and sam mcdonald a second-year veterinary student second place was awarded to pet steps with their improved version of a microchip used in dogs with features such as gps water intake heart rate tracking and more their team was comprised of second-year veterinary student rachel jorgensen mccalley cunningham senior from animal science kyle novak senior from computer engineering in electrical engineering and emily fauver senior from multidisciplinary engineering technology steven michael kouam kenmognie a sophomore computer engineering in electrical engineering and justin campbell a freshman engineering major third place went to 3dorganizers they created an easily-produced inexpensive 3-d model of animal organs to train veterinary students on complicated and risky procedures the team included joseph kishpaugh a sophomore engineering major elise luo a senior economics major veterinary students gabriela de lima and jessica xu as well as lee-jae jack guo a phd biomedical sciences student the top three winning teams were awarded $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively and will gain global exposure through aggies invents partners the college of veterinary medicine maxim integrated and banfield pet hospital sponsored this event the event was judged by lorne smith from maxim integrated dr adam little from the college of veterinary medicine dr eleanor green dean of the college of veterinary medicine dr corrine mardel and roland block associate director engineering and experiential education
1852,with a professional career spanning more than 35 years matt sunseri 81 the president and ceo of zeus enterprises llc has had his fair share of experience in the nuclear engineering industry sunseri graduated from texas a&m university with a bachelor of science in nuclear engineering and has since served in a variety of industry roles now he is transitioning into an advisory role with the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m hoping students and faculty in the department will benefit from his years of experience after 35 years of being in commercial nuclear power plants i feel like it is a time to redirect my career and start giving back to the field that has provided so much for me sunseri said i am looking forward to participating with the nuclear engineering advisory council as a part of the nuclear engineering program at texas a&m hopefully sharing some of my experiences will help the program prepare future aggie nuclear engineers for their important role in our society in his new role sunseri was recently able to lend his views and experience to the department during the spring meeting of the 2017 nuclear engineering advisory council where he and other industry and academia experts provided insight and guidance to the department sunseris career in industry began as a nuclear engineer performing startup testing and progressively advanced through roles as a reactor engineering supervisor plant manager site vice president and chief nuclear officer among many other positions his last role in industry was ceo of wolf creek nuclear operation corporation and he currently provides management consulting services to the nuclear industry and participates on not-for-profit technical and philanthropic boards and committees sunseri has attributed his experience at texas a&m as important in his success when i left college i took with me a bachelor of science in nuclear engineering and in addition to that a&m gave me a strong sense and feeling of leadership sunseri said i not only wanted to be part of a team i wanted to lead the team being an aggie means you strive for excellence in everything that is important to you i think it is that pursuit of excellence that brought out the leadership characteristics in me when sunseri entered the workforce as an engineer at a commercial nuclear power plant under construction he found that what attracted him to industry was working with people to create something new he also discovered early on that he could make an impact as an individual contributor on a team and as team leader my influence was multiplied by the members of the team i led sunseri said one of my greatest satisfactions in my career is seeing the pride on team members faces as they are recognized for whatever accomplishment we achieved together in transitioning one thing sunseri hopes to provide the department and its students is guidance in working within the broad range of positions that the nuclear industry has to offer my advice to nuclear engineering students or anyone starting out is to keep in mind that you will be pursuing a career not a job sunseri said there is a big difference between the two a job is something that has to get done while a career becomes part of you and you a part of it a career is personal and you shouldnt let other people make career decisions for you--make them yourself sunseri is also excited about the future of nuclear engineering and the possibilities that it will bring to young engineering students it would be difficult to imagine a world without the use of nuclear science and technology sunseri said think about nuclear medicine smoke detectors microwave ovens spacecraft power supplies and many more common uses of nuclear science and technology these things are possible because nuclear engineers bridged the gap between physical phenomena and practical need through our outreach we should strive to get more girls and boys involved in science technology engineering and mathematic programs so that we have more nuclear engineers to continue to bring to us the modern conveniences that make society and life better
1853,in april ascend performance materials announced that company president and chief operating officer phil mcdivitt 87 was promoted to president chief executive officer and member of the board mcdivitt is a graduate of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and currently sits on the departments advisory council mcdivitt joined ascend performance materials in april 2015 as president of the companys nylon business and quickly moved up the ranks a year later he was named the president and chief operating officer since joining he [mcdivitt] has made important contributions to building a stronger team and culture improving financial and operating disciplines and creating a more dynamic commercial organization said barry siadat chairman of ascend performance materials as envisioned by the board at the time of his hiring phil has demonstrated his readiness to transition to ceo prior to joining ascend performance materials mcdivitt spent more than nine years in various roles at celanese a global technology and materials company working his way up to the vice president and general manager of the companys engineered materials business
1854,the texas a&m university college of engineering honored six alumni during the 2017 outstanding alumni awards banquet receiving the outstanding alumni honor award were fiona mccracken allen 82 regional manager trinity river authority; anthony bahr 91 president and co-founder wildhorse resource development corporation; dennis j seith 79 chief executive officer ineos olefins and polymers usa; emina soljanin 94 professor rutgers university; and jimmy williams 83 executive director and distinguished service professor carnegie mellon university receiving the outstanding early professional achievement alumni award was isaac wesley ekoto 06 principal member of the technical staff at sandia national laboratories fiona mccracken allen ‘82regional managertrinity river authority fiona mccracken allen is regional manager for the trinity river authority and responsible for wholesale water and wastewater services for 14 million people in the dallas-fort worth metroplex and local sponsorship of three us army corps of engineers reservoirs she began her career with the city of arlington texas in 1990 as a staff civil engineer during her time there she was promoted to field operations manager assistant director of utilities director of utilities and in january 2005 was appointed interim deputy city manager she has received several honors during her career including the zachry department of civil engineering distinguished graduate award; texas a&m engineer of the year texas society of professional engineers mid cities chapter; distinguished service award texas municipal utilities association; and the american council of engineering companies chief judge engineering excellence awards she has presented and co-authored papers at several state conferences as well as at the american water works association and water environment federation national conventions allen earned her bachelor of science degree in civil engineering in 1982 from texas a&m she and her husband don have three children meredith mark and elizabeth anthony bahr ‘91president and co-founderwildhorse resource development corporation anthony bahr is president and co-founder of wildhorse resource development corporation an independent oil and natural gas company headquartered in houston texas wildhorse is the fourth publicly traded company generated from bahrs private oil and gas investments in the past 10 years prior to co-founding the original wildhorse private company in 2007 bahr was employed in a variety of management and engineering roles with private and public energy companies he also actively manages business investments in real estate private equity polymer technology research commercial real estate development and construction material supplies bahr is a three-time aggie 100 winner with two of his companies receiving the awards in 2013 2014 and 2016 for their ranking in the fastest-growing aggie-owned companies bahr has founded or co-founded 31 companies since high school he is a member of the mays business school development council and the petroleum ventures advisory board an educational collaboration between the mays business school and the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m which he co-founded in 2015 bahr received his bachelor of science and master of science degrees in petroleum engineering from texas a&m and his master of business administration degree from california state university bahr and his wife gina have three children audrey travis and trever dennis j seith ‘79chief executive officerineos olefins and polymers usa dennis seith is chief executive officer of ineos olefins and polymers usa and has more than 37 years of experience in the petrochemical polymer and refining industries prior to joining ineos seith held numerous supervisory roles for more than 25 years at amoco/bp amoco seith received an amoco chairmans award and an aggie 100 summit award he was elected by members of the american fuels and petrochemical manufacturers as a member of the executive board that governs the industry-wide advocacy association and he was also elected treasurer seith was elected by industry peers into the founders club an industry organization for 25-plus year contributors and he also served as vice president for its board of governors he has served as a member of the chemical engineering advisory council at texas a&m and the texas a&m engineering advisory council and he established the cathy and dennis seith 79 faculty fellowship and the cathy 79 and dennis seith 79 study abroad scholarship at texas a&m seith received his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m in 1979 he and his wife cathy 79 have three children jeremy melissa and thomas ‘12 emina soljanin ‘94 professorrutgers university dr emina soljanin is a professor at rutgers university her research group is currently concerned with reliable efficient and secure big data storage as well as fast anonymous and private data retrieval before joining the rutgers faculty in january 2016 soljanin was a distinguished member of the technical staff at bell laboratories soljanin is an ieee fellow and recipient of the ieee information theory society padovani lectureship award she has received paper awards from technical communities and funding grants for her research from numerous government agencies she also served as a distinguished lecturer of the ieee information theory society from 2015–2016 she is a member of ieee the american mathematical society and the association for women in mathematics and serves on the external advisory committee for the national science foundations center for science of information she has been intermittently serving as a member of the board of governors of the ieee information theory society since 2009 and is currently the second vice president soljanin received her master of science and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from texas a&m in 1989 and 1994 respectively she is married to andrea da conturbia rota 94 jimmy williams ‘83executive directordistinguished service professorcarnegie mellon university dr jimmy williams is executive director and distinguished service professor at carnegie mellon university he previously served as vice president for global engineering at the pall corporation senior director for technology development at alcoa and director of research and development at the boeing company he serves as president of the western pennsylvania board of directors for the juvenile diabetes research foundation and is a visiting professor for the university of sheffield in the united kingdom he also serves on the engineering advisory boards at texas a&m the university of florida and the university of missouri-st louis in 2001 he was named black engineer of the year and is chair-elect of the association of former students board at texas a&m williams earned his bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m in 1983 his master of business administration from lindenwood university and his doctoral degree from washington university he and his wife valerie have two children danielle and justin isaac wesley ekoto ‘06principal member of the technical staffsandia national laboratories dr isaac ekoto is a principal member of the technical staff in the engine combustion department at sandia national laboratories he serves as principal investigator of the gasoline combustion fundamentals lab where active research of in-cylinder flow mixing and combustion processes is performed for light-duty gasoline engines ekoto has worked at sandia labs since 2007 when he was a postdoctoral research engineer in 2010 he became a senior member of the technical staff in the hydrogen and combustion technologies department he is a recipient of the texas a&m outstanding young aerospace engineer award; sae powertrain fuels and lubricants meeting best paper award; and the sandia employee recognition award he has written more than 20 refereed journal articles; several news articles; and made numerous presentations at international meetings invited seminars and workshops he is a member of the american society of mechanical engineers and the society of automotive engineers and serves on the academic advisory board for texas a&ms department of aerospace engineering ekoto earned his bachelor of science degree in mathematics from fayetteville state university in 2000 and his doctoral degree in aerospace engineering from texas a&m in 2006 pictured above from left: jimmy williams anthony bahr fiona mccracken allen dr m katherine banks dean of texas a&m engineering isaac ekoto emina soljanin and dennis j seith
1855,the focus of the fifth annual smart grid workshop on the texas a&m university campus was using smart grids big data the workshop was organized by the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) smart grid center after receiving a $1 million grant from the national science foundations (nsf) big data spokes program to extend collaboration and innovation using big data for the smart power grid area the significance of smart grids big data is in the diversity of its sources growth rate correlations and spatiotemporal (belonging to space and time) characteristics big data is measured all over and monitored at a fine temporal scale in smart electric grids but largely unexploited for its transformational impact in discovering new knowledge and solutions resulting in major improvements in smart grid operation (eg power generation and distribution renewable energy interfacing transmission grid resiliency) and smart grid user necessities (microgrids smart cities transportation etc) the use of big data in implementing the automation of data analytics and data management and the implementation and benefits of utilizing big data in advanced power grids were discussed at the workshop as invited keynote speaker todd horsman senior director of strategy and product development at cps energy discussed data and the evolving utility business model during lunch the featured speaker was kevin nowka director of ibm research in austin who discussed big data landscape: challenges and opportunities panel sessions included the topics big data availability and management international experiences: synchrophasors bd data analytics and tools and future efforts posters reflecting on graduate student research areas and outcomes were also presented and participants attended focus group sessions on topics related to big data this event was a great start toward forming a global partnership for big data research education and training relevant to the smart grids which the nsf grant was awarded for said dr mladen kezunovic principal investigator of the nsf grant and director of the smart grid center we are quite happy to serve as coordinators together with pis from temple university and the georgia institute of technology and expand the network of over 100 organizations and 200 individuals that have shown their interest so far overall 130 people attended the workshop including participants from texas a&m government and non-profit organizations and industry for more information about the workshop visit the smart grid centers website the next workshop on the topic will take place in april 2018
1856,former prisoners who graduated from the prison entrepreneurship program (pep) recently visited the texas a&m university college of engineerings zachry leadership program students during the session the students learned about the challenges former prisoners face the recidivism problem and how they could use the lessons theyve learned about business strategy to help inmates in the program develop business plans the primary focus of pep is to help prisoners focus on skills and mindsets that will aid them when they get out of prison so they are encouraged to set up business models some participate in the program for practice and others make plans to launch businesses when they complete their sentences students in the zachry leadership program spend two semesters focusing on business skills and using their knowledge and experience to help pep participants by being their business model advisors said program director seth sullivan this is the first interaction between the zachry leadership program and the prison entrepreneurship program said sullivan the founding class 32 students who went through an application and interview process was the first class to be introduced to the pep and is looking forward to future involvement with them the visit from pep is one of the many opportunities given to students to help them broaden their thinking as leaders sullivan said that helping the pep participants allows the students to reinforce their theme this semester--that engineering and business can have a positive impact on society one of the greatest themes that we have focused on is empathy said melanie enriquez a junior electrical engineering student the [prison entrepreneurship program] is the greatest example of an organization exhibiting unconditional love hope and empathy students will be donating their time and experience to pep prisoner participants by helping with job preparation for life after prison enriquez said she will be participating in this program by reviewing revising and editing papers and resumes written by pep participants their interactions with inmates are all conducted via email through an intermediary and are anonymous in addition to talking about the challenges that they face prison entrepreneurship program members shared their personal stories with the texas a&m students the speakers stories of their own and on behalf of their friends still behind bars made the zachry leadership program students realize they were not all that far apart in their wants and goals said enriquez we are looking forward to working with the prison entrepreneurship program in the future said sullivan this experience benefits the students by exposing them to new perspectives and giving them opportunities to help others the zachry leadership program is always striving to provide learning opportunities such as this one for its students students in the program are exposed to subjects like business to broaden their horizons and help them apply their engineering degree to the real world these students will be graduating with a degree from texas a&m and having had experiences that broaden and deepen their leadership ability further helping them post-graduation in making an impact in their communities and the world the zachry leadership program opened applications for the next cohort of students on april 10 click here for more information and to apply
1857,dr emina soljanin ‘94 professor at rutgers university presented her research about codes for data storage system during the leaders and innovators speaker series seminar in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university soljanin discussed how coding reduces download time of large files in the cloud systems and provided insights on increasing reliability against disk failures her seminar introduced a queuing framework to model multiple users requesting their data simultaneously and demonstrated the trade-off between the download time and the storage space coding exploits the diversity and parallelism in the system better than todays replication schemes allowing faster download said soljanin several problems arise in distributed computing systems when some servers are struggling to complete their tasks and the cloud data is hot large changing and expanding soljanin graduated from the electrical and computer engineering department with a masters degree and phd in 1989 and 1994 respectively she recently received the texas a&m college of engineerings 2017 distinguished alumni award she is a former distinguished technical staff member at bell labs and has spent more than 25 years participating in diverse research and business projects in areas such as power system optimization magnetic recording color space quantization hybrid arq network coding data and network security and quantum information theory and networking soljanin has served as the associate editor for coding techniques and ieee transactions on information theory on the information theory societys board of governors and in various roles on other journal editorial boards and conference program committees she is a member of ams and an ieee fellow she served as a distinguished lecturer for the ieee information theory society in 2015 and 2016 and is currently serving as the second vice president for the society
1858,robyn woollands was selected by the association of former students for a 2017 distinguished graduate student award for excellence in research – doctoral woollands received her doctorate in aerospace engineering from texas a&m university in december she was nominated by her advisor dr john junkins distinguished professor of aerospace engineering for her significant contributions to research the distinguished graduate student awards recognize the exemplary accomplishments of students pursuing masters and doctoral degrees at texas a&m woollands research while pursuing her doctoral degree involved the development of software for improved satellite tracking the software is currently being used by several industrial partners: nasas jet propulsion lab (jpl) the air force research laboratory applied defense solutions and cummings aerospace woollands has accepted an offer from jpl where she will work as a guidance and control engineer in the inner planets mission analysis group during her graduate studies woollands spent two summers interning at jpl developing advanced numerical integration software to aid in the solution of numerous orbit problems she has authored 10 peer-reviewed journal papers has two more currently under review and another two in preparation prior to studying at texas a&m woollands completed her bachelor of science in physics and her master of science in astronomy from the university of canterbury new zealand while at canterbury she was selected to attend the international school for young astronomers malaysia and she was selected to participate in the universitys antarctic program and traveled to antarctica to conduct scientific experiments following this she completed a master of science in aerospace engineering at the university of minnesota woollands was among 16 distinguished students who were recognized at an awards ceremony monday at the stark galleries at texas a&m
1859,mauricio coen a phd student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded an aggies commit to graduate and professional student education experiences fellowship he will use the $1 500 award to help fund expenses for the a3dpt-mars: advantages of 3-d printing technology to operations in future human exploration of mars experiment which is part of the poland mars analog simulation (pmas) 2017 the aggies commit fellowship aims to support high-impact learning experiences of graduate and professional students that go beyond required degree program activities this fellowship furthers graduate and professional education by providing support and access to resources and programming not available at texas a&m and collaborative research with senior scholars at other campuses in the united states as well as internationally pmas 2017 organized by the space exploration project group of the space generation advisory council is a realistic mars simulation mission the simulation will concentrate on research areas that will be important for a real mars missions and will allow scientists and researchers to test out innovative ideas in a controlled environment the project consists of two teams astronauts and flight support a team of six analog astronauts will conduct scientific research and record their experiences for two weeks while confined in the modular analog research station in turza poland a new habitat built by space garden company in the polish mountains in addition they will have a three-day lunar simulation prior to pmas in partnership with the european space agency fully isolated from the rest of the world their only point of contact to earth will be the second team at the mission support center (msc) located 530 kilometers away in the offices of abm space in torun poland a group of 30 international students and young professionals will make up the flight support team supporting supervising and analyzing the astronauts activities coen will be at the msc providing support for the a3dpt-mars experiment the a3dpt-mars experiment will strive to understand if 3-d printing will bring operational advantages to human mars exploration and quantify the differences between the current approach to space exploration and the potential for future mars exploration coen said while previous research has focused on what 3-d printing can create this experiment will focus on testing a variety of operational scenarios mostly centered around geological sampling they will test scenarios by having simulated tool breakdowns during geological expeditions which have to be repaired by the astronauts using the 3-d printer the astronauts will also be able to print parts they think are necessary for improving their effectiveness during the mission overall they will be using an exact replica of the amf a 3-d printer currently aboard the international space station (iss) this will allow them to compare real iss operations with a mars analog simulation this replica is being provided by made in space which is providing in-kind support to the experiment made in space is also providing their vast expertise with 3-d printing and operations to the a3dpt-mars team coen will provide operational support to the astronauts for times when the printer stops working or they need clarification with procedures he will also have the capability to print parts without an astronaut needing to be present this will allow them to test the difference between earth and mars controlled 3-d printed operations we hypothesize that astronauts will be able to adapt more quickly to changing mission goals coen said crew time (astronauts available work time) is one of the most valuable assets in any space exploration mission and hopefully 3-d printing embedded in their daily operations will reduce time spent in cumbersome tasks especially with repairs coen hopes the experiment will pave the way to explore additive manufacturing technology to reduce space exploration costs while coen will be the one traveling to poland this summer the a3dpt-mars is being put together by an international interdisciplinary team of students that has been collaborating for about a year they are involved in designing 3-d printed parts testing prototypes and creating procedures members of the team include coen benjamin morrell (university of sydney australia) deliya kim (kaist south korea) and michael muller and sophie gruber (university of graz & innsbruck university austria) dr greg chamitoff professor of practice in the aerospace engineering department and his aerospace technology research and operations center are providing guidance financial support and resources to complete this experiment
1860,a researcher with the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is working to create the next generation of computer-aided tools for enabling conceptual design – an undertaking instrumental in catering to the ever-increasing demand for product innovation dr vinayak assistant professor of mechanical engineering is developing mixed-initiative software interfaces that would allow human designers to collaborate seamlessly with the computer to design products that function these software interfaces are intended to help many kinds of specialized professionals from industrial designers and architects to prosthetic specialists understand and take into account design constraints for a better end product design is a key component of so many disciplines vinayak said if youre doing electronics computer science computer engineering arts architectureanythingdesign is a common component the designers in these cases are domain experts in their specific field who need to account for so many different constraints and needs that they may not even be aware of for example in fitting an amputee with a new artificial limb a physician becomes an unwilling designer who while knowing the medical constraints of the patient is not entirely aware of the engineering aspects (the exact shape of the amputees limb material selection and loads on the limb) affecting the design of the device making the device becomes a trial and error process for the doctor and the patient often resulting in failed products our goal is to make software tools that help account for mechanical information such as stresses materials and so on while being able to present that information to the medical professional in a language that they best understand vinayak said this greatly improves the favorability of the outcomes for both the medical professional as the designer and the patient as the customer another example is that of an architect who is designing the form and feel of a staircase without being completely aware of how to systematically incorporate the mechanics and kinematics of the staircase within its artistic elements vinayak hopes his mixed-initiative design approach will address this problem by providing designers with a computer system that participates in the design process as a partner supplies missing information questions the designers decisions and ultimately talks to them working toward getting a useful and functional product while the research is currently in the fundamental stages vinayak is hopeful about the interdisciplinary benefits it may bring as we move forward design tools need to accommodate the experts who want to create complex functional products for their users as well as the end users who want to build useful things for themselves vinayak said so we are doing this to empower the designer and the customer media contact: brooke amador communications specialist mechanical engineering
1861,graduate students nima jalili rachael muschalek and landon nash from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university have each been awarded the association of former students (afs) distinguished graduate student award students who are selected are presented with the award in one of three categories: excellence in research-doctoral excellence in research-masters or excellence in teaching jalili and muschalek were each selected for their excellence in research in their masters studies and nash was selected for his excellence within research during his doctoral studies muschalek and nash both conducted their research under the guidance of dr duncan maitland within his biomedical device laboratory jalili conducted his research under the guidance of dr akhilesh gaharwar within his inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering laboratory jalili graduated with a master of science degree in may of 2016 his thesis is titled nanoengineered injectable hydrogel for on-demand and localize therapeutic delivery he is currently employed as a quality assurance engineer at alcon a novartis division in houston texas muschalek is graduating with a master of science degree in may her thesis is titled effects of sterilization on shape memory polyurethane embolic foam devices she will begin her medical degree program at the baylor school of medicine this summer nash is graduating with a phd in may his dissertation is titled material modifications for improved performance of shape memory polymer medical devices he is currently employed as a senior engineer at a medical device startup company founded by maitland shape memory medical inc (santa clara ca) nominations for the award come from faculty advisors or departments and the nomination itself represents a true honor and accomplishment due to the strenuous eligibility requirements a panel of reviewers including faculty and administrators choose award recipients based on the students academic record and contributions in research students were honored at a ceremony april 24 for more information about the award please visit: http://ogapstamuedu/buttons/funding-opportunities/distinguished-graduate-student-awardaspx
1862,a team of researchers from the department of materials science and engineering and the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university is collaborating to 4-d print nickel-titanium shape memory alloys the research group is comprised of dr ibrahim karaman department head and chevron professor i; dr raymundo arróyave associate professor materials science and engineering; dr ji ma assistant research scientist texas a&m engineering experiment station; and dr alaa elwany assistant professor industrial and systems engineering our goals are to achieve the ability to manufacture ‘smart monolithic metallic structures that will respond to stimuli over time and have a different location-dependent stimulus response within the same part elwany said in our case this is retaining their original shape upon being subjected to a temperature stimulus the structures are considered smart because they can change their physical shape or properties on demand when a stimulus such as a temperature change or magnetic field is applied in this case our material has a ‘remembered shape ma said if you bend it out of shape the material will go back to its original shape after being heated while other work has been conducted in this area the materials previously tested returned to the remembered shape after heating to one specific temperature the teams work now makes it possible for different parts of the same piece to return at different temperatures this provides the ability to create devices that can assume multiple different shapes at different temperatures the team has also expanded on previous work by going beyond simple material shapes such as wires to more complex shapes due to the properties created from the various processing parameters used in the 3-d printing process as a result of their research this is the first time complex materials with multiple programmable shapes have been possible the next step is to actually develop a framework for the design of shape and functionality and from the design specification determine the required materials and processing conditions arróyave said this is a very very hard problem that requires considerable development of new computational experimental and statistical tools and we have the team to carry it out the team we put together to execute this challenging problem includes experts in shape memory alloys materials processing additive manufacturing and computational materials and process design karaman said by controlling the local properties of the structures and grading the functionality we take the conventional 3-d printing processes converting them into ‘4-d printing technology as a result of their work in the space and aeronautics industry satellite solar panels will have the possibility of multiple stages of unfolding and deploying instead of simply being on or off in the medical industry implants can have devices that deploy or change shape at different times or temperatures to allow more complex surgical insertions or placements on smart locks or switches more analog control is possible such as a volume knob instead of a single on or off button the work was published in scientific reports a nature publication with an impact factor of 52 the original research publication can be found here
1863,"on friday april 21 2017 thousands of aggies descended on the texas a&m university campus to participate in the annual muster ceremony the time-honored tradition serves as a celebration of the past present and future aggie family muster has changed over its more than 100-year history but the main tenant of honoring aggies who have passed away in the last year remains one of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineerings very own was honored at this years muster in august 2016 texas a&m lost a true visionary of the field when dr christodoulos ""chris"" a floudas passed away while on vacation in greece with his family floudas the erle nye '59 chair professor for engineering excellence was a member of the national academy of engineering a texas a&m institute for advanced study fellow and eminent scholar an american institute of chemical engineers fellow a society for industrial and applied mathematics fellow a fellow of the national academy of inventors and corresponding member of the academy of athens in the days leading up to muster there is a reflections display located in the memorial student center honoring the aggies who passed away at the display there was a tribute to floudas (image above) in the display was the following poem: professor christodoulos floudas is gone we can shed tears that he is gone or we can smile because he lived we can close our eyes and pray this is all a bad dream or we can open our eyes and appreciate all that he left we can feel empty because we cant see his smile or we can be filled with resolve like he always was we can turn our back on tomorrow and relive yesterday or we can be inspired by him and live our lives to fulfillment we can remember him and dwell only on his death or we can cherish his memory and help make it live on we can close our mind feel empty and fret about our loss or we can do what he would want: smile and bring our passion for lifes many possibilities tribute by texas a&m institute for advanced study"
1864,dr edward dougherty a pioneer in the study of translational genomics via the use of engineering techniques has authored his 18th book the evolution of scientific knowledge: from certainty to uncertainty that focuses on the background and history of epistemology (the theory of knowledge) in science and engineering dougherty is the robert m kennedy 26 chair professor and distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university he is the director of the genomic signal processing lab at texas a&m and former director of the computational biology division of the translational genomics research institute the book includes the history of scientific epistemology from ancient to modern science and the centrality of mathematics in the quantum mechanical thinking of bohr heisenberg and schrödinger the founding fathers of quantum physics this background and history is fundamental to appreciating the twofold problem the book ultimately addresses said dougherty in a spie press blog our inability to scientifically frame many important issues regarding nature and the impact of uncertainty on the translation of scientific knowledge into means to alter the course of nature that is the effect of uncertainty in engineering his interest in epistemology began in the early days of genomics with the classification of cancer via genomic markers and the building of gene regulatory networks a workshop in germany focusing on validation of complex systems triggered him to write the book on the flight back there was interest among scientists and engineers in the challenge of complexity but i repeatedly heard that their education had ignored epistemology said dougherty in the blog i realized just how universal epistemology was across science engineering and social science
1865,what started as a whiteboard concept nearly 20 years ago by dr duncan maitland the stewart & stevenson professor i in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university could soon turn into a revolutionary product for the medical industry for treating vascular problems like aneurysms from his federally funded research on special plastics from the national institutes of health (national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering and national institute of neurological disorders and stroke) national science foundation department of energy and other sources maitland has created a peripheral vessel occlusion device called polyurethane-based shape memory polymer foams (smps) out of the 20 years of work the peripheral occlusion device was the first to be filed for a 510(k) clearance in the first quarter of 2017 a 510(k) is a premarket submission made to the food and drug administration (fda) to demonstrate that the device to be marketed is at least as safe and effective as a legally marketed device by the fda while a filing is no guarantee of approval to market and sell human devices the technical and commercial distance traveled in the last 20 years is significant maitland said the demonstrated benefit of using the shape memory polymer devices in humans and the wide adoption of technology in multiple clinical fields are two of the biggest hurdles remaining maitland said his device made of smps could provide doctors with a more effective and less risky method for treating aneurysms – blood-filled balloon-like bulges in the walls of a blood vessel that can rupture and cause neurological damage that is debilitating or even fatal especially when near the brain cerebral aneurysm ruptures occur in 30 000 people per year in the united states and nearly 75 percent of those patients can either die or become neurologically debilitated maitland hopes his research will mean a much better outcome for patients we develop vascular occlusion devices based on porous shape memory polymers the goal in occlusion is to create controlled blood clots that block off the target volume (eg aneurysm) and not the healthy vessels nearby he said existing occlusion devices regardless of the location in the body that they target (eg cerebrovascular aneurysm peripheral vessels feeding tumors and abdominal aortic aneurysms) rely on metal devices to fill volume and create foreign body surface area for clotting maitland said a dominant metal device category is embolic coils which are spring-like devices where metal is wound around a metal or polymer wire for all metal devices the body is asked to clot and occlude around a relatively low percentage of metal-filled volume with a relatively low surface area not surprisingly one of the main problems with metal embolic devices is that they only partially work because the target volume is not or only partially occluded to the point of requiring retreatment our shape memory polymer foams are delivered as compact devices that activate and expand once deployed into the body to fill a large percentage of the target volume with a porous high-surface area clotting scaffold thus for the shape memory polymer devices we achieve larger volume fills and much larger surface areas that result in superior filling and clotting maitland said also during testing the high surface area polymers result in a long-term healing response that is not observed with the metal devices so far in pre-clinical trials the shape memory polymer foams are superior to metal devices for both short and long-term clinical outcomes test results have also revealed smp foams promote long-term health of the areas of the blood vessel affected by the aneurysm reducing the chances of the aneurysm reforming which is shown by the formation of the types of cells and tissue that lead to a more stabilized healing in addition to demonstrating the promotion of an aggressive healing response in aneurysms the smp foams developed by maitland and his team are showing strong signs of biocompatibility – their ability to be accepted by the body in fact the foams are outperforming other fda-approved materials used in blood vessels this means less inflammation in the area which can inhibit the healing process typically foreign objects implanted in the body trigger an inflammatory response as the body attempts to reject them but the smp foams used by maitland show minimal inflammation once they are inserted into the aneurysm this research is drawing the attention of others as well shape memory medical a company founded by maitland with industry veteran ted ruppel as ceo was selected as one of the top 40 best university startups of 2017 and was featured at the national council of entrepreneurial tech transfers university startups conference and demo day in april it was a great honor to be recognized as a top university startup maitland said i am a strong believer of making an impact with research in addition to the students that we train and papers that we publish i am such a fan of commercial technology translation that i was the founding director of the commercialization and entrepreneurship office in (the texas a&m engineering experiment station) tees he said i am thrilled with the opportunity to connect with other university startups the national council of entrepreneurial tech transfer and the whole community that believes in and supports academic entrepreneurism i also personally wish to thank dean and vice chancellor (m katherine) banks president (michael) young and chancellor (john) sharp for all of their support for the entrepreneurial ecosystem that the texas a&m system is building maitlands other funding resources include the lawrence livermore national laboratory tees texas a&m and the state of texas emerging technology fund
1866,before the industrial revolution custom products were handmade by highly skilled individuals basic products that most people have in their homes today were very expensive and considered luxuries because of the time and skill that it took to make just one what the industrial revolution brought about was the ability to mass-produce identical items the result millions of units of a single product could be manufactured in short amount of time increasing availability and reducing the cost for consumers researchers from the department of mechanical engineering and department of visualization at texas a&m university want to take things even further with custom cyber manufacturing using the technology behind origami and kirigami manufacturing the goal is to give non-manufacturers the ability to design and customize products such as chairs lamps and desks for their own use when one hears the word origami the first thing that usually comes to mind is an ornate figure made out of a single sheet of paper that has been folded many times origami manufacturing consists of the same basic idea manufacturers start by placing a flat sheet of material (metal or some kind of polymer) in a machine containing a robot that can fold it into the desired shape some machines can fold material using gravity twisting and turning it so it bends in a specific direction a kirigami machine has the ability to cut and fold the material this is currently done for a select number of large-scale parts but has not yet been used to make commercial items for the public it enables regular people to take their ideas and make something customized thats as good as what they would get if they bought it in a store said dr arun srinivasa co-director of the institute for manufacturing systems and associate department head and holdredge/paul professor in mechanical engineering at texas a&m this type of technology is most needed in the field of orthotics such as leg and wrist braces mass-produced braces are made the same way and not customized to fit each individual patient which can make them extremely uncomfortable to wear with custom cyber manufacturing uncomfortable braces would no longer be an issue because patients could have braces molded to fit the shape of their wrists or legs this type of technology has the potential to make commercial consumer items like jewelry lamp shades boxes or anything that is hollow or shell like in addition to its versatility custom cyber manufacturing can also help open up employment in the manufacturing field according to srinivasa a cyber manufacturing job will allow the person operating the machine to design what their product will look like the merging of technology and creativity will not only appeal to engineers but also non-engineers as well custom cyber manufacturing also frees up the machine operator from mundane tasks like cutting and folding since the machine has the ability to notify them when the object has been folded perfectly some may ask why go through all of this cant you accomplish the same thing with 3-d printing the answer is no 3-d printing and origami manufacturing are very similar yet each has its own capabilities and strengths for example 3-d printing would not be the best way to make custom products we use on a daily basis that are thin and shell-like objects made in a 3-d printer are deposited from power and the end product is solid they are very versatile and can potentially make many intricate shapes but are slow and have difficulty with slender or thing parts origami manufacturing is also efficient faster and costs a great deal less where a 3-d printer can take nearly three hours to make a single object an origami manufacturing printer can take three minutes to make the same object researchers are in the process of building a large origami manufacturing machine which will be housed on the texas a&m campus with a robotic arm inside to fold the material my dad was a machinist and could see that the other machinists would make amazing toys with scrap metal that was left over in their free time i never used to buy toys when i was young because my dads friends would make toys for me said srinivasa if we are able to provide that kind of thing to people it will unleash their creativity
1867,stephanie wilcox an undergraduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded first place in the technology and engineering poster presentation category at the emerging researchers national (ern) conference in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) held in washington dc wilcox is advised by dr arum han professor in the electrical and computer engineering department she was recognized for her poster presentation analyzing microalgal response to various temperature through droplet microfluidics the research develops and utilizes a micro-fabricated lab-on-a-chip system for next-generation microalgae-based biofuel a research project funded by the emerging frontiers in research and innovation program from the national science foundation (nsf) wilcox was part of the research experience and mentoring program of the nsf the ern conference is a nsf-funded event that is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students who participate in programs funded by the nsf division of human resource development unit it prepares students for science careers in a global workforce by offering strategies for pursuing higher education workshops in employment searches and material to help students better understand stem in a global context
1868,texas a&m university will be hosting the national science foundations (nsf) global environment for network innovations (geni) regional workshop and camp may 22-26 geni provides a virtual laboratory for networking and distributed systems research and education it is well-suited for exploring networks at scale thereby promoting innovations in network science security services and applications dr alex sprintson professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and dr walt magnussen associate director of the academy for advanced telecommunications and learning technologies at texas a&m and enterprise it technologist are hosting the workshop and the camp the workshop will introduce the participants to geni with the help of hands-on tutorials the weeklong camp will demonstrate the wide range of experiments possible with geni and give participants the opportunity and time to develop sufficient geni knowledge and skills to apply it immediately to their research participants will have the opportunity to discover how the program can assist their education and research needs with the help of various geni resources and tools through tutorials labs and a team-based project said sprintson the workshop and summer camp will facilitate hands-on innovation in specialized areas of network science security services and applications highlights of the event include 5g cellular networks and software-defined networking dr henning schulzrinne professor in the department of computer science at columbia university will kick off the workshop with his keynote address followed by a keynote presentation by dr lin zhong professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at rice university a limited number of travel grants are available for participants visit txag/geni to learn more and register for the workshop and camp
1869,katie ford a phd student in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is among the recipients of the national science foundations (nsf) graduate research fellowship program (grfp) which were announced in march the program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in nsf-supported science technology engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited united states institutions ford is currently working in dr pushkar leles research group lele is an assistant professor in the chemical engineering department and his research group focuses on cell-mechanics and signaling-networks specifically ford is studying swarming motility in escherichia coli this swarming is a type of surface motility that has been implicated in urinary tract infections and bacterial endophtalmitis she said the research is aimed at better understanding the flagellar motors of the e coli bacteria and how these motors are affected by various hydrodynamics related to swimming ford said that the support from the department and from a fellow phd student who was awarded a grfp last year helped tremendously the support of the department was really awesome too; i owe them a lot dr [perla] balbuena put me in contact with ethan [kamphaus] who had some good advice dr j [arul jayaraman] helped me revise my research plan dr [james] holste wrote me a letter of recommendation i was fortunate to have so many people that were willing to help me ford said in the fall of 2016 ethan kamphaus also a phd student in the department received a grant from the grfp kamphaus is currently working in balbuenas research group balbuena is the holder of the gpsa professorship the group utilizes first principles computational chemistry and physics methods to investigate electronic kinetic thermodynamic transport and properties of materials specifically kamphaus is studying alternative architectures to develop new generation of lithium-ion battery according to kamphaus one architecture is showing great promise the lithium-sulfur battery has a potential to replace lithium ion batteries due to its higher energy density and cheaper cost by using computational simulations we can explore the fundamentals and science behind problems that are holding back this battery from practical application he said this research is very much connected to real-world applications and falls in line with balbuenas battery research funded by the us department of energy ford and kamphaus are in excellent company as grfp recipients since the programs establishment in 1952 the grfp has funded more than 50 000 fellows out of more than 500 000 applications of these more than 50 000 fellows 42 have gone on to become nobel laureates and more than 450 have become members of the national academy of sciences this group includes such members as former us secretary of energy and nobel laureate steven chu google co-founder sergey brin and co-author of the new york times best seller freakonomics steven levitt
1870,four professors in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded funds to participate in the 2017-2018 aggie_challenge program dr daniel alge dr akhilesh gaharwar dr abhishek jain and dr roland kaunas (left to right) will take part in the aggie_challenge alge and his team have proposed to overcome the challenge of robust methods of manufacturing hydrogel microparticles for regenerative engineering they will develop a compact electrospraying system that is capable of rapidly producing large volumes of tissue-mimetic microparticles with precise control over their size and properties gaharwar and his team have proposed to print different tissue structures loaded with tissue-specific cells using 3-d bioprinting and connect these different tissue structures to evaluate synergistic interactions between them multiple engineering disciplines will optimize the printing process and they will then be able to perform the necessary cell culture and assays demonstrating system viability jain and his team have proposed to develop a 3-d printed prototype of a venous blood vessel in which the blood may clot naturally as in cancer patients who develop a potentially fatal condition called deep vein thrombosis or dvt this tool will advance knowledge of how blood clots in cancer and may also serve as a testing bed for medicines prior giving them to patients kaunas and his team have proposed to produce engineered trachea and bone grafts using rotary jet spinning which employs centrifugal force to generate microfibers at high rates a previous aggie-challenge team developed the device for preparing scaffolds and a perfusion bioreactor for culturing cells on the scaffolds the new team will collect fiber on spinning cylindrical spindles and integrate these scaffolds with decellularized tracheal and bone tissues aggie_challenge is a program designed to actively engage engineering undergraduate students with multidisciplinary team projects related to the engineering challenges facing our society undergraduate students will actively participate in the project under the guidance of each professor participating in the program and students enrolled in the aggie_challenge will earn credit hours toward their degree requirements for more information on the program visit the aggie_challenge website
1871,researchers with the departments of mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering at texas a&m university are taking complex interactions between drops of water and material surfaces and conducting fundamental research to understand why some droplets adhere to surfaces and why others dont the research has applications in many industries and the team hopes that by using the fundamental understanding they have gained their findings have the potential to be applied to a variety of scenarios to improve the efficiency safety and effectiveness of industrial machines and equipment the underlying principle we are seeking to study with this is very commonplace and yet very complex said dr sungyon lee an assistant professor in mechanical engineering on a rainy day you can just look out the window and see the water droplets and wonder ‘why do some of the droplets run down the window and others don't we are studying ways to answer this fundamental concept because of the applications it can have elsewhere lee explains that this common phenomenon has applications in industries like transportation oil and gas engineering construction color ink jet printing and many others for example a key challenge that faces aircraft engineers is that because of the altitude and speed at which aircraft operate water droplets that remain on the wings during flight are able to freeze over on the wing and endanger the craft lees research can provide a better fundamental understanding of why droplets may still adhere to an aircraft wing in those conditions and allow designers and engineers to create the wings in such a way that the droplets will no longer stick making the plane safer it isn't an easy question to answer lee said but if we take this scenario with a bunch of droplets on a wing surface and now you have wind pushing those droplets it becomes even more complicated as the forces and factors that cause these phenomena are increased it turns out that predicting that threshold between what makes a droplet stick and what makes it run off a surface is not trivial at all so there are a lot of fundamental questions we can ask even in a simple scenario lee co-authored an article droplet depinning in a wake which was published as a rapid communication in the journal physical review fluids the research is part of a project funded by the national science foundation and is being co-investigated by dr edward white associate department head and associate professor in the aerospace engineering department white and his students had been exploring at what point droplets roll off at exposure to different wind speeds interested in aircraft applications lee was able to bring her knowledge of interfacial phenomena in fluid mechanics or how two phases like water and a surface meet and interact to help white in his research and they became co-investigators on the project lee is the principal investigator and is excited to see how the teams research can be applied more broadly i like fundamental beautiful problems like this and it is just the tip of the iceberg lee said fundamental research is another way of changing the world by understanding the world better and gaining something much deeper that can be applied to a variety of areas in a much broader sense
1872,dr moo-hyun kim a professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the society of naval architects and marine engineers (sname) this distinction honors individuals who have made outstanding personal contributions to naval architecture marine or ocean engineering through significant achievements in design research production operation education or associated management receiving this award is a great honor and will help to contribute more for sname-related activities kim said kim also serves as the editor-in-chief of the ocean systems engineering international journal and associate editor of both the journal of offshore mechanics and artic engineering and the journal of ocean engineering i look forward to acquiring additional international leadership roles related to sname and similar international societies as a result of this honor kim said his research interests include floating offshore wind turbines; nonlinear dynamics of offshore platforms; multi-vessel riser mooring coupled dynamic analysis; wave mechanics and free-surface flows; numerical wave tank; sloshing; computational fluid dynamics; interaction of waves with porous or flexible membrane; hydro-elasticity; and smart offshore platforms and active control
1873,jake carrow a doctoral student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university was recently honored with the 2017 phil gramm fellowship the award of $5 000 will help to support carrows research as he pursues his degree in dr akhilesh gaharwars research group carrow is one of eight texas a&m doctoral students honored this year with the prestigious award established in 2006 with the support of phil gramm the former senator from texas who served as a professor of economics at texas a&m for 12 years before being elected to congress carrow is currently investigating new nanomaterials for the regeneration of cartilage and combat of osteoarthritis in gaharwars laboratory through the use of molecular and genetic analysis techniques carrow has begun to understand the changes in stem cell behavior after being treated with nanomaterials the nanomaterials are formulated from bioactive minerals and can be incorporated into polymer hydrogels as bioinks for the printing of patient-specific cartilage implants this technology has the potential to greatly impact current clinical practices and improve a patients quality of life in comparison to methods that are currently being used it was an honor to meet senator gramm upon receiving this award said carrow i think the recognition from this award will help distinguish me as a communicator and mentor in addition to being a more productive engineer jake has exceeded our expectations and i am confident that he will continue this trajectory at the next level said gaharwar assistant professor in the department his combination of intelligence leadership work ethic and research talent is unique the gramm fellowship was established to promote encourage and reward outstanding teaching and research by doctoral students whose command of their respective disciplines exemplifies the meaning of scholar/mentor in the highest sense
1874,the national science foundation (nsf) has awarded fellowships through the graduate research fellowship program (grfp) to four students in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university the 2017 awardees include (left to right) second-year doctoral student paul gordon and senior undergraduate students hannah pearce mikayla barry and jane frederick the nsf grfp is a highly competitive fellowship award and out of 13 000 applicants only 2 000 students were selected this year awardees were selected from among a wide range of scientific disciplines and come from all states us commonwealths and territories gordon of shreve ohio began his graduate career at texas a&m in the fall of 2016 after receiving a bs in biomedical engineering from the university of cincinnati currently he is investigating optical techniques to detect malaria infections under the guidance of dr gerard cote his hope is to identify biomarkers that will allow for the creation of a portable diagnostic device that can be used to augment current malaria detection techniques and improve patient outcomes in low resource settings i owe a big thank you to those who wrote my letters of recommendation and i couldnt have put together a good application without the resources provided by the biomedical engineering department here at texas a&m said gordon pearce of houston texas began her career at texas a&m in the fall of 2012 as a biochemistry and genetics double major after a summer internship opportunity pearce changed her major to biomedical engineering currently she is working under the guidance of dr daniel alge to create a block copolymer system consisting of peptides and peg-based chains formed through click reactions the fellowship has already opened many doors in terms of flexibility for my graduate research said pearce i am looking forward most to the opportunity to pursue my graduate degree and to better the lives of others barry of bryan texas began her career at texas a&m in the fall of 2013 currently she is performing research on polymer materials designed to help prevent clotting on medical implants under the guidance of dr melissa grunlan her hope is to develop a material that prevents clotting without the use of prescription medicines its really an incredible honor to have received one of the 2 000 awards said barry i worked hard during my application to convey the importance of the research i would like to do as well as my qualifications in academics and research frederick of katy texas also began her career at texas a&m in the fall of 2013 currently she is working under the guidance of dr duncan maitland creating shape memory polymer devices for treating cerebral and peripheral aneurysms i am looking forward to what kinds of opportunities this fellowship will open up for me said frederick i know it will help me a lot during graduate school and beyond so i am excited to see what happens the nsf grfp helps to recognize and support the studies of us residents nationals and permanent residents attaining research-based masters or doctoral degrees in the fields of science technology engineering and mathematics students apply for the fellowship program before or during their first year of graduate study and have the freedom to attend any university within the united states students who received awards will also receive financial support for the first three years of the five-year fellowship period
1875,the grand challenge scholars program (gcsp) at texas a&m university is a selective three-year program offered to sophomore students with the intent to attract retain and graduate future leaders who are equipped to solve engineering grand challenges facing our society today and in the future while achieving in-depth understanding of their chosen research areas grand challenge scholars will also be prepared to be global leaders in academia government and industry the texas a&m grand challenge scholars program provides students with a truly unique experience combining research on one of the 14 grand challenges for engineering with coursework or other activities providing the scholars with competence in interdisciplinary work entrepreneurship service learning and global perspective said dr nancy m amato gcsp director a group of 24 scholars from various engineering departments were selected to participate in the inaugural cohort of the program these students include aerospace engineering students eghosasere alao milton garza and kanika gakhar; biological and agricultural engineering student zhoucheng li; biomedical engineering students hector linares garcia and luke oaks; chemical engineering students agnes aina victoria hicks ricci seguban and alex strasser; civil engineering students alyssa ornelas brian welsh and samantha wilson; computer engineering student josiah coad; computer science and statistics student jusung lee; electrical engineering students andrew allen millie krel bryton praslicka jorge vasquez and stephanie wilcox; industrial engineering student lorenzo riddle; and mechanical engineering students andy alcantar melissa burket and yuming zhao during their first year in the program grand challenge scholars work with faculty mentors to plan their customized gcsp curriculum during their second year they are actively engaged in the research for the gcsp thesis and make progress on achieving the other components of the gcsp during their final year in the program grand challenge scholars complete their program requirements and mentor other participating students there are five components of the curriculum including research related to one of the engineering grand challenges multidisciplinary entrepreneurship global experience and service learning for her research thesis junior aerospace engineering student kanika gakhar is working with dr moble benedict aerospace assistant professor to improve the design and efficiency of his robotic hummingbird spending endless hours next to a setup that mimics a hummingbirds flapping motion reminded me of how close we were to understanding the aero-elastic relationship between the shape of the wing and the interdependent aerodynamics associated with it gakhar said this helped me realize that i wanted to engage in the grand challenge scholars program and help contribute toward engineering tools for scientific discovery moreover i was so inspired by this research experience that i decided to encourage other students to engage in undergraduate research as an undergraduate research ambassador and executive leader for the council of undergraduate research in engineering i currently work on helping students gain valuable research experience the gcsp program will also provide students with unique and exciting opportunities to grow as students and individuals five students will attend the upcoming grand challenge summit this summer in washington dc amato who is also senior director of the engineering honors program and unocal and regents professor in the department of computer science and engineering said we are very excited to launch the texas a&m grand challenge scholars program we have selected an amazing set of students for the inaugural cohort and i'm really looking forward to seeing what they will achieve
1876,dr ramesh talreja will be honored at the kenneth l clinton awards luncheon april 20 for his work with the brazil study abroad program in aerospace engineering this award is given to faculty that participate in and help facilitate study abroad programs with research teaching and service this year it is honoring faculty in the texas a&m university system that participated in study abroad programs in mexico and central america talreja has conducted the brazil study abroad program for the past six years and various other research activities at universities in brazil among the highlights are being a senior visiting researcher leading a science without borders program at the federal university of rio grande of north natal this was a three-year funded program supporting two doctoral students in brazil he has also been a co-advisor of a doctoral student at the university of sao paulo sao carlos as well as co-pi in an air force office of scientific research-funded project at the university talreja was an invited panel speaker on composite materials at the first brazilian conference in 2012 and the second brazilian conference in 2014 he has also served as the only united states member of the international advisory board for the lightweight structures laboratory of the sao paulo state getting involved in the brazil study abroad program and in various research activities in brazil have been a source of satisfaction for me seeing young aggies come back from brazil energized and enriched with the experience is worth all the work it takes to run the program says talreja talreja is a tenneco professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university he will receive his award at a ceremony hosted at texas a&m university-commerce dr maria hernandez ferrier former president of texas a&m university-san antonio and texas a&m system director of development and mexico relations will be the keynote speaker dr ray keck interim president of a&m-commerce will present the award
1877,dr assel aitkaliyeva 12 a graduate of the materials science and engineering department has been appointed as a tenure-track assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at the university of florida aitkaliyeva received a bachelor of science degree in physics from kazakh national university a master of science in nuclear engineering and her phd in materials science and engineering both from texas a&m after graduating in 2012 she joined idaho national laboratory (inl) as the technical lead for the nuclear science user facilities during her graduate studies aitkaliyeva worked under the supervision of dr lin shao associate professor and faculty undergraduate advisor in the nuclear engineering department and affiliated faculty member in the materials science and engineering department aitkaliyeva has more than 20 peer-reviewed journal publications and delivered over 30 presentations at national professional meetings she acquired more than $35 million in funding for her research at inl her research is focused on studying the effects of irradiation on materials using a range of microscopy techniques mechanical testing techniques and computational models her expertise is in characterization of nuclear fuels with particular emphasis on accident tolerant fuel concepts in 2015 aitkaliyeva received the inl early career award for her work on understanding the equilibria and kinetics of plutonium-based fuels in contact with cladding materials her pioneering work focused on ion beam sample preparation methods which has made her widely sought after by domestic and international laboratories author: shraddha sankhe
1878,traci sarmiento a phd candidate in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university earned second place in the graduate oral presentation category during student research week (srw) 2017 sarmientos presentation flying animal inspired autonomous flight with a small unmanned rotorcraft in a restricted maneuverability environment centered on the use of small unmanned aerial rotocrafts for indoor disaster environments she discussed how these rotocrafts can be used to assess damage in various disaster situations help search for survivors and potentially avoid further damage she also shared the challenges with using the aerial systems in these scenarios my research is inspired by flying animals because they outperform the state-of-the-art in autonomous collision-free flight on small unmanned aerial systems sarmiento said sarmiento works with dr robin murphy raytheon professor and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for robot-assisted search and rescue student research week 2017 was held march 27-31 the mission of srw is to recognize and celebrate student research at texas a&m by providing an opportunity for students to present research and to foster an environment where participants can learn about the innovative research occurring at the university the best part about srw was learning about the research being conducted by the other participants sarmiento said
1879,the joint chapter of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers power electronics society power and energy society and industry applications society (ieee pels-pes-ias) at texas a&m university was named the highest performing student chapter in north america and placed fourth across the globe by the ieee pes ieee pes is a worldwide non-profit association engaged in providing a forum for sharing the latest in technological developments in the electric power industry a lot of hard work and enthusiasm was invested in organizing many events and the results are beginning to show said dr miroslav begovic department head and carolyn s & tommie e lohman ‘59 professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and immediate past president of the ieee pes our students and their professors are making us all proud this recognition is a result of the dedication of an exemplary group of student leaders in our department as well as the support from our faculty advisors said payman dehghanian graduate student in the department and president of ieee pels-pes-ias the student organization advised by dr le xie and dr robert balog associate professors in the department has facilitated several high-impact learning experiences for graduate students in the electrical and computer engineering department that went above and beyond required degree program activities dehghanian who has led the organization since 2015 attributes the success to interdisciplinary learning activities professional development opportunities research marketability and networking facilitation we are proud to offer training opportunities toward career goals that incorporate oral and written communication development instruction and assessment skills for our student members said dehghanian their participation in interdisciplinary learning activities allows them to learn about research in other disciplines and establish collaborative research with senior scholars and networks that may exist outside school this year the student organization launched the texas power and energy conference the first ever student-run conference in the electric power industry in the state of texas
1880,efstratios (stratos) pistikopoulos tees distinguished research professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was recently appointed deputy director of the texas a&m energy institute in this role he will administer the institutes initiatives with manufacturing as well as its academic programs and will participate in the overall management of the institute pistikopoulos will continue to serve as interim co-director until a director is appointed pistikopoulos received his doctorate in chemical engineering from carnegie mellon university before joining texas a&m in 2015 he was a professor of chemical engineering at imperial college london and director of its centre for process systems engineering he is a fellow of the royal academy of engineering and the institution of chemical engineers and serves as editor-in-chief of the journal computers & chemical engineering pistikopoulos has authored or co-authored more than 350 major research publications in the areas of modeling control and optimization of process and energy and systems engineering applications along with 10 books he is responsible for two patents in 2012 he received the computing in chemical engineering award of the computing and systems technology division of the american institute of chemical engineers pistikopoulos received the title of doctor honoris causa from the university of politehnica of bucharest in 2014 and from the university of pannonia in 2015
1881,"imagine walking into your college classroom and donning a pair of virtual reality goggles to learn the days lesson if dr darren hartl has his way that will be a reality in the near future he is one of the faculty members in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university bringing virtual reality (vr) into the realm of research and teaching hartl was so excited about the possibilities vr lends to research and teaching that he purchased his setup using startup funds when he joined the faculty as an assistant professor in fall 2016 he also created the immersive mechanics visualization lab which is fully dedicated to the tasks and goals of creating immersive and intuitive data environments in this lab faculty and students are developing methods to experience and interface with computational and experimental data across physical fields using augmented reality (ar) vr and three-dimensional displays (eg the zspace platform) to conduct their research they use the htc vive vr system along with the zspace 3-d monitor included in the lab is a screen share and projection system that allows visitors and collaborators to share the vr experience with the individual directly using the htc vive hartls current research involves the development of robust methods for translating solid models (such as those from solidworks) and finite element models into the vr environment and for interacting with such models in an intuitive manner his objective is to find reasonable ways to take the experimental and computational data faculty and students are already generating and immerse themself in it we have dual-camera systems a few doors down that look at points on a specimen and measure how strain is generated "" said hartl ""today we can look at those results in complete 3-d on a computer screen and rotate it around why cant i have that same 3-d data in the room with me and walk around the specimen thats exactly what happened when the sae aero design team put their model airplane into virtual reality in the lab michayal mathew an aerospace undergraduate student working with hartl on this project was able to see and then share actual results from the design they were considering mathews job was to find new and different ways to bring computational data into the vr world and then bring the vr world to an increased number of students and collaborators this summer he will intern with nasa-godard working on importing topographic data from various nasa missions (lunar reconnaissance orbiter (lro) and mars reconnaissance orbiter (mro)) to create interactive landscapes of actual locations on earth the moon and mars that can be explored in 3-d using htc vive vr headsets for the sae design team we took their model airplane and we brought it in here (in vr) "" said mathew ""everybody from their team came over and they were just tearing apart their plane looking at the insides somebody was like ‘hey did yall know that this piece is out of place and the team was saying ‘if we had noticed this earlier we could have redesigned the plane so we wouldnt have to deal with this error thats a 3-d solidworks model that theyve seen on the computer a hundred times and no one has noticed the error by just tilting it around on the computer screen "" said mathew ""but they come in here and put it in vr and walk around it and with the controllers theyre able to manipulate it move things around and one guy sticks his head inside the fuselage and notices that there is a piece out of place students today are technologically savvy it makes sense to implement vr in education as it presents complex ideas in a way thats easy and fun for the students to learn hartl recently worked remotely via webex with a group of students from granbury high school who are participating in the program f1 in schools f1 in schools is an international stem competition for school children ages 7-19 in which groups of three to six students design and manufacture a miniature formula one race car out of the official f1 model block using 3-d cad design tools they use computational fluid dynamics and wind tunnel testing on their cars to find better ways to aerodynamically streamline their design while in the immersive mechanics visualization lab mathew took the 3-d cad information from the students and inserted it into the vr world dr nathan tichenor research assistant professor in the department then walked around the car and assessed it for the team in detail this allowed the students to understand the full 3-d design input from tichenor while asking him questions in real-time and greatly improving their design having aerodynamic experts talk to the kids about their car design was helpful but having them manipulate the car and draw design features virtually took this experience to another level said todd gibson faculty advisor to the granbury team collaboration efforts like these along with the capabilities that texas a&m has to offer really entice my students to make texas a&m their top choice hartl hopes to gain two things from this research first he wants to determine whether you can accelerate the development of intuition by immersing a person in the data that they have generated his question is whether his graduate students who are studying subjects both computationally and experimentally can increase their intuition about their results better by immersion he also hopes to learn whether vr can enhance and change solid and fluid mechanics education as im figuring out how to teach on a whiteboard and with powerpoint why not see if there is place for teaching better with vr he said in mechanics we teach obscure and often abstract concepts such as stress stress is a second-order tensor that is represented as a matrix but its a real physical thing how do i teach someone this physical quantity thats represented as a matrix we end up drawing something on a whiteboard and we try to draw it in 3-d or well try to present it on a slide "" said hartl ""why cant i draw it in the room with me and show you that the stresses go this way and that way and here is tension and here is shear and this is all happening at once especially as you get to the graduate level these classes and these topics are so three-dimensional but we always teach them in 2-d i asked ‘is it time to teach them in 3-d"" to be honest seeing things in 2-d on a whiteboard just doesnt cut it because almost all our important concepts are three-dimensional said mathew so i have to imagine the third dimension and it just gets to be a lot but i think if you could show this off if holograms existed i think learning mechanics and dynamics would be so much easier one way hartl hopes to implement vr in the classroom is through the use of affordable viewers such as google cardboard google cardboard was developed by google for use with a head mount for a smartphone named for its fold-out cardboard viewer the platform is intended as a low-cost system to encourage interest and development in vr applications hartl has already demonstrated recording a lesson in vr then uploading it to youtube where students then viewed it in 3-d via cardboard viewers imagine a classroom of students wearing those for some key important lessons where you really needed to get more three-dimensional said hartl for more information on dr hartl's immersive mechanics visualization lab click here"
1882,the aggie coding club (acc) in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is a student organization bringing together like-minded individuals to create a center for pursuing software based projects as well as networking with companies and individuals founded in 2015 acc provides students the opportunity to explore their careers and passions through project development students sign up for project ideas that interest them and groups are naturally formed to execute each project members are currently working on projects such as creating analytics for the application groupme and developing an application to track events around campus the organization was established by computer science junior michael mckenna officers include rohit mucherla president; colton weaver vice president; marcus heinonen officer of operations; william orosky officer of communication; and liam moran officer of project management dr aakash tyagi professor of practice has served as the advisor for the organization since its inception it is a really rewarding experience to see how motivated students are to work on projects that the club offers mucherla said not only does it teach me a lot about how i can help students pursue their interests but it also teaches me what kinds of opportunities we as a club should bring to our members its extremely exciting to see the dedication and hard work our members have put into these projects and we hope to continue providing more opportunities for our members the group is hoping to kick off a mini mentoring program at the start of next semester to better help freshman students in general engineering quite recently i started a new initiative to unify software development organizations across texas and hopefully down the road across the nation mucherla said the goal of this is to potentially start projects that are collaborative across the universities involved weve reached out to nearly all the major texas schools such as the university of texas at austin baylor university rice university university of houston and a couple others! texas tech university is already on board with us to expand our reach and build the network several companies including microsoft ibm general motors national instruments avio consulting improving enterprises and anadarko have visited the organization and given presentations about their companies technical computer science topics and internship and career advice acc fosters a level of learning that is not typically found within the traditional classroom setting with students who come from diverse set of majors from business to hard sciences one of the groups core beliefs is that anyone regardless of skill level background or education can learn how to code acc allows students to network with other members and with industry affiliates while also gaining valuable coding experienc
1883,"a team of texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) researchers has been selected for a potential award by nasa to lead research into commercially viable civil supersonic transport aircraft that meet noise and efficiency requirements for overland flight put simply their research is on designing an aircraft that can modify its shape in real time in order to optimize for fuel efficiency or quiet flight as the flight phase and conditions change the team is one of five transformative system-level aviation innovations that nasa has selected as part of the nasa aeronautics university leadership initiative (uli) we are excited that texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station proposal was selected to be part of this highly competitive program with nasa said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering and director of tees we have tremendous depth and strength in supersonics at texas a&m and look forward to advancing technology in this area of critical importance currently aircraft are limited to flying below mach 1 while over land because of the community noise impacts and even damage that can be caused by sonic booms research has shown small changes in supersonic transport outer mold lines can reduce sonic boom noise but these changes only work in specific flight conditions to be commercially viable aircraft must meet sonic boom signature limits for a range of flight conditions this multidisciplinary project which is led by texas a&ms departments of aerospace engineering materials science and engineering and boeing research & technology bridges advanced aerodynamics laser sensors and cutting-edge materials to enable a new generation of supersonic aircraft that can change shape during flight to reduce sonic boom said dr rodney bowersox aerospace engineering department head and co-principal investigator this has been a great team effort with texas a&m partnering with experts from several other universities and industry said dr dimitris lagoudas deputy director of tees and lead principal investigator together we will develop novel concepts for the design of the next generation of supersonic aircraft using adaptive structures principles"" these awards further enhance the strong relationship we have with our university partners said jaiwon shin nasas associate administrator for aeronautics in a press release we expect the awards will spur the nations leading universities to take a larger leadership role in advancing the revolutionary ideas needed to transform aviation and further advance us global leadership in the aviation community one of the additional goals of nasas uli program is for the selected universities to lead diverse multi-disciplinary teams the team led by tees includes researchers from several disciplines at texas a&m as well as several partner institutions including florida international university princeton university the university of houston the university of north texas and utah state university that have excellent technical capabilities in this area industry partners include ata engineering boeing and fort wayne metals team members include: texas a&m: dr dimitris lagoudas dr rodney bowersox dr darren hartl dr paul cizmas and dr helen reed department of aerospace engineering; dr richard malak department of mechanical engineering; dr ibrahim karaman department of materials science and engineering dr george dulikravich department of mechanical and materials engineering florida international university; dr theocharis baxevanis department of mechanical engineering university of houston; dr richard miles departments of mechanical and aerospace engineering texas a&m university; dr marcus young department of materials science and engineering university of north texas; dr doug hunsaker department of mechanical and aerospace engineering utah state university; dr eric blades ata engineering james mabe boeing; edward white boeing; todd magee boeing; david lazzara boeing; hao shen boeing; dr jeremy schaffer fort wayne metals"
1884,"the texas a&m university college of engineering took part in texas a&ms presence at the south by southwest (sxsw) festival in austin last month bringing several exciting aspects of the college to visitors to the ‘texas a&m house at the hotel van zandt in downtown austin the colleges participation was highlighted by the main event texas a&m invents for an intelligent future which closed with college of engineering vice chancellor and dean dr m katherine banks awarding more than $10 000 to three student teams twelve texas a&m students worked for two days in this intensive design experience to develop technology that will make an intelligent future a reality they competed in a preliminary competition on campus to earn their spots at sxsw the judges were impressed with all three teams but team dehydratect took the top spot and a $5 000 award second place went to team tobor who received a $3 500 award for their innovation and pulse labs took third place and a $2 500 award following the competition all teams have either filed or will be filing for provisional patents on their innovations dehydratect stole the show with a pacifier to noninvasively detect hydration levels in infants to better prevent dehydration the team consisted of magy avedissian (petroleum engineering) nga tang (medical student) joey wippold (biomedical engineering) and kurt parizek (biomedical engineering) tobor brought a novel material that provides more strength and resistance to additive manufacturing the team included philip bowie (electrical and computer engineering) coleman fincher (mechanical engineering) wesley kuehn (manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology) and jana soares (mba candidate) pulse labs retrofit a new technology onto old devices to bring them into the internet of things the team consisted of momore adesanmi (chemical engineering) bhavani bedre shankar (computer engineering) james oconnell (mechanical engineering) and pavan shetty (electrical engineering) their team also was named most popular through the colleges social media contest the panel of judges led by former nasa rocket scientist and comedian shayla rivera included stephen p rodriguez founder of one defense; charles schroeder vice president of product marketing for rf and wireless communications for national instruments; and dr gregory chamitoff texas a&m professor of practice in the aerospace engineering department and director of the aerospace technology research & operations (astro) center sxsw brings technology to a global stage said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program texas a&m university invents for the intelligent future allowed the world to see how texas a&m promotes student innovation and entrepreneurship in the college of engineering interactive zones while the teams were working on their products visitors to the texas a&m house had the opportunity to experience some innovative projects going on within the college of engineering chamitoff had a group of students take visitors on a virtual walk on mars and flights through space with spacecraft a virtual reality sandbox platform developed by an interdisciplinary group of students with guidance from nasa experts that they will be releasing in beta later this year students from chamitoffs group not only ran the interactive zone but also took time to teach people who were waiting about the importance of the work that the group is doing ""spacecraft has the potential to make space exploration accessible to individual users across the world graduate student mauricio coen said we are shortening the gap between the expertise and software that large space agencies have and the enthusiasm that is out there for space exploration we have 60-plus undergraduate and graduate students working on the many fronts that the platform requires and we're getting more interest to contribute daily at sxsw we showcased individual scenarios that combine virtual reality engineering and user interaction to demonstrate the capability of the platform"" another crowd favorite was the robot raceway which was designed and built by students at the engineering innovation center the students worked into the night to have the racetrack ready to go for visitors to the house and their hard work paid off visitors raced against each other and the clock all weekend for a texas a&m gift basket the robots themselves were designed and built by students within from the electronics systems engineering technology and multidisciplinary engineering technology programs mobile integrated solutions laboratory (misl) it was exciting to have freshman engineering students working side-by-side with seniors from the engineering innovation center and misl to make robot road a huge success said dr joseph morgan professor and director of the misl teamwork and the aggie spirit brought it all together to show others the innovation and creativity within the college of engineering visitors also got to practice their hand at a virtual surgery simulator and engineering outreach was on hand with sphero robots to entertain younger visitors as well formula sae to close out the college of engineerings presence at sxsw the 2016-17 formula sae team comprised of mechanical engineering students unveiled this years car to a crowd of people outside the texas a&m house ahmed mahmoud 87 chief information officer at general motors spoke at the unveiling and said that sponsoring the formula sae team was an easy decision in fact several students from previous teams have gone on to work for general motors and this years team leader ryan monheim will be going to work there after graduation this was one of the things that general motors looks for mahmoud said were looking for institutions that are into transformational learning were looking for institutions that have global reach and this program the fact that they sort of design the car from scratch every single year gives a competitive advantage for any of the hires because at the end of the day for us its all about the students monheim along with the teams business and communications lead rebecca novak who will also be working in the auto industry next year were interviewed by kbtx about their car between the interviews and the exposure the team received by being part of the event novak said their presence at sxsw was a successful undertaking ""sxsw was an amazing opportunity for our team she said a lot of hard work went into getting the car designed manufactured and ready for roll out so it was quite rewarding to see everything come together for the first time in such an extravagant way our team had been involved in planning this event since november and have worked hard to make the event a success we are so pleased with how everything turned out and we are incredibly proud of all of our hard work"" the formula sae team will continue to test and work on the car leading up the championships this june in omaha nebraska"
1885,whitney souery an undergraduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected for a fellowship at the university of michigans frankel cardiovascular center (fcvc) the fellowship offers an opportunity to experience cardiovascular research in one of the nations leading cardiovascular centers in addition it offers students the invaluable opportunity to expand their skill set with real-world experiences souery began her career at texas a&m as a freshman in august 2016 and has been conducting research in dr corey bishops pharmacoengineering laboratory since the fall of 2016 her passion for biomedical engineering stems from her interests in medicine global health outreach engineering and research because the fellowship fell along the same lines as her interests souery felt compelled to apply it amazes me to think that the work ill be doing has the potential to impact someones life and i am so honored for this opportunity said souery the fcvc summer fellowship matches students to a faculty-led laboratory based off of their interests students will work 40-hour weeks during the 10-week fellowship
1886,at the most recent aggies invent several students in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university worked to solve the infrastructural and architectural problems of the future students were challenged to incorporate the latest technology like 3-d printing drones and robotics as they competed to create the most innovative and compelling solution for building horizontal or vertical buildings this theme pushed students to think ahead into the next 100 years and anticipate the drastically different and advanced technology of the future that would be incorporated into a job site at aggies invent students are given only 48 hours to solve the issue presented to them and create a prototype each aggies invent theme is different to provide students versatile situations to demonstrate their readiness to tackle the next big issue joeris and jb knowledge sponsored the construction-themed weekend civil engineering students played a critical role in each of the top two winning teams the first place team it's a climb consisted of civil engineering freshman erick zaruma petroleum engineering senior abrar alshaikh mechanical engineering sophomore mauricio bailey mechanical engineering junior jesus maltos and masters candidates in industrial engineering komal koya and hemik parikh the team developed a sensor that attaches to a ladder to indicate if the ladder is not placed correctly this device will help stop falls from ladders responsible for a quarter of all falls in construction and will prevent $11 million from being lost in accident costs each year second place went to green is the new black made up of civil engineering masters candidates nidhi raut yash menaria and akash baja; civil engineering undergraduate student kush daxesh patel; applied math sophomore diana aviles and computer science freshman justin rodriguez green is the new blacks project focused on recycling plastic for use in asphalt pavement we proposed a technique to utilize waste plastics in the asphalt road construction process said patel as an environmental engineering student the menacing issue of plastic waste in the environment is very close to me along with the general creation process patel assisted green is the new black in making the teams idea marketable and attractive to users like construction companies the people at aggies invent were extremely helpful and the guys with jbknowledge helped us out a lot too patel said the facilities at the engineering innovation center were great the atmosphere was very conducive for learning new things and we were well-fed throughout the weekend all in all it was an awesome experience the top three winning teams were awarded $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively and will gain global exposure through aggies invents partners for more information on aggies invent visit: https://aggiesinventtamuedu/ contributing author: ryan terry
1887,"general motors (gm) and sae international announced wednesday that texas a&m university has been selected as one of eight north american universities to compete in the autodrive challenge over the next three years gm will provide each team with a chevrolet bolt ev as the vehicle platform strategic partners and suppliers will aid the students in their technology development by providing vehicle parts and software throughout the autodrive challenge competition cycle students and faculty will be invited to attend technology-specific workshops to help them in their concept refinement and overall autonomous technical understanding the autodrive challenge is a three-year challenge to develop and demonstrate a fully autonomous passenger vehicle the competitions technical goal is navigating an urban driving course in an automated driving mode by year three sae international is excited to expand our partnership with gm to build the future stem workforce through the autodrive challenge™ said chris ciuca director of pre-professional programs at sae international building on our success through programs like formula sae the autodrive challenge™ launches a new platform to engage industry and academia in working toward a common goal of preparing the brightest young minds for the future of autonomous technologies throughout the three-year competition students will focus on autonomous technologies and allow for modification and testing they will work with real-world applications of sensing technologies computing platforms software design implementation and advanced computation methods such as computer vision pattern recognition machine learning artificial intelligence sensor fusion and autonomous vehicle controls gm is very excited to work closely with these eight universities over the next three years said ken kelzer gm vice president of global vehicle components and subsystems the students and faculty at these schools bring deep knowledge and technical skills to the competition we are proud to help offer these students the hands-on experience necessary for them to make an immediate impact on the automotive world when they graduate the texas a&m college of engineering has been leading autonomous vehicle research in several departments and programs for this competition the college will assemble a multidisciplinary team that includes students and researchers from the departments of civil computer science engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) and mechanical engineering the announcement was made at wcx 17: sae world congress experience in detroit and assistant professor dr alireza talebpour was among the contingent of texas a&m researchers on hand for the announcement ""this is a very exciting opportunity for our engineering students to work closely with leaders like general motors and sae international and do meaningful work in a cutting edge field like autonomous vehicles "" talebpour said ""this is also another big step in texas a&m's continuing effort to lead in autonomous and connected vehicle research"" dr srikanth saripalli added that the autodrive competition will add another level to the colleges opportunities for undergraduate students to get experience working in this increasingly popular area we are also in the process of deploying autonomous shuttles on campus at texas a&m along with continuing to develop and testing our autonomous vehicles at the nearby rellis campus saripalli said this competition enables us to get even more undergraduate students interested and excited about autonomous systems and vehicles the chevrolet bolt provided by gm will be the fifth vehicle in the texas a&m engineering autonomous research fleet joining a kia soul (civil engineering) a lincoln mkz and polaris gem e4 (mechanical engineering) and a ford f-150 (etid) the other universities that will be competing in the autodrive challenge are kettering university michigan state university michigan tech north carolina a&t university the university of toronto the university of waterloo and virginia tech photo provided by general motors"
1888,dr homero castaneda has been appointed a member of the national academy of engineering (nae) committee on connector reliability for offshore oil and natural gas operations castaneda is an associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations national corrosion and materials reliability center as oil and gas industry exploration has extended into deeper water and more hostile environments in the gulf of mexico alaska and other offshore (domestic or global) areas it has become challenging and increasingly difficult to manage the safety of workers risk and environmental concerns barrier and control failures account for nearly two-thirds of all offshore loss of well control (lowc) events to date among which there have been a number of cases associated with fastener/bolt failures the ability to accurately assess and verify the integrity of design manufacture installation maintenance and inspection processes for fasteners currently being used or being developed is essential for preventing lowc and managing worker safety and protection of the environment the nae committee was created to help with these concerns this is very important to our country in terms of science and technology castaneda said the science behind performance and reliability of connectors for offshore platforms and the technology--why are some things happening what can we improve or what things should we understand in my opinion it could impact the world castaneda said he and other committee members have visited different companies and viewed offshore systems to help understand them better and assist with their areas of expertise my expertise is in corrosion so i can address corrosion issues for that system castaneda said and i think that at the same time i can collaborate with my colleagues here at (texas) a&m i know there are many experts here that can contribute to improve that system the committee will also conduct a public workshop and follow-on consensus study to address these reliability issues associated with the connectors and other fastener systems used in critical safety components and equipment for offshore oil and natural gas operations castaneda received his bachelors degree in chemical metallurgical engineering and his masters degree in materials science from the national autonomous university of mexico in 1994 and 1997 respectively he received his doctoral degree in materials science and engineering from penn state university in 2001 castaneda has 15 years of experience using electrochemical and nondestructive techniques to monitor interfacial phenomena in materials and theoretical modeling of corrosion processes for different industries he has been the principal investigator for multiple projects on corrosion science and engineering for the department of energy the department of defense the department of transportation and several companies before joining texas a&m castaneda worked for five years at the university of akron as an assistant professor and before that at battelle memorial institute as a senior scientist in the advanced materials and pipelines center in columbus ohio before battelle he was the technical director of the corrosion materials and pipelines division in the mexican petroleum institute for five years he has authored and co-authored more than 70 peer-reviewed papers in the areas of corrosion science and engineering coatings degradation and reliability materials characterization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy he has nine patents and copyrights
1889,for the second year in a row the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university hosted a special seminar honoring dr claude shannons contribution to information theory at texas a&ms physics and engineering festival dr krishna narayanan the eric d rubin 06 professor and dr jean-francois chamberland associate department head and an associate professor in the department led the seminar titled a few bits of information theory the speakers introduced information theory and its main principles that have led to the digitalization of our world they engaged audiences from ages 5 to 80 through hands-on activities such as magic tricks based on the hamming code and the balance puzzle they demonstrated how information theory shaped the development of cd players ipods hard disks flash memories deep-space communications cellular phones and wireless networks considered the father of the digital age shannon was one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century in his landmark paper published in 1948 he developed an elegant concept called information theory which introduced the modern perception of information and provided guidelines on how to efficiently acquire compress store and transmit information just as how newtons and einsteins theories shaped our understanding of the physical world shannons information theory has shaped our understanding of the digital world said narayanan a grant of $1 000 from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers information theory society led to the establishment of the special seminar last year narayanan along with dr tie liu an associate professor in the department presented information theory at the 2016 physics and engineering festival marking shannons 100th birthday visit shannontamuedu to learn more about seminar
1890,maria troyanova-wood a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the philanthropic education organization (peo) scholar award for the 2017-18 academic year out of 738 nominees troyanova-wood was selected to receive the $15 000 award from the peo these merit-based awards are given to women within canada and the united states pursuing a doctoral-level degree at an accredited college or university troyanova-wood began her graduate career at texas a&m in the fall of 2013 she became interested in the award due to its prestige and its strong support for recognizing and encouraging higher education for females i believe that my publications national conference presentations past academic awards interesting research projects and unique academic experience distinguished me from other applicants said troyanova-wood the peo scholar awards were established in 1991 scholar award recipients are a select group of women chosen for their high level of academic achievement and their potential for having a positive impact on society the peo sisterhood which offers the scholarship was founded jan 21 1869 at iowa wesleyan college in mount pleasant iowa it is a philanthropic educational organization dedicated to supporting higher education for women there are approximately 6 000 local chapters in the us and canada with nearly a 250 000 active members
1891,last week top researchers from across the state of texas studying systems controls and robotics visited texas a&m university to participate in the fourth annual texas systems day the one-day symposium was established in 2014 at texas a&m to promote the interaction between researchers in texas and the exchange of the next generation of ideas this year weve had 168 registered attendees which is a significant increase from last year said dr raktim bhattacharya associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering and chair of the events organizational committee this has been a great opportunity for students to interact with other researchers and get an exposure to high-quality work dr jonathan how the richard cockburn maclaurin professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the massachusetts institute of technology kicked off the conference with his plenary presentation fifteen back-to-back presentations were delivered by faculty members and researchers from institutions such as the university of north texas texas tech university the university of texas at arlington the university of texas at austin rice university the university of texas at dallas and the university of houston more than 50 participants presented their research in the poster session that covered topics such as cybersecurity aerial networks autonomous cars innovative aerial vehicles robotics biomedical system identification control and optimization of smart grids chemical plants and turbulent flows and novel estimation for space surveillance the diversity of the topics highlights the importance of systems and controls in the modern engineering systems said bhattacharya the texas systems days steering committee includes dr prkumar distinguished professor and chair of the computer engineering group in the department of electrical and computer engineering; dr mark spong dean of the erik jonsson school of engineering & computer science at ut dallas; and dr ari arapostathis professor and texas atomic energy research foundation centennial fellow in electrical engineering at ut austin ut dallas and ut arlington hosted the one-day conference in 2015 and 2016 respectively
1892,two students in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university are recipients of vertical flight foundation (vff) scholarships from the american helicopter society (ahs) the students work in the advanced vertical flight laboratory under the guidance of dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department kanika gakhar an undergraduate student in aerospace engineering is the recipient of the 2017 bell helicopter vertical flight scholarship accompanied by an award of $5 000 she was the top candidate in the bachelors degree category and received special recognition with this scholarship gakhar is working on experimental studies toward improving the performance of the robotic hummingbird adam kellen a first-year graduate student in aerospace engineering is the recipient of the 2017 eugene k liberatore scholarship accompanied by an award of $3 000 kellens research is experimental studies to understand the upward scalability of cycloidal rotors for large-scale unmanned aerial vehicle applications this year is the 50th anniversary of the founding of vff and the 40th year of providing student scholarships said mike hirschberg ahs international executive director past winners of these very prestigious scholarships have gone on to leadership positions in industry academia and government this years applicants were exceptional and the selected winners will no doubt become future leaders in vertical flight gakhar and kellen will be recognized at the ahs grand awards banquet on may 10 at the ahs international 73rd annual forum and technology display at the fort worth convention center
1893,students in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university were rewarded for their hard work inside and outside the classroom with awards given during the annual meeting jointly hosted by the marine technology society (mts) and the society of naval architects and marine engineers (sname) the outstanding ocean engineering student award was sponsored by mts and awarded to carson pepper and jiacheng ‘kirk sheng the academic excellence award for students with the highest gpa was sponsored by sname and given to kevin ariyanonthaka and ryan mcdonald who tied for the top academic spot in the department service awards were given to jacob taylor holly berckenhoff and jacob schnos recognizing their outstanding service to the department and promoting the field of ocean engineering at the meeting students also presented projects they worked on during their two-semester senior capstone design course mts and sname also donated $9 500 and $2 500 respectively to the human-powered submarine project in which students design build and race human-powered submarines for the international submarine races
1894,shahin boluki a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named one of the three winners of the young scientist excellence award at the 14th annual midsouth computational biology and bioinformatics society (mcbios) conference in little rock arkansas boluki was recognized for exhibiting scientific excellence as a graduate student and presenting the paper constructing priors for optimal bayesian classification and regression using unlabeled data at the conference the paper was co-authored by his research advisors in the department dr edward r dougherty the robert m kennedy 26 chair professor and distinguished professor and dr xiaoning qian assistant professor along with dr mohammad shahrokh esfahani postdoctoral research associate boluki presented how his proposed method extended the application of optimal bayesian classification/regression in biomedical problems such as phenotypic prediction biomarker estimation and missing data imputation bolukis research interests include genomic signal processing statistical learning and optimal experiment design he received his bachelors degree with honors in electrical engineering from amirkabir university of technology (tehran polytechnic) tehran iran in 2014 he is currently working toward his doctoral degree in the genomic signal processing laboratory in the electrical and computer engineering department
1895,formula sae car up for auction benefits students click for auction site and specs
1896,sam gwydir senior in the computer science and engineering department at texas a&m university presented at the 2017 asiabsdcon on his knowledge of freebsd a unix-like operating system similar to mac os x or gnu/linux asiabsdcon2017 was held march 9-12 in tokyo japan at the tokyo university of science his talk titled the history and future of core dumps in freebsd was based on his paper for a seminar course taught by dr scott schaefer computer science and engineering professor for his talk gwydir began with a brief background on what core dumps are and why operators might need them he discussed the current state of the core dump facility and some of the more common extensions that are currently in use he also assembled a history of core dump support and features from the unix v6 operating system through to present freebsd dr marshall kirk mckusick who worked on the original bsd operating system and wrote the design and implementation series of books which gwydir read to begin this project attended gwydirs talk in general operating systems are software that manage the computer hardware and software resources for the everyday programs we use such as a web browser through extensive work in the subject gwydir has become very knowledgeable on these systems his interest in bsd-derived operating systems was sparked after spending more than 10 years using another operating system gnu/linux about four years ago i wanted to run a mail server on my personal domain i was particularly interested in security at the time gwydir said the openbsd project is known for its focus on correctness and security so it was a natural choice of operating system once i saw the documentation and ideas behind openbsd and their mail server opensmtpd i felt like my choice was made later gwydir became directly involved in the freebsd community when he attended the 2015 grace hopper celebration of women in computing and met deb goodkin the executive director the freebsd foundation she helped him obtain an internship at groupon where he continues to work as a systems engineer and manages the database systems which run freebsd at groupon he was asked to investigate recent crashes within the system it turned out groupons crash dumps which can be used to diagnose crashes were not working on some systems this spurred gwydir to begin a research project on core dumps and how to resolve this issue at the same time i was in dr schaefer's seminar course and needed to write a paper on an algorithm or routine gwydir said naturally i chose the core dump routine in freebsd when asiabsdcon 2017 was announced i realized i could turn this paper into something larger and possibly give a talk at this conference for his next project gwydir is working on porting crash dumps to swap zfs zvol from the operating system illumos to freebsd
1897,dr anthony guiseppi-elie head of the department of biomedical engineering director of the biomedical engineering division of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and tees professor at texas a&m university has been elected chair of the american institute for medical and biological engineering (aimbe) college of fellows guiseppi-elie was previously chair elect and was officially elected into his position on march 20 fellows are nominated each year by their peers and represent the top 2 percent of the medical and biological engineering community guiseppi–elie earned his multi-major bachelors degree in chemistry applied chemistry and biochemistry with first class honors from the university of the west indies; his masters degree in corrosion science and engineering from the university of manchester institute of science and technology; and his doctoral and postdoctoral degrees in materials science and engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology his career includes 15 years in industry and 18 years in academia the college of fellows is composed of 1 500 individuals who are recognized as outstanding bioengineers in academia industry and government and have distinguished themselves through their contributions in research industrial practice and/or education fundamental to their achievements is the common goal of embracing innovation to improve the health care and safety of society aimbe is the authoritative voice and advocate for the value of medical and biological engineering to society it is an organization of leaders in medical and biological engineering consisting of academic industrial professional society councils and elected fellows aimbes mission includes communicating objectively with and responding to us and state government agencies as well as lawmakers about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative medicine medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1898,"makiah eustice a junior in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as a brooke owens fellow the brooke owens fellowship program awards internships and senior mentorships to exceptional undergraduate women seeking careers in aviation or space exploration the program was founded in 2016 to honor the memory of space industry pioneer and accomplished pilot d brooke owens who passed away in june 2016 at the age of 35 after a battle with cancer the program helps address historical underrepresentation of women in aviation and space exploration by identifying and training world-class talent each candidate is evaluated on the basis of her technical excellence creativity commitment to service and career growth potential after completing a rigorous and highly competitive application and multi-phase interview process each fellow is placed into a paid summer internship at one of the nations leading aviation or space companies eustice will intern this summer with the aerospace corporation in addition to their paid summer work experience each fellow has been paired with two carefully selected senior aerospace professionals who serve as mentors one of those mentors will be from the fellows host company or institution while the other will be from a different part of the industry ""i'm honored to not only be selected to work with aerospace and receive mentorship from industry leaders but to have a team of passionate bright women making positive change across the nation says eustice they motivate me to continue what i'm doing and take my future aerospace career to its fullest potential like brooke did"" eustice works with dr john valasek in the vehicle systems and controls laboratory she has served as industry chair of the texas a&m chapter of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and is an active member of students for the exploration and development of space and the aerospace student advisory board as a member of the corps of cadets squadron 12 she plans on commissioning in the us air force and working in flight test engineering"
1899,dr rodney bowersox is one of 13 distinguished researchers from across the united states to be named a 2017 vannevar bush faculty fellow by the department of defense (dod) the recipients will receive up to $3 million over five years for research bowersox is the department head and a ford motor company design professor i in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university to be named a vannevar bush faculty fellow is a tremendous honor and dr bowersox is most deserving of the recognition said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering dr bowersoxs research in wall–bounded gaseous turbulence will address a wide range of problems of national and dod interest including aerothermodynamics hypersonic flight and turbulent combustion for propulsion and energy the program awards grants to distinguished faculty and staff scientists and engineers from united states universities to conduct bold and ambitious blue sky basic research of strategic importance to the dod blue sky research may lead to extraordinary outcomes such as revolutionizing entire disciplines creating entirely new fields or disrupting accepted theories and perspectives these grants engage outstanding scientists and engineers in the most challenging technical issues facing the dod fellows conduct research in core science and engineering disciplines that underpin future dod technologies such as quantum information science neuroscience novel engineered materials applied mathematics statistics and fluid dynamics fellows directly engage with the dod research enterprise to share knowledge and insights with dod civilian and military leaders researchers in dod laboratories and the national security science and engineering community the fellowship program provides research awards to top-tier researchers from us universities to conduct revolutionary ‘high risk high pay-off research of strategic importance to the department of defense said mary j miller acting assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering formerly known as the national security science and engineering faculty fellowship the new name commemorates dr vannevar bush (1890-1974) who was the director of scientific research and development during world war ii and the author of science the endless frontier the dean of engineering at mit bush later founded a large defense and electronics company as a devoted teacher administrator and entrepreneur bush yielded creative and innovative contributions to the nations security the full list of the 2017 class of vannevar bush faculty fellow can be found online: https://wwwdefensegov/news/news-releases/news-release-view/article/1133549/department-of-defense-announces-fy17-vannevar-bush-faculty-fellows
1900,jin li a graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has received the 2016 materials research society (mrs) graduate student silver award li is the third graduate student from texas a&m to be selected to receive this award in the past 10 years like all phd students i am one of the hardworking guys li said i am fortunate to work in a team environment where my teammates and advisor provide tremendous support li has been studying under dr xinghang zhang since 2013 and his doctoral thesis focuses on radiation damage and mechanical behavior of nanostructured metals he has a gpa of 40 and has published four first-author articles in premier materials science journals such as nano letters and acta materialia a flagship journal in the material community he also has two papers that are under review and hes the co-author of more than 10 other articles including four in acta materialia and two in nano letters i enjoy doing research and hopefully can stay in academia after graduation li said i feel so lucky to be selected mrs established in 1973 is one of the largest materials research conferences for the materials community with almost 14 000 members of materials researchers from academia industry and government as a recognized leader in the advancement of interdisciplinary materials research the mrs graduate student awards are intended to honor and encourage graduate students whose academic achievements and current materials research display excellence and distinction mrs seeks to recognize students of exceptional ability who show promise for future substantial achievement in materials research emphasis is placed on the quality of the students research accomplishment the awardees are selected internationally based on their presentations at the mrs meeting li feels his achievement of the mrs graduate student award is a direct reflection on the outstanding research and education provided by texas a&m li will defend his doctoral thesis in the summer of 2017
1901,competing against more than 70 schools from seven countries the texas a&m university sae aero design team in the department of aerospace engineering brought back several awards from the 2017 sae aero design west competition held in fort worth texas march 10-12
1902,the micro class team placed third overall and received first place for their design report and sixth place in oral presentation the regular class team placed second overall with a first in oral presentation second in most payload lifted and seventh in design report sae aero design has two annual competitions where teams design and build remote control aircraft to meet mission requirements the competition provides undergraduate and graduate engineering students with a real-life engineering challenge: design build and fly an original r/c aircraft capable of lifting as much weight as possible within the competitions design constraints the competition has been designed to provide exposure to the kinds of situations that engineers face in their real-life work environments first and foremost in a design competition students find themselves performing trade studies and making compromises to arrive at a design solution that will optimally meet the mission requirements while still conforming to the configuration limitations what my teammates and i love about this design team and competition is that it challenges us to design an aircraft on a highly condensed timeline while still performing all trade studies detailed analyses manufacturing control and flight testing that a really small aerospace firm would said matthew wescott executive director of the team that is all driven by friendly competition against other tier-one international schools sae aero design features three classes of competition – regular advanced and micro the objective of regular class is to maximize theoretical revenue as a large passenger class aircraft carrying inert payload as luggage and tennis balls acting as passengers advanced class requires teams to have a systems approach to the design while integrating several engineering disciplines: aeronautical mechanical electrical and computer engineers micro class teams are required to make trades between two potentially conflicting requirements carrying the highest payload fraction possible while simultaneously pursuing the lowest empty weight possible the texas a&m sae aero design team comprised of students from the departments of aerospace mechanical and electrical engineering is under the direction of dr tom pollock and led by wescott other team leaders include jonathan chiu cullen eckert brennan harrison preetam palchuru kyle brookover michael coopman bryce prescott and caleb fisher video provided by the sae aero design '17 team
1903,dr mary preston mcdougall associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the 2017 texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award mcdougall joined the department in 2006 and is the only person from the texas a&m college of engineering to receive the award this year she was selected to receive the award for her outstanding accomplishments in teaching mcdougall teaches medical imaging within the department her research is dedicated to creating hardware-based solutions to extend the capabilities of magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy providing previously inaccessible approaches to understanding diseases i feel privileged to be at an institution where i am rewarded in this way for doing something about which i care so deeply and in which i find such meaning said mcdougall the university-level distinguished achievement awards were first presented in 1955 and have since been awarded to more than 1 000 professionals who have exhibited the highest standards at texas a&m the 2017 distinguished achievement awards will be formally presented at 1:30 pm on monday april 24 during a ceremony in rudder theatre on the texas a&m campus in recognition of their achievements each recipient will receive a cash gift an engraved watch and a commemorative plaque about the department of biomedical engineering committed to solving the worlds greatest health problems through the exploration of new ideas integrated research and innovation the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m is producing the next generation of biomedical engineers developing new technologies and new jobs and achieving revolutionary advancements for the future of health care the department has unique strengths in regenerative medicine medical augmentation molecular diagnostics/theranostics tele-health and precision medicine and its faculty members are internationally recognized with collaborative relationships that span engineering physical and natural sciences medicine and veterinary sciences
1904,the conference for protective relay engineers kicks off its 70th annual meeting at texas a&m university this week the event is the longest continually running industry conference at texas a&m the conference is nationally recognized as a meeting place for electric utility protection engineers and manufacturers of power equipment where ideas and best practices are shared to improve the reliability and safety of electricity delivery more than 300 engineers will participate in a week of technical activities including tutorials panel discussions paper presentations and industry breakout sessions outlining the newest protection and control technology for the electrical utility industry dr b don russell distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering has chaired the conference since 1988 the relay conference has provided a forum for electric utility engineers to discuss current problems with over 40 manufacturers said russell major technical developments that were introduced over the past seven decades to improve the safety and reliability of the electric power system were first presented at the texas a&m relay conference the conference began in 1948 as an informal complement to the electric meter school offered by the college of engineering engineering supervisors who attended the meter school met informally to discuss protection of power lines and apparatus since 1999 the conference was co-sponsored by the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) papers presented at the conference have been archived in the ieee explore database and made accessible to engineers worldwide in the ‘old days the discussions at the relay conference centered on the best way to clean the electrical contacts of an electromechanical relay in order to ensure continuity after years of inactivity said russell today conversation at the relay conference often centers on the advanced functionality offered by intelligent relay devices capability that far exceeds functions even dreamed about by early protection engineers the 70th relay conference is a milestone and we have every reason to believe that the relay conference at texas a&m will continue for decades to come to be an important educational activity for electric utility protective relay engineers said russell the conference will also address the changes that have occurred in the electric power industry including increased concerns over reliability and a business emphasis on efficiency and cost savings the topics of discussion at the conference include cybersecurity advanced communications and real-time computer diagnostics visit the conference webpage to learn more about the conference
1905,members of women in materials science (wims) are reaching out to students of all ages to educate them about the field and the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university led by faculty advisor and materials science and engineering professor dr svetlana sukhishvili wims has made a name for itself with its outreach activities introducing elementary and middle school students to the wonders of science and in particular materials science and engineering victoria albright president of wims and doctoral student in the department is thrilled to help fellow members provide opportunities for younger peers to learn more about the materials science and engineering field these fields are often displayed as very challenging which tends to scare students away albright said i want to share my love of science with everyone so that they can too be excited by it we have read several studies that say when children are young both girls and boys enjoy science but as they get older the girls tend to turn away from it due to feeling like they are not good enough or that it is a ‘boys subject albright said i hope that by demonstrating fun experiments we can show everyone that a career in science and engineering is possible for them their work with these students aligns with the mission of the organization to encourage women to pursue studies in materials science and careers in stem fields while promoting a community atmosphere among students and faculty to accomplish this mission the group hosts and participates in various outreach opportunities on and off campus these include aggieland saturday where they reach prospective undergraduate students demonstrations to girl scout troops at the society of women engineers stemfest and rock prairie elementary schools discovery night for the event at rock prairie elementary raman hlushko wowed the children with a large variety of experiments albright said we also had other members showing off the magic of soap repelling dye in milk and expanding polyurethane foams they also hosted the first-annual materials science and engineering mini-conference during national engineering week to educate undergraduate students who have not yet chosen their area of study by hosting our mini-conference we aimed to offer undergraduate students a chance to practice their networking skills and educate undergraduate students about the opportunities that materials science and engineering offers them albright said many students do not know what materials science and engineering is and we are trying to bridge this knowledge gap additionally wims has established a relationship to introduce the field of materials science and engineering to middle school students at allen academy a private school in bryan texas where albright and fellow graduate students timothy brown natalie benner and hanna hlushko worked with stephanie hanover a science teacher at the school allen academy is thrilled to have wims in our classrooms working with our students to learn more about material sciences and engineering said hanover they showed our students not only what materials sciences is all about but through awesome hands-on experiences on how it can make a difference in our world we are so glad that wims was able to reach out to a local school and hope that this partnership can continue for many years to come albright said serving the students of allen academy in my mind is one of our biggest accomplishments the graduate students have taught sixth and eighth grade students about the three different types of metals and plan to return in april to teach seventh grade students about metals and polymers wims has redefined the mission of student organizations from traditionally focusing on womens issues to a new type of womens organization whose mission is defined much broader and includes revolutionizing and building an inclusive and diverse departmental culture this organization has already become the nucleus for many departmental outreach cultural organizational and recruitment events sukhishvili said i am sure that its impact on the departmental culture will further increase as the department grows to new heights
1906,a research team at texas a&m university has uncovered a physical mechanism that may help answer one of the major questions concerning the origin of life how did the building blocks form the research team is led by dr victor ugaz professor and holder of the charles d holland 53 professorship and the thaman professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering the team also includes dr yassin a hassan professor and holder of the sallie & don davis '61 professorship and department head of the department of nuclear engineering scientists have long known that the building blocks of life – amino acids nucleobases and sugars – were present in the early ocean but they were very low in concentration in order for life to emerge these building blocks needed to be combined and enriched into long-chain macromolecules identifying the process and mechanism driving this synthesis has been one of the largest questions concerning the origin of life in the early ocean those building blocks were present in the environment ugaz said they were there but they were so dilute; there is a question about how they combined so one area of interest is what kind of concentration mechanism could have existed to enrich those components to a point where they could start to form longer chains more complex molecules in an article appearing in proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america the texas a&m research team describes a mechanism that may have played a major role in combining these dilute chemical building blocks into the long-chain macromolecules necessary for life the research team explored this by creating a model system of cylindrical cells that mimic the structure of pores in mineral formations found near a recently discovered new type of subsea hydrothermal vent the temperature gradients present within these vents function just like an ordinary lava lamp circulating fluid within the tiny pore spaces the team found that these flows are surprisingly complex and chaotic – meaning that individual paths follow a rough general pattern but no trajectories are identical (see video below) this discovery made it possible to identify conditions where these flows are able to provide bulk homogenization of the various organic molecules present in the vents while at the same time transport them to catalytically active pore surfaces where they absorb and react
1907,according to ugaz there is an easy way to picture this phenomenon imagine you are stirring coffee and you put in some cream or something that would stick to the side of the cup when you stir it a certain way two things are actually happening at once: you are mixing the bulk of the liquid but you are also making it go to a certain spot on the surface of the cup these flows naturally occur within hydrothermal pore networks providing an intriguing mechanism to explain how dilute organic precursors in the early ocean could have assembled into complex biomacromolecules this has been one of the key unanswered questions in the origin of life on earth and in extraterrestrial systems where similar hydrothermal environments have been discovered beyond this finding the research is significant in a number of other ways there are a whole host of different processes beyond the biotic and prebiotic chemistry that can be catalyzed in these environments first these porous formations play a major role in converting carbon dioxide into various carbonates the exact mechanisms driving this carbon dioxide capture are not currently well described however the results of this study indicate that these chaotic flows may be able to help describe this phenomenon further with a better understanding of these flows and how they drive reactions at a surface it is feasible that they could drive a new type of reactor as the flows rely on heat differences such a reactor could be entirely passive utilizing waste heat to drive reactions this research was supported in part by the national science foundation
1908,kendal ezell a student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to become an astronaut scholar by the astronaut scholarship foundation (asf) as well as being honored as outstanding junior for the texas a&m college of engineering and the phi kappa phi honor society the asf was created to ensure that the united states would maintain its leadership in science and technology by supporting some of the very best science and engineering college students ezell was selected based upon her exemplary academic performance ingenuity and unique aptitude for research she is entering her senior year and plans to utilize the scholarship to help with her schooling ezell was nominated by the biomedical engineering department for the college of engineering overall outstanding junior and received the same award on both the college and university level by phi kappa phi for academic achievement character and leadership abilities phi kappa phi is the nations oldest largest and most selective honor society for all academic disciplines ezell has concentrated her philanthropic efforts with organizations such as the student engineers council and kappa alpha theta these experiences have by far had the biggest impact on me during my time at texas a&m and have allowed me to give back to the university in various ways she said however these experiences would not be possible without the supportive mentors i have had who have opened so many doors and opportunities the award carries a significant prestige that is greater than any monetary value that i hope will set me apart as i apply to md/phd programs at the second phase of my education said ezell ezell began her career at texas a&m in fall 2014 and shortly thereafter began undergraduate research in dr duncan maitlands biomedical device laboratory that has resulted in multiple publications presentations a patent application and an undergraduate thesis in the 2016-17 school year she has also worked with dr mark packard in the institute for neuroscience and with biotechnology companies in germany
1909,in order to create 3-d models in the field of computer graphics thin sheets of material are layered together to create a single object dr scott schaefer professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is focused on peeling back those layers in order to create more realistic graphics than ever before these types of graphics are composed of numerous triangular surfaces; however geometry is only one aspect of how we perceive an object generally we interpret surfaces by their color or how light interacts with the surface all of which make the surface appear more realistic these colors are usually applied to the surface via texture mapping which is a process that relies on the parameterization of a surface to map a two-dimensional image onto a three-dimensional surface parameterization is the flattening of a piece of a surface to the two-dimensional domain which is schaefers current focus we take a surface cut it along a seam and then flatten it onto the floor schaefer said this flattening of a shape creates a map between the 2-d image and the 3-d shape colors on the image appear on the corresponding part of the 3-d surface which is how nearly every 3-d model is colored today this flattening can introduce some distortion into the shape and most current parameterization methods are focused on reducing this distortion however schaefers research centers on how the distortion that occurs is measured and optimized as well as enforcing a mathematical property called a bijection a bijection means that triangles do not fold over or overlap in any way during the flattening process imagine you had a piece of cloth that was cut out schaefer said you could lay it on the floor in many ways a bijection would say that there are no folds in the cloth and that pieces of the cloth did not lie on top of each other on the floor while the property sounds easy it has been nearly impossible to obtain while simultaneously minimizing distortion schaefer and his research team have successfully developed a method for efficiently optimizing parameterizations that produce a bijection his more recent work attempts to speed up this optimization by understanding the shape of the distortion function in a higher dimensional space by moving along low distortion curved paths instead of straight lines it is possible to speed up the optimization to be hundreds or even thousands of times faster such an advancement would make creating realistic deformations which currently rely on expensive non-linear optimization fast and interactive schaefer began studying parameterization while teaching a game development course at texas a&m in the class students were asked to build 3-d models but ran into difficulty while attempting to paint the surfaces of the models because the methods in commercial tools did not enforce bijective maps between the 2-d and 3-d shapes this became the motivation for my search for a better way of solving this problem schaefer said parameterization is a fundamental tool in the field of computer graphics so it is possible that the next movie you watch or video game you play will benefit from the results of schaefers research
1910,a student group in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university created a device to thwart potential attackers as a project in their microcomputer systems course taught by dr jyh-charn (steve) liu professor in the department studies have shown that across the country many university students staff and faculty feel unsafe when walking in or near campus furthermore many are unaware of which places on campus are the most dangerous this became the motivation behind the project lauren voight rebecca schofield and sarah beardsley came up with an idea for a wearable device with a corresponding android app which would allow the user to feel protected in unsafe areas around campus that are not well lit the device which straps to your wrist has a bright led light to stun an attacker as well as a camera to take a photo of the users surroundings the app also has a panic button for added convenience once the panic button is pressed whether on the app or the device the camera will take several photos lights will flash and a loud buzzer will go off immediately an sos text message will also be sent out to campus police as well as pre-loaded emergency contacts that include your gps location a date and time stamp for reference and the photos taken from the device the camera fixed in the wearable device is an infrared camera which means it can take clear photos at night without having to use a flash similar to an activity tracker the device is connected to the application via bluetooth the application was designed with functionality in mind and includes a map which shows the users current location nearby areas with a low-crime rate and high-crime areas on campus these are color-coded for reference the red dots show high-crime areas the green dots show your current location and the blue dots show safe areas on campus beardsley said for this data was gathered from the clery act the clery act is a consumer protection law that aims to provide transparency around campus crime statistics this type of information is available to the general public but not many are aware the group used this data while building the application and pitching their project though the group will not pursue the implementation of this project past the course they learned a lot during the process and have a greater appreciation for their smart phones
1911,dr yossef elabd professor associate department head and director of the undergraduate program in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university recently delivered a webinar for the american chemical society (acs) the webinar the power of plastics: polymerized ionic liquids and nanostructured polymers for battery and other applications featured both elabd and dr thomas h epps iii the thomas & kipp gutshall professor of chemical engineering at the university of delaware previously epps presented a talk as part of the spring 2017 jd lindsay lecture series in the department during the webinar elabd described his research on polymerized ionic liquids (pils) an emerging class of solid state polymer electrolytes these pils have a wide variety of potential applications fuel cell membranes battery electrolytes and many other electrochemical devices electrochemical devices provide electric power through the transportation of ions between the positive (cathode) and negative (anode) electrodes through an electrolyte one of the main limiting factors for electrochemical cells in terms of efficiency and energy density is the electrolyte the chemical makeup of the entire cell is determined by the electrolyte with a relatively low number of proven electrolytes engineers have very little room for flexibility or variation in the chemical composition inside electrochemical cells pils on the other hand present engineers with a wide variety of chemistries to utilize when designing electrochemical cells to enhance efficiency and energy density this was the inaugural webinar from the acs division of polymer chemistry
1912,two students from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university were among the 10th class of maroon coats recognized by the texas a&m foundation in april elton mcintosh 19 and hudson lorfing 19 attended the coating ceremony at the jon l hagler center where current and former members gathered to celebrate the organizations 10th anniversary maroon coats are student leaders who serve texas a&m by nurturing a friendly and welcoming environment they enhance the impact of the texas a&m foundation through ambassadorship stewardship and selfless service by thanking donors for their gifts and interacting with them at foundation-sponsored events mcintosh believes ambassadorship and personal relationships are at the very core of what makes texas a&m so special when beginning his freshman year it was a group of maroon coats that stepped in to welcome and support him he said their love for this university was evident and inspired him to apply the purpose of maroon coats is two-fold: to serve as an ambassador from the student body to our donors and to act as a liaison between the foundation and our student body mcintosh said this is accomplished by a number of different activities including giving tours to prospective students acting as hosts at donor events and encouraging students to write thank you letters to generous alumni lorfing has witnessed the beneficial impact scholarships have on the lives of fellow students he said many of his friends attend texas a&m on scholarships thanks to the texas a&m foundation the impact of this organization centers around the focus of connecting students with donors and alumni to provide them with feedback experiences and an idea of how their contributions affect students at a&m lorfing said personally i joined the group to say thank you to donors and develop relationships to hopefully one day be where they are lorfing hopes students will grow to understand the impact the foundation has on them and discover ways they can contribute to it in the future
1913,if you walk down ross street on the texas a&m university campus you might think the small pump jack positioned near the south side of the doherty building is an art project when you first pass by but this is no statue it is a working piece of equipment on an actual well site and it has an interesting history the doherty building on the corner of spence and ross streets housed the harold vance department of petroleum engineering before it moved to its current location in the richardson building in 1991 the pump jack nearby is part of the hands-on educational experiences required of future petroleum engineers it is also a visible symbol of academic need the generosity of former students in industry and the volunteer labor of petroleum engineering students in late 1983 three test wells were proposed by then faculty member dr jt rollins he based his proposal on the idea that water wells would be an excellent means of teaching petroleum engineering students how well systems worked in the winter break of 1983-84 a single well was drilled with student labor using a shallow drilling rig the department owned at that time lufkin industries (now part of ge oil and gas) donated all of the original pumping and monitoring related equipment once completed the well came to be known as laboratory test well #3 but has adopted the nickname of aggie well no 1 over the years aggie well no 1 was drilled to a depth of approximately 500 feet and a dual completion was installed this means the well has traditional 2 3/8-inch tubing for a sucker rod pump and 1 1/4-inch tubing as a dead string for lowering a pressure measurement device in late march 1984 a device was lowered and the well water samples were tested the water was determined to be suitable for watering the grass and for discharge in the storm drains if needed the well was considered a success and aggie well no 1 was designated to a pump test well for pressure transient analysis there were a few quirks in its construction normal pump jacks are quite a bit bigger than the unit used for aggie well no 1 but the unit had to fit the allocated space on campus it looks over-muscled for its size because the rod load is minimal compared to the weights on the arms but these were the smallest sized weights lufkin industries had for this particular unit at the time the unit featured a variable-speed controller that allowed the sucker rod pumping unit to have variable speeds but the controller was never used extensively because the unit is mainly for academic purposes in 1989 it was found the water zone at 425 feet was capable of delivering at least 30 gallons per minute since that time the well has been used for pressure transient test sequences (ie drawdown and buildup tests) petroleum engineering students measure the water level by using a resistivity device in the dead string (which is open at the bottom and reflects the overall fluid level in the well) dr tom blasingame robert l whiting professor has used the well for his pressure transient testing course since the early 1990s he and dr ibere alves professor of engineering practice keep the old pump in prime shape alves uses the well for demonstrations in his classes this summer alves will work with lufkin industries to restore and upgrade some of the equipment since the company continues to provide the goods and services needed to maintain and enhance the unit (alves and blasingame performing maintenance on aggie well no 1) in addition to pressure transient tests and demonstrations aggie well no 1 was also used as a test case for the sucker rod pump system installed on the well this means the well was load-tested many times for the production engineering lab using a portable load cell and testing kit also provided by lufkin industries for over 30 years countless students have used aggie well no 1 to learn more about well systems and operations just as rollins envisioned hopefully it will continue to do so for another 30 years so next time you pass by the doherty building take a look at aggie well no 1 and remember the teamwork behind it: faculty former students and current students – all striving to improve knowledge and produce better students that collaboration is what makes texas a&m a great place to learn
1914,a texas a&m university undergraduate capstone design team named enclave electronics international recently presented their internet of things (iot) lunar rover prototype to scientists at the nasa johnson space center in houston texas in short nasa scientists were thrilled and said that the technology could possibly be used in a future moon mission
1915,"the students used the digital systems teaching and research (dstr) robot to develop a lunar rover prototype that can collect lunar samples while being controlled through the internet the student team is comprised of 10 members six from the department of engineering technology and industrial distributions electronic systems engineering technology ( eset) program in college station and four from texas a&m university at qatar in doha college station members include matthew greco project manager erin prucha and ryan sharpe hardware engineers jonathan presley and xuan gao software engineers and matthew johnson system integration engineer salvadore echeveste jr from the manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology ( mmet) program assisted with the project as well qatar members include bilal el assadi mohammed jaffrin abdul rafey siddiqui and abdelghaffar abdelrahman bringing it all together despite being separated halfway around the globe the college station and qatar students utilized technology such as video conferencing and 3-d printing to communicate with one another to build a complete rover the college station team took on the electronics side while the qatar team focused on the mechanical aspect students from the qatar team were eventually able to travel and meet the college station team face to face and finalize their project amidst working hard for their nasa presentation the united team also went to an aggie baseball game toured the university and enjoyed some local food finally able to collaborate in person the qatar team shared their mechanical build with the electronics portion the college station team had worked on together they created a functioning dstr lunar robot prototype with internet of things capability that could potentially be sent to the moon to collect samples for nasa off to houston in houston the united team presented their project to leadership from tietronix software inc a company that develops and delivers complex mission-critical systems to nasas space flight operations continuously several other industry representatives attended the presentation including scientists from nasa and leadership from texas instruments (ti) and texas space technology applications and research (tstar) the nasa scientists were particularly impressed with the project given the low-cost aspect of the rover combined with its ability to maneuver diverse terrain this is a really powerful concept said nasa scientist dr marc fries this is potentially transformative"" right now if you want a [lunar] sample you either have the option to send an expensive lander with lots of equipment but no movement capability or send a very large and also expensive rover this [dstr robot] is a really nice middle ground where you can put down a low-cost rover go get the samples and bring them back following their presentation the team spent a great deal of time asking and answering questions and discussing the future impact of the project in a bittersweet moment the college station team had to say goodbye to the qatar team wishing them a safe flight back home next stop nasa after the morning meetings and lunch the eset students and representatives from ti and tstar traveled to the johnson space center to listen to a presentation from dr david draper manager of the astromaterials research office part of the jsc astromaterials research and exploration science division at nasa drapers presentation gave insight into exactly how the dstr rover could help nasa with future mission ideas draper explained his teams project we have a mission concept for returning samples from the moon to help us understand some important problems in planetary science he said our goal is to try and come up with very innovative mission concept ideas to be selected by nasas discovery program the moment of truth following drapers presentation the students were able to visit the nasa martian and lunar rock fields to test out their robot on space-like terrain the demonstration was exceptional and the rovers were able to navigate the various terrains with ease"
1916,draper shared his reaction to the project and excitement for what this could mean for future lunar exploration missions at nasa this kind of work that the texas a&m capstone team has been doing is very much that innovative outside-the-box kind of thinking that is really a new way of possibly returning samples from a planetary surface which is very exciting he said draper also expressed his admiration for the accomplishments of the students its amazing coming from undergraduates said draper i was really really impressed with how far down the field the ball has been pushed with this group hats off! in retrospect i think the trip was amazing said project manager matthew greco we were stressed at first with meeting the qatar team for the first time and getting the rover put together with them to prepare for the presentation in the end everything went smoothly and everyone had a great time both senior teams celebrated graduation both in college station and qatar with promise of bright futures ahead in engineering the eset program plans to continue development of its internet of things technology projects currently faculty and undergraduate students are implementing internet of things-based systems in applied research undergraduate education including freshman engineering and outreach activities see more photos from the nasa visit
1917,since he was a boy leroy s skip fletcher 58 remembers looking up to his father robert h bob fletcher a hardworking family man bob shared his passion for mechanical engineering with his son and thousands of aggie students over the years he couldnt know it as a youngster but fletcher would become a household name in the mechanical engineering department at texas a&m university as both skip and his father amassed a combined 70 years of teaching experience in 1988 skip and other former students endowed a fellowship to honor his father and the academic foundation he set for the mechanical engineering department twenty-eight years later their legacy is evolving again through a recent gift by skip and his wife nancy to grow the fellowship into the robert h fletcher professorship in mechanical engineering the professorship will be awarded for the first time this fall and funds will support the teaching and research activities of its faculty holder the gift is intended to help the department attract high-quality faculty improve retention and enhance creativity and productivity following footsteps after graduating from pennsylvania state university in 1928 with a degree in mechanical engineering bob fletcher held several jobs that led him to the agricultural and mechanical college of texas where he was hired as an instructor in the mechanical engineering department in 1946 my father was a very devoted teacher said skip who now owns an avocado farm in southern california he established personal relationships with almost all of his studentshe truly went above and beyond his devotion led to his promotion in 1949 to assistant professor and in 1958 to associate professor and ultimately professor emeritus his background as an engine foreman and mechanic made him the perfect candidate to teach the automotive engineering class and serve as the faculty advisor to the society of automotive engineers i would walk out to our garage on weekends and my dad would be fixing up an old car with students skip said it was more than just teaching for him; it was his life education was a high priority for the fletcher family who resided in the bryan-college station area bob and his wife jennie relocated skip and his sister martha to another high school simply because it provided a wider array of classes for students one of my fathers main motivations for taking the job at texas a&m was because he wanted to ensure that my sister and i could pursue a college education he said skip followed his fathers path and was admitted to the then agricultural and mechanical college of texas in 1954 though he and bob were on campus at the same time he never had his dad as a teacher one semester i really wanted to take his automotive engineering class for an easy ‘a he said so i asked my dad if it was ok but of course he said no bob continued teaching at texas a&m in either a full-time or part-time capacity until 1980 when he retired after 34 years of service to the mechanical engineering department lessons of a lifetime upon graduating from texas a&m with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering in 1958 skip served as a 2nd lieutenant at the nasa ames at moffett naval air station in california before taking leave to obtain a master of science and engineering degree at stanford university while there skip met his wife nancy and the two were married in 1966 he later received a phd from arizona state university in 1968 and began his career teaching aerospace engineering at rutgers university eventually after a brief stay at the university of virginia the familywhich now included daughter laura and son danielmade their way back to texas a&m where skip was hired as associate dean of engineering in 1980 in 1998 he found himself in a very familiar place i became a professor just like my father many years ago skip said my teaching style was a little different from my dads in that i was a little tougher but we both focused on real-world applications of the material which is extremely valuable for students skip spent 36 years with the mechanical engineering department teaching classes such as heat transfer and serving as a faculty advisor for several engineering organizations there is a good chance that most mechanical engineering graduates in the last 50 years were either taught by me or my dad he joked with the help of university matching funds skip and others honored his fathers legacy by establishing the fellowship in mechanical engineering in 1988 with the hopes that one day he could add funds to turn it into a professorship i was putting two children through college at the time so it just wasnt possible (at the time) he said but it was always on my mind as a former teacher skip knew that investing in faculty attracts not only other superb professors but also superb students because state funds cover only basic faculty requirements private support is crucial in 2016 he made his dream a reality by adding funds to his endowment to establish robert h fletcher professorship in mechanical engineering professorships help recruit and retain the best talent skip said they inspire and encourage professors to make outstanding contributions to their department just like my father did to support the department of mechanical engineering contact: jonathan pozzi 07assistant director of developmenttexas a&m foundation(800) 392-3310 or (979) 862-1876jpozzi@txamfoundationcom
1918,dr je-chin han distinguished professor and holder of the marcus c easterling chair in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was named recipient of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) 2016 max jakob memorial award for outstanding contributions to the science and art of heat and mass transfer established in honor of max jakob in 1961 by the asme heat transfer division the award is presented to industry professionals who have displayed eminent achievement of distinguished service in the area of heat transfer han will receive his award at the asme 2017 summer heat transfer conference in bellevue washington in july where he will give a lecture on a heat transfer topic of his choice his lecture will appear in the journal of heat transfer as a review article han received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from national taiwan university and his masters degree in mechanical engineering from lehigh university he earned his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology hans previous awards include: american institute of aeronautics and astronautics fellow (2016); aircraft engine technology award (2016); asme heat transfer division 75th anniversary medal (2013); asme k-14 warren rohsenow prize for best paper (2007); asme igti certificate award for valued service as chair of the heat transfer committee (2004-06); aiaa thermophysics award (2004); the international symposium of rotating machinery award in heat transfer (2004); and the asme heat transfer memorial award in the art category (2002)
1919,"a room in the home of alice and erle nye 59 features a maroon carpet with a white borderthe first clue its walls are covered with certificates of honor and plaques of gratitude and around the room sit football helmets and shovels used in the groundbreakings of various buildings these are mementos from the nyes many years of service to texas a&m university if you visited our home youd have to be really interested in something else to not observe that we truly love texas a&m "" erle said the nyes now have a new piece to add to their collection the texas a&m foundations 2017 sterling c evans medal the highest distinction awarded to recognize service and philanthropy to the university it is a great honor just to be considered among giants and former winners like jack brown 46 and george mitchell 40 erle said im not sure we warrant this but we will accept it modestly and thankfully the love alice and erle feel for texas a&m was passed down by their fathers who were both aggie veterinarians our parents were friends so weve known each other a long time said alice alice attended north texas university for her teaching degree but would have been an aggie herself if texas a&m had accepted women in the 1950s through their upbringing alice and erle shared many of the values central to the university they were important to us then and they are important to us today said erle who earned a texas a&m degree in electrical engineering and a law degree from southern methodist university a turtle on a fencepost after receiving his education erle began an illustrious career in energy and utilities in 2004 he retired as ceo of txu corp the states largest publicly held utility company like a good aggie he didnt forget what led to his success if you see a turtle sitting on a fencepost you know that turtle didnt get up there by himself said erle who is known for spouting humor and colloquialisms i know i didnt get here by myself i know many people helped me in recognition of texas a&ms role in his life the dallas-based nyes began to give back to the university financially and with their time erle has served on a host of boards and committees including the12th man foundation champions council the college of engineerings advisory council and the advisory board of the medical school to name a few for 12 years he also served as a regent for the university system the couple has funded scholarships and contributed to building funds such as the renovation of the memorial student center (msc) when alice visited the campus while i was a student we used to sit and talk at the msc that constituted a date back then said erle i hardly ever walk through there without thinking of those times the nyes feel that endowing faculty chairs is especially important and a way of leveraging their support youve got to attract excellent faculty but to do so you need generously endowed chairs "" said erle in 2005 the couple created the erle nye 59 chair for engineering excellence in the college of engineering at $2 million the endowment is one of the colleges largest for faculty top-notch faculty will influence countless lives erle said he also encourages other aggies to step up since a decrease in state funding means that many programs and departments rely heavily on private giving those blessed to attend texas a&m have a duty to support the school he said the academics-sports connection the achievement that means the most to them however is the alice and erle nye 59 academic center part of the bright football complex the academic center provides tutors laptops learning labs and study areas for more than 600 student athletes on campus were so proud because its an athletic undertaking but its in the pursuit of academics erle said""whats more the center is a reflection of alices work as a teacher making sure that every child has an education has been the main focus of her life the couples effort to improve education is not limited to texas a&m they also helped fund a state-of-the-art environmental science center on 40 acres of untouched land for the lakehill prep school in dallas but when the extended family is in college station for games or events alice likes to take the grandchildren to the academic center it says something to them academics are important she said they see our name on the building but i stress that whats on the inside is more important in the larger picture the nyes see their investment in the academic center as beneficial to aggie sports if athletes arent doing well academically they worry about their grades and their athletic performance suffers erle said occasionally the nyes even receive notes from athletes thanking them for the center a coach told me that he often hears students leaving the locker room saying ‘im going to nye to study that raises a lump in my throat "" said erle however its not hard to get him choked up when it comes to texas a&m erle is deeply grateful for the life his education has afforded him people say were generous but i say were just paying a debt he said i clearly benefited from a great education and my experience at texas a&m affected me and my family more profoundly than i can say i feel we owe the university more than we can ever pay this article was originally posted by the texas a&m foundation"
1920,engineers have made modern technology increasingly easier to operate for the common person for stephanie wilcox an undergraduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university knowing how to operate the technology was never enough as a seven-year-old wilcox took apart a radio for the first time she was intrigued that a person could be familiar with a device and have no idea how all of the components interacted or how it was made she has never stopped trying to understand the intricacies of technology since this passion for technology led wilcox to pursue a degree in electrical and computer engineering and actively pursue three different research projects and lead the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) student chapter at texas a&m as the vice technology officer as a freshman wilcox got involved in research for design and production at texas a&m engineering experiment stations initiative with hand 2 mind a company that has provided hands-on learning curriculum for more than 40 years undergraduate research is so important that opportunity alone allowed me to realize that i wanted to go into research and development said wilcox i enjoyed the challenge of meeting a demand while working around the constraints of the client during her sophomore year wilcox participated in the 2015 aggie_challenge the texas a&m college of engineering program designed to actively engage undergraduate students in multidisciplinary team projects related to the engineering challenges facing our society over the course of a year her team developed a 3-d printed biomimicry model for cancer research under the advisement of dr akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering and several graduate students the project provided a new opportunity for drug discovery and personalized medicine for cancer treatment although my previous research was in a different area of engineering i was able to use the knowledge that i had acquired from operating and repairing 3-d printers the summer before and applied it to this very different field said wilcox the same year wilcox received an undergraduate student research grant under the leadership of dr arum han professor in the electrical and computer engineering department she helped develop a microfluidic screening platform for studying the synergistic effect of temperature on microalgal growth for microalgal biofuel applications an easy way to explain microfluidics is to think of a bottle in which you have water and oil when you shake the bottle little droplets of water are suspended in the oil said wilcox with microfluidics you use this principle to create single-cell culture chambers within each droplet allowing you to control and manipulate the environment to which each cell is exposed the multidisciplinary research allowed wilcox to apply electrical engineering components to other fields of research she created the platform on which the microfluidic system was laid typically when experimentation is done individual petri dishes are used to control the environment entirely when microfluidics is used to do single cell suspension all factors can be controlled on a microscale this method is cheaper and faster in 2016 wilcox was elected vice technical officer of the texas a&m student chapter of ieee she has helped lead the technical education committee in organizing several c++ micro controllers 3-d printing workshops and a minimake hackathon these workshops allow students to learn and grow outside of the formal classroom and become engaged in engineering said wilcox wilcox will graduate in 2018 and is still exploring different opportunities within her field of study to learn how her interests fit into her plan follow your interests even if you cannot see the current application and how it fits into your ‘plan; pursue it she said each pursuit grants you the chance to discover new passions and learn more about yourself while providing an equally important opportunity to engage further in the world outside of your previous experiences and knowledge contributing author: haley posey
1921,strap on a pair of virtual reality (vr) goggles and pilot a spaceship around an asteroid field or explore the terrain of mars participants at south by southwest (sxsw) were able to do just that through the spacecraft vr platform that is being developed by dr greg chamitoff professor of practice in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and his students under the advisement of nasa spacecraft is a new concept for collaborative space system and mission design it is a vr sandbox environment designed to enable government university and commercial entities to collaborate in the design use and evaluation of technology for future operations in space the idea behind spacecraft is that the future of space exploration can be fully simulated and experienced virtually before we go and even before we build the systems that we'll need says chamitoff perhaps even more importantly with spacecraft it is possible for individuals or organizations from anywhere in the world to collaborate on space systems and mission design humanitys future will be greatly influenced by the evolution of space exploration and habitation over the next century future missions of exploration and settlement in space will involve many technologies systems and capabilities working together on a solar system scale including numerous spacecraft habitats rovers robots satellites constellations communication arrays space suits landers scientific instruments life support systems and tools such as teleoperation and advanced autonomous systems for robotic construction and other remote operations today it is impossible to test a complete space mission architecture in any integrated fashion especially one with components designed and developed at different institutions around the world spacecraft provides a way for scenario-based testing in an integrated mission vr environment spacecraft is an online virtual reality collaboration tool that makes it possible to integrate system designs from all aspects of a mission and to perform human-in-the-loop testing of the design and operations it allows users to share connect and test system models within a high fidelity simulation of the space environment that can be also be experienced directly by the user says chamitoff spacecraft will enable countless individuals and institutions from around the world to collaborate and contribute to the future the platform allows users to share their models publicly for worldwide testing and improvement or privately for collaborative work between specific entities the aim is to enable any person or institution to contribute to humanitys future in space the name spacecraft is inspired by the popular game minecraft in which users can meet in a virtual environment build infrastructure and play together from anywhere in the world at the core of spacecraft is a model of the solar system the planets and other bodies of interest and the basic laws of physics details such as planetary surface features the radiation environment atmospheric properties and models of actual or simulated space vehicles or systems can all be plugged in depending on the mission systems and scenarios being evaluated different models are included for example a space suit operability test might require models of the suit and models of the planet surface including texture gravity and the tools to be used for a particular operation by a crew member during sxsw participants were able to try out one of three mission scenarios through the use of virtual reality: a martian habitat with real terrain topology in which radiation dosage oxygen level and bodily exertion were measured for the virtual character; an asteroid field in which the participant piloted a spaceship aided with thruster selection logic; and an artificial gravity base in which a participant could observe the effects on an objects motion due to the bases rotation the spacecraft platform provides the essential abilities to collaborate online run vr simulations and integrate models from a wide range of tools including autocad matlab solidworks sketchup labview gis 3ds max and others the exciting thing about spacecraft is that if we create it right it can be the platform on which humanity's future off-planet earth is designed built and tested chamitoff says given the technology we have today and the direction it is going there is no reason that we should not fully experience the future well before we build it this gives us the opportunity to make sure that we get it right through the advice of nasa on this project it is our intent and hope that it will ultimately be released publicly in the form of a space design competition that will include university students around the world the development of spacecraft began in september 2016 with more than 75 students on 12 teams contributing to the system architecture physics models plug-in capability and demonstration missions initial system and mission designs included an operational mars habitat rendezvous and docking with an asteroid-based facility teleoperation of a robot on mars a spacesuit simulation a rescue spacecraft using atmospheric drag and lift for orbital targeting navigation for a free-flying robot outside the international space station simulation of an artificial gravity space habitat and more each of the projects contributed core models to the spacecraft platform such as atmospheric models artificial gravity orbital mechanics planetary surface models from actual data dynamics and control models and more an aggie challenge course with multidisciplinary teams from aerospace computer science planetary science electrical engineering and other departments has been designing the spacecraft collaborative online platform the aero 401/402 class is contributing through their spacecraft design project and collaboration is ongoing with the university of sydney and several nasa advisors the combination of space exploration and virtual reality seems irresistible to students that are passionate about the latest technology and on making a difference in their career and other pursuits we have found that the graduate and undergraduate students who have been involved with spacecraft are very excited about its vision perhaps it's the idea of designing the future and experiencing those designs virtually but whatever it is the enthusiasm among students working on spacecraft has been tremendous says chamitoff spacecraft is a concept developed by chamitoff with his colleagues dr sharath girimaji and dr daniele mortari professors in the department of aerospace engineering the evolution and development of the platform has been led by graduate students mauricio coen robert hogan and neil mchenry the objectives for 2017 include the demonstration of the online version of spacecrafts project management site as well as multiple users collaborating to build integrated simulations for the program the team hopes to have an online library of built-in and user-built models including ratings and blogs the other objectives are to have plug-in capability for a wide range of engineering cad and modeling tools as well as have the capability for multi-user simulation once these objectives are realized spacecraft will be released in beta form the platform will be open source meaning anyone who downloads the free software will be able to build and add any models or structures limited only by their imagination taking advantage of the latest technology in virtual reality future space exploration and design can be designed and tested right here on earth this technology also opens up parallel opportunities using spin-off platforms for remote collaboration on a wide range of complex projects
1922,texas a&m university researchers have developed an intelligent transportation system prototype designed to avoid collisions and prevent hacking of autonomous vehicles modern vehicles are increasingly autonomous relying on sensors to provide information to automatically control them they are also equipped with internet access for safety or infotainment applications making them vulnerable to cyberattacks this will only multiply as society transitions to self-driving autonomous vehicles in which hackers could gain control of the sensors causing confusion chaos and collisions although autonomous vehicles are essentially large computers on wheels securing them is not the same as securing a communication network that connects desktop computers and smartphones to large geographical areas due to the roles that the sensors and actuators play in the physical layer of the network working in the texas a&ms cyberphysical systems laboratory dr prkumar university distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering along with graduate students bharadwaj satchidanandan and woo-hyun ko have applied the theory of dynamic watermarking of sensors in autonomous vehicles to prevent malicious attacks in their research demonstrations 10 cameras recorded the movement of the self-driving prototype vehicles the vision sensors in the system received the images and accurately calculated the exact location and orientation of the vehicles then they transmitted this information to a server which in turn controlled the vehicles sensors are like gps navigation in the network that gather information about the environment said satchidanandan actuators such as motors or controls such as the steering wheel interact with them if the sensors are corrupted or hijacked by malicious agents through the internet they can provide false information on vehicle locations resulting in collisions to fix this kumar and his team added a random private signal called a ‘watermark to the actuators the presence of this watermark and its statistical properties were known to every node in the system but its actual random values were not revealed when the measurements reported by the sensors did not have the right properties of this watermark the actuators assumed that the sensors or their measurements had been tampered with somewhere along the line with this new information the researchers could predict a collision the researchers showed that their technology could work in the lab the actuators in the autonomous vehicles halted themselves when the sensors were tampered with this is an instance of the broader concern of security of cyberphysical systems the increasing integration of critical physical infrastructures such as the smart grid or automated transportation with the cyber system of the internet has led to such vulnerabilities said kumar if these technologies are to be adopted by society they will need to be protected against malicious attacks on sensors read more about the research here the research is supported by the national science foundation the national science foundation science and technology center on science of information the united states army research office and the qatar national research fund a member of the qatar foundation
1923,sean whitney a may 2017 graduate in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been named the 2017 southwestern region award winner from sigma gamma tau (sgt) the national aerospace engineering honor society he has studied and conducted research on nonlinear adaptive control of hypersonic air vehicles for three years under dr john valasek professor of aerospace engineering in the vehicle systems & control laboratory this award recognizes whitney as one of the top seven aerospace engineering seniors in the united states in 2017 based on his academic service and extracurricular accomplishments the honorarium is in the form of a check for $250 and a plaque documenting his award in addition a brass nameplate will be installed on the departments sgt perpetual plaque texas a&m has produced six national and 25 regional award winners leading the country in both categories upon accepting the award whitney said the many achievements which this award represents would simply not have been possible were it not for the perpetual support of my family my peers and fellow cadets and the outstanding faculty and advising staff of the aerospace engineering department whitney is a may graduate and is also commissioned as a second lieutenant in the united states air force where his first assignment will be to vance air force base as a pilot candidate whitney will graduate again in august from texas a&m with a master of engineering in aerospace engineering valasek said of whitney sean has been an exceptional student to work with both inside the classroom and in my laboratory he is strongly committed to excellence in everything he does and this was recognized by lawrence livermore laboratories when they assigned him to work directly with their phd technical staff scientists during his junior year summer internship that does not happen very often sean has been an absolute pleasure to work with over the years and i am very proud of him formed in 1957 on the campus of purdue university sgt seeks to identify and recognize achievement and excellence in the aerospace field the sgt undergraduate awards serve to select outstanding aerospace engineering students at both the regional and national levels to recognize the accomplishments of these young students as they begin their professional careers as one of the original founding chapters of sgt texas a&m is a member of the southwestern region which also includes the university of oklahoma oklahoma state university the university of texas at arlington and the university of texas at austin the texas a&m chapter provides service to the department university and the profession with tutoring and mentoring for underclassmen university and community service and exclusive professional networking events to help members grow as aerospace scholars in all more than 700 members have been inducted into the texas a&m chapter
1924,benjamin young graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university was selected to receive a 2017 fellowship from the international organization on shape memory and superelastic technology an affiliate society of the american society of metals youngs proposal titled actuation fatigue and fracture of high temperature shape memory alloys studied the failure mechanisms and fracture mechanics of nitihf high temperature shape memory alloys shape memory alloys are promising for use as small high-power output solid-state actuators but their actuation-induced failure and fracture properties are completely unknown and must first be understood for the effective design and performance of actuators young said the results of youngs work will provide the knowledge needed to optimize these alloys for engineering applications as well as other phase-transforming materials this award will allow me to pursue an area of research that i am passionate about and initiate interest in this unique path of research for shape memory alloys young said the fellowship includes a $50 000 stipend to be distributed over two years to further the work for youngs research proposal
1925,from walk-on college basketball player to influential mentor for students and faculty dr robert randall has come full circle in his 42-year career in academia randall the wh bauer professor in dredging engineering in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university attended ohio state university and earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering i lived near akron ohio and went to cuyahoga falls high school randall said my parents moved back to columbus ohio which led me to ohio state service-minded as an undergraduate student randall wanted to play sports in college specifically basketball and baseball he survived two-and-a-half years as a walk-on basketball player before deciding to join the navy rotc program in my college days you were going to get drafted randall said i decided that i would prefer to not be drafted but be an officer in the military so i joined the navy rotc and a year later i was awarded a four-year scholarship the scholarship required randall to serve in the us navy for another four years after graduation giving him the opportunity to work on submarines in the years following randall began to develop a deep interest in the oceans of the world sparking his career in ocean engineering he attended the university of rhode island where he received his masters and doctoral degrees in ocean engineering after the navy i took a job at an organization in florida that was basically an oceanographic research institute dealing with designing and operating research submarines and submersibles randall said academia calls randall quickly realized this was not the career path he envisioned for himself and began to search for teaching and research opportunities in academia i looked at virginia tech the university of delaware the university of rhode island and then texas a&m came into the fold randall said i came to college station flew into easterwood airport on a 10-passenger plane and knew this was the place to begin an academic career and raise my family randall visited the zachry department of civil engineering that had just started a separate degree-granting program in ocean engineering and he decided to jump on this opportunity my wife barbara did not see the area before we moved here randall said i brought her from florida to college station through conroe texas so it was less of a shock to her because the trees were nice and tall all the way until you got to college station forty-two years later the couple has never regretted their cross-country move while i have had other offers through the years i did not think they were any better than where i was said randall and i enjoyed bringing up my children here impactful research during his time at texas a&m randall has brought in and worked on many projects ranging from dredging to coastal and offshore systems the first project i had was in 1977 and called the strategic petroleum reserve project which was a national us project to store oil in caverns randall said we were tasked to perform the environmental evaluation for the salt caverns all along the gulf of mexico since i was doing the offshore engineering i designed the system to track the brine plumes that were coming out of a buried pipeline and discharged through a diffuser into the gulf of mexico in the late 1980s randall began teaching the ocean engineering senior design course and incorporated the help of the ocean engineering industry the students completed design projects and submitted final reports to design competitions sponsored by the society of naval architects and marine engineers and were successful in receiving many awards other projects have involved the corps of engineers where randall worked one year at the engineering research and development center in vicksburg mississippi and taught courses in marine dredging and underwater acoustics and conducted research related to dredging and coastal engineering he also conducted research on dredging dredged material placement and capping of contaminated sediments the next big project that i am really proud of was to work on the national science foundation proposal to develop a new ocean coastal and dredging laboratory in the ‘90s randall said there was probably three faculty involved and i was the one that designed the facilities wave basin towing tank and the dredge carriage randall served as director of the haynes coastal engineering laboratory from 2009 to 2015 going above and beyond following dr john b herbichs retirement in 1993 randall became director of the center for dredging studies and assumed responsibility for organizing the annual dredging engineering short courses he also was appointed to the board of directors for the western dredging association (weda) and served as editor of the annual weda/texas a&m dredging technical conference proceedings he also collaborated with peter dejong president of digital automation and controls systems to develop a dredge simulator course in which randall built the educational side of the course and dejong built the simulators i developed all the dredging exercises and the team of myself pete and my graduate students worked out pretty well randall said we started this course in 1999 and the last one was in 2016 i think we have had over 2 000 people come through 16 years of the course held two or three times per year teaching the dredging short courses to thousands of people all over the world could constitute a famous status in some countries i recently took my dog to the veterinarian who is from south africa randall said he told me that i was famous in south africa because he knew someone from there who went through my course humble appreciation beyond the research randall quickly realized a newfound passion of teaching the next generation he enjoyed serving students and professional societies that aligned with his passions and areas of expertise aggies are special and the aggie ocean engineers that i worked with were particularly special and a joy to work beside randall said being able to work with those young people who are now out there working in the industry is so nice to see and to reflect back upon randall was the undergraduate advisor for ocean engineering students for 24 years he has been a faculty advisor for all ocean engineering student organizations and initiated the first ocean engineering student chapter of the marine technology society he also started the human-powered submarine student team in 1991 and students continue to build and race their submarines at national and international race sites randall has served as a mentor to thousands of ocean engineering students that have stepped into his office and classroom each semester for the last 42 years but he often reflects on the mentors in his life who have helped him reach the accomplishments of today my graduate advisor at the university of rhode island frank white was the one who taught me how to conduct research randall said at texas a&m dr herbich hired me and gave me the opportunity to work in ocean engineering and dredging and i knew nothing about dredging when i came here dr roy hann was the principal investigator on the strategic petroleum reserve project in 1977 he gave me the opportunity to manage the offshore activities for the project which involved conducting offshore research scheduling ship time buying a research vessel hiring people and scheduling all the cruises for the other faculty principal investigators because of his mentors randall held himself to the highest standard as he continued to build his career in turn he pushed each of his students to pursue nothing short of excellence students must be willing to work hard to succeed today randall said that means that you are willing to say ‘yes i will do this then follow through and do your best randalls devotion to the field of ocean engineering is unmatched i think most students have this idea in their head that they would like to be successful but if you take a job work hard at it and just enjoy what you are doing then i think that is when you have reached success randall said
1926,dr le xie associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2017 outstanding young engineering award from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) power & energy society (pes) for his contribution to the power systems analytics research and leadership in big data the award recognizes researchers like xie who are 35 years of age or under for their leadership in technical society activities community involvement and significant engineering achievements each year only one member is selected from the global ieee pes community xie received a $2 000 scholarship a plaque and a travel stipend of up to $1 000 to attend the pes meeting and awards ceremony which will be held in july in chicago he will dedicate the scholarship to support the undergraduate program at texas a&m its a great honor and i thank dr xie for his contributions to the success of our department said dr miroslav begovic department head and carolyn s & tommie e lohman 59 professor in the electrical and computer engineering department xie is the second faculty in the department to have received this award dr tom overbye was recipient of the award in 1993 xie received his bachelors degree from tsinghua university his masters degree from harvard university and his doctoral degree from carnegie mellon university prior to joining texas a&m xie worked with iso-new england inc and edison mission energy his current research interests include modeling and control of large-scale complex systems smart grid applications in support of renewable energy integration and electricity markets the ieee pes provides the world's largest forum for sharing the latest in technological developments in the electric power industry for developing standards that guide the development and construction of equipment and systems and for educating members of the industry and the general public members of the power & energy society are leaders in this field
1927,two professors from the texas a&m college of engineering at texas a&m university were honored as inspirational and transformational mentors during the inaugural center for teaching excellence aggies celebrate teaching! – recognizing transformational learning reception in may dr gregory chamitoff (left) professor of engineering practice in the department of aerospace engineering was nominated by mauricio coen a graduate student in aerospace engineering and dr cable kurwitz (right) senior lecturer in the department of nuclear engineering was nominated by jared lilly a freshman engineering major overall six faculty were chosen for the award out of more than 60 submissions students across all colleges wrote essays giving evidence of and reflecting upon the professors impact on their learning and lives the event was the fulfillment of the vision of center leadership to celebrate faculty across all colleges for their impact on students through transformational teaching practices the students shared their stories of complex and rigorous content taught using visual examples assumptions that were continuously challenged and positively changed and integrating real-world challenges like technical failures to require students to complete necessary calculations by hand when i received the request for nominations i thought it was pretty obvious that (chamitoff) deserved my best effort to write an essay that exemplified his teaching abilities said coen the most impressive characteristic of his mentorship is his ability to lead students toward previously unrecognized opportunities opening rare but profoundly impactful doors and inviting students to step into them he's paving the way allowing students to learn by example and interaction in the many classes and projects he teaches (kurwitz) taught me the how to think critically which helped me a lot in not only his class but also my other math and science courses said lilly also he taught me the importance of taking initiative whether it was simply getting prepared for class or getting involved in an organization lastly he also shared his wisdom on the need to not only work hard in college but also make some great memories and have a good time in addition to chamitoff and kurwitz the following professors were honored for their transformational teaching practices: • gary boldt college of architecture nominated by bo hawthorne senior construction science major • dr heidi campbell college of liberal arts nominated by lauren mathews senior telecommunication media studies major • dr scott cummings college of agriculture & life sciences nominated by jodi nerren graduate student in agriculture leadership education and communication • dr jake mowrer college of agriculture & life sciences nominated by vanessa limon senior plant & environmental soil sciences major
1928,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recognized faculty and staff award winners during the 2017 faculty and staff awards banquet banks presented faculty awards staff excellence awards a new employee award a key contributor award and the engineering team award staff awards key contributor award kay choate (civil engineering) new employee award jules henry (materials science and engineering) staff excellence award katie cates (engineering human resources); barry jackson (biomedical engineering); doug kutz (aerospace engineering); adrienne person (tees fiscal office); lisa pollock (ocean engineering); edmund seidel (remote education) engineering team award engineering engagement team (laura hall; nicole latham; shraddha sankhe; jared scoggins) faculty awards phillips 66 first year faculty award dr michael demkowicz (materials science and engineering); dr zachary grasley (civil engineering); dr scott miller (electrical and computer engineering); dr bimal nepal (engineering technology and industrial distribution); dr david staack (mechanical engineering); dr sreeram vaddiraju (chemical engineering) college of engineering teaching awards excellence in teaching award dr elizabeth cosgriff-hernandez (biomedical engineering); dr alaa elwany (industrial and systems engineering); dr paul gratz (electrical and computer engineering) george armistead jr 23 faculty excellence teaching award dr katy kao (chemical engineering) instructional faculty teaching award alan brewer (biomedical engineering); dr gregory chamitoff (aerospace engineering); dr lufthansa kanta (civil engineering); dr aakash tyagi (computer science and engineering); john tyler (electrical and computer engineering) association of former students college-level distinguished teaching award dr paul gratz (electrical and computer engineering); dr wonmuk hwang (biomedical engineering); dr michael d johnson (engineering technology and industrial distribution); dr tiffani williams (computer science and engineering) college of engineering service awards charles w crawford distinguished service award dr angie hill price (engineering technology and industrial distribution); dr duncan maitland (biomedical engineering) george armistead jr ‘23 service award dr sean mcdeavitt (nuclear engineering) college of engineering contribution awards william keeler memorial award for contributions dr hong liang (mechanical engineering); dr kristen maitland (biomedical engineering); dr bimal nepal (engineering technology and industrial distribution) college of engineering faculty fellows charles h barclay jr ‘45 faculty fellow dr eduardo gildin (petroleum engineering); dr guofei gu (computer science and engineering) eugene webb faculty fellow dr le xie (electrical and computer engineering) herbert h richardson faculty fellow dr daniel mcadams (mechanical engineering) holleran-bowman faculty fellow dr james caverlee (computer science and engineering) williams brothers construction engineering fellow dr scott socolofsky (civil engineering) william o and montine p head faculty fellow dr amine benzerga (aerospace engineering); dr natarajan gautam (industrial and systems engineering) tees fellow awards tees young faculty fellows dr micah green (chemical engineering); dr jeff huang (computer science and engineering); dr ryan mcclarren (nuclear engineering); dr xiaoning qian (electrical and computer engineering) tees faculty fellows dr stefan hurlebaus (civil engineering); dr arul jayaraman (chemical engineering); dr helen reed (aerospace engineering) tees senior faculty fellows dr jaime grunlan (mechanical engineering); dr eric petersen (mechanical engineering) dean of engineering excellence award assistant professor dr douglas allaire (mechanical engineering); dr moble benedict (aerospace engineering); dr partha mukherjee (mechanical engineering) associate professor dr james caverlee (computer science and engineering); dr melissa grunlan (biomedical engineering) full professor dr tim davis (computer science and engineering); dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna (computer science and engineering); dr moo-hyun kim (ocean engineering)
1929,"as demonstrated over the weekend with the global wannacry ""ransomware"" cyberattack which infected 300 000 machines in 150 countries threats to cybersecurity have reached a crisis stage the global cost of cybercrime continues to increase and is estimated to reach $6 trillion by 2021 according to an analysis by cybersecurity ventures the texas a&m university system is stepping up to address this critical challenge by creating a system-wide initiative on cybersecurity education research and outreach led by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) associate vice chancellor and engineering professor of practice dr stephen a cambone has been appointed to lead the system-wide cybersecurity initiative cambone is the former us department of defense undersecretary of defense for intelligence and founder of adirondack advisors llc steve cambone is one of the most respected and knowledgeable leaders in cybersecurity and i cannot underscore enough the magnitude of expertise he brings to the system said texas a&m system chancellor john sharp we have breadth across multiple disciplines and enterprises throughout the system and under steves leadership we are well-positioned to elevate our cybersecurity initiatives to the next level cambone will engage thought leaders from government industry academia and not-for-profit organizations to develop transformational cybersecurity capabilities that support the united states mission of protecting against and combatting large-scale cyberattacks the broad vision of the texas a&m system cybersecurity initiative is intriguing seeking to bring together the fields of research technology development engineering policy and workforce development to improve cybersecurity said cambone there are few other organizations with such a wealth of resources to bring to bear im excited and eager to help in realizing the vision the assets of the texas a&m systems 11 universities and seven state agencies will be leveraged to maximize cybersecurity research and education and strengthen its impact in addressing cybersecurity threats the texas a&m system currently has world-renowned experts education programs facilities focused on cybersecurity research and 18 000 engineering students providing a unique opportunity to develop an elite cyber corps said texas a&m engineering vice chancellor m katherine banks with dr cambone leading this initiative we are well-positioned to move to the forefront of this critically important area in addition to associate vice chancellor for cybersecurity initiatives cambone will remain jointly appointed as a professor of practice in the texas a&m university college of engineering and will also be involved in the education programs at the george bush school of government and public service bush school faculty and students are particularly interested in the complexities of cybersecurity policy dr cambone combines great experience in national security policy at the highest levels with a detailed understanding of the cyber domain his leadership and the a&m systems strong relationships in the field put the a&m cyber team in a magnificent position to lead in this critically important arena said mark a welsh dean of the george bush school of government and public service in 2003 cambone was appointed as the pentagons first undersecretary of defense for intelligence and served from 2001-06 in the department of defense (dod) in that position cambone was responsible for the oversight of dod's intelligence policy activities and budgets and its relationship with the director of national intelligence and the broader intelligence community cambone was awarded the dod distinguished public service medal by the secretary of defense and the national intelligence distinguished service medal by the director of national intelligence the significance of cybersecurity to our homeland defense is only increasing as our governments secrets our industry ideas and our residents information are being held and transferred electronically a field that defies tradition by nature cybersecurity needs a combination of experience and innovation to guide policy into the digital era said congressman michael mccaul (r-tx) chairman of us house committee on homeland security steve cambone brings just that steve is an esteemed leader with both government and private sector experience who will guide texas a&ms cybersecurity initiative to the forefront of the emerging field and help engage conversations across industries and develop a new generation of cyber workforce experts as founder of adirondack advisors llc cambone has been an independent consultant advising start-up technology companies and public and private companies that service the national security market from 2007-12 he served in senior corporate positions for qinetiq north america (qna) including the senior and later executive vice president for strategic development as well as the president of qna's mission solutions group prior to joining the dod in 2001 cambone was a senior fellow at the center for strategic and international studies and director of research at the institute for national security studies at the national defense university he is a member of the advisory boards of the intelligence and national security alliance and volgenau school of it and engineering at george mason university cambone received his phd and master's degrees in political science from claremont graduate school and his bachelor's degree in political science from the catholic university of america"
1930,"dr yassin a hassan department head of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university and the sallie & don davis '61 professor in nuclear engineering has been awarded the 2017 james n landis medal by the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) in recognition of his outstanding contributions to nuclear reactor safety recipients of the medal are noted for outstanding personal performance in work related to designing constructing or managing the operation of major steam-powered electric stations using nuclear power or fossil fuels these professional achievements must also be complemented with demonstrated personal leadership experiences and humanitarian pursuits the award will be presented on june 27 at the charlotte motor speedway during the 2017 asme power energy conference exhibition in concord north carolina the award consists of a $7 500 honorarium a bronze medal and certificate hassan has designated the honorarium to be donated to asme student scholarships the medal was established in 1958 in honor of james n landis president of asme in 1958 i am humbled to have been named as a recipient of this award hassan said i am truly honored by this recognition from the asme"" hassan has served in a variety of interdisciplinary roles both in and outside of texas a&m his fields of specialization include thermal-hydraulics computational and experimental fluid mechanics and flow visualization"
1931,"the texas a&m college of engineering at texas a&m university honored department of mechanical engineering former student jimmy williams with an outstanding alumni award on april 20 williams who serves as executive director and distinguished service professor of the engineering and technology innovation management program at carnegie mellon university explained his life as a student didnt seem so long ago returning to texas a&m to accept an outstanding alumni award was not only an honor for williams but also a chance to revisit the first stone on the path to his career ""it is great to be recognized and it's a place that i am just so proud to have been associated with because when i went to school here the student population was in the 30 000 range which we thought was huge then williams said now 30 years later we have doubled it we have doubled it not just in number but i think we have doubled it in the impact that we make williams said the core values taught at texas a&m carried over to his professional career and aided him in his journey to achieving success the values that we have are not always so broadly articulated but i think they become a part of how you do things williams said i think those things tend to be the center of why you do what you do when i've led major large organizations how you treat people gets to be really important doing things in a selfless way honoring and respecting those who have given more than you can ever give williams admitted throughout his career he didnt often pause and reflect there was always another problem or challenge he was eager to take on i was a little city kid who didn't know a lot about what engineering was all about but i had the audacity to take it on and in that process it's taken me places in the world that i would never have traveled to it's been a great journey he said williams received his bachelors degree from texas a&m his masters degree from lindenwood college and his doctoral degree from washington university previously williams served in positions at pall corporation alcoa and the boeing company he is a member of the board of directors for the association of former students at texas a&m and is the 2017 chair elect williams is also known for his work on the mechanical engineering industry advisory council where he held a position for several years"
1932,reece goldsberry undergraduate research assistant in the department of materials science and engineering recently received the best undergraduate poster award from the national association of corrosion engineers international (nace) this research project was essentially focused on evaluating the corrosion protection performance of different surface-applied corrosion inhibitors for reinforced concrete applications goldsberry said the effectiveness of these materials in providing corrosion protection to reinforcing steel bars embedded in concrete was evaluated by using standard testing methods as well as state-of-the-art electrochemical techniques the project was a successful collaboration of dr homero castanedas research group and basf construction chemicals castaneda is an associate professor in the department and director of the national corrosion and materials reliability center and goldsberry took a course he taught upon completing castanedas corrosion course goldsberry became involved with the nace university student design and applied solutions for corrosion competition this competition sparked his interest in working with castanedas research group regularly basf developed different chemistries that could potentially be used to prevent corrosion in reinforced concrete structures goldsberry said then we investigated the corrosion protection performance of these materials by using several electrochemical techniques in combination with detailed microstructural investigations that allowed us to propose a detailed explanation of the mechanism of corrosion protection provided by these materials as a result of his recent honor goldsberry is excited to bring more attention to this research topic and hopes to publish his results in a well-recognized scientific journal this award will have a high impact in my career by showing my experience in conducting advanced research studies and my ability to understand and communicate the results obtained from experimental measurements in such a way that it becomes attractive to other people goldsberry said
1933,advanced reactor technologies have generated interest for their potential to reduce fossil fuel emissions improve energy efficiency and cut down on nuclear waste researchers with the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university have provided new insights into the workings of an advanced sodium-cooled fast reactor fuel assembly having used a specialized test facility to measure hydraulic parameters and validate computational tools used in reactor design and testing the fast reactor assembly design used is significant not only because of the complex inner knowledge it can provide about advanced reactors but also because the texas a&m experiment is using the largest transparent test fuel assembly of its kind to date terrapower areva and argonne national laboratories (anl) have a strong interest in this new fuel design that will be potentially used in advanced fast reactors said dr rodolfo vaghetto a research assistant professor with the department and project investigator this research is part of the work we do to ensure a new design goes from conceptual to something that you can actually build operate safely and use to produce clean energy in an efficient way the high-fidelity experimental data weve gathered through this experiment will help improve advanced simulator capabilities and validate state-of-the-art computational codes fuel assemblies help facilitate the process of power generation in the reactor through fission a process by which an atom splits and a small amount of mass is converted to energy in comparison to current reactors advanced fast reactors produce fast neutrons that are not as efficient at creating fission but are readily received by a specific uranium isotope to become plutonium producing the plutonium in this manner gives these conceptual reactors the potential to produce more nuclear fuel than they use leading to a more efficient abundant and clean production of energy to meet public needs while the test assembly is unique in that it is the largest of its kind ever constructed the researchers have also ensured the measurements taken are accurate through a novel technique a transparent assembly typical test assemblies are encapsulated in a stainless-steel container so you cant see whats going on vaghetto said we made this assembly in acrylic so we can watch the processes and apply state-of-the-art techniques to measure full-field velocities at different locations inside the test bundle and pressure drops something that has never been done before at this level of accuracy that experimental data is then used by other members of this project like terrapower and anl to compare with their simulations of the assembly on the computational side and validate those tools the project was established in 2015 and is managed by nuclear utility company areva (subcontracted through the department of energy (doe)) in partnership with anl texas a&m and terrapower the nuclear energy tech conglomerate led by bill gates arevas interest in the project lies in improving advanced reactor technology which requires accurate analyses of advanced fuel assemblies in the interest of taking the most accurate measurements possible the researchers used a specialized fluid that has the same index of refraction as the acrylic of the assembly they then inject the solution with a fluorescent dye and other seeding particles and expose it to a laser to obtain high-resolution measurements in their efforts to produce these high-quality measurements the team had to deal with many challenges we had to find all the right vendors in addition to all the optical testing that we had to do to choose the acrylic the assembly was made of vaghetto said the next step for the texas a&m research team will be to continue experiments on the assembly for further developments analyzing experimental data and collecting new data using the existing test assembly in partnership with other national and international collaborators there is a lot of interest in this type of geometry design for advanced fast reactors vaghetto said this assembly seems to be the number one fuel design right now and these companies are looking forward in meeting their interests in performing these analyses because of the interest in this were hoping to get the chance to work on future projects with this assembly this research project was a collaborative effort within the thermal hydraulics laboratory at texas a&m including dr yassin hassan department head and sallie & don davis ‘61 professor in nuclear engineering and research assistant professors dr thien nguyen dr rodolfo vaghetto and dr saya lee nuclear engineering graduate students nolan goth mason childs and mechanical engineering graduate student philip jones actively worked on this project as part of their research for their doctoral and masters degrees more than 15 undergraduate students also were instrumental in the success of this project this project is part of a doe sponsored project toward a longer life core: thermal hydraulic cfd simulations and experimental investigation of deformed fuel assemblies
1934,the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university recognized current students faculty staff and alumni at the 2017 spring honors and awards banquet dr mark lawley department head texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) research professor and deputy director of the center for remote health technologies and systems presented the awards our awards banquet represents the happy culmination of our academic year said lawley its a time when we come together to celebrate and recognize those who have inspired us through their extraordinary dedication and achievement dr randy hoff '98 chief executive officer of cenergistic an energy conservation company was awarded the 2017 distinguished alumni award for his significant contributions in promoting the profession of industrial engineering randys contribution to the community and industry leadership of excellence is a great example of texas a&ms finest we consider him to be an ideal role model for our students said lawley he exhibits the outstanding work ethic and levels of accomplishment that we look for in choosing our distinguished alumni he is richly deserving of this honor and we are very proud of him numerous faculty members in the department received national honors including dr alaa elwany outstanding young manufacturing engineer award from the society of manufacturing engineers; dr césar malavé american society for engineering education john l imhoff award; dr erick moreno-centeno outstanding early career ie in academia award; dr natarajan gautam institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) fellow; and dr yu ding american society of mechanical engineers fellow within texas a&m gautam professor and associate department head for undergraduate affairs was also recognized for receiving the william o and montine p head faculty fellow as well as the most influential faculty award which is given to a faculty member who has left a profound impression on students in the department gautam is said to inspire students with his passion for education and go above and beyond to help his students reach their highest potential dr farzan sasangohar assistant professor and dr michelle alvarado visiting assistant professor received the capstone team advisor awards sasangohar advised the at&t team in fall 2016 and alvarado advised the university writing center team in spring 2016 elwany assistant professor was also awarded the departments coin of excellence for conducting the first industrial and systems engineering study abroad program to egypt and the first winter semester study abroad program that included all college of engineering departments dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering emeritus was presented his pin from the university recognizing his 30 years of service at texas a&m dr don smith emeritus senior associate professor was recognized for his leadership during the most recent abet accreditation review and for his retirement from texas a&m after over 40 years of service undergraduate students were recognized for their accomplishments throughout the academic year paola guttierrez received the jack p covan student award established in honor of dr jack p covan for his dedication to the students of texas a&m from 1946 - 1974 the award honors the most outstanding senior industrial engineering student veronica houtmann and victoria scott were recognized with the outstanding student service award for their selfless service and loyalty to the department julie hammett was chosen to receive the distinguished student service award the recipient of this award is renowned in the department for going above what is required of them without any obligation to do so for staff awards diego alvarado academic advisor ii received the outstanding staff member award for his dedication and service to the students industry awards were given to companies who support various projects in the department cameron a schlumberger company was chosen for the partner of excellence award the department recognizes cameron as an industry partner and provider of capstone projects cameron is a very important partner for our senior design program lawley said they consistently provide us with high-quality projects that challenge our seniors and prepare them for work in the real world the partner of excellence award is our way of saying thanks for their outstanding contribution to our program dow chemical company was awarded the outstanding industry sponsor from the iise for providing funds to the iise that helped make the annual industrial and systems engineering career fair a huge success
1935,when she arrived on campus in 2012 alyssa michalkes goals for her time at texas a&m university were modest enough one she wanted a challenge two she wanted to distinguish herself in some way from her more than 60 000 peers how she went from a culture-shocked freshman in a lecture hall larger than her high school in tiny schulenburg texas to becoming the first woman to lead the corps of cadets and make the womens basketball team depends on who you ask if you ask michalke shell say her accomplishments were never in the cards and gives full credit to her support system of family and friends if you ask those who oversaw her development theyll say her successes were predestined what isnt up for debate about michalkes time at texas a&m is that when she receives her degree in ocean engineering saturday she wont have just accomplished her goals she will have exceeded them by becoming a key figure in aggie history and to think michalkes story almost never happened being an engineering major was a lot more work than i anticipated michalke said i really considered dropping the corps i thought i was motivated and driven but everyone here was on another level she would call home frequently sometimes near midnight to vent to her parents about her struggles her mother even reached out to corps commandant brig gen joe ramirez (ret) in an email asking him to keep an eye on her daughter she ultimately decided to see the corps through until graduation and thats when ramirez started seeing a change in michalke he saw humility a maturity beyond her years a penchant for teambuilding and a can-do attitude that made it easy for a group of young people to rally around her people saw potential in me when i didnt see it michalke said sophomore year people said i should apply to top positions when i was content to just stick it out they told me ‘the worst they can tell you is no and you can prove them wrong if they dont pick you it helped me gain confidence even if i was sure i wasnt fit for it much to her surprise she landed the second-in-command role heading into her junior year one year later she applied with more confidence for corps commander ramirez said the decision to make michalke commander was unanimous it wasnt even close he said never one to brag michalke prefers not to discuss the fact that she was the first woman ever to hold the position in the 140-year history of the corps of cadets i just wanted to give back to an organization that had given me so much michalke said the significance of it didnt hit me until i saw how much attention and press it got when the news broke every local news outlet and some state outlets led their coverage with michalkes story a flood of emotional phone calls texts and emails came rushing in from women who served in the corps when it first began accepting women in 1974 it sunk in that this matters a lot more to a lot of people than i could have ever imagined michalke said after the press died down i had time to sit back and think ‘i cant screw this up but as the media attention began to die down she had already begun preparing to pass along her responsibilities to the next commander once she relinquished her duties at the end of spring and the corps was no longer in the picture the idle time she had caused her to think twice about finishing her time at texas a&m as just another student she frequently went to basketball games during her senior year in the corps and felt the energy and passion from the womens team led by womens basketball hall of fame coach gary blair that atmosphere stuck with her during the summer while on an internship every day after work she would work out and shoot hoops in a gym to get in shape thinking she would have a chance to make the basketball team with the same the worst they can tell you is no mentality that helped her in the corps she kept an eye on a september open tryout date tryouts came and i was a nervous wreck michalke said the walk-on tryout field was slimmer than usual at three compared to the usual 10 the players were neck-and-neck but it was michalkes résumé that stood out to blair as he watched the tryout from afar i knew she had played high school ball and been in charge of the corps and that solved that for me right here blair said i want somebody to fill a role and not be a star and that starts with leadership when i got a chance to meet her it was a no-brainer tryouts came and went and she routinely checked her phone until oct 6 when she received a text from video coordinator kristen grant a member of the 2011 texas a&m national championship team that invited michalke to be a part of the practice squad after a series of grueling practices she was asked to be a part of the final roster even as a standout basketball player in high school michalke said nothing compared to the daily grind of basketball in one of the nations toughest athletic conferences i think if i tried to do this after high school i dont know if i could have done it i was a hot head she said i dont know if i would have had the maturity to play the personal development she received while in the corps paid dividends when cadets showed up in full force to a january home game against arkansas at reed arena with the aggies ahead by more than 27 points heading into the fourth quarter michalke made her way onto the court and the crowd went wild i came off the bench and then i recognized they were chanting my name my face went so red michalke said and then i get into the game and i get fouled those were the most nerve-wracking free throws in my life she sank both free throws her time in the spotlight as a basketball player on the stat sheet amounted to seven points and 20 minutes of game time but the experience was worthwhile there was no way i could improve that much to play any considerable minutes michalke said thankfully because of the corps i knew how to work in the shadows and work in hopes of something paying off in the long run it was taxing from a mental and physical standpoint blair said that though he is disappointed he didnt get more opportunities to get michalke on the court he admired the way she fulfilled the role that she was asked to fill and the tenacity she brought to it she was just very good at doing all the little things and being a good teammate blair said not everybody can be the star even though they want to be or their parents or their high school coach wants them to be if you can find a young person and be the 12th man or the sixth person thats what you have to have with basketball and the corps of cadets now in the rearview mirror and graduation square in the headlights the last few weeks have offered her time to appreciate the last moments of being a student its been surreal she said when i walk through campus i try to walk a little slower because the next time i visit after graduation ill be a former student knowing that is emotional its not going to be easy saying goodbye because ive come to love this place so much michalkes admiration for texas a&m goes both ways according to ramirez he said her rise from nervous freshman to corps commander is an enduring example of the type of person the corps of cadets molds and her presence on campus will be missed her legacy is locked in concrete ramirez said she was the first female to be corps commander and she wore that title well we should all be proud of alyssa that she took responsibility and did exceptionally well with it you couldnt ask for a better representative than alyssa michalke when she receives her diploma at kyle field it will be at the intersection of her lives in the corps and as an athlete the gravity of the moment isnt lost on her but right now her focus is on how hot it will be in the may sun in her cadet uniform and the emotions of the moment when you think about it the last time i was on kyle field i was leading the corps into the stadium because i was corps commander she said itll be emotional describing michalkes future much like describing her past depends on who you ask after graduation and a short family vacation she will start work full time in july she said she is nervous but ramirez isnt nervous for her at all he sees his former commander quickly rising through the ranks of a company or starting her own company during the next five to 10 years blair said she could have any job on campus and excel she is in every aspect a leader by example ramirez said if she were going into the military i would be fighting to have her in my outfit few other aggies have had a college career more interesting or historic than michalke which puts her in a position to offer advice to incoming aggies why not just give it a shot she said you may fail but youll never know until you try you never know what you can learn or benefit from the original article appeared on texas a&m today author: sam peshek texas a&m marketing communications
1936,"its a material world and an extremely versatile one at that considering its most basic building blocks atoms can be connected together to form different structures that retain the same composition diamond and graphite for example are but two of the many polymorphs of carbon meaning that both have the same chemical composition and differ only in the manner in which their atoms are connected but what a world of difference that connectivity makes: the former goes into a ring and costs thousands of dollars while the latter has to sit content within a humble pencil the inorganic compound hafnium dioxide commonly used in optical coatings likewise has several polymorphs including a tetragonal form with highly attractive properties for computer chips and other optical elements however because this form is stable only at temperatures above 3100 degrees fahrenheit think blazing inferno scientists have had to make do with its more limited monoclinic polymorph until now a team of researchers led by university of kentucky chemist beth guiton and texas a&m university chemist sarbajit banerjee in collaboration with texas a&m materials science engineer raymundo arróyave and university of buffalo chemist sean depner has found a way to achieve this highly sought tetragonal phase at 1100 degrees fahrenheit think much closer to room temperature and potential holy grail for the computing industry along with countless other sectors and applications the teams research published this week in nature communications details their observation of this spectacular atom-by-atom transformation witnessed with the help of incredibly powerful microscopes at oak ridge national laboratory as they heated tiny crystal nanorods composed of shrunken monoclinic hafnium dioxide particles each nanorod featured a barcode-like structure complete with twin nanoscale fault-forming stripes that serve as ground zero for the transition in this study we are watching a tiny metal oxide rod transform from one structure which is the typical material found at room temperature into a different related structure not usually stable below 3100 degrees fahrenheit guiton said this is significant because the high-temperature material has amazing properties that make it a candidate to replace silicon dioxide in the semiconductor industry which is built on silicon the semiconductor industry has long relied on silicon dioxide as its thin non-conductive layer of choice in the critical gap between the gate electrode the valve that turns a transistor on and off and the silicon transistor consistently thinning this non-conductive layer is what allows transistors to become smaller and faster but guiton points out there is such a thing as too thin the point at which electrons start sloshing across the barrier thereby heating their surroundings and draining power she says most of us have seen and felt this scenario to some degree (pun intended) for instance while watching videos on our phones and the battery simultaneously drain as the device in our palm noticeably begins to warm as computer chips become smaller faster and more powerful their insulating layers must also be much more robust currently a limiting factor for semiconductor technology guiton says this new phase of hafnia is an order of magnitude better at withstanding applied fields when it comes to watching hafnias structural transition between its traditional monoclinic state and this highly sought-after tetragonal phase at much closer to room temperature banerjee says its not unlike popular television specifically the hall of faces in the hbo show game of thrones in essence we have been able to watch in real time on an atom by atom basis as hafnia is transformed to a new phase much like arya stark donning a new face banerjee said the new phase of hafnia has a much higher ‘k value representing its ability to store charge which would allow transistors to work really quickly while merely sipping on power instead of sapping it the stripes turn out to be really important since that is where the transition starts as the hafnia loses its stripes"" arróyave credits real-time atomic-scale information for enabling the group to figure out that the transformation occurs in a very different way at nanoscale levels than it does within the macroscopic particles that result in hafnia's monoclinic form the fact that it is nanoscale in the first place is why he says the transition occurs at or much closer to room temperature through synthesis at the nanoscale the ‘height of the energy barrier separating the two forms has been shrunk making it possible to observe tetragonal hafnia at much lower temperatures than usual arróyave said this points toward strategies that could be used to stabilize a host of useful forms of materials that can enable a wide range of functionalities and associated technologies this is just one example of the vast possibilities that exist when we start to explore the ‘metastable materials space banerjee says this study suggests one way to stabilize the tetragonal phase at actual room temperature which he notes that his group previously accomplished via a different method last year and big implications for fast low-power-consumption transistors capable of controlling currents without drawing power reducing speed or producing heat the possibilities are endless including even more powerful laptops that dont heat up and sip on power from their batteries and smart phones that ‘keep calm and carry on banerjee said we are trying to apply these same tricks to other polymorphs of hafnium dioxide and other materials isolating other phases that are not readily stabilized at room temperature but may also have strange and desirable properties the teams research was supported in part by the us department of energy nasa kentucky the national science foundation and the air force office of scientific research their nature communications paper real-time atomistic observation of structural phase transformations in individual hafnia nanorods can be viewed online along with related figures and captions banerjee joined the texas a&m department of chemistry in 2014 and is an affiliated faculty member in the department of materials science and engineering to learn more about his research visit http://wwwchemtamuedu/rgroup/banerjee/ contact: shana k hutchins (979) 862-1237 or shutchins@sciencetamuedu or dr sarbajit banerjee (979) 845-862-3102 or banerjee@chemtamuedu"
1937,electronic devices have been constantly decreasing in size and increasing in speed and efficiency from miniaturized personal computers to pocket-sized cell phones researchers in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university have discovered a class of two-dimensional (2d) materials to aid in further reducing the size and improving the performance of various devices dr xiaofeng qian an assistant professor and hua wang a graduate student in the department were featured in a recent issue of 2d materials for their work in 2d multiferroic materials most 2d materials studied so far have shown one ferroic characteristic qian said when we looked into group iv monochalcogenide layers we discovered that these 2d materials have two ferroic characteristics simultaneously their paper two-dimensional multiferroics in monolayer group iv monochalcogenides demonstrates a special class of two-dimensional semiconductors these materials are special due to their ability to exhibit a large spontaneous lattice strain called ferroelasticity and a giant switchable electric polarization called ferroelectricity these properties appearing simultaneously in the monolayer group iv monochalcogenides lead to 2d ferroelastic-ferroelectric multiferroicity 2d materials with more than one ferroic characteristic can be very useful for miniaturized multifunctional devices such as sensors and actuators qian said however they are very scarce in nature this unique class of 2d multiferroic materials could be useful for 2d ferroelectric memory and ferroelastic memory that are as thin as one nanometer in pocket-sized devices this new material could help make the device smaller by decreasing the size of the sensors and materials inside the device they can also be useful for exploring ferroelectric excitonic photovoltaics that take advantage of both large ferroelectricity and extraordinary excitonic optical absorption additionally these 2d materials with multiple ferroic orders provide an ideal platform to demonstrate 2d nonvolatile photonic memory with much lower power consumption and at a faster speed qian said currently the group is working to better understand the microscopic mechanisms of the domain wall motion and discover other novel 2d multiferroic materials our ultimate goal in this project is to design multiferroicity into 2d materials qian said we also want to be able to fine tune and control their multiferroicity for a variety of electronic optical and energy applications results of the duos work will provide new opportunities for 2d multifunctional materials research toward miniaturized energy efficient applications many interesting properties and potential applications have been discovered in 2d materials and their hybrid structures there are a lot of new fascinating properties waiting to be discovered qian said it is so fortunate and exciting to work in this field and understand their fundamentals and implications for future device and energy technologies
1938,seven petroleum engineering students at texas a&m university will claim more than just a bachelors degree when they walk across the stage in may john freeman brandon gowisnock patrick griffin jireh groenow alden mutchnik mary claire pollard and michael sliva have all earned a petroleum ventures program (pvp) certificate they are the first petroleum engineers to do so and it is an impressive achievement the pvp is an interdisciplinary partnership between the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and the mays business school it was created a year ago when anthony bahr 91 and jay graham 92 founders of wildhorse resources in houston donated $12 million for the purpose of teaching finance skills to petroleum engineering students and petroleum engineering skills to finance students students who go through the program receive the certificate im thrilled to welcome the inaugural class of business and engineering students into the petroleum ventures program and excited these students have made a significant commitment to their future careers in the energy business said bahr all petroleum students gain some knowledge of petroleum economics and finance in the required course pete 353 the certificate program is geared toward students who have the drive to start their own companies or aim for upper management positions so more financial knowledge is needed petroleum participants attend 16 hours of classes some required and some elective in addition to the classes required by their major while not impossible it would be unusual for a student to earn both his bachelors in petroleum and this certificate in four years said cathy sliva associate professor of practice and the petroleum director of pvp the petroleum curriculum even without a certificate is rigorous so it would be difficult students adding one semester to their four-year study can earn the certificate but this leads to heavily-loaded semesters during their junior and senior years five-year students are able to mete out the hours into more manageable loads even though the work is hard students found it valuable to go above and beyond i saw the opportunity to take advanced courses in finance to work with the finance students who will one day help fund and advise any business im a part of said mutchnik students also found it valuable to speak up based on petroleum student feedback the pvp identified a larger choice of elective finance courses that fit the program and added flexibility the students dedication and enthusiasm for all things pvp is contagious said sliva thats part of the popularity of the program were learning as we go not only are we making improvements to our processes with feedback from students but were also working closely with our advisory board specific to pvp the pvp advisory board is comprised of 25 successful individuals which includes petroleum engineers business and finance specialists and oil and gas lawyers the members offer many different perspectives and are eager to provide input on what they would like to see in students coming out of the program in one of its recent meetings the board introduced the idea of a petroleum technical entrepreneurship course sliva and another professor of engineering practice are currently creating it and it will launch this fall as a technical elective companies outside the board are also taking notice of the program according to sliva there are bi-monthly meetings where students listen to presentations from industry and she has no trouble lining up speakers for these events this (program) is going to become the new normal said sliva the interest increases as the students hear about it and the interest increases as industry hears about it ive heard people within the industry say ‘i want to hire a pvp graduate the program is also gaining the attention of other departments and colleges at texas a&m more than 40 students applied to the pvp this past spring and sliva hopes these numbers will encourage the development of similar programs i suspect well have certificate students graduating every december and may from now on said sliva as our students go out there and show what theyre capable of that will help promote the program now that seven petroleum engineering graduates with pvp certificates will walk the stage to make their mark on the world anticipation is high for their success this program has allowed me to make connections with other students and industry professionals that i hope will last throughout my career said pollard pictured: (back row left to right) michael sliva jireh groenow mary claire pollard patrick griffin (front row left to right) brandon gowisnock john freeman alden mutchnick
1939,emre arslan a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named the recipient of the best poster award at the 44th annual meeting of the texas genetics society at the george bush library arslan received this recognition for his poster bayesian method to determine informative genes in high-dimensional biological data arslan said it is important to find informative/discriminative genes for a specific disease among thousands of possible subsets and correctly classify future samples to overcome this problem he proposed a bayesian approach which displays high accuracy while allowing biological interpretations arslans current research interests include proposing novel tools to analyze high-dimensional biological datasets such as classifiers feature selection algorithms and pathway analysis methods his research is supported by the center for bioinformatics and genomics systems engineering emre has been developing innovative and accurate bayesian classification and feature selection methods for problems in biomedicine said dr ulisses m braga-neto associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department his research efforts have the potential to produce more accurate diagnosis and prognosis tools for disease management i am very proud of his hard work and talent and consider this award to be eminently deserved the texas genetics society was established in 1974 as a nonprofit association whose purpose is to foster the development of all aspects of genetics to promote the exchange of research results and the teaching of genetics and to provide a forum for discussion of matters of interest to all geneticists membership is open to all persons interested in genetics research the training of geneticists and the delivery of genetic services
1940,m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m university has appointed dr mark lawley head of the department of industrial and systems engineering the appointment of lawley who has been serving as interim head of the department is effective june 1 lawley is a texas a&m engineering experiment station research professor and joined the industrial and systems engineering department in 2014 after serving for 17 years on the faculty at purdue university and two years as a faculty member at the university of alabama he has also held engineering positions with emerson electric company and westinghouse corporation and has done extensive consulting lawley assumed the position of interim head of the industrial and systems engineering department in july 2016 and holds appointments in the departments of biomedical engineering and epidemiology and biostatistics and serves as deputy director of the center for remote health technologies and systems as a researcher in academics lawley has published more than 130 technical papers which have garnered four best paper awards and has supervised more than 30 graduate students in the completion of their dissertations and theses for his work in graduate education lawley received the 2006 james h greene graduate educator award from the school of industrial engineering at purdue university he earned his bachelors degree in industrial engineering from tennessee technological university in 1982 his masters degree manufacturing systems engineering from auburn university in 1988 and his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the university of illinois at urbana champaign in 1995 he is a registered professional engineer in the state of texas
1941,education comes full circle for former civil engineering student christopher m barton 79 barton senior vice president of business development at wood groups offshore business unit returned to campus in april to speak to students in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university with more than 37 years of experience spanning from field engineering to executive-level management barton spoke to students about deep-water project planning and development concepts i love to give back and this is the first time ive returned to campus for an educational engagement barton said it is very important to get students interested in this field at the right time i look forward to establishing a relationship with the department and returning to speak with students and educating them about the offshore oil and gas business barton has experience working in a variety of disciplines including executive management business development marketing and sales offshore operations platform fabrication and installation and engineering procurement and construction (epc) project management when i graduated i had offers from a number of different companies but i chose the one that took me to singapore barton said since then i have visited over 34 different countries despite the downturn this is an exciting business to be in barton is a member of the american society of mechanical engineers the society of petroleum engineers and sits on several advisory boards for upstream industry conferences my advice to current students is to not let yourself get caught up in the financial aspects of a job barton said follow your heart and your passion thats what will bring you happiness
1942,payman dehghanian a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2017 montgomery award at the graduate and professional student council banquet in may recipients were selected for this competitive honor based on significant leadership commitment and impact on the texas a&m graduate student body dehghanian is in the final year of his graduate studies and is advised by dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor and regents professor in the department dehghanian is currently the president of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the ieee power and energy society power electronics society and industry applications society he received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering his research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart grid applications dehghanians other honors include being awarded a scholarship from the association of energy engineers lone star chapter; being selected as a potential future leader by ieee; receiving the sigma xi grant-in-aid-of-research; receiving a second place prize for best poster award at the 2016 ieee power and energy society transmission and distribution conference and exposition; receiving a research grant scholarship from the american public power association under the demonstration of energy and efficiency development program; being awarded the roland and margaret prove southerland aggie leader scholarship for the 2016-17 academic year; being awarded an aggie ring scholarship from the texas a&m association of former students; and being selected as the ieee industry application society electric safety workshop 2017 student program chair
1943,tao zhao a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named recipient of the best student paper award at the 2017 international symposium on modeling and optimization in mobile ad hoc and wireless networks (wiopt) zhao received this recognition for his paper a non-monetary mechanism for optimal rate control through efficient delay allocation in collaboration with his thesis advisor dr i-hong hou assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department zhao presented an efficient delay allocation rule for servers to determine the target delay of each client he proposed a simple scheduling policy to achieve such delay allocation zhao received his bachelors and masters degrees from tsinghua university beijing china in 2012 and 2015 respectively his current research interests include distributed systems cloud-based systems and cyber-physical systems
1944,dr shankar bhattacharyya professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named the recipient of the kenneth l clinton award for his contribution to the brazil study abroad program in electrical and computer engineering this award is given to faculty who led and facilitated study abroad programs this year the awards were given to faculty in the texas a&m university system who participated in study abroad programs in mexico and central america bhattacharyya initiated the brazil engineering study abroad program in 2004 and has led a group of students every summer since 2005 he was chosen to start this program because of his experience and contacts in brazilian academia and his fluency in portuguese since 2005 the program has been conducted at universities in natal (federal university) campinas (state university of campinas) rio de janeiro (catholic university-puc) and sao carlos (university of sao paolo) aggies who attend these programs are co-enrolled with brazilian students in their courses which enriches their learning and cultural experiences bhattacharyyas awards and honors include national academy of sciences- nasa research fellow (1974-75) ieee fellow (1989) ifac fellow (2011) foreign member of brazilian academy of sciences (2011) foreign member of brazilian academy of engineering (2016) and professor visitante especial by the brazilian research council (2014-17) his research has been funded by the nsf for 34 years and also through the qatar national research fund national instruments and the brazilian research council
1945,dhananjay khanna a senior in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been named chief justice of the texas a&m student government association (sga) judicial court similar to the supreme court of the united states the sga is appointed one chief justice and eight associate justices in this role khanna will serve as the head of the judicial branch of the sga his responsibilities will include scheduling and presiding over all hearings issuing the opinions of the court and making sure that all of the associate justices and judicial advocate generals who serve alongside him are well-versed in the governing documents and can apply them impartially to any case khanna has served as associate justice in the organization for two years which allowed him to become eligible for this esteemed position he is a member of the departmental honors program and has served as a peer teacher where he works alongside other students and helps them succeed in computer science courses my main goal is the development of the associate justices and judicial advocate generals who serve with me khanna said i really enjoy any opportunity that allows me to mentor individuals to meet their potential and with a group as select as these eight justices i get to do so with some of the most talented and driven people on this campus the process for confirmation of this position is also very similar to the us supreme court the student body president nominates an individual for associate or chief justice to be confirmed the nominee needs a two-thirds majority vote from the student senate i feel very blessed that texas a&m made my dreams of coming to the united states possible through scholarships and financial aid said khanna who is originally from india getting this position allows me to continue serving the students while tasking me with greater powers that i hope to use to ensure the integrity of the sga the mission of the sga is to serve texas a&m by representing student opinion addressing campus needs through targeted programming and the maintenance of tradition and providing opportunities for leadership development in order to enrich the quality of student life
1946,research led by dr frank shipman and dr catherine marshall in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was highlighted on the may cover of communications of the acm which is the flagship publication of the association for computing machinery as more and more content is created and shared within social media applications and services ownership is becoming increasingly difficult to determine twitter conversations amazon reviews and facebook commentary are examples of how the creative activities of many join together in ways that challenge traditional concepts of content authorship and ownership shipman professor and marshall adjunct professor are both founding members of the texas a&m center for the study of digital libraries and have been exploring what social media users believe is appropriate and what should be prohibited surveys based on concrete realistic scenarios were used to examine the social norms surrounding saving reusing and removing content with an understanding that real behavior often differs from aspiration additional questions probed users recent social media activities results showed that people have differing views about content ownership that take into account the original purpose of the content their personal connection to that content the particular context and goals of later uses or manipulations of that content and the media and technology involved while reported behaviors did not always match beliefs explanations of behavior include similar discussions of rights risks and goals to learn more about how social media users view issues of content ownership see the cover story and associated video
1947,dr abhishek jain an assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering has been awarded the texas a&m university isite grant the grant will enable jain and his students to study the commercial potential of their proposed innovations in organs-on-chip technology the organs-on-chip technology is a set of customized tools built to emulate human biology and diseases these tools help in the understanding of how different medicines toxins and environments affect human health globally as well as at a patient-specific level jains team is developing an organ-on-a-chip for assessing blood clots in patients who are currently diagnosed with cancer jains team includes his students navaneeth krishna biomedical engineering graduate student and pranav gadangi biomedical engineering sophomore they will identify a relevant audience for their product/process ideas and conduct 50 interviews in order to gain an understanding of the market trends and competition the texas a&m isite team will guide jains team to later apply for a larger extramural national science foundation i-corps grant if the device is commercialized it could potentially advance the assessment and treatment of blood clots in cancer and drastically improve patient care
1948,three engineering student teams took the top spots in the 2017 raymond ideas challenge competition hosted by the center for new ventures and entrepreneurship at the mays business school at texas a&m university the raymond ideas challenge is an annual competition that challenges students to explain their big idea for a product or service through both a written and video submission finalists then pitch their ideas to an expert panel of judges; the top 40 competed in the live pitch night on may 3 we are incredibly proud of our engineering students and the creativity they have shown in these ideas said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program and professor of practice taking these to the next step into actual products is what engineering entrepreneurship is all about first place and a $3 000 prize went to the oxiscope a senior capstone design project from the engineering technology and distribution department team members include david delamater matt kellogg adam mcgaffin gustavo ordonex and nathan wiatrek the oxiscope is a non-invasive prototype to measure the oxygen saturation and pulse rate of an infant during labor to assist doctors in determining whether or not an emergency cesarean section is needed philip bowie (electrical engineering) cole fincher and michael new (mechanical engineering) wesley kuehn (manufacturing and mechanical engineering) isaac pitblado (general engineering) and jana soares (mays master of business administration student) took second place and $2 000 for tobor their innovation is using 3-d printing to create high-value products using their proprietary filament with greater heat and strength tolerance the team had previously competed at aggies invent and at texas a&m invents at south by southwest in austin texas where they took second place hexamania an arithmetic-based puzzle game geared toward practicing math for elementary-age students took third place and $1 000 team members include ryan alderink and jack clark (computer science and engineering) grace fan (general engineering) alejandra hernandez and pulkit jain (industrial and systems engineering) and kendel lipe (biomedical engineering) the team had previously competed in aggies invent: stem education
1949,we all lose our balance sometimes; we slip we fall we get back up but for some life is a balance beam and merely walking around poses great risks of tripping slipping or falling dr pilwon hur an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has set out to help people with balance issues walk through life with ease using biomechanics and neuromechanics hur and his team in the human rehabilitation group at texas a&m are developing robotic prosthetics and therapy devices to restore balance to those who have lost it through injury illness or age hurs prior research helped him answer two questions: can we predict a fall can we then reduce the number of falls the data he gathered from test subjects which he put into his own mathematical model led him to conclude that a persons fall risk could be predicted his research focuses on the biomechanical and neuromechanical aspects of human walking and balancing along with robotics hes currently applying his knowledge in a rehabilitation setting using a different population of data for the research human walking and balancing are extremely robust and optimal considering the significant neural delays and information processing times there are abundant insights that we can learn from human behaviors and motor controls bridging the gaps between bio/neuromechanics and robotics is one of the most crucial steps that my research is focusing on to maximize the outcomes from rehabilitation robotics hur said hur and his team work with subjects with normal walking and balancing ability who are put into an environment where they experience a controlled fall by walking across an oily surface which causes them to slip and fall sensors attached to each muscle collect data on the falls and recoveries by measuring muscle activity because researchers believe it is a neurological command that regulates balance using this data will help them separate the activity into several subcomponents helping hurs group to program assistive devices to fit each individuals walking habits hur is one of only a few researchers investigating the possibility of creating robotics that not only can walk like a human which can be done but that can also help in the event of an unexpected slip or trip based on customized algorithms the device learns from the humans behavior many exoskeleton robotics have been developed to help patients walk normally but they are bulky and unable to assist a person with an unexpected loss of balance which means they are not tailored to suit a patients unique needs hurs developments will correct both of these issues i am not limiting myself to only rehab because there are many other areas to which i can apply my knowledge at this moment however i want to focus on the rehabilitation side so we can have better more human-friendly lightweight and robust robotic prosthetics and exoskeletons hur said the project is called ampro which stands for a&m prosthesis hurs research group has also completed developing a new prosthesis that is biomechanically more efficient and lightweight in addition to this project the group is also working on a balance device using similar biomechanical and neuromechanical understanding this device retrains the balance of patients who are prone to falls it uses a handheld control which stimulates the skin when the body becomes unbalanced training the brain to recognize imbalance and correct it hurs current research has partially been funded by the national science foundation national institute of occupational safety and health american heart association texas a&m pesca and his startup funding contributing author ryan terry
1950,two students in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won awards at the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) region iv student conference held april 28-30 at the university of houston kanika gakhar and carolyn walther both work in the advanced vertical flight laboratory under the guidance of dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department gakhar is an engineering honors undergraduate student in aerospace engineering she won second place in the student paper competition in the undergraduate category for her paper experimental analysis of the aeromechanics and efficiency of a robotic hummingbird walther a masters student in aerospace engineering won first place in the student paper competition in the masters category for her paper understanding unsteady aerodynamics of cycloidal rotors in hover at ultra-low reynolds numbers the aiaa sponsors student conferences in each aiaa region as a means to encourage students in aerospace-related fields to discuss research exchange knowledge and generate interest in the field of aerospace engineering the aiaa student conference is an annual research competition designed to give students a chance to have their work reviewed and critiqued by practicing professionals
1951,the estimation decision and planning lab in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won a 2017 techconnect national innovation award for the newly developed technology a method for highly accurate long-term localization and navigation using on-board sensors this innovation allows a system such as a vehicle or robot to navigate autonomously in previously unknown environments with less than a one-meter position error for 100 kilometers of motion without relying on gps or any pre-built maps the applications of this technology are immense and include military and commercial use such as self-driving cars the techconnect national innovation award selects the top early-stage innovations from around the world through an industry-review process of the top 20 percent of annually submitted technologies into the techconnect national innovation summit rankings are based on the potential positive impact the submitted technology will have on a specific industry sector saurav agarwal a graduate student in aerospace engineering and dr suman chakravorty associate professor of aerospace engineering will present this technology at the startup pitch competition at the techconnect world innovation conference & expo in washington dc may 14-17 to engage commercial partners to help bring this technology to market the conference is an annual event designed to accelerate the commercialization of innovations out of the lab and into industry the technical program spotlights applications focused innovations materials and devices emerging from industrial government and academic laboratories worldwide to learn more visit: http://techconnectworldcom/world2017/ for more information on the estimation decision and planning lab visit http://edplaborg
1952,texas a&m university at qatar graduated its largest class ever 4 may in a ceremony at the qatar national convention centre about 110 students received their bachelors degrees in chemical engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering during the branch campus annual commencement ceremony of those degrees 56 were awarded to qatari graduates in addition texas a&m at qatar awarded 14 master of science and master of engineering degrees in chemical engineering dr césar o malavé dean of texas a&m at qatar presided over the ceremony his first since he joined the branch campus in july 2016 malavé said it is an honor to serve as dean for texas a&m at qatars 10th commencement ceremony a dream that started with 29 students in the fall 2003 has now achieved a major milestone all the credit goes to the faculty and staff who have dedicated their professional lives to the development of these amazing leaders what you see today are fearless engineering leaders that will transform our world: aggie engineers who will work hard to tackle the challenges of the 21st century and make our world a better place for all j todd creeger president of conocophillips qatar and a class of 1986 graduate of texas a&m university was the nights guest speaker creeger congratulated graduates for earning a college degree something that only seven percent of adults can claim the knowledge youve gained and the wisdom to apply this knowledge towards worthwhile pursuits is something of priceless value that no one can ever take away from you creeger said knowledge empowers us and bestows on us a certain responsibility to people other than ourselves your generation will be called upon to deal with a host of pressing issues population growth affordable energy clean water and improved sustainability among them graduates will now be challenged to put their skills to work to solve some of the worlds greatest problems today i challenge you to do just that and i know when engineers are challenged they respond as engineers you not only have the ability to make the world a better place you have the responsibility to do so and this responsibility is worth embracing creeger also gave graduates three pieces of advice he has learned throughout his career: to leverage their membership in the aggie network to be bold and to choose to embrace each new day with a positive attitude because life is short tariq atiyah (pictured left) one of the nights recipients of a degree in mechanical engineering was selected by the graduating seniors to give the student address surprising his parents whom he hadnt told he had been chosen to speak to his fellow graduates atiyah said we have now successfully completed this journey at texas a&m at qatar and are about to embark on a new one a more demanding one when life challenges us we must rise above the challenge when we are troubled by the ever-changing uncontrollable unstable nature of life we must continue to rise we must not let these challenges stifle us but rather overcome them with grace and confidence and to the parents and family members of the graduates atiyah said you have all graduated with us today you have graduated from being the parents of children at home to being the parents of young men and women on their own we are so grateful for the unconditional love and support you provided us to bring us all to this success for the endless lessons you engraved on us and the many times you accepted us back into your arms when we fell down thank you very much you deserve this more than we do! texas a&m vice provost dr michael j benedik also addressed the students and guests on behalf of the main campus dr ryan mclawhon a class of 2003 graduate of texas a&m and executive director of academic services at the doha branch campus inducted the graduates into the texas a&m association of former students an organization that comprises the more than 450 000 graduates of the university and is known worldwide as the aggie network graduating seniors were celebrated the previous day at a special luncheon in their honor and outstanding seniors were named by each academic program: muhammad zain raza chemical engineering; mariam adel y a al-awadi electrical and computer engineering; mohamed tarek mohamed hussein mohamed mechanical engineering; khalid abduljabbar a a saifaldeen petroleum engineering; mashaal essa y y al-salem liberal arts; and omar abdelwahed abdelghany abdelwahed ashour science
1953,for the 5th annual engineering project showcase the work of more than 1 000 students was represented on april 29 in the hall of champions at texas a&m universitys kyle field the engineering project showcase provides students an opportunity to demonstrate and display their engineering projects highlighting the ingenuity of engineers solving real-world problems the showcase is one of the largest exhibits of student design projects in the country and a unique opportunity for industry to see the innovative skills of our students across all engineering majors said magda lagoudas executive director for industry and non-profit partnerships the showcase has become the pinnacle event of the year and has nearly doubled in size since its inaugural event this year hosted more than 180 engineering projects representing the work of more than 1 000 students the event brought industry representatives and judges from nearly 70 companies to campus providing students an opportunity to network and discuss potential collaborations for their innovations the awards ceremony at the end of the showcase recognized the top teams with more than $10 000 in prize money awarded baker hughes emerson and shell sponsored the showcase the $1 000 baker hughes award went to high heat flux two phase cpu cooling from the mechanical engineering department its team members included nick cangelose justin feldt qijun liu and kevin wu and faculty advisor noushin amini it was sponsored by dell emc- kevin mundt and robert curtis the $1 000 emerson award went to texas childrens hospital - pediatric gynecology from the biomedical engineering department its team members included hannah pearce omar wyman sydney roach and hannah humbert and faculty advisor maurice brewer it was sponsored by dr jennifer dietrich and dr julie hakim the $1 000 shell award went to turtle rescue from the engr 289 – engineering creativity course its team members included dustin ladd logan skipper michayal matthew and matthew laux in addition to the top three overall awards 17 awards of $500 each were given for best project in each competing category listed below such as capstone within specific majors aggie_challenge design competition teams other course projects and engr 112 (freshman engineering course project) biological and agricultural engineeringcacao pod cracker weston yap sponsor dr rabi mohtar faculty advisor team members: cecily molina hilda villarreal and sreevidya ghantasala biomedical engineeringtexas childrens hospital - pediatric gynecology dr jennifer dietrich and dr julie hakim sponsors maurice brewer faculty advisor team members: hannah pearce omar wyman sydney roach and hannah humbert computer science and engineeringghost ship vr department of computer science and engineering sponsor dr bruce gooch faculty advisor team members: thomas sell cody leuschner josh hooton and jacob stafford electrical and computer engineeringvibration navigation team dr stavros kalafatis faculty advisor team members: jordan wenske cooper rehn benjamin jack and karl white engineering technology and industrial distributionautonomous garden system department of engineering technology and industrial distribution sponsor dr ana goulart faculty advisor team members: benedict dike john stockton anthony mendiola samuel herrera philip kelly and hector rafael industrial and systems engineering (top two teams)san antonio military medical center (sammc) research catalog sammc sponsor ricardo villarreal faculty advisor team members: luke hicks olufemi bada stanley chan and travis korry md andersons molecular diagnostics lab: determining optimal batch size md anderson and dalia farhat sponsor dr guy curry faculty advisor team members: katherine klassen david corro magdalene kramer carter harvey and benjamin babcock mechanical engineering (top two teams)high heat flux two phase cpu cooling ashrae and kevin gardner sponsor james thomas faculty advisor team members: elias rosedahl matthew pledger daniel harris and ty williams and faculty smart-glove stroke hand rehabilitation device dr arun srinivasa sponsor james thomas faculty advisor team members: trey torno aaron graeve casey fattig sean sculley and eric redondo other capstone design – chemical engineeringsustainable and self-sufficient production of propylene through oleflex technology ineos olefins and polymers sponsor dr debalina sengupta faculty advisor team members: harry mactough eric fris christopher riggs and john mark zimmerman student design competitiontamu hyperloop engineering advisory council sponsor dr adonios karpetic faculty advisor team members: jordan daly nathan brunner kasper egholm armando gonzalez-feuchter frank malambri jakob parnell bradley petras gabriel pirmez mckenna roberts and austin schneider other course projectsturtle rescue epics 289 sponsor magda lagoudas faculty advisor team members: dustin ladd logan skipper michayal matthew and matthew laux engr 112 (three awards)engr 112-540 paul koola faculty advisor team members: christopher alexander ross carpenter abigail dougherty garrett janda samuel kuehnhold samuel murley jaclynn turnbaugh and zachary wilson engr 112-203 dr allen godwin faculty advisor team members: michael martin jacob dewey alicia morales erica hall thomas dane oscal villarreal richard mccalley and tate banks engr 112-511 jacquelyn huff faculty advisor team members: bailey eberle david bleiler john klaerner angelina garcia sarah khan josh regresado nick lugo sarnia alghazo and samantha wilson aggie_challenge (two awards)point-of-care health informatics for proactive epilepsy seizure alert texas a&m college of engineering sponsor dr satish bukkapatnam faculty advisor and afrin student mentor team members: kyle reagan alan ngo bryan arnold stefan manoharan sagar patel sandesh reddy srujan kancharia and ishan vasandni advanced vapor compression desalination (avcd) – business and administration team texas a&m college of engineering sponsor dr mark holtzapple faculty advisor team members: yndalecia ojeda esteban saba audrey munson gene markantonis regan hess will lipscomb daisy enriquez sarah mustafa myada abdelrahman carolynn van zandt and talon page the 2018 engineering project showcase will be april 27 2018 in the hall of champions at kyle field
1954,students and faculty in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university presented a preliminary risk assessment to fatma yimaz supervisor for probabilistic risk assessment at the south texas project nuclear operating company (stp) their assessment determined the level of risk the plant could have during an onsite electrical power blackout following the loss of the plant switchyard from weather-related phenomenon such as an intense hurricane the students and faculty team presented their findings to the probabilistic risk assessment group at stp as a part of their directed study class the class nuen 685 is taught by ernie kee associate professor of practice with the department graduate students marilyn delgado mohammad hawila and tyler hughes participated in the project in this preliminarily study we found that the risk for station blackout was significant in the event of a hurricane kee said so the next thing we will look into is if we conditionally know that a hurricane will most likely cause a loss of onsite power that can lead to station blackout what kind of compensatory actions can we put in place to prevent this or make recovery after a blackout faster the teams approach involved assessing the conditional risk of a hurricane causing a blackout at both an individual unit level and at a multi-unit level and found that the likelihood of a station blackout was around 4 to 50 percent following studies will look at what kind of temporary compensatory options stp can put in place in light of the projects conditional risk focus the reason we chose this conditional risk perspective for this project is because stp would not want to have hurricane-specific safety equipment and compensatory measures in place all the time because hurricanes that could pose significant risk to the site are rare kee said because the weather service provides a lot of information about hurricane intensity and tracks well in advance of arrival we want to see what can be done ahead of time to prepare for this event we want to minimize the possibility that onsite power is lost and if it is reduce the time it would take to recover power the visit provided a positive experience for the students involved kee said it helped them become familiar with the kinds of issues power plants would face in severe weather events taught them how nuclear power plant basic electrical power systems are laid out and provided additional hands-on industry experience we had a lot of fun kee said they are great students and stp had an interesting problem for us to understand evaluate and in this case move forward on with additional studies
1955,dr sonia j garcia senior director for access and inclusion in engineering academic and student affairs (easa) at texas a&m university has been recognized as the 2017 recipient of the dr robert m gates inspiration award at the regents scholars spring banquet by the scholarships & financial aid office garcia was nominated for the award by her engineering regents students who spoke highly of her support and dedication she has been involved with the regents scholars program since its inception in 2004 and served on the regents scholars coordination committee which established the program as it is today i am incredibly honored to have received this award especially because it came from the nomination of engineering regents students said garcia the dr robert m gates inspiration award was established in 2007 to honor gates' legacy and tenure at texas a&m gates who served as president of the university from 2002 to 2006 routinely challenged the faculty and staff to provide support for regents' scholars through mentoring and advising for more information about the award contact casey gros at regentsscholarship@tamuedu
1956,dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for robot-assisted search and rescue saw a need for a safer more efficient way to use quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles (uav) in indoor disaster environments her idea for a quadcopter tethered to a home-base robot was inspired by marsupials who have external pouches to hold their young and keep them close murphy has been working with marsupial robots since 1998 with ground-ground teams and boat-aerial robot teams supported by the national science foundation and the office of naval research in the case of her new robots the ‘mother provides a steady connection for the ‘baby quadcopter to safely assess the situation of a dangerous indoor environment without the hazard of crashing into a potentially disastrous object not only does the mother provide stability it delivers a steady power source for the baby to feed off of to stay in-flight longer fotokite is the company who developed the quadcopter robot and endeavor robotics developed the packbot-base mother robot the mother-daughter combination can be used in countless dangerous situations such as nuclear power or chemical plants where it is unsafe to fly uavs it could be used to rapidly respond to an incident or if used routinely to prevent damage from occurring we are very excited at how the department of energy and the nuclear industry have reacted to this marsupial combination murphy said they already use ground robots for inspection but cant see above six feet the fotokite lets them have a virtual mast but also to see what the ground robot is doing and to help coach it through tight spaces the project which is funded by the national science foundation and the department of energy was recently featured on wiredcom
1957,dr mathew kuttolamadom assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) and in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a $360 000 three-year grant from the national science foundation to create an interdisciplinary research experience for undergraduates (reu) site in metrology and non­destructive inspection (ndi) weve got direct feedback from our industry partners and advisory boards that students need to have more translatable knowledge and skills in metrology and non-destructive inspection technologies says kuttolamadom thats where the primary motivation for this particular program comes from metrology the science of measurement and (non-destructive) inspection transcends scales materials and disciplines; yet rarely are its salient aspects emphasized the related knowledge and skills are essential for engineers and researchers today regardless of discipline the project reu site: interdisciplinary research experiences in metrology & non-destructive inspection is a collaboration among several college of engineering departments including etid (dr jyhwen wang) industrial and systems engineering (dr dinakar sagapuram) mechanical engineering (dr bruce tai) and petroleum engineering (dr sam noynaert) each year 10 students from across the nation will come to texas a&m over the summer for a 10-week program where they will be a part of five vertically-integrated teams each comprised of two reu students a senior texas a&m undergraduate and graduate student and a faculty mentor the vertical structure will allow the undergraduates to learn grow and participate alongside senior students who are further along in their educational development while simultaneously getting first-hand research experience guided by a texas a&m faculty researcher this chain of students and faculty from different levels will work together on a state-of-the-art research project and advance a solution says kuttolamadom the overarching impact of this site will be to create empowered future researchers and a workforce well-rooted in metrology/ndi and motivate them to pursue advanced degrees and stem careers
1958,"dr daniel ragsdale professor of practice in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently elected to the university's faculty senate where he will represent the texas a&m college of engineering this comes 40 years after being elected student senator as an undergraduate in the department ragsdale who also serves as director of the texas a&m cybersecurity center intends to participate in faculty senate committees that address curriculum issues as well as those that address student life i see my service as a faculty senator as an opportunity to work with other members of our esteemed faculty to make refinements to enhance extend and build upon the already remarkable set of educational and developmental experiences available to our highly talented students ragsdale said ragsdale began his undergraduate degree at texas a&m in the fall of 1976 he ultimately completed his bachelors degree in general engineering from the united states military academy in 1981 where he was granted an appointment and served as a leader in a variety of teaching and research roles culminating with his service as vice dean for education the principal deputy to west point's chief academic officer in the late 1990s ragsdale returned to texas a&m to complete his doctoral degree in computer science and was elected president of the computer science graduate student association in that role a number of programs and initiatives were established many of which are still ongoing now nearly 20 years later a&m as we all know is very a special place ragsdale said the students the faculty and the staff unabashedly embrace a&ms core values – in particular excellence selfless service and leadership consequently i feel very confident that through their collective efforts they will make the world we share a better place to live in this prevailing attitude motivates me to do whatever i can to ensure that the a&m curriculum and the holistic learning environment we provide to our students continues to be replete with high-impact life-changing experiences other computer science and engineering faculty members representing the college of engineering in the university faculty senate are dr walter daugherity senior lecturer; dr tim davis professor; dr daniel jiménez professor; and dr duncan ""hank"" walker professor and graduate advisor"
1959,landscapes are all around us for years researchers have studied the way they develop and maintain themselves but dr ignacio rodriguez-iturbe wants to know how they interact with nature specifically coastal ecosystems these questions are extremely important because coastal ecosystems are first a deposit of [a] large biodiversity said rodriguez-iturbe distinguished university professor and texas a&m engineering experiment station distinguished research professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university second they contribute to the stability of the shorelines and the areas around the shorelines third they are our defense of the coastal regions against hurricanes and larger storms when observing the landscape of a coastal ecosystem one often finds many varieties of vegetation sand dunes and features of different kinds the ecosystem responds in a complex manner to geomorphologic drivers eolian forces wave dynamics and hydrologic variables changing much faster than others like the flat savannas found in the brazos valley the landscape is made up by dunes coastal forms vegetation and bodies of water evolving in ways still to be quantitatively described for example if you go to a beach you may see dunes rodriguez-iturbe said those dunes have evolved with time and changed positions when we look out our window in bryan/college station you see a relatively flat landscape the second thing we notice is that the foliage is not changing as fast as it does in a coastal ecosystem when comparing a coastal ecosystem to a savanna one will see the savanna is far less complicated because the general foliage is competing for water with very little impact from geomorphology and wind and waves play no role forest ecosystems are generally less complicated because the main competition is for light in a coastal ecosystem competition is more complex all the factors that we have mentioned interact with each other rodriguez-iturbe said for example winds interact with vegetation because the wind blows and it deposits sand in the vegetation of the ecosystem there is also a linkage between vegetation and physical variables like waves wind and rain the plants are both a consequence and a cause of the shape of the coastline and on the survival of the coastal ecosystem rodriguez-iturbe enjoys studying coastal ecosystems in particular because they pose many challenges as a very complex ecosystem for instance nature impacts every ecosystem in the world but in coastal ecosystems the forces of nature impacting them are a bit different and more invasive than in other ecosystems additionally most coastal regions in the us are heavily populated thus the most densely populated cities in the country are located on the east and west coasts take the instance of hurricane sandy hitting the east coast a few years ago rodriguez-iturbe said on top of the direct impact of the storm itself and the amount of rain and strong winds it brought to the area it also caused a lot of erosion this not only resulted in the visible impact of buildings and roadways disappearing but also disrupting the coastal ecosystem of plants and biodiversity thriving in these areas unfortunately instances such as hurricane sandy occur on an annual basis constantly slamming coastlines so how can coastlines be better protected rodriguez-iturbe is searching for this answer a lot has been done in coastal ecosystems but it has been mostly studied qualitatively rodriguez-iturbe said i am very interested in the interaction between vegetation and the physical variables like waves wind rain and salinity
1960,when zahra parkar 18 was mapping out her higher education plans affordability challenging coursework and engaging leadership opportunities were at the top of her list through texas a&m universitys engineering academies and the zachry leadership program she found exactly what she needed at the time i was heading to college my family and i needed to find a way to get to school without breaking the bank account parkar said through the academies youre able take courses at blinn and at a&m so i knew would still have the full college experience and pay a fraction of the cost for a quality engineering degree the engineering academies allow students to be co-enrolled in one of six locations as well as texas a&m making them a texas a&m engineering student there are engineering academies at austin community college blinn-brenham blinn-bryan el centro college and richland college houston community college and texas southmost college by attending the engineering academy at blinn college in bryan texas parkar was able to save money develop a network of classmates and take the same classes that general engineering students at texas a&m were taking one of the things i loved about the academy program was that you take classes with the same people throughout parkar said when you do transition to a&ms main campus you'll already have a pretty stable foundation of friends and that gives you a support group for your time on campus and during the academies students can choose to stay co-enrolled in an academy for up to two years before completely transitioning to texas a&m in college station or they can transition after just one year like parkar which she said was an easy process it wasn't difficult for me and some of my friends to excel in classes here at a&m parkar said there's this idea that students from the academies aren't as prepared to tackle classes at a&m and i think that goes back to the mindset that people think these academies are the lesser version of a&m and that isnt true you're getting the same exact courses as a co-enrolled student but at a better price parkar is also a member of the first class of the zachry leadership program a five-semester program built through the partnership of texas a&m and the zachry group to help develop leaders in engineering the program begins during the students sophomore year and strives to teach them collaborative decision making confidence and familiarity with business principles while the program has been viewed by some as hyper-selective parkar believes that this misconception is just a reflection of the uniqueness of the program the thing about zlp [zachry leadership program] is that its just different parkar said they take students from all different spectrums of gpa i also think the elitist perception comes from the intense application process but they just want to know more about you as a person and if you're willing to be taught the information and leadership skills they are wanting to offer parkar is currently working in an internship this summer for the reynolds & reynolds corporation in dayton ohio as a sales intern she said she enjoys the competitive environment and daily customer interaction that a sales environment brings and also feels her time in the zachry leadership program has given her skills to be successful during her internship with the zachry leadership program i've learned what environments i'm most productive in when i've hit my limit and how to work with people to get the best results parkar said they teach you how to be the best leader you can simply by bringing out what is already inside of you and i appreciate all of the people who dedicated their time to get the zlp [zachry leadership program] up and running because i don't think i'd be as confident as i am today without their help for more information on the zachry leadership program and the texas a&m engineering academies please click on the following links: the zachry leadership program texas a&m engineering academies
1961,dr zenon medina-cetina associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was presented the kenneth l clinton award for his work as the lead of the yucatan initiative project at texas a&m this years awards were given to texas a&m university system faculty who have participated in research academic and service programs in mexico and central america medina-cetina's efforts with the yucatan initiative project has positioned texas a&m at the forefront of scientific and technological collaboration between mexico and the united states the yucatan initiative project sponsored by yucatan's department of innovation research and higher education (siies) since 2014 has established a scientific cultural and personal footprint between yucatan's research consortium (siidetey) and texas a&m to solve regional problems and boost their corresponding states regional economies siidetey's investment in the project exceeds $1 million the project has completed two phases among three texas a&m colleges (engineering agriculture and life sciences and geosciences) more than 11 seed research projects three academic programs and two service projects with over 350 participants including faculty students and administrators from siidetey and texas a&m some of the multidisciplinary and bi-national research projects include coastal dynamics early warning systems logistics aquifers energy harvesting agro-biodiversity animal science water quality and agriculture production efficiency among others medina-cetina's main research interest as part of the yucatan initiative includes the mapping of social economic and environmental risks associated with geo-processes common to yucatan and texas the next phase of the project will concentrate on geosciences to better understand the regional influence of the gulf of mexico as a system the main hypothesis of the yucatan initiative project is that a strategic definition of a regional research agenda would result in stronger academic and service programs that is the case of the canieti summer program which was established to increase the number of mexican students accepted into us graduate schools the program has hosted 131 students in the past three years 24 of whom have been accepted to graduate programs at texas a&m through a $2 million investment from the mexican science foundation and other mexican state governments and private sponsors to texas a&m faculty recognized with the same award at texas a&m include drs edie cassell james linder elizabeth morris jeffery musser ramesh talreja gary wingenbach jorge vanegas thomas e lacher and shankar p bhattacharyya contributing author: anna heller
1962,yasser soltanpour graduate student in the zachry department of civil engineering and member of the stochastic geomechanics laboratory (sgl) at texas a&m university presented a technical talk at the computational science and engineering conference in atlanta georgia hosted by the society for industrial and applied mathematics (siam-cse17) the conference seeks to enable in-depth technical discussions on a wide variety of major computational efforts on large-scale problems in science and engineering foster the interdisciplinary culture required to meet these large-scale challenges and promote the training of the next generation of computational scientists according to soltanpour and his supervisor dr zenon medina-cetina associate professor in civil engineering and principal investigator on the project the opportunity to present at siam-cse17 is a big deal siam is one of the most outstanding professional societies where you can meet remarkable people from science mathematics and engineering im going to speak among them; thats going to be challenging soltanpour said prior to the conference sgl has organized technical sessions in the past at siam-cse and i am very proud to have our presentation accepted for this year's conference said medina-cetina our topic on bayesian inference is at the edge of computational science and engineering because it introduces a new methodology that ensures computational efficiency in the probabilistic solution of strongly ill-posed problems the presentation a computational bayesian framework to parallelize an adaptive markov chain monte carlo introduces a new method to optimize the convergence of an adaptive markov chain monte carlo approach needed to formulate high-dimensional parametric bayesian formulations this method was applied to the calibration of a forward model simulating shale gas well production in central texas the figure below shows an example of a joint probability distribution resulting from the calibration of the shale gas production model (posterior distribution) this reflects the uncertainty of the model parameters and the corresponding correlation structure among them (linear and non-linear) the proposed approach departs from traditional optimization methods where only the best parameter ‘point estimate is computed soltanpour is currently working toward finishing his phd in civil engineering his studies mostly focus on the probabilistic simulation of reservoir analyses this was the first conference at which soltanpour has presented this method and it seemed to have exceeded his and the audience's expectations the experience overall was very fruitful the audience liked my presentation and asked several questions soltanpour said i met some pioneers in optimization who provided positive feedback about my work they encouraged me to continue working on the topic contributing author: anna heller
1963,one of the main reasons you dont see supersonic jets flying across the country is noise sonic booms created by supersonic flight were so disruptive that the federal aviation administration (faa) and congress banned supersonic travel over the united states in 1973 a multi-disciplinary team headed up by principal investigators (pis) in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and boeing research & technology (br&t) hopes to solve this problem nasa has selected the team for a five-year $10 million grant as part of nasa aeronautics university leadership initiative (uli) the team will lead research into designing commercially-viable civil supersonic transport (sst) aircraft that can modify shape during flight under a range of conditions to meet noise and efficiency requirements for overland flight supersonic aircraft capable of flying faster than the speed of sound (mach 1) were developed in the 20th century and used mainly for military purposes only two ssts were used for commercial flight the tupolev tu-144 and more notably the concorde the concorde flew commercially from 1976-2003 limited to transatlantic travel between new york city london paris and washington dc because of the faa ban on overland flight with advances in technology and modern engineering there is a renewed interest in supersonic aircraft for commercial flight reducing the sound of the sonic boom created by the ssts could be the catalyst for the faa to lift the ban on overland flight to be commercially viable an sst must meet boom noise limits for a range of flight conditions and thus requires the ability to adapt at a moments notice the uli research team will explore the potential of small real-time geometric reconfigurations on the outer mold line (oml) of the aircraft to minimize boom signatures and drag in response to those changing conditions the team will combine improved supersonic computational fluid dynamic (cfd) methods boom propagation models and new atmospheric sensing techniques into a new multi-disciplinary design framework they will focus on determining if embedding shape memory alloy (sma) actuators will provide solutions for in-flight adjustments of an sst aircraft from takeoff to landing the goal is to enable optimal low boom and low drag configurations across all environments new tools will be developed to explore what kinds of small-scale adaptations can truly affect sst flight performance a detailed study will determine whether sma materials with the appropriate temperature and force/displacement characteristic exist and whether sma-based actuators are economically viable at the system level the overall research strategy is to pursue three critical areas: the design of configurations for reducing boom material development and modeling and technology feasibility demonstration in a relevant environment with texas a&m as the lead institution the management of the project will be performed by dr dimitri lagoudas deputy director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station with the help of dr darren hartl as the operations director co-pis include dr paul paul cizmas and dr rodney bowersox from the department of aerospace engineering along with james mabe (br&t) other members from texas a&m include dr helen reed (aerospace engineering) dr richard miles (aerospace and mechanical engineering) dr richard malak (mechanical engineering) and dr ibrahim karaman (materials science and engineering) rounding out the team are dr george dulikravich department of mechanical and materials engineering florida international university; dr theocharis baxevanis department of mechanical engineering university of houston; dr marcus young department of materials science and engineering university of north texas; dr doug hunsaker department of mechanical and aerospace engineering utah state university; dr eric blades ata engineering; edward white boeing; todd magee boeing; david lazzara boeing; hao shen boeing; dr jeremy schaffer fort wayne metals lagoudas karaman and hartl have collaborated with boeing on the development of sma alloys and actuators for conventional subsonic applications for over a decade with great success bowersox miles and reed participated in the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) quiet supersonic platform program which was focused on sonic boom mitigation this project brings these two technological challenges together to provide creative solutions to enable supersonic flight the academic institutions will lead the engineering science aspects of the research transferring new technological capabilities to the industrial partners these partners with a background in successful development and deployment of novel shape memory and supersonic applications will provide guidance regarding real-world requirements industry partners will form the nucleus of an industry advisory board and will evaluate technology commercialization paths from the research outcomes students from the six participating academic institutions will have the opportunity to gain valuable research experience from world leaders in supersonic platform design and active materials and adaptive structures development miles and reed will be critical in promoting collaborative research and novel education opportunities for students and post-docs through the interchange of students among the institutions
1964,as part of the texas a&m university college of engineerings effort to enhance the educational experience of its students through its 25 by 25 initiative the college has launched the first-generation engineering student mentoring program (fgen) while mentoring programs were offered in the past this one is specifically for first-generation college students said dr bimal nepal phillips 66 first year engineering faculty fellow associate professor of industrial distribution and program lead of fgen this program is designed to help them not only transition to college life but to help support their academic success first-generation students are the first in their families to attend a formal university-level degree program (or earn a degree) the college of engineering is home to more than 20 percent first-generation students the fgen program is designed to enhance a first-generation engineering students educational and social experiences on campus to help them achieve their personal and professional goals students are paired with a faculty or staff member seasoned in student advising currently there are more than 40 mentors who have signed up for the program and many of them are first-generation graduates themselves the mentors will help students leverage college and university resources to help them succeed personally academically and professionally in addition to faculty and staff mentors a group of 50 junior and senior engineering students serve as peer mentors by associating with academically successful students fgen participants receive first-hand advice from their peers further helping ease the transition from high school to college each semester the students will also attend mentoring events along with multiple activities focused on enhancing student academic success improving campus lives and providing them with social and professional networking opportunities by participating in this program students will learn valuable networking and communications skills often adjusting to college is overwhelming for students just because they are unaware of the resources and tools available to help them on campus our goal is for the mentor to be that resource and help make this transition easier said nepal interested first-generation engineering students both fall 2017 entering freshman and current engineering students can get more information and apply for this program here
1965,its not a pitch competition its not a hackathon its simply in a class of its own aggies invent at texas a&m university has found a way to create an innovative experience where students come together from across the university to create solutions and prototypes in just 48 hours each aggies invent revolves around a relevant theme ranging from medical devices to internet of things to stem education the themes allow students to gain vital experience and knowledge in a field outside their majors throughout the weekend student teams design a solution to their selected problem and then compete for first second and third place awards of $1 000 $750 and $500 the 48-hour window begins on a friday evening and ends on a sunday evening each aggies invent is divided into four phases: the dance the design the doing and the deal all four phases represent different life cycles within the engineering design process bolstering students understanding of how to take a product from start to finish by the end of the weekend students must provide a 10-minute presentation including a 90-second video to pitch their device to a panel of expert judges ranging from faculty to industry representatives beyond challenging their engineering skills it challenges their communication skills and introduces them to business principles such as identifying a value proposition pitching to investors and customer validation aggies invent allows a student to be singularly focused on a problem while being part of a multi-integrated team said dr john e hurtado associate dean engineering academic and student affairs engineering students find themselves surrounded by teammates from different colleges and at various education levels and that immersion allows each student to gain appreciation for their skills and the skills of others the entirety of the event takes place at the engineering innovation center (eic) on campus the eic is a 20 000-square foot maker space that contains a full fabrication shop a modern prototyping lab equipment checkout library 30-plus student technicians and two full-time staff members students have complete access to any necessary equipment throughout the event the historythe innovator behind the sensation is rodney boehm director of the newly formed engineering entrepreneurship program and associate professor of practice boehm formally launched aggies invent in august 2014 but the idea had been in the back of his mind since the start of his career one of boehms successes as a young professional was brainstormed in less than 48 hours with a coworker while traveling this intensive innovation period stuck with him and later inspired the concept of helping students to experience the complete design cycle in one weekend boehm noted that engineering students can get weighed down with advanced engineering courses and lose track of their end goal aggies invent allows students a chance to apply their coursework in a new and different way and to understand what it feels like to be part of an engineering team completing a project for a client it gives them one weekend to break from their usual routine and experience something unique and inspiring the impactsince the inaugural aggies invent 18 events have been held on campus with more than 800 students having participated students came from every department in engineering in addition to every college within the university but its more than just the numbers that set aggies invent apart from other programs on campus its the real-world exposure it provides to the students it had an overwhelmingly positive impact on not only the rest of my undergraduate studies but on my career introducing me to many of the concepts that i now use as a consultant on an agile development team for accenture said melinda mcclure a former student and aggies invent participant boehms goal for aggies invent is to better prepare students for how theyll work after graduation engineers need to function in teams work with deadlines and with business practices; the structure of aggies invent helps guide students to be more successful with those principles he wanted to create a space where students can experience the entire design cycle work with industry mentors and not be afraid to take a risk or fail in the process hurtado agrees that aggies invent helps students transition into the workforce aggies invent is essentially creative thinking for an engineering purpose said hurtado students gain experience in stretching their engineering knowledge to create solutions and develop prototypes as the program has developed recruiters and engineering companies nationwide have taken notice and joined in the process companies get to work hands-on with students and see the young talent through sponsoring mentoring and judging the weekend activities theyre given a unique viewpoint to the students and can start the recruiting process right in the eic i was really impressed by the ability of the students to use the aggies invent process to come together evaluate a problem propose solutions plan and develop in such a short period of time cathy wicks texas instruments university program manager the futureaggies invent is now moving beyond college station through special events and partnerships with other universities it will be implemented at texas a&m university-corpus christi and texas a&m university at qatar but their biggest venture so far has been to south by southwest (sxsw) in austin texas the program made a special appearance at sxsw as texas a&m invents for an intelligent future within the universitys texas a&m house twelve students worked for two days to develop technology to make an intelligent future a reality in front of an international audience they competed in a preliminary competition on campus to earn their spots at sxsw at the completion all teams either had filed or would be filing for provisional patents on their innovations as aggies invent has exhibited tremendous growth and interest the texas a&m college of engineering has developed [u] invent a program that allows other schools to bring aggies invent to their campuses currently [u] invent has been implemented at arizona state university and will be held at kansas state university in 2018 aggies invent is expanding and the program alumni have continued to flourish with their innovations post-event currently four teams have filed for or attained provisional patents for designs created during an aggies invent weekend im most excited in the trajectory changes we see in our students their confidence to present their exposure to other skills and their gained exposure to other majors said boehm thats what were all about
1966,in the fall of 2018 46 years after the opening of the original zachry engineering building the new zachry engineering education complex (zach) will open its doors to offer undergraduate students the most modern learning environment on campus there will be no lecture halls but instead active learning studios that foster teamwork and furniture that fully integrates technology active learning also called collaborative learning or problem-solving learning exists on many campuses but zach will be one of the largest active learning spaces in the country with 18 100-person learning studios and 14 50-person learning studios as students step inside a learning studio instead of desks zach learning studios will offer technology worktables with wireless connectivity and multi-device sharing screens each worktable will accommodate up to four students and their devices the rooms are designed to support all teaching styles from traditional lecture to team problem-solving oriented sections in an active learning mode faculty will be teaching among their students engaging with them and displaying their teaching resources across several big screens as well as onto the learning table screens via their tablet or the main teaching station we have rethought the classroom experience to accommodate todays technology-savvy students said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering we will be enhancing their educational experience to increase their knowledge increase retention and help them succeed while electronic white boards have been utilized in the college for years the ones being implemented in zach will take collaboration to the next level the college has partnered with t1v and will be using their thinkhub connect solution using wall-mounted large-format touch screens thinkhub will allow the instructor to operate on an effective work space that is 20 times the size of the actual screen content can be created and moved off screen to be brought back later in the class as needed this eliminates the need to constantly erase material to free up space on the live display the system allows for adding content from multiple sources like laptops document cameras web-based video sources and content from the student table displays our learning studios were designed with an eye not only for current needs but the needs of the future as more technology becomes wi-fi enabled said ed pierson director of it and chief information officer individuals are now carrying three to four devices per person and people want to stay connected so zach is set up to offer enough capacity to ensure that students in class have what they need to take a test or work on a project online and not be pulled off by students sitting in the halls outside the classroom pierson said the thinkhub system will also enable interactive tutoring sessions between remote sites provide professors with the ability to interactively collaborate with students at other campuses and enable research teams at different locations the convenience of working with their team without having to leave their home office educational technology and more activity-based learning are key elements to future engineering classrooms the college of engineering embraced active learning as part of its 25 by 25 initiative to transform engineering education studies have shown that active learning helps students retain information better and enhances their educational experience active high-tech learning is just one way 25 by 25 is making education better for students technology worktables replace desks when the texas a&m university college of engineering embraced active learning and non-traditional classrooms as part of its 25 by 25 initiative a need for a new student worktable arose the college engaged its faculty and it staff to help tackle this issue we wanted to foster interaction between students in groups said mark henry manager of virtualization and learning technologies the faculty also wanted to support collaboration between students located at offsite locations and allow easy content sharing between locations the college approached steelcase asking for an active-learning table that was mobile had power access could host a 32-inch flat-screen monitor had automatic monitor lift was durable had a high design aesthetic and was a future-proof design through an intense collaborative effort of engineering design and it professionals steelcase and texas a&m developed a new technology table henry says that the needs for a table like this had never been thought through to this extent its designed to support students who now carry an average of three to four devices each – phone laptop tablet and a device they wear he said the new tables accommodate four people and their devices while also providing space for writing books and papers power outlets for personal devices are easily reached in a recessed bay in the center of the table table height and monitor size were carefully considered when the monitor is raised and the instructor is walking around the classroom students can still see over the monitors and the instructor can easily see students faces wireless connections keep it informed of each tables technology status reducing possible downtime the design and construction of the table allow maintenance staff to replace a monitor monitor life of other technology in just moments the college is in the process of testing out these tables prototypes are placed in several engineering buildings and the student response has been very positive there is even a prototype classroom with nine technology worktables in the emerging technologies building being utilized for an engineering summer session
1967,dr bruce l tai assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has received the blackall machine tool and gage award from the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the blackall machine tool and gage award recognizes the best journal paper during the past two years that leads to a significant contribution to manufacturing processes and systems tai received the award for his paper high-definition metrology enabled surface variation control by cutting load balancing published in asme journal of manufacturing science and engineering his co-authors include dr hai trong nguyen (hanoi university of science and technology vietnam) dr hui wang (florida state university) jie ren (florida state university) dr s jack hu (university of michigan) and dr albert shih (university of michigan) the paper presents a method to reduce surface variation in face milling processes based on high-definition metrology measurements this method combines the approaches of varying feed rate and lateral cutter path planning to reduce overall cutting force variation along the feed direction and circumferential direction respectively thereby reducing the surface variation case studies showed an improvement by 25 percent in surface flatness surface flatness is a key factor in powertrain mating parts such as engine blocks engine heads and transmission valve bodies tai said a tighter tolerance can prevent leakage and thus improve vehicle performance and reliability the developed method can be easily implemented to benefit the automotive industry and perhaps many others too tai received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from the university of michigan in 2011 and his masters and bachelors degrees from the national taiwan university his research interests broadly include additive manufacturing machining processes and surgical tool design and analysis and he has long-term collaborations with the automotive industry and medical doctors his recent honors include receiving the 2017 outstanding young manufacturing engineer award from the society of manufacturing engineers tai has also received two best paper awards at the asme manufacturing science and engineering conference in 2012 and 2013 respectively
1968,dr sunil chirayath director of the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) and research assistant professor with the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded an honorary professorship with amity university in noida india we have done five workshops in india like this in the last five years to help support nuclear science and engineering academic programs in india chirayath said amity has been kind in giving me this honor one that i did not expect but appreciate immensely chirayath learned of the appointment while visiting the university as a part of a nuclear security curriculum review workshop he was awarded the honorary professorship during a ceremony honoring the top 1 percent of high school graduate students at the university where he gave a short speech according to chirayath the goal of the security curriculum workshop is to help promote the importance of nuclear security awareness by educating nuclear engineering academics in india by providing the faculty with appropriate resources and training in relation to nuclear security education nuclear security is defined as the prevention and detection of and response to theft sabotage unauthorized access illegal transfer or other malicious acts involving nuclear material and other radioactive substances or their associated facilities while many programs highlight nuclear safety chirayath strongly believes that a focus on nuclear security should be just as important and that his new appointment will allow him to continue to build on this this honorary professorship a recognition by a prominently ranked university in india and means something to me chirayath said i'm also glad to have this relationship because we can continue to help build amity universitys nuclear security program and benefit from a relationship with their students the initiative for international collaboration between the nuclear engineering department and nuclear engineering programs in india began in 2008 since that time the partnership program has expanded to 11 universities and has helped bring talented international students from india to study at texas a&m i am glad to have been given this recognition from our partners at amity university chirayath said i have been happy to help establish an international pipeline between us and other universities like amity and look forward to continuing to do so for more on the trip click here
1969,"charles noren a senior in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the spirit of apollo scholarship for the 2017-18 academic year by the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) candidates must be pursuing a course of study in any field of engineering math or science (ie physical science physics or computer science) that is pertinent to the technical activities of aiaa recipients are selected based upon a weighted sum of scholarship (40 percent) personal assessment of career goals (15 percent) recommendations (15 percent) extra-curricular activities (10 percent) work experience (10 percent) and need statement (10 percent) noren is an undergraduate research assistant working with dr john valasek professor in aerospace engineering in the vehicle systems & control laboratory charles has conducted research on autonomous systems and robotics with us on two different industry-sponsored aggie challenge projects says valasek he played a key role as a team member on both of them by applying and improving his extensive experience in robotics now he is the lead engineer on an industry-sponsored project on motion video tracking for unmanned air systems as his undergraduate summer research grant charles has an exceptional ability to use innovative approaches to solve tough multidisciplinary problems i am very proud to be working with him in our lab ""to be selected as this year's recipient of the aiaa houston section spirit of apollo scholarship is a great honor says noren i could not have achieved this award without the continued advice and support of my mentor and lab director dr john valasek my fellow research assistants at the vehicle systems & control laboratory and the faculty and staff of the texas a&m university department of aerospace engineering i am extremely thankful for the opportunities provided by the department and aiaa as these opportunities inspire me to strive to achieve engineering excellence"" noren was recognized at the aiaa houston section annual awards banquet on june 20"
1970,craig brown ‘75 former student of the zachry department of civil engineering has been awarded the distinguished alumnus award from the texas a&m university association of former students brown is the cofounder chairman and ceo of bray international inc in his time at texas a&m brown was an outstanding student he graduated summa cum laude and was awarded the texas a&m college of engineering outstanding senior engineer award in 1975 and completed his mba from the mays business school in 1977 in accounting he attributes his current success to the support surrounding him throughout his life and career this award means many people invested in and mentored me said brown awards always reflect the success of many not one i had parents that were great role models and have a wonderful and supportive wife and family and many friends professors coaches etc who supported me in addition to academics brown was a member of the corps of cadets ross volunteers vice president of the student engineers council and lettered in track he was a member of tau beta pi phi kappa phi chi epsilon and phi eta sigma honor societies as a cadet in the corps he received the united states army rotc superior cadet award he is passionate about the strong need for civil engineers now and in the future civil engineers are a basic fabric of society whether in buildings environment water fluid controls soil mechanics and so on said brown dream big be innovative and invest in those around you the greatest impact you will ever achieve is the selfless service you give to others brown was named 2006 outstanding alumnus of the college of engineering 2012 outstanding alumnus of mays business school and was inducted into the corps of cadets hall of honor in 2017 brown serves on the college of engineering advisory council and honors board and on the presidents board of visitors through the craig and galen brown foundation more than 250 national merit scholars have attended texas a&m on scholarship including many leaders in the corps representing more than 175 engineers and 35 doctors/veterinarians the foundation gives scholarships annually to all college of engineering outstanding senior engineer recipients since the inception of the award in 1962 only 271 of texas a&ms 469 000 former students have been recognized with the distinguished alumnus award awarded jointly by the university and the association this honor recognizes those aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions and made meaningful contributions to texas a&m university and their local communities the association of former students will further honor all recipients of this award during its annual distinguished alumni gala on sept 29 in addition the 2017 recipients will be recognized during the sept 30 texas a&m football game against south carolina click here to view all of the 2017 recipients
1971,lauren cross a doctoral student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university recently took first place at the biomaterials day funded by the society for biomaterials (sfb) at the university of texas at austin cross took first place for her poster nanosilicates for sustained therapeutic delivery to direct stem cell fate cross started at texas a&m in the fall of 2014 she conducts research out of dr akhiesh gaharwars inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering (inanote) laboratory and is currently designing nanoengineered approaches to promote bone repair and regeneration her goal is to develop an injectable minimally invasive alternative to typical bone regeneration strategies utilizing a natural material gelatin reinforced with nanosilicates (a novel disk-shaped nanoparticle) and incorporating stem cells and bioactive cues i believe my research is impactful in the field of biomedical engineering said cross we tackle projects with a multidisciplinary approach and not only characterize and utilize novel materials for tissue engineering applications but also and more importantly aim to understand how these materials interact with and affect cells nanosilicates are mineral-based nanoparticles containing orthosilicic acid magnesium and lithium with a 30 nanometer diameter and 1 nanometer thickness our current studies show that these minerals can induce stem cells to become bone cells said gaharwar cross research focus is on understanding an underlying mechanism that governs favorable responses leading to a better understanding of how materials strategies can be leveraged to further improve construct performance and ultimately shorten patient recovery time cross is developing nanosilicates to deliver lower and safer concentrations of bioactive cues or growth factors for the purpose of bone or osteo-regeneration based on the strong preliminary studies cross believes that these highly bioactive nanosilicates may be utilized to develop devices such as injectable tissue repair matrixes bioactive fillers or therapeutic agents for stimulating specific cellular responses in bone-related tissue engineering lauren exhibits exceptional scholarly excellence and her research has immense transformative potential in the areas of basic cell biology stem cell research and regenerative medicine said gaharwar biomaterials day funded by the sfb is a one-day symposium at five different locations throughout the united states biomaterials day at ut austin aims to enhance networking between academic industrial and government sectors and will increase student exposure to exciting biomaterials research
1972,dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and former student christopher bertagne traveled to washington dc to present to three congressmen and their staff members their research performed in collaboration with nasas johnson space center and glenn research center on shape memory alloy (sma)-based morphing radiators the visit to capitol hill was in support of an award ceremony sponsored by the coalition for aerospace and science and the aerospace industries association to honor rep john culberson (tx-7) chair of the appropriations subcommittee on commerce justice and science for his demonstrated support of nasa throughout the years in addition to the texas a&m cohort researchers from the university of michigan university of colorado northrup grumman and other entities were also on hand to discuss their nasa-funded efforts in various areas hartl and bertagne had the chance to brief culberson about the theory of operation of the proposed morphing radiator concept and presented him with a custom shape memory alloy wire ring that forms the shape of the state of texas when heated the radiator project is directed by hartl with co-principal investigator dr john whitcomb professor in aerospace engineering the meeting was a special treat for bertagne who grew up in culbersons district and was eventually able to realize his life goal of being employed at nasas jet propulsion laboratory (jpl) after completing his nasa-funded masters degree which focused on the morphing radiator research bertagne was able to give widely attended internal nasa seminars on the technology to jpl thermal engineers while still a student other members of congress also made the rounds and discussed research interests with hartl and bertagne these included rep bill flores (tx-17) who represents the district which extends from texas a&m to waco and includes parts of north austin and rep steve knight (ca-25) who is a champion for aeronautics research with knight in particular hartl had a chance to discuss his research on shape-adaptive low-boom supersonic aircraft
1973,john aggas a doctoral student in the guiseppi-elie lab of the center for bioelectronics biosensors and biochips in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university received a national science foundation (nsf) fellowship to attend the 16th nsf international summer school (2017) on bio-x: biocomplexity biodesign and bioinnovation aggas started at texas a&m in the spring of 2016 and is in his third semester currently he is pursuing research in the field of biologically responsive and biocompatible polymeric circuit elements for implantable biosensing his research consists of utilizing a conductive nanofiber synthesized from polyaniline that is dispersed within a hydrogel to develop both resistive and capacitive circuit elements these elements when integrated with biological recognition molecules such as enzymes can demonstrate a biological response to physiological metabolites such as glucose or lactate the result is the ability to create organic circuits that signal levels of lactate and glucose aggas has a diverse background and is referred to as a hybrid engineer his undergraduate and masters degrees are in electrical engineering however his research concentrates on the interface between electrical and biomedical engineering under the guidance of dr anthony guiseppi-elie head of the biomedical engineering department director of the biomedical engineering division of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and tees professor at texas a&m aggas has gained an understanding that the relationship between both fields is paramount for future success the 2017 summer school was held in the mediterranean city of chania on the island of crete from june 9-14 the fellowship covered all the expenses a student would incur while studying in greece im looking forward to visiting a new country said aggas prior to leaving also having the opportunity to learn concepts slightly out of ones own research area as taught by new professors is always enlightening the summer school acts as a way to expose graduate biomedical students to the new approaches of mathematical and computational challenges that researchers are currently faced with and immerse students into a cutting-edge field all while interacting with professors and students from around the world who share similar research interests
1974,several students from the zachry department of civil engineering participated in the 2017 texas a&m university student research week (srw) civil engineering undergraduate student gabriella morales and doctoral student kambiz rasoulkhani won the melbern g glasscock humanities special award for poster presentations civil engineering students mohsen aghashahi andrew richardson jenny truong george gillette and yash menaria also took part in the event student research week is a four-day competition that highlights research occurring on the texas a&m campus with an emphasis on research in which students participate srw provides a venue for students to present their work both through oral presentations and posters this event allows students faculty and the community to see the depth and breadth of research conducted at texas a&m and is a valuable tool in meeting the universitys mission of academic research and service excellence the melbern g glasscock humanities award is given for a project that explores the meaning and understanding of the human experience and has an interdisciplinary scope rasoulkhani is a member of assistant professor dr ali mostafavis infrastructure system-of-systems research team he and morales worked together on their research project which focused on water conservation technology in households it was exciting for me as i presented my project for the first time in a poster format said rasoulkhani student research week was a great chance for me to be tested for the presentation of my research so far their project focuses on agent-based modeling of household water conservation technology adoption the objective of the project was to examine the behavior of households regarding the installation of water conservation technologies and evaluate strategies that could potentially increase water conservation technology adoption at the household level this project is funded by the national science foundation under the urban water innovation network student research week was laid back and fun yet competitive said morales i was motivated to produce a final result that was accurate and helpful especially since it was the first project i had done that could actually make a difference in peoples lives
1975,envisioning cityscapes renewed with stylish custom-designed concrete structures a group of texas a&m design and engineering faculty and students will collaborate during the 2017-18 academic year to develop a low-cost method for quickly casting complex concrete forms the $28 000 project is one of 16 funded by aggie_challenge a texas a&m university college of engineering program that sponsors undergraduates in multidisciplinary team projects who address engineering-related problems the project is a response to a grand challenge issued by the national academy of engineering to restore and renew urban infrastructure the challenge addresses a decades-long lack of aesthetic concern for urban infrastructure design and its impact on a citys appearance and the cultural environment bridges buildings and even freeways contribute to the aesthetic appeal of a city and care in their design can contribute to a more enjoyable urban environment states the nae challenge the project design and engineering group which includes dr negar kalantar assistant professor of architecture aims to design and fabricate a prototype of a machine that can essentially freeze a polymer a substance containing organic and synthetic materials into an easily reusable reconfigurable transportable no-waste mold for casting complex concrete building elements faculty partnering with kalantar on the project include dr anastasia muliana professor and dr arun srinivasa holdredge/paul professor from the department of mechanical engineering and dr dinakar sagapuram assistant professor from the department of industrial and systems engineering who are recruiting students in their respective disciplines the group plans to fabricate the machine in texas a&ms engineering innovation center which features the latest prototyping equipment tools material and support staff our goal is not only to develop a way to incorporate beauty into renovations but to create a low-cost casting method not restricted to just a few marquee buildings but applicable to structures throughout the urban landscape said kalantar the projects solution will draw from a wide range of skills including architectural and graphic design geometry manufacturing and mechanical and civil engineering this story by richard nira originally appeared in archone
1976,the texas a&m university college of engineering has awarded 56 engineering undergraduate and graduate students the business management certificate after completing an intensive two and a half week business management course the business management course (bmc) sponsored by halliburton is a joint effort between the college of engineering and the center for executive development in the mays business school since the programs inception almost 600 students have received their certificate the program provides students an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills associated with business to complement their technical engineering skillset it covers principles of accounting finance marketing supply chain management and communications through 80 hours of instruction in addition to instruction program participants are required to collaborate on team projects where they apply their newly gained skills to innovative ideas the program concludes with team project presentations to a panel composed of faculty and halliburton engineers we recognize so much value in pairing an engineering students technical knowledge with the business acumen received from the business management course said alicia villarreal university affairs - southern & gom region lead for halliburton not only does this program give engineering students the foundation of business that is essential to a corporate environment but it also puts the bmc students a step up above the rest by combining these two skillsets students who complete the course are awarded a certificate from the mays business schools center for executive development
1977,two texas a&m university directors were awarded a national science foundation (nsf) grant to develop the tamu-isite an nsf innovation corps (i-corps) site the half-million dollar grant will allow magda lagoudas executive director of industry and nonprofit partnerships and instructional associate professor and rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program and associate professor of practice to provide even more opportunities for undergraduate and graduate engineering students to pursue innovative ideas and explore their potential for commercialization i am very excited about this award because this demonstrates that all our work in engineering entrepreneurship in the past few years has been recognized by our peers and the national science foundation said lagoudas we have an active entrepreneurial ecosystem and this investment will significantly enhance our efforts the program targets undergraduate and graduate engineering students but students from other colleges may participate by collaborating with engineering students teams may work on projects for which they own the intellectual property or work on faculty-led projects in both cases participants will gain valuable experience in transitioning from an innovative idea to a successful product/application students from programs such as aggies invent and aggie_challenge are highly encouraged to consider participating in the program the tamu-isite award will support a total of 30 teams per year for five years each year the program will engage three cohorts of 10 teams per cohort teams will participate in a six-week immersive learning experience about customer discovery and they will have access to resources and travel funds to visit industry partners trade shows and competitions to explore the true commercial potential of their innovation at the end of the six-week program each team will complete interviews with industry members who make a decision about the future of the innovation a recommendation for go means the technology has significant potential for a successful product/application and a no-go signifies that while the proposed innovation addresses a problem the potential for successful commercialization is low go teams will be supported beyond the six-week program and encouraged to apply to the national seven-week nsf i-corps program the inaugural tamu-isite 10-team cohort will launch in july 2017 recruitment has already begun for interested teams this year students interested in tamu-isite can contact lagoudas at m-lagoudas@tamuedu or boehm at rodneyboehm@tamuedu for more information
1978,in march fortune magazine released a list of the 50 most powerful latinas of 2017 the list was compiled by the association of latino professionals for america and was based upon four criteria: the size and importance of the woman's business in the global economy the health and direction of the business the arc of the woman's careerresume and runway aheadand their social and cultural influence ranked at number 10 on the list is aleida rios '91 a graduate of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university rios serves as the vice president of operations for bp gulf of mexico in choosing rios for this honor fortune points out that she is responsible for the safe reliable and compliant operations on bps four offshore platforms in the deepwater gulf which produce 250 000 barrels of oil equivalent per day not only does rios oversee such a major component of bps petroleum operation she has made a significant impact on the culture at the company according to bps website rios strives to create a work culture where everyones contributions are heard and valued she makes it a priority to be visible and accessible to all of her colleagues and she is always willing to offer advice and counseling rios also serves on the leadership council for bps million women mentors program this program is aimed at mobilizing 1 million mentors male or female to inspire and instill confidence in girls and young women while empowering them to pursue careers in stem-based industries the significance of this honor was not lost on michael k young president of texas a&m in a statement young recognized the accomplishment: being one of only 50 latinas in the nation selected for this honor is certainly a testament to (rios) superior leadership strong character sharp intellect and tireless work ethic please know that i am truly proud and grateful to have (rios) as a member of our aggie family thank you for all you do to represent our university in such a superior light rios also currently serves on the advisory council of the of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university
1979,the student chapter of the institute of transportation engineers at texas a&m university (tamuite) recently took a field trip to houston transtar houston transtar is a unique partnership of representatives from the city of houston harris county metro and the texas department of transportation (txdot) who share resources and exchange information under one roof to keep motorists informed roadways clear and lives safe in the fourth most populated city in the united states thirteen student members of tamuite had the opportunity to learn about how the transportation system of houston is managed and sustained the visit began with a tour of transtars emergency operations center this is where representatives from each of the four partners that make up transtar along with representatives from the united states army the salvation army the harris county toll road authority the amateur radio operator volunteers the american red cross and area local governments come together to manage transportation emergencies during both man-made and natural disasters after touring the facility students met with mike pietrzyk the assistant director of transportation management systems in the txdot houston district pietrzyk and the students discussed txdots intelligent transportation systems particularly the ones on video analytics for automated incident detection the transtar asset management system smart work zones measuring and reporting travel time reliability dynamic ramp metering flood warning stations and more the trip was a valuable insight for the students into the reality of transportation engineering in practice tamuite seeks to promote the advancement of transportation engineering by fostering a closer relationship between students and the transportation profession tamuite hopes to promote the development of professional spirit and to identify and address common transportation interests among the student members for more information and events on tamuite visit tamutexiteorg
1980,scott herting a student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the 2017 national defense science and engineering graduate (ndseg) fellowship herting began his studies in the biomedical engineering department at texas a&m in the fall of 2015 where he now works in the biomedical device laboratory (bdl) of dr duncan maitland prior to joining a&m herting earned his bachelors degree from cal poly in san luis obispo california at cal poly he worked with dr kristen cardinal using in vitro systems to evaluate cardiovascular devices herting is now working on understanding how where and why materials developed in the bdl trigger regenerative healing when implanted in the body this includes fundamental cell material interactions that may lead to better medical devices the ndseg fellowship is highly competitive and awarded to us residents and nationals who intend to pursue a doctoral degree in one of 15 supported disciplines the ndseg website states that on average 10 percent of reviewed applicants are selected to receive awards each year the fellowship allows the student to attend the institution of their choice and is a four-year commitment in addition the fellowship covers the expenses of tuition all mandatory fees a monthly stipend and up to $1 000 a year in medical insurance i am very grateful to have been selected as a fellow as i know that they evaluate applicants on many different criteria said herting i think it was very important that my research proposal fit with some of the research goals at the department of defense (dod) research labs herting was interested in the fellowship because it would allow him the freedom to pursue projects that were important to him but guided by the research context of the bdl herting will have the opportunity to work in the department of defense laboratories and learn valuable new skills to share with the biomedical engineering department at texas a&m i am also excited to connect with other fellows and researchers at the department of defense facilities said herting i am looking forward to making connections and exploring potential internship or collaboration opportunities that may come from this fellowship
1981,dr bruce l tai assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has received the 2017 outstanding young manufacturing engineer award from the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) awards were presented at the sme-organized international manufacturing research conference last week the award is given to engineers age 35 or younger for their exceptional contributions and accomplishments in the manufacturing industry each year the award is named in honor of specific individuals who have made lifelong contributions to manufacturing and sme sme is one of the major societies for the manufacturing industry and academia it is a great honor to receive (the award) from sme as it recognizes my contributions to the manufacturing community in both research and teaching tai said we received two awards this year (tai and dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering) indicating a major growth and development of the advanced manufacturing research at texas a&m tai received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from the university of michigan in 2011 and his masters and bachelors degrees from the national taiwan university before joining texas a&m in 2015 tai was a research faculty member in mechanical engineering at the university of michigan his research interests broadly include additive manufacturing machining processes and surgical tool design and analysis and he has long-term collaborations with the automotive industry and medical doctors tai has produced more than 30 peer-reviewed journal papers and more than 30 conference publications among his research achievements are two best paper awards at the asme manufacturing science and engineering conference in 2012 and 2013 respectively
1982,dr valerie taylor senior associate dean for academic affairs and the royce e wisenbaker professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was awarded a national science foundation (nsf) grant for her efforts in establishing a new research experiences for teachers (ret) site the ret site is called secure (secure teacher education on cybersecurity by utilizing research experiences) and is focused on cybersecurity research at texas a&m this grant is a collaboration with the college of education and human development at texas a&m high school teachers and community college faculty members who teach in the areas of science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) will be invited to apply for the six-week summer program the grant provides funding to support 10 teachers each year for three years the secure program provides an opportunity for the high school teachers and community college faculty to be engaged in cutting-edge cybersecurity research with one of the following faculty: dr guofei gu dr andreas klappenecker and dr philip richey all with the computer science and engineering department and dr narashimha reddy in the electrical and computer engineering department the teachers are required to incorporate the research experience and knowledge into their classrooms the goal is to significantly enhance and improve stem education in the school districts and two-year institutions near texas a&m research topics will span software network security cryptography and malware which are all topics of current interest and importance to society the co-principal investigators for the grant include shelly tornquist director of the pk-12 engineering education outreach at texas a&m; dr cindy lawley assistant vice chancellor for academic and outreach programs; dr philip ritchey instructional assistant professor of computer science and engineering; and dr trina davis associate professor of teaching learning and culture
1983,dr yue kuo professor and holder of the dow chemical professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed chair professor of the department of photonics at national chiao tung university (nctu) in taiwan nctu is one of the most selective universities in taiwan and according to the academic ranking of world universities it is one the top 100 engineering schools in the world further the nature index which compiles information from research articles published in an independently selected group of 68 high-quality science journals to provide a close to real-time proxy for high-quality research output at the institutional national and regional level lists nctu as the fourth most prolific research institution in taiwan this marks the fourth such honorary title for kuo who also holds appointments at shanghai jiaotong university xian jiaotong university and nankai university three of the top 10 universities in china the appointment is just the latest in a long line of achievements for kuo earlier kuo was awarded a jsps (japan society for the promotion of science) fellowship in 2016 kuo was elected fellow of the american vacuum society in february of 2015 he was awarded the gordon e moore medal for outstanding achievement in solid state science and technology by the electrochemical society (ecs) kuo is also serving as the senior vice president of ecs in addition to a large number of awards and honors from professional societies industry ad texas a&m many of his papers have been most downloaded highlighted and selected to cover page articles such as the top 5 most-cited solid state articles in the journal ecs transactions he has edited over 35 journals and proceedings volumes published by ecs mrs ieee avs iop jsap etc he is the founder of the world longest continuously held thin film transistor symposium series for 26 years
1984,a team of six students from the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university took home second place in the student design competition from the 11th annual water environment association of texas (weat) texas water conference the design competition is intended to promote real-world design experience for students interested in pursuing an education or career in water or wastewater engineering and sciences the team was made up of graduate students suparna mukhopadhyay oluwabukola esho swapnil dusane prachi kala dhruv deshmukh and niyati jogani the team began working on this project in october 2016 the prompt for this years competition was to design an upgrade for the upper trinity regional water districts riverbend water reclamation plant located in denton county in aubrey texas the teams designed plans to upgrade the existing plant from two to four million gallons per day of average annual daily flow while ensuring that the outflow meets the regulatory requirements teams from six schools competed the team from texas a&m presented a comprehensive report and presentation that proposed changes to the wastewater treatment plant necessary for expansion with consideration to hydraulic impacts operational and maintenance cost and plant functionality throughout the upgrading process it was a great learning experience said mukhopadhyay we got a chance to apply our classroom learning in a practical setting and understand what expectations the industry has from students like us
1985,children from a local elementary school were engineers for the day with the help of some students in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university katie mcneal senior; samantha wilson junior; and bilal abada doctoral student visited southwood valley elementary school in college station to lead an experiment for leah gibsons fourth grade students the students work in the aerosols and water treatment lab overseen by dr shankar chellam professor in the department they made the trip to demonstrate water treatment concepts to nearly 40 elementary students the engineering students made a presentation about coagulation and filtration processes to purify drinking water and took the lead in assisting the children perform hands-on testing of alum coagulation and filtration of dirty pond water it was a great experience to be able to teach the students about water treatment in a fun hands-on way said mcneal i was so proud when the students told us everything that they had learned the children used water bottles to shake up the mixture (ie coagulation and flocculation) and then let it settle (ie sedimentation) they then constructed a filter system out of two-liter soda bottles coffee filters and rubber bands and filled it with activated carbon pebbles and sand finally they poured the coagulated water into the filter system and watched it come out through the other end as clear clean water they were able to compare the results with the control experiment where no chemicals were added and see how effective coagulation sedimentation and filtration can be in cleaning water i loved watching the kids faces as the water ran through the filter and came out much cleaner said wilson my favorite part was getting to answer all the questions they had the visit was sponsored through chellams national science foundation grant which covers the students time materials supplies and procedures it covers outreach activities to local schools to encourage stem career pursuits
1986,the texas a&m chapter of the student engineers council (sec) recently elected nasan tsengeg an undergraduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university as its president for 2017-18 the sec holds massive events throughout the year and hosts the nations largest student-run career fair every semester each fair is two days long and is attended by almost 400 recruiters wanting to hire more than 10 000 aggie engineering students tsengeg a member of the class of 2018 joined the sec during his sophomore year and was able to see firsthand how the sec functions from the inside now that he has been elected president he has a strong vision for the upcoming year and wants to make sure aggie engineering students and their concerns are heard this year i want to try to focus inwardly a little more on the council i want them to feel inspired to be a part of the sec said tsengeg i think that by checking on the experience that everyone has and making sure they are taken care of first we can impact the community and the student body more in addition to the sec tsengeg has been actively involved in undergraduate research since his freshman year tsengeg worked in the nuclear and mechanical engineering thermo-hydraulics lab led by dr yassin hasan department head and sallie & don davis '61 professor in the department of nuclear engineering initially he assisted researchers and learned how to function in a lab setting however in his sophomore year he worked directly with a graduate student researcher and conducted research during his junior year he attended the 2016 american nuclear society conference and presented his individual research he was one of the only two undergraduate presenters at the conference i have learned so many things outside of the classroom said tsengeg the things that research and internships can teach you supplement your education in a way that a class never can this summer tsengeg will intern with westinghouse electric company in pittsburgh pennsylvania half of the active reactors in the world use westinghouse designs said tsengeg i will be working on safety sensors for the reactors after graduation tsengeg plans to work in the renewable energy industry this passion for renewable energy drove him to overcome the challenges that come with studying engineering electrical engineering is without a doubt one of the best majors at texas a&m he said in the time that we are living in every company needs electrical engineers what once was mechanical is now becoming electrical and it is amazing to be a part of that contributing author: haley posey
1987,dr calvin woods professor emeritus in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university passed away may 30 he earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering at the university of houston in may 1955 and began working as a practicing civil engineer in 1957 he began his teaching career at the colorado school of mines and two years later continued teaching at lamar state college of technology in may 1961 he received a master of science degree in civil engineering at the university of colorado and in january 1964 a doctorate in civil engineering at the university of texas at austin woods served as professor and department head of the civil engineering department at the university of texas at el paso from 1964-72 when he accepted a position at texas a&m he served as a professor in the civil engineering department at texas a&m from 1972 until he retired in 2000 at that time he was granted emeritus status and continued to teach undergraduate and graduate courses until his final retirement in 2014 woods loved teaching he loved being in the company of other teachers and working with the staff who supported them but most of all he loved students he never lost his passion for teaching however in the late 1980s he found a second vocation about which he became equally passionate he became a part-time lay pastor in the united methodist church and served in that capacity for more than 25 years most of that time he served as the pastor of the wheelock methodist church but he was also appointed an interim pastor to churches in lott chilton millican and marquez in the late 1970s after becoming a licensed pilot and instructor he made the first of several trips to africa to serve as a missionary pilot for the presbyterian church as part of that mission he flew into remote african villages to pick up villagers who were ill and transported them to hospitals during one of his last trips to africa he became associated with the wings of caring program of the united methodist church he later arranged for an african man from zaire to come to hearne texas where he trained the man as a pilot and instructor so that he could return to the democratic republic of congo (formerly zaire) and train other africans in order to perpetuate this valuable program calvin woods | august 2 1929 - may 30 2017
1988,two student groups in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university proposed two very different but equally inventive projects for their microcomputer systems course this spring the first group comprised of computer engineering seniors sebastian escalante miguel nava austin nelson and samantha ray created an led display board with the capability to translate what an amazon echo dot hears into morse code the idea behind the project was to create a system that listens to the ambient sound in the room and subsequently filters and identifies what the dot heard this was done by using sound filtering to isolate the significant sounds from miscellaneous noise the device has two major modes for sound identification the first mode focuses on identifying tones in music and the second focuses on identifying the source of sounds the software will be able to identify common household sounds such as the slamming of a door knocking footsteps or a dog barking and display the name of the source on the led light board additionally the device will be able to distinguish between the voices of different individuals and remember their names this sound analysis system has the potential to be used for household security and assisting hard-of-hearing individuals another student group comprised of computer engineering juniors briana martinez clayton joseck jordan james and joshua duncan created a system that allows users to play old video games such as super mario bros using an xbox kinect it is a self-contained system with a monitor so players are able to simply just plug it in and play the kinect takes in the raw input from the user using the windows software development kit (sdk) to track both elbows and wrists and their position relative to your head and waist duncan said this helps control left and right and up and down controls martinez said that one of the biggest challenges they faced while creating this system was that most open-sourced software does not have the skeleton tracking capability thats needed for a movement tracking application such as a kinect being able to overcome this their system allows the user to relive their favorite childhood games with the ease and excitement found in current technology while each project presented unique challenges both teams finished the semester strong and learned a lot throughout the process dr jyh-charn (steve) liu professor was the instructor for the course
1989,"when he began working on an algorithm-based monitoring system to help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) dr farzan sasangohar didnt imagine hed wind up talking about the technology with the vice president of the united states sasangohar assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was just looking for ways to get his research to people who could benefit from it which led to a partnership with project hero a nonprofit organization that helps veterans and first responders affected by injury post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury to achieve rehabilitation recovery and resilience in their daily lives their partnership called hero trak is a monitoring system that can help veterans with ptsd they debuted hero trak in april at the unitedhealthcare texas challenge and it is being tested again this week at the unitedhealthcare memorial challenge event which began in washington dc at the vice presidents residence sasangohar showed hero trak to vice president mike pence and his wife karen as well as veterans affairs secretary david j shulkin and dr poonam alaigh the acting undersecretary of health for the department of veterans affairs the vice president second lady and secretary shulkin interacted with the system and were enthusiastic about the potential for the technology to help veterans and expressed support to facilitate future research in this domain "" sasangohar said at the unitedhealthcare texas challenge last month more than 100 wounded veterans and supporters biked more than 500 miles from san antonio to waco to houston thirty-one of them were wearing monitoring devices and after the event the data from those devices were collected by sasangohar the feedback from the event was overwhelmingly positive ""the work done by texas a&m under the leadership of dr sasangohar has helped create a truly elegant and effective solution to the acute problem faced by our veterans and first responders of dealing with ptsd in their daily lives "" said john wordin founder and president of project hero ""our riders who have used the hero trak system see it as more than just an accurate and convenient way to track identify and deal with ptsd triggers -- which all of them do -- they also see it as an important step in the use of technology to address the needs of millions of patients like themselves for improved outcomes at lower costs which is the core mission of project hero"" theres only so much you can do in the lab space sasangohar said at some point you have to take these devices out and do naturalistic studies this was an opportunity because we had a group of veterans and first responders with ptsd who are actually motivated to participate and theyre performing some sort of physical activity currently interaction with patients suffering from ptsd is mostly limited to in-person sessions however sasangohars hope is that down the road technology will be able to identify ptsd issues the devices themselves are off-the-shelf motorola 360 smart watches but its in the analysis where sasangohars work takes place using advanced algorithms the technology identifies when someone might be having the arousal symptoms of ptsd the difficult part is deciphering symptoms of ptsd like an elevated heart rate from regular physical activity thats where the partnership with project hero is already showing tremendous value we have access to their biometric data to be able to validate our algorithms to see if they can pick up those activities sasangohar said and these are people that are motivated to help; we can ask them to self-report the ptsd triggers they experience they built the app so that it not only collected data but also worked as a self-reporting device for example the riders could tap the screen to indicate whether or not they were experiencing a ptsd trigger one goal of the research is to be able to intervene during a ptsd occurrence the wearer might be guided through some breathing exercises for example or if the system detects a ptsd episode is happening while the wearer is asleep the device could gently wake them up by vibrating the amount of ptsd triggers that happen during sleep is unbelievable sasangohar said the heart rate can rapidly increase and can stay there for 20 minutes so theyre having these long nightmares; we have objective data showing that and these are very intense nightmares if you wake up suddenly startled you can be in that zone for a few minutes where you dont fully know where you are what if we could intervene and gently wake someone up thats experiencing that sasangohar said he was also overwhelmed with the feedback he received from the participants they all came to me when i was collecting the data and it seems like they appreciate this technology he said they had so much positive feedback and offered to help more and participate in future interviews or studies some were very emotional saying thank you for helping us it was emotional seeing people pick up these devices and appreciate what were trying to do with this technology sasangohars research extends beyond ptsd applications currently his research group is testing smart monitoring and intervention applications in surgery nursing and other fields he has received a texas a&m isite grant to participate in the summer 2017 texas a&m cohort funded by the national science foundation the program explores the potential commercial potential for his tool remote monitoring and intervention for ptsd patients his isite team includes industrial and systems engineering doctoral students kunal khanade and carolina rodriguez-paras"
1990,the national security agency (nsa) along with the department of homeland security (dhs) has designated texas a&m university as a national center of academic excellence (cae) in cyber operations making it one of only a handful of academic institutions in the united states to hold three nsa distinctions texas a&m is already designated as cae – four-year baccalaureate/graduate education (cae-cde) and cae – research (cae-r) the newest designation certificates will be presented during an awards ceremony at the 9th annual national cyber summit on june 7 dr daniel ragsdale director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations texas a&m cybersecurity center and professor of practice in the department of computer science and engineering was pleased with the new designation were thrilled and wholly gratified that the nsa after a very thorough and comprehensive review of our programs has determined that we should join the select group of institutions designated as national centers of academic excellence in cyber operations he said this designation is a true testimony to the extraordinary efforts of a&ms world-class faculty over many years to ensure that we are engaging in high-impact cybersecurity and cyber operations research and education also it underscores (the fact that) these faculty have helped our highly talented students to acquire important and increasingly valuable knowledge skills and abilities which will serve them well throughout their professional lives nsa experts visited in march as part of the second round of evaluations in the process to obtain the designation the nsa representatives were given presentations by faculty members in the computer science and engineering department outlining the courses that texas a&m offers that include cybersecurity-related material after the visit nsa representatives said texas a&m had demonstrated the capability to provide undergraduate level curricula that satisfied the necessary academic requirements the cybersecurity area presents students with technical challenges that require the understanding of many computing disciplines said dr dilma da silva department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii in the computer science and engineering department this designation as a center of excellence recognizes the strengths of our curriculum in both breadth and depth ragsdale said beyond bolstering texas a&ms increasingly positive reputation in cybersecurity which includes the appointment of dr steve cambone as the associate vice chancellor for cybersecurity initiatives the impact of the new designation should be very significant both in education and research simply stated these designations reinforce our message that a&m with its amazing faculty and through our many cybersecurity initiatives is making outsized contributions to social good ragsdale said this new designation along with our previously awarded nsa/dhs accolades will provide a&m faculty the opportunity to pursue sponsored research that would otherwise not have been available to them ragsdale said in the past six months alone texas a&m faculty members have been awarded three grants they were eligible for only because of the cae designations as an institution this shows texas a&m is moving to the very forefront of cybersecurity research and education as a&m looks to attract prospective students prospective faculty and staff and potential collaborators from the public and private sectors we now have even greater justification for making this compelling assertion ‘if you wish to attend (or teach or conduct research at) a premier research institution with a nationally recognized cybersecurity program you must consider texas a&m ragsdale said
1991,two undergraduate students in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university recently collaborated on a project to develop an autonomous terrain mapping system for texas a&m agrilife extension service agents this opportunity grew out of a project that dr bruce gooch associate professor in the department is currently working on dr june wolfe iii agrilife extension associate research scientist asked gooch if he would be interested in developing a system to perform autonomous terrain mapping using an unmanned aerial vehicle and lidar-based range finding sensors for his contacts at fort hood who currently do not have any viable method for consistently mapping the training grounds wolfe manages and directs the water science laboratory at texas a&m agrilife researchs blackland research and extension center in temple texas gooch agreed to help and immediately proposed the project to students seth burchell and nick bain burchell was excited by the novelty of the system and jumped at the chance to join the project for his senior design project last year bain developed an autonomous uav cellphone/wi-fi signal diagnostic system and was ecstatic to work on another uav system fort hoods vehicular maneuver activities often disturb training area vegetation and soils bain said this can lead to bare ground and ruts which are susceptible to erosion during storm water runoff events these runoff events cause the formation of small channels which can eventually develop into large connected gully systems traditional mapping of these systems requires large amounts of labor and time because of this fort hoods gully system has only been mapped once however since these systems change after each runoff event it is crucial they be mapped at regular intervals these short time series maps would allow decision makers to assess the gully system conditions the effectiveness of mitigation efforts and prioritize future applications of limited resources the ultimate goal of the project is to develop a low-cost system that can rapidly and efficiently map terrain as stated in the project proposal traditional and commercial methods simply arent viable for an area as large as fort hood the researchers proposed method should overcome the size barrier which would enable terrain mapping for large land masses – something that has previously been avoided due to the limitations of the currently available commercial methods were excited to work on a project that will yield tangible results and a viable commercial product bain said in addition to this we will be guided through the process of taking our system to market which to be honest neither of us have any experience doing it will be a tremendous learning experience because of their work on this project burchell and bain were recently accepted into the 2017 summer texas a&m isite cohort
1992,dr guofei gu associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university led a team of researchers from five universities on a collaborative project involving groundbreaking security management that has been awarded a $3 million grant the grant is jointly presented from the national science foundation (nsf) and the software company vmware this project will make significant contributions to how enterprise cloud and data-center networks are securely built and managed which will transform the landscape of cybersecurity many critical systems currently in use are not developed with an initial security consideration many times security is added into a system only when a threat is anticipated; this makes it difficult to secure current systems against potential cyberattacks this project proposes a new security system software-defined infrastructure security os (s2os) which encapsulates security capabilities at both the host operating system (os) and network levels and will offer an easy to use programmable security model for protecting applications from cyberthreats this project aims to break the mold of cybersecurity and find innovative ways to protect the entire infrastructure of a network this project will build the ‘holy grail for enterprise cloud and data-center security management gu said cloud computing is now an essential part of our national cyberinfrastructure and the proposed work will lower the total cost of ownership for clouds further unlocking economic and environmental benefits as well as improving the security of todays clouds the other team members of this project include dr don porter assistant professor at the university of north carolina at chapel hill; dr zhiqiang lin associate professor at the university of texas at dallas; dr eric keller assistant professor at the university of colorado boulder; and dr hongxin hu assistant professor from clemson university this grant is part of a three-year effort the goal of the partnership between nsf and vmware is to foster novel transformative multidisciplinary research that spans systems networking and security with the aim of exploring and creating groundbreaking new approaches to security based on the concept of software defined infrastructure
1993,a group of former students has established an endowed scholarship to honor jerry bradshaw 60 for his contribution to teaching and mentoring of countless undergraduate students in the chemical engineering department bradshaw served on the faculty for 23 years and retired in 2012 prior to joining the chemical engineering department he worked for the union carbide corporation for more than 27 years before retiring in 1987 bradshaw a registered professional engineer in texas has been the recipient of countless awards and honors during his teaching career he was the recipient of both college-level and university-level distinguished teaching awards as well as several teaching awards from the student chapter of the american institute of chemical engineers he is co-class agent in the association of former students for the 1960 a&m class and is a member of the texas aggie corps of cadets association the jerry bradshaw 60 endowed scholarship was given by friends and former students of bradshaw from the class of 96 members of the donor group are stephanie hertzog 96 a member of the departments advisory council; michael piana 96; ivan goldwasser 96; jose-angel ontiveros 96; thomas clingenpeel 96; and kristopher ali 96 the recipients of the scholarship will be selected by a committee and must be a chemical engineering major
1994,dr bryan deuermeyer emeritus professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university passed away july 7 2017 deuermeyer served as assistant professor at krannert graduate school of business for purdue university for two years before joining the industrial engineering in 1978 where he served as an associate then full professor for a total of 28 years his research interests were in inventory optimization software development and simulation he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in production optimization and stochastic processes during his time as a researcher deuermeyer published approximately 30 scholarly research articles in journals such as management science the journal of applied probability and the informs journal on computing and iie transactions his research was funded by a variety of sources including the national science foundation sematech the department of energy and industry beyond his research and teaching deuermeyer made significant service contributions to the department he was the area director for operations research director of the undergraduate programs and interim department head from 2000-02 he received awards including the tenneco meritorious teaching award the neely/dow faculty fellow the sematech inventor recognition award for software development and multiple outstanding publication awards deuermeyer received his bachelors degree in chemistry from the university of minnesota and his masters and phd in industrial engineering from northwestern university
1995,dr alexei poludnenko associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering along with a team of collaborators from the university of colorado and stanford university received the 2017 distinguished paper award in the turbulent flames colloquium from the combustion institute at the 36th international symposium on combustion the paper the cross-scale physical-space transfer of kinetic energy in turbulent premixed flames was co-authored by jeffrey obrien collin az towery peter e hamlington matthias ihme and javier urzay according to the announcement issued by the the combustion institute the paper expands the fundamental understanding of how chemical energy is released by combustion chemical reactions and is then transferred into kinetic energy of a gaseous environment the results of the paper will be used to improve physical subgrid-scale models of turbulent transport and turbulent combustion in numerical simulations the team hopes to use their research to advance the ability to control flame ignition and propagation in combustors for hypersonic aircrafts where flame stabilization is an issue the team began their research at stanford university in 2014 during the center for turbulence research summer program and submitted their paper in 2016 for the 36th symposium approximately 1 300 papers were submitted to the symposium categorized into 14 combustion science colloquia one paper in each colloquium is selected as a distinguished paper the 14 distinguished papers now have the chance of winning the silver combustion medal to be awarded during the 37th symposium in dublin ireland
1996,dr kumar ankit formerly a postdoctoral research associate in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed assistant professor at arizona state university as a postdoctoral researcher in the department of materials science and engineering the day-to-day interactions with faculty members and other postdoctoral researchers enhanced my knowledge-base in optimization of functional properties of materials and other fields beyond my area of expertise ankit said this resulted in the cross-fertilization of ideas which in the future will promote more scientific collaborations ankit received an integrated bachelor of technology and master's of technology degree in metallurgical engineering from the indian institute of technology and earned his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the karlsruhe institute of technology in germany graduating summa cum laude my research is focused on computational materials science with an emphasis on phase-field modeling ankit said i chose to accept the offer from asu because my research activities align nicely with their vision of 4-d materials science ankit received the prestigious early career investigator award from the german research foundation in 2016 enabling him to pursue research in the area of microstructural pattern formation in multicomponent steels he joined the research group of dr michael demkowicz in the summer of 2016 where he worked on phase field simulations of metal composites synthesized by physical vapor deposition a major area of interest for us is to enable new ways of predicting and directing how such composites form during processing demkowicz said ankit implemented large-scale fully 3-d simulations of microstructure evolution during physical vapor deposition and provided quantitative predictions that have since been validated experimentally ankit will begin his appointment at arizona state university in the fall of 2017
1997,there are many methods and algorithms currently available that can secure data and while they may seem practically unbreakable one can never be too sure about cybersecurity dr laszlo kish professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is founder of the idea of unconditional security using electronics and thermal noise he studies the physics of electronics and computing unconditional security or ‘post-quantum cryptography is possible when a potential hacker cant access any encrypted information despite having access to a quantum computer or even an infinitely fast computer because the information is inaccessible in the signal said kish the hacker can measure and record everything but the information does not existonly random noise kish says software-based systems can offer only conditional security unconditional security requires the utilization of a relevant law of physics with the proper hardware the kirchhoff-law-johnson-noise at its core the kirchhoff-law-johnson-noise (kljn) secure key exchange system is based on a few electronic componentsidentical resistor pairs switches and interconnecting wiresthat guarantee an unconditionally secure key exchange the system is a sophisticated low-cost and high-efficiency statistical physical alternative to quantum key distribution systems kljn is the only unconditionally secure system that can be integrated on a chip and can be put into a credit card recently kish published the kish cypher a book about the system and its history interestingly randomness or the ‘noise behind the quantum measurements is what makes data unconditionally secure said kish generally the equipment for quantum communications is expensive the kljn system makes it about 100 to 1 000 times cheaper pushing the boundaries although he is a physicist by training kish has been studying the physical laws and rules governing the field of electronic devices communications and computing he leads the fluctuation and noise exploitation laboratory at texas a&m and is interested in unidentified and unsolved problems and technical applications of physical random noises he is also the founder of noise-based logic fluctuation-enhanced sensing and several other noise-based theories kish serves as an honorary editor for fluctuation and noise letters an interdisciplinary scientific journal he established in 2001 the publication includes topics such as random processes in physical biological and technological systems he has honorary doctorates from uppsala university in sweden (2011) and the university of szeged in hungary (2012) and is a distinguished visiting professor at hunan university in china (2015-2018) kish is currently collaborating with international researchers on various research problems one of the problems focuses on the noise in supercapacitors an emerging topic in electrical device technology a supercapacitor has voltage and current noises that carry information about its lifetime and the quality of the technology gdansk connections kish with gdansk university of technology rector dr jacek namiesnik dr janusz smulko and dr jerzy wtorek kish is collaborating with dr janusz smulko vice president for research and department head of metrology and electronics at gdansk university of technology in poland on his supercapacitors research in fact his association with smulko goes way back in 2003 smulkothen a young faculty member at gdanskvisited the texas a&m campus for six months and studied fluctuation-enhanced gas sensing with thin films and commercial gas sensors in kishs lab smulko will chair the 2018 meeting of the unsolved problems of noise international conference series that kish launched in 1996 the conference provides a forum for researchers working on different fields of understanding noise and fluctuations and their technical applications last month kish received a medal from gdansk university of technology for his contributions in the field of noise and collaboration with the polish universitys faculty and students learn more about kishs research by visiting his google scholar page
1998,one of the passions of dr patrick shamberger is making a difference in the learning process of 21st century engineering students within 18 months shamberger led a team of faculty members that established a new undergraduate minor and developed curriculum for a new bachelor of science degree he also created a video lecture series of 40 videos on youtube for an introductory materials science and engineering class served on the texas a&m university college of engineering undergraduate programs council and developed three new undergraduate courses shambergers dedication to working with students as a mentor and advisor strengthens the young department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m the american society for engineering education (asee) recognized his passion for utilizing tools to help educate this generation by awarding him the new materials educator award from the materials division i think this recognition is speaking to the fact that we're trying things and sharing them with our community said shamberger assistant professor and undergraduate degree program director in the department specifically i tried to point to one or two approaches that really helped to impact students and to increase their involvement in the classroom according to shamberger a shift in the engineering education community is challenging educators to think of new and effective ways to reach their students and that for close to 10 years faculty in higher education have sought ways to engage students more in the classroom these are things that we are learning a lot from the physics and chemistry communities because they have been struggling with the same problems shamberger said many engineering students begin their higher education career in giant first-year physics and chemistry classes where it is easy to tune out the instructor at the front of a large lecture hall this chief experience is what educators like shamberger are working to change in his own classes shamberger encourages students to ask questions and challenge the theories and materials they are being taught this creates a unique learning environment for not only the students but for shamberger as well in his role as a researcher sometimes students will ask questions that will make you stop and think and question the things that you might know or understand about something he said even the most naïve unseasoned sophomore coming into our class can sometimes bring out the questions that require you to think about something a little bit differently shamberger began his career at the air force research national laboratory because he had a genuine interest in the research side of things he has since learned the importance of educating and impacting the next generations quality researchers going into this you are not sure what components you will enjoy more and really thats one of the things that i very much enjoyed after i came here shamberger said we perform research because we want to learn new things but i would say that it is equally exciting and potentially even more impactful sharing that experience with a new generation of students and researchers shambergers youtube channel has had tremendous success educating students and curious youtube surfers domestically and internationally since he began posting in 2014 today he has over 5 000 followers with 70 percent of his views coming from international countries he has had more than 670 000 hits with viewers watching for more than 23 million minutes in addition to the asee new materials educator award this commitment to education research has also resulted in being a member of the team that earned two national science foundation large educational program awards
1999,its not unheard of for new college students to feel like they are walking alone into an unfamiliar environment with an overwhelming pressure to succeed engineering student hunter hakala was no stranger to these feelings as he entered his freshman year but thanks to his experiences with texas a&m universitys engineering academy at blinn-bryan and the zachry leadership program he thrived in a strong community of like-minded individuals i saw the engineering academy as an opportunity to strive and push myself to be fully accepted into (texas a&m)-college stations engineering program hakala said the people that i was part of the program with have become some of the best friends ive made here at a&m due to all of our shared experiences the engineering academies program allows students another pathway to texas a&m while allowing them to save money and take the same general engineering classes being taught at texas a&m-college station students are co-enrolled in one of six locations as well as texas a&m making them a texas a&m engineering student students have the opportunity to participate in the engineering academies program at austin community college blinn-brenham blinn-bryan el centro college and richland college houston community college and texas southmost college when hakala applied to texas a&m in high school he wasnt fully accepted into the engineering program at texas a&m-college station but was offered the opportunity to attend the engineering academy at blinn-bryan while hakala was initially disappointed about not being able to take all his courses at texas a&m as a freshman after looking back he believes that his time in the engineering academies program put him in the right mind to push himself to perform better than he otherwise would have the co-enrollment at both the engineering academy at blinn-bryan and the texas a&m main campus allowed him the same advantages available to main campus students as well as the community and support of the academies program i think that some people associate this program with students who are not good enough to be fully admitted into a&ms engineering program hakala said i can see that perception but for me it allowed me to be part of a community of like-minded and dedicated people who were constantly pushing themselves i think that it made me strive to become the best that i could be in order to be fully accepted into engineering following his transition to main campus hakala further represented the quality of students from the engineering academies program with his acceptance into the zachry leadership program a five-semester program built through the partnership of texas a&m and zachry group to help develop leaders in engineering and teach participants business and leadership skills in addition to their engineering education i wanted to be around other people who had the same ideals and goals as me with that drive to be a leader hakala said what i love about the program is the practical learning style: you arent just sitting in a class instead you are involved in an engaging environment where everyone is paying attention learning in a unique way and enjoying what is being taught hakalas interest in the zachry leadership program has continued because of the fusion of engineering and business principles but also the interpersonal relationships he has developed within the program and what he has been able to learn about himself as a leader what some people seem to think about the zachry leadership program is that it only selects students with the best gpa and that is not the case hakala said the selection is based on each persons individual characteristics and personality as well as academic achievement every person in the program is their own true self and thats what makes the zachry leadership program so amazing hakalas biggest piece of advice to other students is that whether a student is considering the engineering academies joining the zachry leadership program or some other opportunity to put themselves out there i completely believe that these programs are beneficial hakala said ive gained a lot of great opportunities from both of these programs and i got all of that by just taking advantage of the opportunity
2000,azz inc has established two fellowships in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university the azz inc faculty fellowship in materials science and engineering and the azz inc graduate fellowship in materials science and engineering will provide funds to support faculty and students in the department as a new department these fellowships will have a great impact in our growth and reputation said dr ibrahim karaman head of the materials science and engineering department we are extremely thankful to azz inc for having faith in the new department and supporting our faculty and students the azz inc graduate fellowship will be used to recruit the best and the brightest domestic students in the country to the department while the azz inc faculty fellowship will help our young faculty to develop into superstars of research which will positively impact the society azz inc is a global provider in galvanizing welding solutions specialty electrical equipment and highly engineered services in 1956 azz inc began to design and distribute metal to oil fields it has grown into a worldwide expert in infrastructure for companies and industries azz inc serves the global market of power generation transmission and distribution and the general industrial markets it also provides hot dip galvanizing services to the steel fabrication market in the united states and canada azz inc is led by thomas ferguson who earned his bachelor of science degree in industrial distribution in 1978 from texas a&m he is a past recipient of the college of engineerings outstanding alumni award and has supported numerous endeavors within the texas a&m foundation and the association of former students azz is honored to support the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university with the establishment of these two fellowships rapidly changing markets demand a dynamic and skilled workforce to solve complex challenges said ferguson it is imperative therefore that we support science technology and engineering research and education within our country the strength of our democracy is measured by its commitment to education and the success of its people the fellowships will serve as a catalyst to attract and retain top talent at texas a&m and its recipients will ultimately have a positive impact on our society the department of materials science and engineering is jointly operated by the college of science and the college of engineering established in 2013 the department offers master of science master of engineering and doctoral degrees and has more than 140 graduate students it is a multidisciplinary department with students working on a wide range of materials-related interdisciplinary research projects faculty members come from several different disciplines including aerospace engineering biomedical engineering chemical engineering chemistry electrical engineering mechanical engineering nuclear engineering and physics recipients of these two fellowships will be chosen by members of the faculty designated by the department head
2001,many students partake in summer internships study abroad trips or various other experiential learning opportunities offered by the texas a&m university college of engineering an interdisciplinary team of students have combined nearly all of the categories of opportunities into one experience: conquering the shell ocean discover xprize challenge in just 36 months the challenge was announced teams created projects crafted and finalists selected the student team aggie ocean discovery is one of 21 teams headed to the semi final competition in september their task: map the ocean floor sophia esteban is one of the most recent members to have joined the xprize team after she heard dr sharath girimaji ocean engineering department head and holder of the wofford cain chair ii speak of the daunting task the team was attempting to conquer now she serves as the payload assembly lead for the team this summer i have learned that it is important to put yourself out there said esteban a sophomore engineering student at first i hesitated to apply for the team because i thought a team working on a $7 million competition would not want a freshman with absolutely no skills to join i applied despite this and i am so glad i did if i hadnt i never would have gotten this experience of a lifetime esteban along with five other students moved to houston texas to become interns with deep down inc the company is a major sponsor of the team of students who have decided to take on and conquer the proposed xprize challenge teams of industry leaders and company groups from around the world are participating in the quest to design and successfully operate an automated underwater vehicle (auv) that will fully explore and map the ocean floor and uncover the planets greatest wonder and resource for the benefit of humanity this project has shown me an insight to what my future holds and im liking the view the things im learning surprise me every day and i believe this experience is a huge step forward in the right direction for me esteban said ocean engineering hooked me the six students work with and are mentored by engineers at deep down inc to effectively design and create the auv marlin to perform capabilities outlined by the competition these capabilities include producing a high-resolution bathymetric map images of a specified object and identifying archeological biological or geological features of an area all within a limited number of hours they also have an opportunity to compete for a $1 million bonus prize sponsored by the national oceanic and atmospheric administration requiring the technology track a biological or chemical signal to its source ive always wanted to be the one to map the bottom of the ocean and create some kind of google ocean view like google maps so when i heard there was already a team at the school i was in doing exactly what i want to do i had to jump on it as soon as i could esteban said even if it meant i would just go to every meeting and simply listen i just had to be a part of it dylan blakeslee a senior ocean engineering student expressed interest in the competition after seeing a youtube video and pitching the idea to girimaji and his professors he now serves as the project manager of the aggie ocean discovery team this summer blakeslee is continuing to build upon the relationships he has developed with companies from around the world i meet with executives directors and project managers to discuss our long-term vision for the project and share our passion for improving the world blakeslee said we have been fortunate enough to form intimate relationships with major firms around the world that have played an intricate role in designing and manufacturing our vehicle nabil moosajee a senior computer science and engineering student was one of the first people to join the team in march 2016 he serves as the hardware lead and is responsible for selecting the best system components and making them perform as expected additionally he works with the software and microcontroller of the auv this role is vital because it is the brain of marlin and serves as the central command center for all processes on the vehicle there is a very big learning curve for almost all of the components we are using so i work with the engineers of deep down inc who have been very helpful providing training moosajee said because of their training a month long learning curve becomes a week or less lance lane a junior ocean engineering student transferred to texas a&m in spring 2017 the teams efforts quickly piqued his interest and he is now working as the propulsion team lead this experience will solidify the concepts covered by his professors in class by applying the knowledge in a real-world setting this summer i have learned to work efficiently and the importance of how you carry yourself in all situations from mingling with ceos to getting down and dirty with the technicians on the shop floor lane said exploring the ocean is my dream and i want to go into the auv/rov industry when i graduate so making some contacts now and building this auv with our own hands has given me a huge advantage over other applicants when i graduate and begin applying for jobs garrett malatek a sophomore mechanical engineering student works as a member of the structures and propulsion design teams his daily activities range from designing and manufacturing systems for marlin to meeting with subsea vendors and even ceos seeing system designs that i have worked on for months come together and work as intended is extremely satisfying malatek said i am exceptionally proud of this team and what we have accomplished thus far and look forward to continuing to improve the vehicle as we progress in the competition malatek has witnessed the team make great strides in the process of building the necessary technologies since he joined nearly a year ago the scope and complexity of the challenge initially drew him to the team coupled with the technical complexity of mapping the ocean floor which piqued his interest having the opportunity to work on a project of this scale and complexity has certainly made me a better engineer malatek said it has given me the chance to apply everything i have learned in class to the real world while also teaching me many new skills as a result of this project and team i have an ongoing interest in the subsea robotics industry and could absolutely see myself starting a career in the field little did blakeslee know what would come of his idea to participate in the shell ocean discover xprize challenge the team is now comprised of more than 30 students from 12 departments in the college of engineering they are the sole student team competing in the semifinalist round of competition the students who come into this project and manage to stay with it will leave college capable of working anywhere they want and doing anything they want blakeslee said this is the worlds most difficult project and those who accept the challenge will be able to reap the benefits
2002,the inner workings of the human brain have always been a subject of great interest unfortunately it is fairly difficult to view brain structures or intricate tissues due to the fact that the skull is not transparent by design the reality is that light scattering is the major obstacle for deep penetration into tissue dr vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been developing a more efficient way of propagating light through an opaque medium propagation of light refers to the way that light travels from one point to another in this case through a medium such as human tissue the new method involves making a minimally invasive hole within the medium which is smaller in diameter than needles that are currently being used within the medical field the process shows a great deal of promise in many uses including viewing brain structure through the skull and imaging blood through skin tissue this technology has the potential to be used to better understand in living patients diseases like chronic traumatic encephalopathy (cte) alzheimer's and other brain diseases that currently can only be studied post-mortem the technology could even be extended outside the realm of biomedical engineering to develop a more efficient way of seeing through fog while driving this can be accomplished by deploying a laser pulse that could be sent through fog and evaporate water this would allow drivers to have a safer experience during hazardous driving conditions and would work exactly as the method used in biomedical engineering applications the holes used to pass the light through are a few hundred micrometers in depth and a width of 20 to 30 microns a micron is one millionth of a meter and by comparison a single strand of human hair is about 75 microns in diameter the light is then coupled into the opaque material resulting in an increase of magnitude of optical transmission into the material the material that light is passed through is also referred to as the scattering medium the report documenting the work of yakovlev was recently published in proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america and definitively demonstrated that light injected into the scattering medium will remain there for an extended period of time the amount of time that the photons remained was increased by a factor of 100 one of the challenges facing researchers is that of optical absorption within tissues however because the new method is wavelength independent the wavelength can be specified to perform measurements in a specific part of the light spectrum this approach has the potential to yield analytical information about the composition and structure of the medium or tissue the project was a collaborative effort between dr brian applegate and dr javier jo professors in the biomedical engineering department at texas a&m the observed data from the project was a collaborative process with yale university and missouri university of science the research was sponsored by the department of defense and the national science foundation
2003,researchers from the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university are spearheading the development of an interdisciplinary soft matter research user facility the facility will help users conduct research to improve multifunctional polymer-based materials that are used in many applications including energy health care and transportation among others and will benefit the entire texas a&m research community in addition to the promotion of collaborative efforts in research the facility is also significant in that it will be the only user facility in texas specifically dedicated to the characterization of multifunctional soft materials the project includes 29 faculty members across multiple colleges and centers including the colleges of engineering science and agriculture and life sciences at texas a&m in addition to the texas a&m health science center representing all entities across the university actively involved in soft materials-related research the soft matter facility is funded through the research development fund for about $17 million and will be located in the wd van gonten laboratory building occupying 3 100 square feet of lab space it is intended as an avenue to showcase current research in the field of soft materials-related research and encourage other researchers to join and support this interdisciplinary effort we want this facility to become an interdisciplinary research center said dr svetlana sukhishvili professor of materials science and engineering and a member of the facilitys executive committee the faculty will facilitate targeted faculty hires in this discipline in many colleges it will be a premiere location to show our students and visitors the exciting discoveries we are making and hopefully encourage them to join our efforts facilities in use at texas a&m currently favor researchers working with hard materials so the soft matter facility will focus on integrating state-of-the-art instruments on campus and acquiring new equipment to address the needs for faculty working on soft matter the facility will have specialized instrumentation suites based on soft-matter centered research areas that include mechanics molecular characterization nanostructure characterization processing and thin film and interfacial analysis the multidisciplinary character of the soft matter research at texas a&m is apparent from the diversity of departments and colleges we have involved in this project sukhishvili said this facility will fill a significant gap on campus in coordinated research activities related to soft matter and foster the interaction between texas a&m scientists in this field sukhishvili and the members of the executive committee are hopeful that collaborative efforts in this facility will enable new discoveries in health care soft robotics biomanufacturing and environmental protection by acting as a nucleus of activity for collaborative research efforts not only at texas a&m but ideally across the state and nation the facility will also have a significant educational impact on enhancing the current materials science and engineering curriculum by establishing a master of science degree program in polymer science and engineering which according to sukhishvili is a growing employment sector for statewide industries texas a&m currently supports the materials science industry with many specialized soft materials-related labs across the texas a&m campus but the facility will provide new coordinated support and benefit multiple departments the establishment of the soft matter facility will bring many polymer faculty together on campus to collaborate and share ideas as well as enhance our visibility in polymer research said dr ibrahim karaman head of the of materials science and engineering department i expect this facility to serve as the breeding ground for many revolutionary ideas the interdisciplinary soft matter facilitys multidisciplinary executive committee includes dr yossef elabd associate department head and professor with the department of chemical engineering; dr allison rice-ficht senior associate vice president for research at the texas a&m health science center; dr duncan maitland professor with the department of biomedical engineering; dr karen wooley distinguished professor with the department of chemistry; and sukhishvili the facility will be directed by sukhishvili in conjunction with the leadership of the executive committee
2004,high-speed winds during a thunderstorm may cause trees around an electric grid to crash into the distribution system feeders causing an outage in that area currently most utility companies diminish such accidents by scheduling regular tree-trimming operations this effort is costly and is based on a rotational approach to different service areas which may take months and sometimes years before all trees are trimmed texas a&m university researchers have developed an intelligent model that can predict a potential vulnerability to utility assets and present a map of where and when a possible outage may occur the predictive feature allows the trees in the most critical areas with the highest risk to be trimmed first dr mladen kezunovic regents professor and holder of the eugene e webb professorship in the department of electrical and computer engineering along with graduate students tatjana dokic and po-chen chen have developed the framework for a model that can predict weather hazards vulnerability of electric grids and the economic impact of the potential damage by analyzing the impact of a potential vulnerability and weather impacts on power system outages the researchers can predict where and when outages can occur predicting an optimal tree trimming schedule that would minimize the risk of vegetation-related outages is only one of the applications the utility grids and related assets are mostly located outdoors and are exposed to all kinds of weather hazards dealing with aging infrastructure assets adds another layer of complexity that utility companies face said kezunovic any kind of environmental data that has some relevance to the power system can be fed into this prediction framework data such as a utility companys operational records weather forecasts altitude and vegetation around the power systems can be used to customize the applications of the model the model is flexible and can process a variety of data despite differing formats and data sources the researchers say processing such data is a demanding task they have been able to solve every source of data and its presentation is different and multifaceted based on the goals they select a large amount of input data from several sources and perform a risk analysis such comprehensive data analytics makes the power system and its operations more reliable the first and foremost goal of utility companies is to assure uninterrupted service said chen by improving reliability we can predict outages if we can prevent outages with historical and close-to-real-time data we can save millions of dollars since the outages may be mitigated the researchers describe their methodology for the framework as a three-part process first they investigate the probability of a potential hazard such as severe weather next they assess the vulnerability of the utility assets by taking the weather probability and predicting its impact on the assets the last and most significant step is evaluating the impact of certain events and the calculation of costs of reliability indices and maintenance replacement and repair the model analyzed historical and close-to-real-time weather data and successfully predicted future vulnerabilities enabling utility companies to have efficient mitigation measures such as inspection repair and maintenance processes overall the risk analysis helps predict the probability of events happening in the near future and then adds the financial impact allowing development of an optimal action plan for the utility operators to execute said chen when outages happen utility companies lose millions of dollars in just repairs said dokic the past has shown how certain outages have cost precious lives too the researchers used centerpoint energys utility data in their framework and have presented a proof of concept to the company their next step is implementation of the model on centerpoints database and environment kezunovic is also director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center the research was supported by centerpoint energy the national science foundation (nsf) center for ultra-wide area resilient electric energy transmission networks and in part by nsf power systems engineering research center and nsf smart grid big data spoke grants read more about the research in the ieee transactions on smart grid journal
2005,payman dehghanian a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently received a scholarship from aace international (formerly the association for the advancement of cost engineering) for demonstrating outstanding academic success he will receive $2 500 for the 2017-18 academic year dehghanian is in the final year of his graduate studies and is advised by dr mladen kezunovic the eugene e webb professor and regents professor in the department dehghanian is currently the president of the texas a&m student branch joint chapter of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers power and energy society power electronics society and industry applications society he received his bachelor's degree from the university of tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from sharif university of technology in 2011 both in electrical engineering dehghanians research interests include power system protection and control power system reliability asset management maintenance scheduling renewable integration and smart grid applications
2006,a paper aeroelastic analysis for highly flexible flapping wing in hover authored by xuan yang (first author) aswathi sudhir atanu halder and dr moble benedict won the best paper award in the modeling and simulation session at the 2017 american helicopter society annual forum yang a third-year doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university presented his paper among 23 other presenters in the session which focused on advancements in modeling methodologies in vertical flight a hover-capable flapping-wing micro aerial vehicle such as the robotic hummingbird in the advanced vertical flight lab utilizes highly flexible wings operating at high frequencies/amplitudes which cause extreme wing deflections and highly unsteady vortical flows the strong fluid-structure coupling and the complicated flow physics make the performance of such a system extremely difficult to predict
2007,their paper presented a stand-alone coupled aeroelastic framework developed by coupling an unsteady aerodynamic model with a geometrically exact structural model and validated with in-house experiments on highly flexible hummingbird inspired flapping wings in hover the paper was recognized for being the most important technical contribution to the field
2008,awarded to graduate students whose service has positively impacted the larger graduate student body at texas a&m university the montgomery award recognizes the recipients excellent academics scholarship and service beyond the classroom jaskirat batra a graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering was selected as the 2017 montgomery award recipient for his work in starting a highly impactful student organization and his commitment to helping other graduate students succeed i hope that my initiatives in science policy and science communication at texas a&m will have long-term benefits for the future of science research locally and worldwide batra said through professional development in science communication we are training the scientists to be better communicators of their research to the policy makers and public thus closing the gap that exists between scientists and the general public to bridge the gap locally batra founded aggies in science technology and engineering policy (a-step) in 2015 the organization hosted a march for science event in april which was one of 600 marches worldwide to show solidarity for science and to celebrate scientific accomplishments it is evident that a lot of people care about the benefits of science research which also includes my research in making biomedical devices using micro and nano-technology batra said this award serves as a reminder that i must make public outreach an important component of my research in micro and nano-biotechnology in addition to a-step batra has served in many organizations nationally and locally including the graduate and professional student council the national science policy group the aggie network student ambassadors sigma xi: the scientific research honor society and the sikh student association whether by motivating students to participate in community service through the big event explaining to them the importance of networking and the strength of the aggie network or sharing the meaning behind the aggie traditions jaskirat has played an important role in our department in serving as an aggie network student ambassador said ibrahim karaman department head and chevron professor i in materials science and engineering
2009,the texas a&m cybersecurity center held the inaugural gencyber teach the teachers camp june 19-23 the gencyber program sponsors summer camps across the nation designed for elementary middle and high school teachers that focus on engaging learners with sound cybersecurity principles and teaching techniques during the camp dr daniel ragsdale director and dr robert trez jones assistant director of the cybersecurity center taught the principles of cybersecurity to 20 teachers from texas the goals of the program are to increase diversity and interest in cybersecurity and careers in the cybersecurity workforce of the nation and improve teaching methods for delivering cybersecurity content in k-12 computer science curricula this is the best professional training i have ever been to said kyle kettler alvin independent school district career and technical education teacher as odd as it seems in this day and age cybersecurity is not as well known or established in it education as other fields security always seems to find its way as a subtopic or part of it curriculum but it is rarely the focus i think these camps can go a long way to identify the need for and stimulate the interest in cybersecurity professions the camp sponsored through the national security agency and the national science foundation was the first of its kind to be held in texas i feel our first teacher training camp was an incredible success and am very pleased we were able to offer this in the hopes that teachers will be able to provide better educational opportunities to meet the needs of our state and national security interests jones said texas a&m will host its second gencyber teach the teachers camp in august for more information visit https://wwwgen-cybercom/
2010,"dr daniele mortari professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been elected as a corresponding member of the international academy of astronautics (iaa) founded in 1960 the iaa is an independent international community of leading experts committed to expanding the frontiers of space iaa brings together the world's foremost experts in the discipline of astronautics on a regular basis to recognize the accomplishments of their peers explore and discuss cutting-edge issues in space research and technology and provide direction and guidance in the nonmilitary uses of space and the ongoing exploration of the solar system the academy's beginning was led by dr theodore von karman one of the most important figures in the evolution of rocketry and the iaa's first president the iaa is based on the tradition of the great classical scientific academies of the 17th century in rome london and paris which fostered scientific enquiry and the exchange of ideas and new information in the earliest days of modern science in the words of iaa's second president dr frank j malina ""the classical academies served in a remarkable manner the phenomenal advance of man's new method of understanding nature and of applying this understanding for the benefit of mankind"" the iaa recognizes the global significance of astronautics and space exploration the members are all over the world in approximately 65 countries the iaa coordinates closely with national academies to foster a spirit of cooperation and progress that transcends national boundaries cultures and institutions mortari works in the field of attitude and position estimation satellite constellation design and sensor data processing he has also taught in the school of aerospace engineering at the university of rome la sapienza and electronic engineering at the university of perugia he received his doctoral degree in nuclear engineering from the university of rome la sapienza in 1981 he is an institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and american astronautical society (aas) fellow american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) associate fellow honorary member of the ieee-aess (aerospace and electronic systems society) space system technical panel and former ieee distinguished speaker he has published approximately 300 papers and has been widely recognized for his work including receiving a best paper award from aas/aiaa two nasa group achievement awards a 2003 spacecraft technology center award the prestigious 2007 ieee judith a resnik award and the 2016 aas dirk brouwer award for more information about the iaa visit: https://iaaweborg/content/view/246/378/"
2011,a significant amount of us domestic oil production comes from shale extracting oil and gas from these unconventional reservoirs normally requires drilling horizontal wells and using hydraulic fracturing techniques yet predicting the full effect of these techniques is still uncertain because the understanding of how fluid flows through shale is still evolving dr david schechters research group has developed a new type of simulator that better illustrates and predicts the effects of these techniques this robust simulator draws on data from laboratory experiments and combines it with known geologic data on fractures then it uses unstructured gridding and newly developed coding to create models that improve the understanding of: how fractures affect reservoir flow how fracturing fluids with added surfactants (soaps) affect oil recovery which enhanced oil recovery processes are best for different reservoir situations in addition to improving understanding the research group used this data and these models to challenge current theories on fluid retention in reservoirs fractures affect flow schechter an associate professor and the aghorn energy career development professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university is no stranger to fractures his research interests cover geological and petrophysical analysis and he is quick to explain fracture fundamentals fractures are not necessarily chaotic in reservoir rocks said schechter if you know the rules of rock mechanics and you study outcrops on the surface and the subsurface with downhole tools then you can generate fracture networks based on certain known rules some fractures are well-behaved regarding fracture spacing and length some arent and some are irregularly spaced if we have enough core data if we understand rock mechanics and the stresses the basin has undergone then the resulting fracture patterns usually adhere to simple rules aerial photo of surface outcrop features in the san juan basin water flows in surface fractures on rock outcrops this attracts vegetation as shown in the aerial photo (courtesy of john lorenz) in the subsurface similar fracture patterns allow the transport and production of oil geologists map surface outcrops of rock with scan lines creating maps of fracture patterns in liquid-bearing formations schechters group converts these maps into reservoir simulation grids using a technique called unstructured gridding in this technique fractures are represented with complex polygonal grids not the simple straight-lined cartesian grids most software uses image of unstructured gridding detailing fracture properties one student jianlei sun wrote a code that converts fracture patterns and unstructured grids into sophisticated simulation grid systems the code contains properties of interest needed by the simulator such as fracture strike and direction crack size and the length and height of the fracture other ways fluid moves schechters simulator goes beyond modeling fracture properties it also deals with fluid properties the oil flow in shale reservoirs is hard to predict because the rock has extremely low permeability due to microscopic pores extracting oil from this tight rock is done by transport mechanisms such as wettability alteration to improve capillary imbibition schechters labs specialize in studying wettability and imbibition in rocks wettability is the ability of a fluid to maintain contact with a rock surface and not be repelled by it imbibition is the ability of the rock to absorb fracture fluids such as water mixed with surfactants these fluids repel and displace oil within the rock pores so the oil can be recovered without changing or altering wettability capillary imbibition might not happen if water is repelled from the surface it wont move into the rock said schechter but if water is attracted to the surface it will pull water in replacing oil saturated pores due to capillary imbibition maybe youve taken a sugar cube and touched it to coffee a sugar cube is saturated with air (between the sugar crystals) but the surface of the sugar cube prefers to be wetted by water or coffee as opposed to air when you touch it to the coffee surface and it sucks up that coffee thats capillary imbibition were looking at improving oil recovery with surfactants which depend on liquid/liquid imbibition thats why we study contact angles schechters group studies the effects of different chemical mixtures in fracture fluids they are looking for mixtures that change the wettability of rock from oil-wet to water-wet allowing the fluid to penetrate oil-filled rock in laboratory settings the experiments help researchers understand and map the outcomes of contact angles they use a ct scanner to confirm the results and then transfer this information to their simulator these two videos illustrate how important contact angles are in a liquid to liquid exchange
2012,video one shows a drop of crude oil on a needle touching the surface of shale rock the contact angle is less than 90 degrees so the oil adheres to the surface this means the oil within the shale rock attracts more oil so it is oil-wet
2013,video two shows a shale rock imbibed with a surfactant solution of water and soap the contact angle of the drop of oil touching its surface is greater than 90 degrees so the oil is repelled meaning this rock is water-wet fluid retention in unconventional reservoirs is beneficial the unconventional revolution is so surprising said schechter we can take a conventional plug of porous rock such as sandstone and we can pump fluids in it under pressure we can inject oil or water through it with ease the unconventional rocks we are studying such as shale are so tight we cant pump anything into them however when we expose them to surfactants that alter the wettability spontaneous imbibition occurs thereby transporting the aqueous phase into the rock at surprisingly rapid rates in the past companies injected water and sand (or proppant) in conventional reservoir wells under high pressure to create fractures it was thought that recovering most of the water (flowback) was beneficial so water would not block the outward flow of oil schechters experiments on unconventional rocks prove that nonporous rocks behave differently samples saturated with oil were exposed to water imbued with surfactants ct scans measuring density revealed the less-dense oil was replaced by the denser water mixes through imbibition fractures then allowed the oil to flow out we found that you want the reservoir to keep that water said schechter its counterintuitive its breaking old practices before it was assumed if water penetrates the formation then it will block the oil flow thereby reducing well productivity what were finding is if water penetrates in by capillary imbibition and you get very little water back the implication is the aqueous phase has imbibed into the rock and displaced oil into the fractures and thats actually a good thing ct scans illustrating fluid displacement improved predictions benefit industry through the use of chemistry mathematics and physics schechters group has developed a tool that better illustrates and maximizes well production for shale reservoirs their simulator has created more robust predictions than current simulators because it is based on comprehensive data this helps industry reduce unneeded operation costs by helping engineers better understand how unconventional rock behaves after specific fracturing treatments basically thats what i study that this rock is full of oil but it is amazing that oil comes out of this rock because its so tight said schechter industry is interested in the improvement of recovery whether by injecting aqueous phase with surfactants or gas injection and we investigate all forms of enhanced recovery we can predict whats going to happen we can scale up our simulator to reservoir dimensions and quantify the improvement
2014,ask any 10-year-old what they want to be when they grow up and chances are an astronaut is likely near the top of their list for michayal mathew a junior in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university that dream never faded with time spending much of his childhood in league city texas mathew visited johnson space center so many times he memorized each exhibit acting as his own tour guide this summer he is one step closer to fulfilling his dream of one day going to space at least virtually mathew is working as a summer intern at nasas goddard space flight center in greenbelt maryland during the 10-week internship he will be gathering terrain data on the surfaces of mars the moon and some volcanoes on earth and mapping them in virtual reality his work is laying the foundation for the technology that will one day train astronauts and if mathews lifelong dream comes true he might even use the technology himself some day working at nasa has always been a dream he said i always appreciated airplanes but then getting to see astronauts i thought ‘this is way cooler than being a pilot ‘patience tenacity and continued hard work mathew said his acceptance into nasas internship program was pure luck dr darren hartl assistant professor of aerospace engineering disagrees michayal applied for a wide range of internships from virtual reality software companies to airlines and he received multiple ‘we regret to inform you communications hartl said patience tenacity and continued hard work toward an increase in his capabilities eventually paid off when he was offered what was likely his first choice all along mathew works in hartls lab the immersive mechanics and visualization lab hartl hired mathew when he was a freshman citing his passion and self-motivation as his rationale for hiring someone with less academic experience than other applicants the lab is developing methods to take computational data and use augmented reality and virtual reality to create an immersive learning experience according to hartl classrooms of the future will be better equipped thanks to virtual reality modern engineering is rich in three-dimensional or even higher-dimensional data and virtual reality allows us to explore designs and 3-d spatial results in a much more intuitive way than is permitted on 2-d computer screens hartl said the virtual reality software and hardware developers have done such a great job over the past few years in particular and it is time for us in engineering research and education to take advantage of these new capabilities virtual reality and space exploration this summer mathew is applying everything he has learned in hartls lab and putting it to the test with his mars exploration research mathew is working under his mentor dr brent garry a geologist at nasa were using satellite images and putting a height to the terrain he said hes also getting a first-hand look at the surface of the moon the way neil armstrong and buzz aldrin saw it in 1969 i remade the apollo 11 mission and can sit in a rover and drive it around he said mathew has also mapped volcanoes on earth allowing geologists to view the inside of lava tubes long after they leave the coolest thing is im phase one he said whatever i do is going to set the basis for the future of the project from the very beginning it starts with me and my mentor mathew initially expected that he would merely be following around scientists and engineers during his internship he didnt anticipate that he would be responsible for such important work honestly its pretty surreal he said its crazy to come in every day there are thousands of people working on this campus and theyre all working toward space research i dont have the words to describe it but its definitely surreal mathew sees a future in virtual reality and its one he didnt anticipate when he first arrived at texas a&m dr hartls research lab developed me into who i am he said it was the best decision i made after he graduates mathew hopes to find work where virtual reality and aerospace meet if hes one of the lucky ones hell make it to space only this time he wont be wearing goggles hell be wearing a space suit
2015,from aerospace and defense to digital dentistry and medical devices 3-d printed parts are used in a variety of industries currently 3-d printed parts are very fragile and traditionally used in the prototyping phase of materials or as a toy for display a doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has pioneered a countermeasure to transform the landscape of 3-d printing today brandon sweeney and his advisor dr micah green associate professor in the department of chemical engineering discovered a way to make 3-d printed parts stronger and immediately useful in real-world applications sweeney and green applied the traditional welding concepts to bond the submillimeter layers in a 3-d printed part together while in a microwave sweeney began working with 3-d printed materials while employed at the army research laboratory at the aberdeen proving grounds in maryland i was able to see the amazing potential of the technology such as the way it sped up our manufacturing times and enabled our cad designs to come to life in a matter of hours sweeney said unfortunately we always knew those parts were not really strong enough to survive in a real-world application 3-d printed objects are comprised of many thin layers of materials plastics in this case deposited on top of each other to form a desired shape these layers are prone to fracturing causing issues with the durability and reliability of the part when used in a real-world application for example a custom printed medical device i knew that nearly the entire industry was facing this problem sweeney said currently prototype parts can be 3-d printed to see if something will fit in a certain design but they cannot actually be used for a purpose beyond that when sweeney started his doctorate he was working with green in the department of chemical engineering at texas tech university green had been collaborating with dr mohammad saed assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at texas tech on a project to detect carbon nanotubes using microwaves the trio crafted an idea to use carbon nanotubes in 3-d printed parts coupled with microwave energy to weld the layers of parts together the basic idea is that a 3-d part cannot simply be stuck into an oven to weld it together because it is plastic and will melt sweeney said we realized that we needed to borrow from the concepts that are traditionally used for welding parts together where youd use a point source of heat like a torch or a tig welder to join the interface of the parts together youre not melting the entire part just putting the heat where you need it since the layers making up the 3-d printed parts are so tiny special materials are utilized to control where the heat hits and bonds the layers together what we do is take 3-d printer filament and put a thin layer of our material a carbon nanotube composite on the outside sweeney said when you print the parts out that thin layer gets embedded at the interfaces of all the plastic strands then we stick it in a microwave we use a bit more of a sophisticated microwave oven in this research and monitor the temperature with an infrared camera the technology is patent-pending and licensed with a local company essentium materials the materials are produced in-house where they also design the printer technology to incorporate the electromagnetic welding process into the 3-d printer itself while the part is being printed they are welding it at the same time they are currently in beta mode but this has the potential to be on every industrial and consumer 3-d printer where strong parts are needed if you're an engineer and if you actually care about the mechanical properties of what you're making then this ideally would be on every printer in that category sweeney said the team recently published a paper welding of 3-d printed carbon nanotube-polymer composites by locally induced microwave heating in science advances
2016,finding ways to increase the comfort and care of premature babies and help elderly patients live more independent and safe lives were the spotlights of the latest aggies invent in this unique aggies invent students from the undergraduate summer research grant program (usrg) and texas a&m university engineering medicine school program (enmed) were selected to tackle problems faced in the medical industry sixty-nine students participated from enmed and more than seven different universities the students were tasked by medical professionals researchers and industry representatives to create devices applications and innovations to solve common problems faced in the industry the topics included creating a way to quickly test food for harmful bacteria creating a cast to replace fiberglass or plaster finding an objective way to measure pain and developing an artificially intelligent device to assist in note taking the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively the engineering innovation center and aggies invent also offer support for students to continue working on their project the winning innovation was a pediascope to capture images of premature babies retinas to check for detachment this improves on the outdated device that is uncomfortable for the infant and less accurate for the doctor the team was comprised of rachael cohen and antara dattagupta chemical engineering; pablo leon mechanical engineering; kenneth livingston and zachary davis north carolina state university; kassie marble tarleton state university; and cannon woodbury hexoform a redesigned cast for increased comfort waterproofness and adjustability took second place the team members were natalia fabela shannon ingram austin lu and richa patel biomedical engineering; and melissa chavez west texas a&m university pop inc came in third place with a smart pill dispenser the dispenser has doctor-patient integration alerts for taking pills and a safe design to prevent overdose team members included kedar balakrishna and grady burnett biomedical engineering; onur erdemir and kevin campbell mechanical engineering; kaleb guion biomedical engineering from clemson university; and chris hatch biomedical engineering from cal poly the judges also decided to name an honorable mention team to encourage them to continue developing their innovation tbi solutions took this award and $250 for their method to easily detect traumatic brain injuries through a handheld device that quickly tests a blood sample for a brain-derived neurotrophic factor protein correlated to trauma the team included margarita kovalchuk civil engineering from california state university; francisco medrano aerospace engineering; jordan murley physics from rice university; and katie oswalt chemical and biological engineering from the university of colorado boulder the judges for the event were dr johnny hurtado associate dean for the college of engineering; jimmy kanetzky assistant consultant from dell mc; dr brett trusko research assistant professor for the texas a&m college of medicine; dr jose flores md associate professor for the texas a&m college of medicine; and dr clint leysath technical director from the texas a&m center for innovation in advanced development & manufacturing aggies invent an intensive design experience offered at the texas a&m engineering innovation center provides an environment made to inspire and support entrepreneurship and innovate thoughts between aggies students have 48 hours to create prototype solutions for issues presented at each aggies invent competition each event has a completely different theme keeping the students ready for a challenge the engineering academic and student affairs program in the college of engineering and enmed sponsored this event
2017,two undergraduate students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university competed in the second annual consortium for the advancement of shape memory alloy research and technology (casmart) student design competition at the 2017 shape memory and superelastic technologies (smst) conference in san diego california in this competition students were challenged to design a collapsible habitat to be used during transport to mars that could be automatically deployed using embedded shape memory alloy components madalyn mikkelsen and elise koock representing the m2aestro lab student team under the direction of dr darren hartl placed first in the design portion of the competition mikkelsen and koock along with lane kirstein and luis gonzales worked on the problem for a semester as part of a special undergraduate directed research course under the direction of hartl assistant professor in the department with graduate student pedro leal assisting the group of two juniors and two sophomores competed against teams exclusively comprised of graduate students and graduating seniors mikkelsen and koock were chosen to represent the full team in san diego and presented their final design to peers industry experts and a panel of 13 distinguished judges a second design competition focusing on materials development was won by another texas a&m team from the department of materials science and engineering advised by department head dr ibrahim karaman this impressive showing follows another win by students from the department in the first annual casmart student design competition two years ago further asserting texas a&m as a leader in the design and development of shape memory alloy materials and applications
2018,a group of undergraduate students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university placed first in the sniffest student competition at the 17th international symposium on olfaction and electronic nose (isoen) at mcgill university in montreal canada on may 28-31 the mission of the sniffest competition is to attract new talent to the machine olfaction community and advance the field by promoting practical and original solutions to odor measurement problems for the competition students were provided with sensors and hardware to build their own odor measurement instruments seven teams entered the competition three from the united states and four from europe the competition consisted of a qualification round during which the teams were given nine samples of cheese three of which were outliers six of the samples were cheddar cheese while the three outliers were blue cheese the teams had 20 minutes to identify the outliers using the instrument they had designed the final round followed a similar format but with a more difficult set of cheese samples ultimately the teams were judged based on accuracy response time and popular vote the aggie team consisting of seniors chris findeisen wes moncrief and xuchu zhang placed first after being the only team to correctly identify all three outliers in the final round dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna professor served as the faculty mentor for the team isoen 2017 was co-sponsored by the international society for olfaction and chemical sensing the ieee sensors council and the ieee montreal section it featured sessions on topics such as solid-state sensors to instrumentation special sessions on standards robotics distributed sensing and breath analysis
2019,the texas a&m formula sae team won the overall championship at formula sae lincoln in nebraska against a field of 80 collegiate teams from around the country it was a big deal to finally bring the trophy back home said ryan monheim senior in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and project manager for the team its especially important for us because we start fresh every year a lot of the teams we compete against they just kind of build on their car every year so for us to start from scratch and still take down a bunch of big teams that was a big deal the texas a&m formula sae program is a senior capstone project in the mechanical engineering department in which 21 students design and build a race car the competition at the end of the year not only features on-track events but teams are also graded on their engineering design cost and business case presentation according to monheim the team had a feeling going into the competition that they had a chance to be among the leaders and there was a defining moment when they realized they had a chance to win the top prize before we got there we thought we were probably a contender but we didnt really know for sure what the other teams were bringing he said i think when we really knew we were going to win was during the middle of the endurance event when our main competition had to pull off the track we knew then we just had to get the car home and finish and thats exactly what we did if that gave them confidence they had become the favorites then the championship was all but solidified when the team also unexpectedly claimed the top spot in the fuel efficiency category finishing first in the endurance and fuel efficiency categories second in engineering design and third in autocross the combined results gave the aggies the overall championship with a combined 915 of a possible 1000 total points the missouri university of science and technology and the university of kansas came in second and third respectively according to course lecturer and team advisor yuval doron the students invested more than 72 000 man-hours over the course of nine months they started in september with concept development before finishing with a highly-engineered race car i am always amazed at the level of engineering that goes into the design development fabrication and testing doron said this is a high-caliber event that demands tremendous focus and sacrifice from the students and they manage to pull through every year this year being extra special for students looking to get into automotive engineering formula sae has been a successful stepping stone monheim and two of his teammates have accepted jobs at general motors in detroit which also was the teams largest sponsor this year several other students on the team have also accepted jobs in the auto industry this is the programs sixth national championship they previously won in 2000 2006 2007 2009 and 2011 this years car was unveiled at the texas a&m house during the south by southwest festival in austin
2020,the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) smart grid center is part of a united states team that will use a $75 million department of energy (doe) grant to help advance indias power grid to ensure access to affordable and reliable energy indias ministry of science and technology will match the commitment of the doe along with other indian partners bringing the total project commitment to $30 million this highly collaborative international project will give tees researchers a chance to use their expertise to solve the grid problems in one of the largest power systems in the world said dr mladen kezunovic director of the smart grid center tees has unique strengths and capabilities in designing the grids of the future and this is an opportunity to show that this initiative supported by does office of electricity delivery and energy reliability builds on the departments commitment to fostering the reliable resilient and secure delivery of electricity needed for strong us national security economic growth and global leadership it also furthers the does collaboration with india under the us-india partnership to advance clean energy this new consortium demonstrates the us and indian commitments to ensuring access to affordable and reliable energy in both countries energy secretary rick perry said we know that continued grid innovation will promote economic growth and energy security in the united states and india to help pave the way to a more advanced distribution grid that will allow greater use of distributed energy resources such as microgrids and energy storage the new consortia will bring together experts from academia does national laboratories and industry together with their counterparts in india the center will conduct research and deploy new smart grid and energy storage technologies that will modernize the grids of both nations to make them smarter while increasing resilience and reliability doe officials said the us consortium is led by washington state university along with tees mit the university of hawaii idaho national laboratory the lawrence berkeley national laboratory snohomish county (wa) public utility district avista burns and mcdonnell etap operation technology alstom grid/ge grid solutions clean energy storage abb the philadelphia industrial development corporation and the national rural electric cooperative association the indian team led by the indian institute of technology (iit) kanpur includes partners from iit delhi iit madras iit roorkee iit bhubaneshwar and the energy and resources institute in new delhi
2021,the research of dr jaime grunlan the linda & ralph schmidt '68 professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was featured on the cover of the may issue of macromolecular rapid communications one of the highest impact factor journals focused on polymeric materials the research article fast self-healing of polyelectrolyte multilayer nanocoating and restoration of super oxygen barrier was written by grunlan along with his co-authors dr andreas polycarpou department head the meinhard h kotzebue '14 professor and james j cain chair in mechanical engineering at texas a&m; and dr sergei nazarenko professor at the university of southern mississippi; along with their graduate students the article describes a super gas barrier nanocoating that can be healed in high humidity numerous products such as pasta dairy pharmaceutical ingredients electronics etc require high gas barrier packaging that is typically a plastic film coated with some type of metal or ceramic thin film grunlans barrier film is sub-micron and made completely from water-soluble polymers but it has an oxygen barrier that matches these inorganic layers that are prone to cracking and pinholes that destroy the barrier (gas can easily penetrate those defects) despite being very flexible the coating will indeed crack when stretched too much but these cracks will completely heal in just 10 minutes in a high humidity environment grunlan said we confirmed that cracked films have no oxygen barrier but healed films have the high oxygen barrier completely restored this means that we could coat a piece of plastic that could then be formed into some type of package if the forming process causes some cracks to form the final object could be simply exposed to 90 percent relative humidity for 10 minutes to heal its barrier before use grunlan said theres a significant amount of industrial interest in this unique technology because it will lead to much greater shelf life of various food products (eg dairy pasta etc) and can serve to replace much heavier packaging alternatives like metal or glass
2022,5g cellular networks are expected to support high-data rates and low delays for a broad range of users software defined networking (sdn) is an emerging technology that enables the design and operation of large communication and storage networks to promote the new technologies and the experimentation tools offered by the national science foundations global environment for networking innovations (geni) texas a&m university hosted a summer camp and regional workshop last month more than 55 researchers and students participated in lectures and hands-on tutorials on the different kinds of research and experiments that can be conducted on geni they focused on wireless and sdn experiments on geni with three sdn tutorials two wireless tutorials and one that combined these concepts in a tutorial on using sdn to manage handoff from one wireless network to another the event aimed to equip the participants with projects that would help them develop sufficient geni knowledge and skills to start using it immediately for their research dr alex sprintson professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and dr walt magnussen director of the internet2 technology evaluation center organized the event they also presented their research projects in which they had used genis wired and wireless resources the keynote speakers included dr henning schulzrinne chief technology officer for the united states federal communications commission and professor at columbia university and dr lin zhong professor at rice university henning addressed the hype and challenges surrounding 5g wireless technologies and the need to tackle the associated complexity and security concerns lin discussed the challenges of building the next generation of wireless technologies and the work on multi-user mimo being conducted by his group at rice more than 18 graduate students participated in the summer camp they defined a research topic ran experiments on geni to explore the topic and presented their results on projects such as wi-fi channel planning routing in disruption tolerant networks open ended cognitive radio design challenge network monitoring and computation offloading and handling intrusions in sdns the next geni regional workshop will be held in november 2017 at the university of oregon
2023,dr robert nevels professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to the administrative committee of the institute of electrical and electronic engineers' (ieee) nanotechnology council the ieee nanotechnology council is a multi-disciplinary scientific group with more than 7 000 members from 22 ieee societies worldwide it has three technical journals and organizes several nanotechnology conferences around the world each year nevels was recognized for his work in plasma and plasmonic theory his research includes methods for designing nano-antennas that allow wireless communication of information between microwave and nanoscale devices and for detection and imaging of molecules down to one nanometer in diameter he is a life fellow of the ieee and past president of the ieee antennas and propagation society he established the electromagnetics and microwave laboratory at texas a&m and initiated several undergraduate and graduate courses in electromagnetics he was also the associate department head from 1998-05
2024,"joshua harris a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was selected by the federal aviation administration (faa) center of excellence as the 2017 pegasas outstanding student researcher from texas a&m each pegasas member university is given an opportunity to honor their top student working on a pegasas project and harris was selected for his research on characterization of derived angle-of-attack and flight path angle algorithms for general aviation platforms the students are evaluated by faculty from their university in the categories of technical merit and research academic performance and professionalism and leadership harris is a graduate research assistant in the vehicle systems & control laboratory and has been working with his advisor dr john valasek for six years for pegasas harris created a monte carlo analysis software tool that uses actual pilot inputs to generate realistic aircraft trajectories and states which were then measured by realistic sensor models that he developed these measured states were then used to compute angle-of-attack and sideslip angle and compared to truth values to assess the suitability for general aviation pilot displays envelope protection and fly-by-wire flight control systems it is expected that the results of this work will be recommended minimum performance standards for the algorithm and the criteria for each use case that can be codified into a standard or a circular harris subsequently presented a paper on his pegasas research at the 2017 aiaa aviation conference in june 2017 joshuas contributions to our faa research project were outstanding in all regards and were recognized by our faa technical monitor in addition to our project teammates at the ohio state university valasek says his work is always technically rigorous thorough and of the highest quality i am very proud of him the pegasas advisory board has also selected harris from the eligible outstanding student researchers at each pegasas member university as the 2017 pegasas nominee for the department of transportation's (dot) student of the year award which will be decided in the fall ""it is a great honor to be selected as the pegasas outstanding student researcher for texas a&m university and to be nominated for the dot student of the year award harris said both of these honors would not have been possible without the support of dr valasek fellow members of the vehicle systems & control laboratory and our research collaborators at osu and faa i am pleased to have been able to help contribute to enhancing the safety of general aviation aircraft which has been a reward in itself"" harris earned bachelors in aerospace engineering summa cum laude from texas a&m in 2014 he is a recipient of the national defense science graduate fellowship the nasa aeronautics scholarship and the sigma gamma tau outstanding texas a&m university aerospace engineering senior for 2014 harris is currently a member of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) intelligent systems technical committee this summer he will be defending his masters thesis nonlinear adaptive inversion control for variable stability small unmanned aircraft systems and will be joining lockheed martin aeronautics in fort worth texas as a software engineer"
2025,"cyclocopter research was featured in the american helicopter society (ahs) international magazine ""vertiflite"" you can read the entire story here"
2026,dr césar o malavé dean of texas a&m university at qatar has received the 2017 john l imhoff global excellence award for industrial engineering education from the american society for engineering education (asee) in recognition of his distinguished accomplishments the award is presented annually to an individual who has made significant contributions to the industrial engineering discipline who exemplifies the highest standards of the professorate in industrial engineering and who has demonstrated global cooperation and understanding through leadership and other initiatives malavé was recognized at a ceremony at the societys annual awards luncheon during its 124th annual conference and exposition in columbus ohio (usa) i am honored to receive this award malavé said it has been a great journey for me as an educator i want to thank all my colleagues for their support and i especially want to thank all my students for giving me the opportunity to share my knowledge with them before coming to texas a&m at qatar in july 2016 malavé was professor and head of the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the sugar and mike barnes department head chair under his leadership the department recruited a number of new faculty at both the junior and senior levels developed a new advanced manufacturing initiative and launched major initiatives to revamp the undergraduate curriculum and graduate program his major career accomplishments are in the areas of manufacturing systems analysis engineering education innovation and diversity development for engineering faculty and undergraduate student programs he has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator of more than $35 million in sponsored research and academic projects malavé is recognized internationally for his contributions to engineering education his work was the result of a 10-year national science foundation-funded foundation coalition grant to revamp engineering education as lead principal investigator for texas a&m malavé coordinated all activities related to curricula development implementation and outcomes assessment across partner sites he disseminated this educational model through workshops in the united states and many countries he is a member of asee the institute for operations research and management sciences and a fellow of the institute of industrial and systems engineers he also has served on the editorial board of the journal of applications and practices in engineering education and is a co-author of the book global engineering design decision making and communication malavé earned a bachelors degree in chemical engineering and a masters degree in operations research from the georgia institute of technology and a doctoral degree in industrial engineering from the university of south florida he joined the industrial engineering faculty at texas a&m in 1987 ### about texas a&m university at qatar texas a&m university at qatar recognized as having one of the premier engineering programs in the world has offered undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering electrical and computer engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering at qatar foundations education city campus since 2003 and graduate degrees in chemical engineering since fall 2011 texas a&m at qatar has awarded almost 850 degrees since 2007 in addition to engineering courses texas a&m at qatar provides classes in science mathematics liberal arts and the humanities all four of the engineering programs offered at texas a&m at qatar are accredited by the engineering accreditation commission of abet the curricula offered at texas a&m at qatar are materially the same as those offered at the main campus in college station texas and the courses in doha are taught in english in a co-educational setting the reputation for excellence is the same as is the commitment to equip engineers to lead the next generation of engineering advancement faculty from around the world are attracted to texas a&m at qatar to provide this educational experience and to participate in research activities now valued at more than $2364 million and that address issues important to the state of qatar visit wwwqatartamuedu
2027,the process of encapsulating cells that are able to thrive in the human body is a difficult task the current standard is the utilization of harsh methods such as ultraviolet exposure chemical radicals or thermal agitation to capture cells and proteins these methods are toxic and do not make for a conducive environment to capture cells however the recent work of dr akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has shown some promising results gaharwars work vacancy-driven gelation using defect-rich nanoassemblies of 2-d transition metal dichalcogenides and polymeric binder for biomedical applications published in advanced materials takes a new approach of forming synthetic gel-like environments to house human cells the new method has the potential to help researchers for a wide range of biomedical applications in the form of tissue engineering regenerative medicine and cell or therapeutic delivery said gaharwar mos2 belongs to a new classification of nanomaterials called transition metal dichalcogenide (tmd) that have fine layers nanometers in width alternating between the materials a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter so individual mos2 layers are about 1/100 000 of a human hair in width the approach uses conjugation the process of forming a single biological cell between two-dimensional (2-d) mos2 with a polymeric binder (a chain of polymers used to hold or draw other materials together) to form high-water content gels called hydrogels hydrogels are a water-swollen crosslinked polymer network that resemble the native tissues found within humans the vacancy driven approach uses gelation the formation of a gel to obtain chemically crosslinked hydrogels from the mos2 polymeric binder the porous structures are used to encapsulate and deliver cells to facilitate the regeneration of damaged tissues mos2 has shown very promising results in applications of the optical sensor energy catalysis and photothermal agents for the treatment of cancer however even with the many listed benefits and properties of 2-d mos2 the material is not extensively investigated for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine this new gelation approach utilizes the planar and edge atomic defects available on mos2 surfaces to form mechanically strong and resilient hydrogels said dr manish jaiswal a postdoc student in gaharwars lab and the first author of the study the atomic defects present on the lattice plane of mos2 are due to atomic vacancies the polymeric binder is chemically adsorbed on the mos2 surface forming a covalently crosslinked network the controlled environment is accomplished through the crosslinking method polymeric chains are joined to form hydrogels to connect and create a network that serves as the backbone of the hydrogel the structures that result attach to multiple points and create strong chemical bonds creating a rigid and reinforced hydrogel the reinforcement of polymeric hydrogels with 2­­d mos2 shows promise in developing multifunctional materials for both biomedical and biotechnological applications one of the interesting aspects of this study is the facile approach to modulate the mechanical stiffness of gel by controlling the number of atomic defects on mos2 surface said gaharwar this is important as gel stiffness can direct differentiation of human stem cells to become either bone-like or cartilage-like cells stem cells are highly specialized cells that have the ability to form different tissue types although these 2-d mos2 are in an early stage of development they have shown potential in engineering multifunctional biomaterials for various biomedical applications in the future we will evaluate in vivo biocompatibility and the ability of these nanoengineered gels to deliver cells and protein this research is funded by national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station and a texas a&m university seed grant gaharwar received his doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from purdue university in 2011 and completed his postdoctoral training at the massachusetts institute of technology and harvard university the goal of his lab is to understand the interactions of cell-nanomaterials interactions and to develop nanoengineered strategies for modulating stem cell behavior for the repair and regeneration of damaged tissue in particular his lab is leveraging principles from materials science stem cell biology high throughput computational genomics and additive biomanufacturing to design nanoengineered biomaterials with wide-ranging applications in the field of regenerative medicine see more details at inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering laboratory
2028,dr kristen maitland(left) associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected to her second three-year term on the board of directors for spie the international society for optics and photonics maitland will serve as a society director for three years (2018-20) to oversee the activities of the society in the interest of the society membership and the optics and photonics community the board of directors establishes policy and strategy assures that the society bylaws are followed and approves the budgets for expenditure of society resources maitland received her bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering from california polytechnic state university and her doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from the university of texas at austin in addition to maitlands appointment maryellen giger(right) a hagler fellow at texas a&m and the an pritzker professor of radiology at the university of chicago has been elected to serve as president of spie in 2018 spie is an educational not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based science engineering and technology the society serves nearly 264 000 constituents from approximately 166 countries offering conferences and their published proceedings continuing education books journals and the spie digital library in 2016 spie provided $4 million in support of education and outreach programs
2029,a recent study has added a new dimension to the controversial decision to inject large amounts of chemical dispersants immediately above the crippled oil well at the seafloor during the deepwater horizon disaster in 2010 the dispersants may have significantly reduced the amount of harmful gases in the air at the sea surfacereducing health risks for emergency responders and allowing them to keep working to stop the uncontrolled spill and clean up the spilled oil sooner the study was published aug 28 in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences in the midst of the deepwater horizon crisis officials made the unprecedented and controversial decision to inject more than 700 000 gallons of chemical dispersant over 67 days immediately above the oil rigs severed wellhead at the bottom of the ocean the goal was to break up petroleum that surged uncontrollably from the wellhead into smaller droplets in the deep sea with the goals of diminishing oil slicks and reducing the amount of harmful gases arriving at the ocean surface proponents claim the dispersants did help dissipate oil slicks on the sea surface causing less oil to taint shoreline beaches and marshes opponents said the dispersants themselves were toxic may have caused environmental damage and were not effective at reducing the already small droplets forming at the wellhead to this debate the new study demonstrates a beneficial effect of dispersants: the subsea dispersant injection may have allowed emergency responders literally to breathe easier by breaking up petroleum into smaller droplets that dissolved faster in the deep ocean the dispersants decreased the amounts of volatile toxic compounds that rose to the surface and outgassed into the air that dramatically improved the air quality for responders and presumably reduced the number of days when the air quality was too poor and responders had to don respirators and/or had to suspend cleanup efforts the study used a model developed by texas a&m university professor in the zachry department of civil engineering dr scott socolofsky and his research team called the texas a&m oil spill calculator (tamoc) the team members included: jonas gros socolofsky anusha dissanayake and inok jun (texas a&m); lin zhao and michel boufadel (new jersey institute of technology); christopher reddy (woods hole oceanographic institution); and j samuel arey (swiss federal institute of aquatic science and technology) the research was funded by the gulf of mexico research initiative and the national science foundation (nsf) grants to the texas a&m engineering experiment station dispersants have been applied to oil slicks on the ocean surface for half a century to break petroleum into smaller droplets that dissipate into waters of the open ocean so that less oil reaches ecologically sensitive coastlines but they had never been used at the unprecedented depth of 5 000 feet beneath the surface where an estimated 7 500 tons per day of oil and 2 400 tons per day of natural gas were jetting from the ruptured wellhead near the seafloor this flow rate is equivalent to 57 000 barrels per day of oil and 92 million cubic feet per day of gas being produced at standard conditions at the sea surface during the period studied by the authors 19 000 barrels per day of oil were also captured by an inverted funnel or top hat that was placed directly above the wellhead which decreased the amount of oil that escaped into the sea government and industry responders were faced with an oil spill of unprecedented size and sea depth pitting them in a high-stakes battle against big unknowns reddy and arey wrote in an article in oceanus magazine they made a crucial decision to proceed with the subsurface injection of corexit ec9500a a dispersant that roughly resembles a mix of food-grade mineral oil windshield-wiper fluid and household dish detergent aerial photographs and anecdotal accounts suggested that the deep-sea dispersant injection may have helped dissipate the oil slicks at the surface and improve air quality around responder boats working near the disaster site but in the heat of the crisis officials did not take the time to design and implement robust experiments to measure the detailed effects of the injection in the new study scientists built and tested the tamoc model to simulate the complex chemical and physical interactions among water oil gas and dispersant that occurred during deepwater horizon they focused on the period starting june 3 2010 when the riser pipe was cut at the wellhead by engineers until july 15 2010a timespan when a large number of scientific observations were collected nearby in the air and ocean to test the models ability to simulate the real-world disaster they compared the model predictions to the observations nearly all those comparisons aligned with the models output indicating that the model replicated many aspects of what happened to oil and gas under the ocean surface the research team then used the model to conduct a key test that was never done in real life: they ran the model to see what likely would have happened if dispersants had not been injected immediately above the wellhead during the same time period the model results indicated that deep-sea dispersant injection had a profound effect on air quality at the ocean surface the injection of the subsea dispersant caused the turbulent jet of petroleum fluids to form oil droplets that were about 30 times smaller (by volume) than they would have been without dispersants according to the model results this subtle change caused many volatile petroleum chemicals to dissolve more rapidly and become entrapped in the deep sea according to the study most of the highly toxic benzene and toluene in the oil were transported away in deep currents along with other entrapped petroleum compounds that affected organisms on and near the sea floor the benzene and toluene likely would have become biodegraded within weeks it turns out that several toxic and volatile compounds including benzene and toluene are in the sweet spot of compounds effected by the dispersant explained socolofsky to a national academy of sciences committee studying dispersant usage during marine oil spills more soluble compounds remain dissolved in the ocean and heavier substances rise to the sea surface whether dispersants are used or not he continues it is these carcinogenic btex compounds that were the most affected by dispersant usage during the deepwater horizon response since the total amount of oil reaching the sea surface is only weakly affected by subsea dispersant usage the modeling work done by this team was needed to fully understand their effect don rice a program director in the nsfs division of ocean sciences concurs as the findings of this study clearly demonstrate the discoveries of basic scientific research and the ensuing practical applications in their wake are often utterly unanticipated the model showed that the dispersant injection decreased the overall concentration of all volatile organic chemicals in the atmosphere by a modest amount (about 30 percent) but it also significantly reduced the amount of chemicals most harmful to humans such as benzene and toluene the atmospheric concentration of benzene for example decreased by about 6 000 times dramatically improving air quality without the dispersant injection the model showed that benzene concentrations in the air two meters above the sea surface would have been 13 times higher than the levels considered acceptable to breathe during a 10-hour working day or a 40-hour work week based on guidelines by the national institute of occupational safety and health (niosh) however with dispersant injection the model showed atmospheric benzene concentrations were 500 times lower than the levels considered acceptable to breathe by niosh these predictions depend on local weather conditions that can vary from day to day however we predict that cleanup delays would have been much more frequent if subsurface dispersant injection had not been applied reddy and arey say but this one study is not the final say on the usage of dispersants they added it is another row on a ledger sheet called the ‘spill impact mitigation analysis which assesses various strategies and tools to reduce environmental and economic damage caused by oil spills all potential positive and negative effects of dispersant injection need to be taken into account before final judgments on their future use can be robustly determined the debate about using dispersants is becoming increasingly politicized and acrimonious and the national academy of sciences has recently assembled a committee of scientists government officials and industry to evaluate the use of chemical dispersants in oil spill responses
2030,imagine designing and building a machine to perform a task it cannot see its way through only feel you must program it to solve problems and adjust its own speed and progress to avoid hazardous situations and failure once your machine is started you have to trust it to function all on its own three graduate students tyrell cunningham ibrahim el-sayed and enrique zarate losoya from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university won the 2017 drillbotics competition this summer by doing just that they designed and built a miniature automated drilling rig that uses sensors and computer logistics to drill a vertical well in a test formation of unknown composition without any human intervention aggie drillbotics team (left to right): tyrell cunningham enrique zarate losoya and ibrahim el-sayed what is drillbotics the annual drillbotics competition originated when several society of petroleum engineering members established the drilling systems automation technical section (dsats) to accelerate the use of automation in the drilling industry the goal of dsats is to link surface machines to downhole machines tools and measuring systems to create an automated system that improves drilling safety and efficiency the group thought student competitions were the perfect way to introduce the topic dsats reached out to several universities to see if their students could create and manage the multi-disciplinary teams needed to succeed confident the idea would work dsats held the first drillbotics competition in 2015 and aggies have been present from the start the aggie team teams from texas a&m placed second in the first two years of competition this year when more teams entered and drillbotics upped the difficulty level the aggies pulled out all the stops and took first place the teams rig is so impressive it has been used by two national science foundation-funded undergraduate students this summer to conduct research into drilling parameters and vibrations on wellbore patterns and their effect on drilling dysfunctions tyrell ibrahim and enrique put in a lot of work and it showed said team advisor dr sam noynaert assistant professor in the department they were up against the largest group of schools the competition has seen the things they were able to accomplish in terms of sensors machining and design were very impressive the presentation they made to the judges was extremely well done and was likely a key reason for their win most teams are made up of students from several engineering disciplines this was the first year all the aggie members were petroleum engineering majors but because they were familiar with mechanical computer and petroleum engineering disciplines they succeeded automated drilling rigs crafting an automated two-meter tall drilling rig is no small feat students are given two semesters fall and spring to accomplish the task during the fall semester students must research automated drilling and draw up their designs during the spring semester the teams construct their machine and deal with purposely introduced challenges similar to what industry engineers encounter in the field the design phases main challenge is actually afterward in the transfer from design to implementation said noynaert they ran into issues with the control algorithms data handling sensors and sensor communication and the need for significant custom machining and manufacturing because of cost and time constraints as well as the highly specialized nature of what they needed the team machined a variety of custom top-drive parts themselves department staff member john maldonado spent time with the student on this providing advice and patience these parts were necessary to allow a wired downhole sensor to send high rates of vibration data to the surface while drilling all while the drillstring was rotating at over 1 500 rpm (revolutions per minute) said noynaert they were able to solve each problem on time and under budget teams were purposely limited on equipment in some areas especially the drillpipe the pipe is intentionally thin-walled and weak making it difficult to transfer weight and rpm to the bit without breaking the pipe said noynaert this makes the control systems recognition and response to drilling dysfunctions critical since an incorrect response could cause a catastrophic equipment failure the competition judges from dsats visit each university after the spring semester ends grading team presentations and observing each rigs performance they provide each team with a formation for the rig to drill a block sealed with concrete containing unknown compositions that include one or more drilling hazards this years sample had varying strengths of formations from sandstone to asphalt to even a layer of rubber all intended to cause drilling dysfunctions that would either result in an equipment failure or slow down the drilling significantly said noynaert this year they had to overcome severe whirl (downhole bit and drillstring vibrations) and some stick-slip (variations in torque and rpm) the team can only use two buttons during the competition: start and stop the rig must do everything else on its own this is an automated rig meaning there is no fixing a problem by hand or allowing a person to make a real-time decision for the rig said noynaert it must do it all on its own meaning any failure in any system results in an overall failure in the final test rigs are graded on drill speed and borehole straightness and quality teams are scored on their ability to present and explain their work including safety measures budget and design choices judges are looking for creativity innovation and reliability the results ten universities submitted designs for the 2017 competition and seven progressed to the finals texas a&m took first place with the norwegian university of science and technology in second and the university of stavanger and the university of oklahoma tied for third through two semesters you have learned things that are not in the textbooks wrote fred florence chair of the drillbotics committee for dsats to the participants you experienced the thrill of invention followed by the intense effort necessary to develop your innovation into a working prototype all of you experienced times when things did not go as planned yet you found ways to keep moving forward congratulations to all of you though the team was funded by the department and was provided three faculty advisors and one staff member for guidance noynaert was quick to point out that cunningham el-sayed and zarate losoya did the majority of the work without assistance they spent countless hours and late nights on the challenge earning only three hours of class credit what they accomplished is not just amazing relative to what one would expect from a student but is actually comparable or even better than what a group of practicing engineers in industry would produce said noynaert what they and the other schools teams are doing will have an impact on the industry
2031,above photo: shayla rivera is pictured during a comedy tour in iraq when one hears the words rocket scientist a certain image often comes to mind that of an older man in a white lab coat beaker in hand but its 2017 and that stereotype is fading away thanks to people like shayla rivera rivera or as her name appears on caller id the funny rocket scientist is an aerospace engineer motivational speaker and standup comedian shes also a professor of engineering practice and the new director of texas a&ms engr[x] engr[x] is a new initiative within texas a&m universitys college of engineering that tracks the many ways engineering students go beyond what is required on their syllabus to become the most well-rounded highly sought-after candidates after graduation its like adding show business to engineering rivera said class of ‘83 it was 1979 when rivera first set foot on the texas a&m campus as an aerospace engineering student completely unaware that she was a trailblazer for women having recently moved to the united states from puerto rico rivera said she was so focused on learning english her freshman year that she hardly noticed there werent many other female engineering students in her classes by the time she graduated in 1983 only 29 women had graduated from texas a&m with aerospace engineering degrees despite the culture shock rivera said attending texas a&m was the best decision she ever made from rocket scientist to comedian when rivera graduated she landed an aerospace engineers dream gig a job at nasa her team was in charge of plotting the footprint on earth where the solid rocket boosters could be found and retrieved by the us navy she later moved into software development and helped create simulation software for the ascent and entry for mission control center operator training eventually she made her way to arizona where she worked on the pilot night vision system for the apache helicopter before working with the international space station assembly research allocation database during her time at nasa rivera said she realized she was very interested in the human side of science i was always observing people she said when rivera left nasa to work in environmental sales this enabled her to tap into her passion for working with people sales training really opened my eyes to the importance of motivation and i was totally hooked she said rivera said she wanted to be in a position where she could help people reach their potential and leading seminars and motivational speaking did just that it didnt take long for people to start remarking on her humor telling her she should be a stand-up comedian if youre willing to take the risk and see what happens you have no idea where youre going to end up she said this year will be 24 years that ive been doing stand-up professionally rivera will be featured on an hbo latino comedy special soon i call myself an awareness expert because i have learned that if you become aware of pain and are clear about your limiting beliefs then you can start making positive changes she said its a quantum physics principle: the observer affects the results of the experiment which means that in life you will find what you are looking for we are the ones affecting the results in our lives and theres nothing that cant be done the x factor riveras positive outlook and charisma no doubt led her to her current role as director of engr[x] where she will be overseeing a collegewide endeavor to further set texas a&m engineering students apart from other graduates the program requires all engineering students (beginning with incoming freshmen this semester) to go beyond the core curriculum in engineering and add high-impact activities that help students develop the professional skills and attributes that will set them apart from the rest these experiences range from study abroad trips internships and leadership positions to acts of selfless service and participation in entrepreneurial activities colleges and universities nationwide together with employers and entrepreneurs have studied and recognized the need to broaden a students college experience to be better prepared for their professional lives engr[x] seeks to provide these experiences and track each students x factor through their college career i am evidence that a life of taking risks and believing in yourself will lead you to amazing places rivera said my life has brought me back to the best place to betexas a&m university
2032,a three-year $242 000 grant from the national science foundation (nsf) will allow dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university to investigate the flight dynamics and control of hover-capable small-scale flapping wing robots stability and agility are opposing goals therefore the ability of insects and hummingbirds to perform a stable hover while rejecting external disturbances and retaining agility has baffled scientists and engineers even after decades of research in this area the dynamics of flapping flight is only beginning to be understood the goal of the proposed research titled dynamics and control of hummingbird inspired aerial robots is to improve understanding of flight dynamics maneuverability (or controllability) and disturbance rejection capabilities of realistic hummingbird-like flapping-wing robots through a well-balanced modeling and experimental approach the proposed research will take advantage of fully nonlinear simulations and flight experiments using a robotic hummingbird successfully designed built and flight-tested at benedicts advanced vertical flight lab (avfl) this is only the second vehicle of this type ever created along with the darpa-funded nano hummingbird by aerovironment
2033,understanding the dynamics and control of bio-inspired flight will enable the development of the next generation of miniature flying robots with robustness and agility comparable to natural flyers such systems would play pivotal roles in both national defense and domestic safety an agile robust stealthy autonomous flying robot with the ability to carry miniature sensors could guide soldiers and marines out of harms way potential civilian applications include biochemical sensing traffic monitoring surveillance fire and rescue operations wildlife surveys power-line inspection and aerial photography to name a few more information on benedicts research can be found at advanced vertical flight lab website
2034,a research team with the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university in collaboration with the south texas project nuclear operating company (stpnoc) has solved generic safety issue (gsi) - 191 a problem resulting from a loss of coolant accident in a nuclear reactor which can cause debris to be generated and potentially impact the performance of the safety system the team provided a solution to the us nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) for gsi-191 regarding the generation of debris during a loss of coolant accident and the potential consequences to the emergency system performance the methodology that the team has developed will allow this safety issue to be addressed in light water reactors (lwr) across the country and is the first to be approved by the nrc the loss of coolant accident is a design basis accident meaning that when a reactor design is licensed it has to be designed to handle these type of accidents safely under any circumstance gsi-191 is a safety issue that results during a loss of coolant accident where debris can be generated and potentially impact the performance of the safety system pumping water through the primary system in an attempt to cool the reactor to safe levels the debris blocking sump strainers and other flow paths can cause insufficient amounts of water to be recycled through the system which means the reactor isnt being cooled efficiently or safely to solve this problem stpnoc partnered with texas a&m to develop a widely applicable methodology approved by the nrc that can be applied to theoretically any operating lwr plant across the country the methodology provides guidance on evaluating the safety level of the plant against the gsi-191 accounting for similarities and variable differences between plants our contribution became very important as we had to make sure the calculations we were doing were in compliance with nrc guidelines and expectations for thermal hydraulic calculations regarding licensing said rodolfo vaghetto co-principal investigator with the project and a research assistant professor at texas a&m texas a&ms collaboration with stpnoc on this project began in 2010 where through seven years of partnership and continuous interactions between five divisions and 14 branches of the nrc staff the methodology was developed in developing this methodology two risk-informed approaches were used the full risk-informed approach and the risk over deterministic method the departments main attribution to this project is through the thermal hydraulics calculations and experimental studies performed texas a&m is the first to perform these types of complex analyses with over 100 different scenarios simulated the methodology is generic so any power plants can adopt it while accounting for plant-specific parameters vaghetto said through the approval process of the licensing amendment more than 50 public meetings and 400 requests of additional information were completed in addition to 13 project audits before the license amendment was issued in july 2017 weve made great progress in the nuclear power plant safety methodology and we look forward to other nuclear plants adopting the stpnoc methodology to resolve the gsi-191 issue vaghetto said students involved in the project felt that it gave them invaluable experience the opportunity to work on gsi-191 let me solve a real industry problem said tim crook a nuclear engineer at transatomic power and former student researcher with the project this breadth of exposure was invaluable towards my education experience and career choices im proud to know that i made an impact on closing a 20-plus-year-old issue and simultaneously proved the robust safety case of nuclear power plants the texas a&m effort in this project involved the following researchers; rodolfo vaghetto alessandro vanni yassin hassan shin kang angelo frisani brad beeny and timothy crook in addition to more than 15 undergraduate students
2035,the energy was high in the bethancourt ballroom in the memorial student center on the texas a&m university campus last week as 110 incoming engineering students and their families celebrated the culmination of the engineering summer bridge program hosted by access and inclusion and women in engineering the program was designed to bridge the gap from high school to college for first-generation engineering students instilling a sense of comfort and confidence in participants for six weeks the students stay on campus in dorms with peer mentors allowing them to become acclimated with college life and to make connections with incoming and current students they also get a head start on their math courses and learn about time management and study skills texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp spoke at the reception congratulating the students for making the decision to go to college you are the most important students on campus he said what youre fixin to do is change the future of your family forever because 100 years from now the dinner conversation is going to change from ‘should i go to college to ‘where should i go to college this sentiment was echoed by corey anthony senior vice president of human resources and chief diversity officer at at&t its a major step anthony said i can relate to where you all are i was a first-generation student as well what youre doing is changing the cycle for your family and you have a unique opportunity to do that anthony said the skills these students are obtaining will be highly valuable when they graduate i will tell you from an employers perspective we cannot get enough talent in the stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) space he said the worlds marketplace is looking for stem skill sets at&t sponsored a cohort of first-generation students for the second year in a rowjoining this year zachry corporation also sponsored a cohort of female students allowing the engineering summer bridge program to more than double in size tara snowden director of public and government affairs at zachry corporation said that the program required a lot of dedication from people who truly care about first-generation students success today you overcome your fears and doubts and you make a commitment to continue your educational journey she said you are not alone in this journey the summer bridge program is only the beginning to a way of life an aggie life that inspires action shawna fletcher director of the women in engineering program at texas a&m said the summer bridge program helps first-generation women make connections and acclimate to engineering at texas a&m not only do they get started on their academics but this program helps them to experience college life early so they know what to expect she said dr sonia garcia senior director of access and inclusion said the response shes received from students has been very positive these students are ready for school to start she said theyre ready to make good grades and theyre excited to become engineers thats what its all about giving these students the tools to put in their tool box
2036,"alfredo costilla-reyes a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering has been named the 2017-18 kirchner food fellow the kirchner food fellowship is an innovative hands-on impact investment program that harnesses the power of millennials to find fund and assist promising socially responsible agricultural businesses the program is competitive and gives students an opportunity to learn entrepreneurial leadership skills to invest money into agriculture-oriented businesses that offer the promise of a sustainable solution for the future this is the first time a texas a&m student has been awarded this honor previous fellows have represented institutions such as columbia university harvard university and massachusetts institute of technology costilla-reyes was awarded the fellowship for demonstrating his academic research and entrepreneurial initiative in bitgrange a startup company that he founded last year the company is an educational platform that connects agriculture to the internet via smartphone applications at bitgrange costilla-reyes has developed an intelligent prototype that combines electrical engineering and the ""internet of things"" in agriculture to grow vegetables and flowers indoors costilla-reyes collaborated with dr edgar sánchez-sinencio distinguished professor ti jack kilby chair professor and leader of the analog and mixed-signal group in the electrical and computer engineering department and dr kim dooley associate dean for academic operations in the college of agriculture and life sciences at texas a&m alfredo is a very bright student and his hands-on approach to solve problems and innovate is his forte said sanchez-sinencio alfredo has exhibited a superior understanding of innovation and design creating a prototype to provide education and access to primary food sources in any living condition said dooley as a phd student in the college of engineering he has brought his technical knowledge together with his passion to make a difference costilla-reyes will be awarded $10 000 to support his research in energy-efficient power management circuits and energy harvesting systems for agriculture and bioelectrochemical process applications in emerging agricultural technologies during his tenure as kirchner food fellow as a fellow he will gain venture capital and merchant banking leadership skills necessary to drive positive global sustainability efforts for future generations it still amazes me how a small project that i sketched during the college of agriculture and life sciences grand challenges challenge competition has helped me to go to places i never thought i would be able to go said costilla-reyes i got the opportunity to be a part of an elite group of individuals who care about solve the world's most challenging issues in food and agriculture said costilla-reyes the grand challenges challenge competition (gc3) is a team-based competition in the college of agriculture and life sciences that tasks teams of interdisciplinary aggies to develop a solution to one of its five grand challenges costilla-reyes was recruited to represent a team in the competition to help identify an innovative solution to a wicked problem costilla-reyes attributes his success and desire to develop a sustainable solution to worlds agricultural needs through engineering to his participation in thought for food challenge in amsterdam through gc3 and thought for food challenges i got the opportunity to meet with leaders and entrepreneurs from around the world who were committed to solving the world hunger problems through creative solutions said costilla-reyes i learned how the way we communicate our engineering ideas and projects are as valuable as the research itself entrepreneurship is nothing new to costilla-reyes in 2009 an undergraduate costilla-reyes cofounded microtecnologias crea where he led the design and development of an electronic tablet to improve production processes for small and medium business in toluca area méxico costilla-reyes received his bachelors degree in electronics engineering from universidad autónoma del estado de méxico in 2010 and began his phd program at texas a&m in 2013 last month he was nominated for the mexico national youth award in the entrepreneurial ingenuity category competing against two other mexican students it is the highest award given to mexicos youth by the government of mexico mexican president enrique peña nieto will present the award to the recipient of the award at a reception in mexico city the results of the competition will be announced in the coming weeks more information about costilla-reyes startup can be found here"
2037,two texas a&m university engineering students won an award for their paper on additive manufacturing at the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) 2017 digital manufacturing challenge justin mcginnity a student in the department of mechanical engineering and cody piercey a student in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution placed second for their paper how digital manufacturing gives life to customizable safety devices each year sme holds a contest where student designers and engineers are challenged to demonstrate new and creative ways that additive manufacturing (3-d printing) can be applied with the increasing number of neck injuries and concussions due to sports and activities such as horseback riding or skiing protecting the neck is of the utmost importance for their device piercey and mcginnity developed a customizable neck brace that is designed to distribute localized stress around the neck made out of a hollow mesh filled with an impact absorbing gel the mesh called the exoskeleton is made using 3-d printing but the process is focused on producing a unique product on a much larger scale and gives the consumer the ability to be involved in the manufacturing process and customize the end-product to their liking customers will be able to go into a database that contains different models and sizes of the mesh that they can download edit and create then they will be able to mold and form the mesh to their shape for a perfect fit with their product the team hopes to capitalize on the newly developed market of consumer customizable medical devices the developments we have made with this project showcase the future use of direct digital manufacturing for custom applications related to the sports and medical industry that is cost effective can be provided to the end user quickly mcginnity said to further optimize the mesh the team is currently in talks with the texas a&m equine initiative to optimize the mesh so they can use it as a protective gear during equestrian training as a result of their win mcginnity and piercey were flown out to pittsburgh pennsylvania to receive their award and present their project to developers in the field of additive manufacturing mcginnity and piercy are advised by dr tanil ozkan professor in the department of mechanical engineering with help from melissa chavez a senior mechanical engineering student at west texas a&m university the team has recently modified the design and is participating in nasas tech briefs create the future contest view their design and cast your vote here: https://contesttechbriefscom/2017/entries/consumer-products/8258
2038,when disaster strikes it is important for first responders to have reliable unhindered access to a controlled network allowing them to receive and deliver critical information while ensuring effective emergency response unfortunately this is currently not the case due to power outages and cell tower damages the infrastructure for communications is not readily available during the response to an incident or disaster and furthermore the cost of this infrastructure is unreasonable even for large organizations in response to this dr radu stoleru professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and his collaborators have proposed a way to enhance the resilience of public safety mission critical systems and services in the face of connectivity challenges the middle class tax relief and job creation act of 2012 produced the first responder network authority (firstnet) which was designed to provide emergency responders with the first nationwide high-speed broadband network dedicated to public safety at&t has just been selected by firstnet and awarded $65 billion to build the wireless network with construction beginning later this year stolerus current project centers on the development of distressnet-ng which is a fault-tolerant energy-efficient and load-balanced solution for mobile broadband communication and mobile edge computing for firstnet edge/fog computing is a method of optimizing cloud computing systems by performing data processing at the edge of the network near the source of the data distressnet-ng provides a scalable and resilient wireless interconnection fabric for first responder communication equipment stoleru said smartphones carried by first responders are capable of performing analytics using the computing and storage power of nearby devices eliminating the need for constant high capacity connections to the internet in order to accelerate this process several high-performance computing nodes that are built using common-off-the-shelf components can be deployed in the area stoleru while collaborating with dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the computer science and engineering department for a national science foundation (nsf) engineering research center proposal developed the term fog computing this was just the start of this ground-breaking endeavor at that time while cloud computing was still emerging i realized that in a disaster area a cloud environment might not be available due to the disruption in the networking/communication infrastructure stoleru said i then proposed the concept of ‘fog which is a not well-defined cloud over an intermittently connected network infrastructure it is rewarding to notice that cisco recently (2013) adopted the term ‘fog computing a concept we have been thinking about and working on since 2008 after joining texas a&m in 2007 he saw immediate application in the texas a&m engineering extension service (teex) and disaster city and began working on fog/edge computing in 2008 in 2011 stoleru received an nsf grant to continue his research and begin building distressnet cloud computing has been traditionally done in data centers in a physical location edge/fog computing moves the computations from data centers to mobile devices of end users because data centers where cloud computing can be done might not be available shortly after a large-scale disaster stoleru has also collaborated with dr walt magnussen director of the internet2 evaluation center and the academy of telecommunications and learning technologies; and dr harsha chenji former computer engineering doctoral student lead for the distressnet project and assistant professor at ohio university stoleru was also recently awarded a $18 million grant from the national institute of standards and technology (nist) which is part of the us department of commerce nists mission is to promote us innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science standards and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life
2039,"arthur ""artie"" mcferrin jr 65 passed away on tuesday aug 8 mcferrin has been a longtime supporter of the chemical engineering department which bears his name and texas a&m university as a whole in 1975 after working for shell and as an independent consultant mcferrin decided to make a bet on himself founding kmco lp as mcferrin told the department in 2008 it was a challenge but he had the confidence in himself i kind of knew it was risky but i was really young and had no fear mcferrin said thats not to say i didnt know there was risk but i knew i could do it betting on himself turned out to be a great move over its more than 40 years of operation kmco has grown into one of the leading chemical processers producing a wide variety of high-value chemicals for some of the most prominent global chemical companies beginning in 2001 mcferrin began betting on the texas a&m chemical engineering department that year mcferrin and his son jeff mcferrin 92 (pictured below left) established the mcferrin professorship in chemical engineering this professorship has proven crucial in attracting and retaining top teaching talent to the department the original recipient of the mcferrin professorship dr mahmoud el-halwagi still holds the position in the department in 2005 mcferrin and his wife dorothy established a $10 million endowment devoted exclusively to supporting the chemical engineering department the largest gift to the department to date after this gift the department was renamed the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering im focused on where i can have the most impact – in chemical engineering thats my background chem-e at a&m mcferrin reflected in 2008 i feel like part of the department and i want to see the department be successful its always been successful but on the national scene there is a constant battle even with the new [jack e brown] building which is great and the facilities and labs and the endowment this is still a growing effort but at least we have a better foundation to grow from now outside of the chemical engineering department mcferrin and his wife have contributed millions of dollars to texas a&m these contributions are visible throughout campus and include the mcferrin indoor athletic center and the cox-mcferrin center for aggie basketball in addition the mcferrins created a $1 million endowment in 2006 for the becky gates childrens center and made a gift to name the bob gates ballroom in the renovated memorial student center the mcferrins also donated $1 million to endow the marilyn kent byrne student success center and a similarly named faculty chair in the college of education and human development most recently the couple gave $3 million to support the artie mcferrin 65 professor of practice to bring industry experts to engineering classrooms and to help build the new undergraduate zachry engineering education complex mcferrins service to texas a&m goes well beyond financial gifts he has served as chairman of the chemical engineering advisory board and on the president's corps of cadets board of visitors he also served as chairman of the 12th man foundation board of trustees and in the texas a&m research foundation the engineering school advisory council and the chancellor's century council mcferrin also received countless awards for his service to the university he was named an outstanding alumnus of the department of chemical engineering in 1998 and the association of former students distinguished alumnus in 2008 he received the dwight look college of engineering outstanding alumni honor award in 2013 and the corps of cadets hall of honor award in 2015 in 2014 mcferrin published a book highlighting his leadership style the executioner: implementing intangible elusive success principles dr m nazmul karim professor and head of the chemical engineering department reflected on mcferrin's impact on the department ""artie mcferrin was a guiding light for the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering over the years when the department needed guidance or when they felt they were lost like the ship-wrecked sailors the departmental leadership and faculty looked up to artie for his wisdom and his unwavering support for creating a nurturing environment for students to excel in classroom and outside he was a great proponent of entrepreneurship and excellence in education and research his book executioner bears the testimony of his passion for excellence i will personally miss him dearly; he was a friend artie mcferrin is survived by his wife of more than 50 years dorothy mcferrin their son jeffery mcferrin and his wife kasey and children karsen and sydney their daughter jennifer mcferrin-bohner her husband david and children ally and lexi he is also survived by his sister mary mcferrin knockaert and her husband earl and his brother-in-law joe jersild and his wife irina"
2040,"dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was invited to give an inspirational talk at the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) women in engineering international leadership conference (wie ilc) in san josé california in may the theme of the conference was lead beyond - accelerating innovative women who change the world murphys talk robots disasters and refugees: how unmanned systems are helping "" was part of the innovation track at the event wie ilc provides women in technology from all backgrounds and professions the opportunity to fuel innovation facilitate knowledge sharing and provide support their mission is to inspire engage and advance women in engineering through outreach technical seminars humanitarian projects networking events and educational programs there was a record attendance of 1 500 women in engineering at all stages of their careers at the conference other speakers included peggy johnson executive vice president business development at microsoft; lily chang research and development vice president vmware; lakshmi puri deputy executive director un women; and maria klawe president of harvey mudd college i was proud to represent texas a&m at this event murphy said murphy currently directs the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for robot-assisted search and rescue and is an ieee fellow a ted speaker and a founder of roboticists without borders she has worked in disaster robotics research and deployment since 1995 and has deployed ground air and marine robots in disasters world-wide"
2041,jose wippold a student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to be the 2017 recipient for the science mathematics & research for transformation (smart) fellowship with the department of defense (dod) the smart fellowship is funded through the national defense education program that selects applicants within the science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) disciplines the fellowship is available to undergraduate masters and doctoral students funding is guaranteed for five years and upon graduation award recipients are placed into careers within dod laboratories and agencies wippold is currently using microfluidic platforms to study infectious diseases the microfluidic device wippold is developing determines the ability of cells to produce neutralizing antibodies the project has been given the name platform for the rapid evaluation of vaccine success using integrated microfluidics enabled technology the end goal of the project is to combat emerging and existing threats said wippold by using this device we can rapidly screen a human b cell repertoire and isolate those that produce the necessary antibodies wippold hopes the award will help him to better focus his efforts into his research without having the stress of worrying about financial obligations
2042,one of the latest trends is to reduce wired communication and transfers by updating systems to wireless capabilities industries embracing this shift include energy technology subsea communication and aviation recently aerospace america dove into exactly what it would take to significantly reduce the amount of wire on an aircraft this has the potential to eliminate a significant portion of the almost 7 400 kilograms of wire found on some modern aircraft many of these wires supply electricity to components but many others transmit operational data including avionics flight-control commands and sensor data on the performance of components like pneumatic and hydraulic systems wrote henry canaday a contributor for the magazine research engineers think that in five years they will have cleared enough technical and regulatory hurdles to begin replacing many data-carrying wires with wireless transceivers dr david redman and a team of researchers from the aerospace vehicle systems institute (avsi) in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have worked over the last 10 years to make this technology possible the wireless avionics intra-communications (waic) project conducted through avsi is a collaboration of major aerospace companies working together to address common issues associated with wireless avionics redman said sensors are increasing on modern aircraft in order to improve efficiency reliability and safety of flight this in turn creates a vast amount of data describing the state of the aircraft that must be collected processed and utilized by aircraft functions traditionally this has required additional wires to distribute the data on board the aircraft these traditional onboard data communications systems require complex electrical wiring and harness fabrication which adds weight to the aircraft and in turn increases fuel burn redman said these systems are also unreliable and difficult to reconfigure and rely on double or even triple redundancy to mitigate the risk of cut or defective wiring waic solely addresses the required radio communication between components integrated or installed on board the same aircraft this communication is transmitted through an exclusive network between two or more points on a single aircraft and does not provide air-to-ground air-to-satellite or air-to-air communications there are multiple factors motivating the aviation industry to adopt technology such as waic redman said these include weight savings gained by reducing wiring harnesses and connectors and leading to improved fuel efficiency of the aircraft enabling the reliable monitoring of aircraft functions that cannot be practically monitored with wired sensors and improved reliability of aircraft systems through mitigation of common mode failures by means of dissimilar redundancy previous avsi waic projects worked though the international telecommunications union (itu-r) to gain a worldwide allocation for use of the 42 – 44 ghz frequency band for use by waic this frequency band had been used exclusively by radar altimeters which measure the distance from the bottom of the plane to the ground below by timing how long it takes to reflect a radio wave from the ground and return to the plane today redman and his team are performing laboratory characterization of the effects of waic on radar altimeters to support the design and specification of future waic systems the texas a&m team has established a reference test apparatus that measures the effect of candidate waic radio signals on the accuracy of radar altimeters redman said these altimeters are necessary for the safe operation of aircraft so waic is being designed to avoid interfering with their operation we have tested multiple altimeter models from the major commercial altimeter manufacturers and are preparing to validate these tests with flight testing in late 2017 according to their website aerospace america reaches approximately 25 000 aerospace professionals and hundreds of engineering and aerospace libraries it is a publication of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics that presents the latest information and analysis of industry issues and technologies in an inviting and engaging format
2043,the research of dr akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been featured in advanced materials for his work in developing new methods to form synthetic gel-like environments for biomedical applications the new method has the potential to help many different areas within the biomedical field including tissue engineering regenerative medicine and cell/therapeutic delivery the method uses chemical conjugation of two-dimensional (2-d) molybdenum disulfide (mos2) an inorganic nanomaterial with a polymeric binder in order to create high-water content gels this new gelation approach utilizes the planar and edge atomic defects available on the mos2 surface to form mechanically strong and resilient hydrogels said gaharwar by modulating the number of atomic defects on the mos2 surface physical and chemical properties of the gel can be tailored for biomedical applications the resulting material is porous in nature and is utilized to encapsulate as well as deliver cells in order to facilitate regeneration of tissues that have been damaged one of the many benefits of the process is that the material is cell friendly the new process does not involve the use of harsh chemicals thermal agitation or uv light as a result the outcome is a non-cytotoxic and safe method of encapsulating living stem cells and proteins to read more about gaharwars article visit the website
2044,"sixteen students from the college of engineering at texas a&m university participated in the 2017 global grand challenges summit held july 18-20 at george washington university in washington dc there were 150 abstracts submitted to the event and 86 teams from around the world were invited to present a poster on their grand challenge project four awards were presented to teams from the united states one to a team from the united kingdom and one to a team from china two of the four awards in the us were given to teams of the aggie_challenge program at texas a&m aggie_challenge promotes undergraduate student engagement in research for grand engineering challenges in doing so students collaborate in multidisciplinary teams and work closely with faculty and graduate student mentorselectrical engineering senior stefan manoharan won the best undergraduate poster design category for his project point of care (poc) health informatics for proactive epilepsy seizure alert manoharans poster presented the work of the aggie_challenge team comprised of brian taylor arnold and kyle reagan (mechanical engineering); srujan kancharla and sandesh reddy (biomedical engineering); alan dang ngo (electrical engineering); ishan vasandani (industrial engineering); and sagar patel (chemical engineering) the team was mentored by dr satish bukkapatnam industrial engineering rockwell international professor and his graduate student afrin kahkashan who also participated in the event mechanical engineering graduate students rana soltani-zarrin and amin zeiaee won the societal and technical impact graduate category for their project virtual-reality enhanced exoskeleton for rehabilitation controlled via reverse engineering the central nervous system the aggie_challenge team who worked with soltani-zarrin and zeiaee team included bharat agarwal and darby ballard (general engineering); maura cadigan (aerospace engineering); linda bustaman (biomedical engineering); haaris padela david ratliff and mark wagner (computer engineering); ryan garmeson (computer science); malik aldabbagh mario de la cabada brad king and hannah kowpak (electrical engineering); joshua willard (industrial distribution); phuong pham (industrial engineering); and nathan dunkleberger michael mcclure and xin shen (mechanical engineering) the faculty mentor of the team was dr reza langari engineering technology and industrial distribution professor and jr thompson department head chair in addition two other aggie_challenge teams were invited and presented posters at the competition momore adesanmi alon farkas caleb neufeld and yndalecia ojeda presented a poster advanced vapor compression desalination – creating a scalable water resource mentored by dr mark holtzapple ehab abo deeb minxiang ""glenn"" zheng and ian echols presented a poster high-flux hybrid membranes for effective oil-water separation mentored by dr zhengdong cheng furthermore six students pursuing the grand challenge scholars program (gcsp) at texas a&m were also invited to attend the event the grand challenge scholars program provides students with curricular and extra-curricular activities designed to provide skills and experiences in a research project that focuses on the five required areas of multidisciplinary experience; global dimension entrepreneurship service learning and research the six gcsp scholars were kanika gakhar (aerospace engineering); agnes aina and ricci kirsten seguban (chemical engineering); samantha wilson and alyssa ornelas (civil engineering); and jusung lee (computer science) the 2017 global grand challenges summit was the third in a collaborative series sponsored by the national academy of engineering the united kingdom royal academy of engineering and the chinese academy of engineering the event focused on the four themes of the nae grand challenges for engineering; sustainability health security and joy of living as well as education and public engagement related to the grand challenges general motors generously provided support for travel expenses of aggie_challenge teams who participated in the summit"
2045,two proposals by researchers in the texas a&m university college of engineering received grants from the us department of energy‘s (doe) national energy technology laboratory (netl) university coalition for fossil energy research (ucfer) program ucfer is part of a six-year $20 million project awarded by netl the goals of the project are to identify select execute review and disseminate knowledge from research that will improve the efficiency of production and use of fossil energy resources while minimizing the environmental impacts and reducing greenhouse gas emissions dr eric petersen (principal investigator-pi) nelson-jackson professor; and dr waruna kulatilaka (co-pi) associate professor; both in the department of mechanical engineering lead the project validation of cfd models for turbulent supercritical co2 combustion dr jaime grunlan (co-pi) linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the mechanical engineering department; and dr benjamin wilhite (co-pi) associate professor in the department of chemical engineering lead the project layer-by-layer functional thin film coatings for enhanced light gas separations petersen and kulatilakas project combines state-of-the-art facilities in their laboratory with the computational fluid dynamics (cfd) expertise at does netl cfd is the use of applied mathematics physics and computational software to visualize how a gas or liquid flows the team will provide data to help validate the turbulent reacting flow cfd model(s) at netl the overall approach is for the numerical simulations to directly model the experimental setup and results hence validating the code at conditions that are relevant to supercritical-co2 (sco2) power cycles such a model could then be used with greater confidence when applied to modeling the complex sco2 burners at extreme conditions such as at 300 bar 700°c and high levels of co2 since few high-pressure data such as flame speeds highly resolved images and flame zones at supercritical conditions currently exist in the literature a new experimental setup at the laboratory for studying turbulent flames in a controlled high-pressure setting will be used that has the capability of producing turbulence at frequencies and length scales of interest to power generation applications with the plif (planar laser induced fluorescence) diagnostic we will be able to measure the spatial distribution of target molecules in the turbulent reacting flow fields petersen said the burst-mode laser system will also help us make sure measurements with much smaller time differences between each measurement allowing for better temporal resolution of the phenomena their setup is also one of the very few vessels in the world that can be operated at elevated pressures up to 20 bar (approximately the pressure felt under 660 feet of water) while also having windows to view the application and development of advanced diagnostics the optical imaging diagnostics will be based on established plif techniques (used for velocity concentration temperature and pressure measurements); cutting-edge ultrahigh repetition rate ‘burst-mode laser technology; and ultra-high-speed imaging such techniques have been rarely been used in spherical-flame experiments so the proposed tests are new and innovative the potential impact is on improving the design tools of the advanced combustion systems leading to higher performance/efficiency engines petersen said thin film coatings for enhanced light gas separations with their project grunlan and wilhite say low cost low-energy separation of light gases remains a critical challenge to creating a sustainable energy and liquid fuels foundation operable from coal natural gas or biomass/biogas for these resources to be converted to a combination of clean energy they must first separate out the impurities to solve this problem they have developed a completely new game-changing gas separation membrane coating that will make the process of extracting impurities easier and less expensive they use a simple polymer-based film to remove the impurities and their polymer membrane could perform as well as expensive materials such as mixed matrix membranes and zeolites the membrane that grunlan and wilhite have developed is a layer-by-layer polymer coating that is comprised of alternating individual layers of common low-cost polyelectrolytes the coating can be made by dipping or spraying making it easy to apply to existing gas separation systems these films separate molecules based on size the smaller ones such as hydrogen pass through while larger ones such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen are slowed down and the more membranes it goes through the purer it becomes therefore allowing for more uses the term ‘light gases usually refers to hydrogen and helium (ie low molecular weight and small atomic size) grunlan said liquid hydrogen is a fuel and liquid helium is an important coolant for a number of applications it is much colder than liquid nitrogen for example the nuclear magnetic resonance tools used by chemists have magnets that need to be cooled by liquid helium by taking an off-the-shelf low-cost membrane module and treating with our coatings we hope to enable breakthroughs in gas separations that may be readily utilized by commercial industry wilhite adds ucfer will engage in both fundamental and applied research for clean and low-carbon energy based on fossil resources outreach and technology transfer to industry will be important components of the coalition with the aim of reducing environmental impacts and minimizing carbon dioxide emission the coalition will explore both research in coal and in natural gas and oil including carbon dioxide capture storage and utilization research in gas and oil will also include unconventional resources such as shale gas and environmental impacts natural gas infrastructure leak detection and smart sensors deep water technology methane hydrates and enhanced recovery led by penn state university the founding members of the ucfer coalition team include the massachusetts institute of technology princeton university texas a&m university of kentucky university of southern california university of tulsa university of wyoming and virginia tech university proposals for ucfer are directed through the texas a&m energy institute which helps to assemble teams performs final checks on the proposals serves on the governing board of the coalition and provides steering advice for the direction of future proposal calls
2046,dr robert e skelton tees distinguished research professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university received the ifac fellow award from the international federation of automatic control (ifac) at the ifac 2017 world congress in toulouse france the ifac fellows award is given to people who have made outstanding and extraordinary contributions in the field of interest of ifac in the role as engineer/scientist technical leader or educator skelton received the award for his contributions to model reduction robust control and integration of structure and control design for more than 50 years skeltons research has focused on integrating system science with material science to create new material systems his papers have explained the tensegrity nature of the cytoskeleton of red blood cells and of the molecular structure of natures strongest tensile material the spider fiber the ability to adapt allows tensegrity to produce materials systems that can modify their acoustic electromagnetic or mechanical properties in addition tensegrity structures may include built-in actuators sensors and power-storage devices this versatility makes tensegrity an attractive alternative to conventional design skelton is a member of the national academy of engineering he is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics a co-recipient of the normal medal of the american society of civil engineers and a life member of the alexander von humboldt foundation (a non-profit foundation in germany established to promote cooperation in international research) as well as having received the senior scientist award from the japan society for the promotion of science he has published four books; model error concepts and compensation (1986) dynamic systems control (1988) a unified algebraic approach to control design (1996) and tensegrity systems (2009)
2047,dr ramesh talreja tenneco professor of engineering in the department of aerospace engineering and the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the 2017 outstanding research award in composites from the american society for composites (asc) the asc describes the winner of the award as a distinguished member of the composites community who has made a significant impact on the science and technology of composite materials through a sustained research effort over a number of years the ascs mission is to provide a communication forum for the engineering and scientific community and to expedite growth of knowledge gained from inter-disciplinary engineering and scientific research in composite materials as well as to promote the exploitation of the unique properties of composite materials in emerging applications in 2013 talreja received the highest honor the scala award from the international committee on composite materials (iccm) the award comes with the designation world fellow and life member of iccm talreja has published extensively in the field of damage mechanics and fatigue of composite materials he has authored the monograph fatigue of composite materials and has edited several major works including polymer matrix composites damage mechanics of composite materials multiscale modeling and simulation of composite materials and structures and pmc fatigue–fundamentals and has contributed more than 30 chapters to numerous books his book damage and failure of composite materials co-authored with cv singh was published by cambridge university press he is on the editorial boards of 14 journals and has served as associate editor of mechanics of materials and as editor-in-chief of international journal of aerospace engineering his current focus is on structural integrity durability and sustainability of composite materials in aerospace and wind power structures prior to joining the faculty at texas a&m talreja was a professor of aerospace engineering at georgia institute of technology from 1991-2001 his academic career began at the technical university of denmark where he received his phd and doctor of technical sciences degrees in 1974 and 1985 respectively and served in different academic positions until 1991 from 1978-83 he had a joint appointment at the risø laboratory of sustainable energy in denmark talreja will receive his plaque and award of $1 000 at the awards banquet of the 32nd annual technical conference to be held at purdue university on oct 24
2048,dr bonnie j dunbar tees distinguished research professor and three students from her aerospace human systems laboratory attended the 47th international conference on environmental systems (ices 2017) in charleston south carolina ices is the largest conference dedicated to human spaceflight systems including habitats vehicles and extra-vehicular activities (spacesuit) systems masters students patrick chapates and mathew holub and undergraduate research student robert baldwin attended the technical sessions networked with professionals from throughout the nation and the world and attended an early career development workshop for students in addition the students helped host the student poster competition which was sponsored by the department of aerospace engineering and the institute for engineering education and innovation (ieei) of which dunbar is the director the four-day conference covered all topics related to humans living and working in extreme environments with applications inside or outside of terrestrial or outer space habitats or vehicles a large percentage of the participants were from nasa with other attendees from industry universities and international representatives the conference is organized by the ices steering committee and supported by the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics space environmental systems program committee ices international committee american institute of chemical engineers environmental systems committee the american society of mechanical engineers crew systems technical committee and the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics life sciences and systems technical committee in addition to the department and ieei other sponsors included ohb honeywell paragon and utc aerospace systems amy ross head of eva systems at nasa johnson space center was the chair
2049,dr osman anderoglu 10 a graduate of the materials science and engineering program at texas a&m university has become a faculty member in the department of nuclear engineering at the university of new mexico anderoglu earned his bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from bogazici university in istanbul turkey he received his master of science and phd degrees from texas a&m in mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering respectively he worked with dr xinghang zhong on his phd dissertation nanoscale growth twins in sputtered copper films after graduation anderoglu worked as a postdoctoral researcher at los alamos national laboratories in 2012 he received the department of energy nuclear energy offices fuel cycle r&d excellence award and was promoted to a technical staff member in 2013 new nuclear reactor concepts require advanced materials for the demanding environments anderoglu said i currently work on the development and qualification of advanced materials for next generation nuclear reactors anderoglu also works in other materials research topics including establishing microstructure-mechanical property relationships advanced manufacturing and characterization techniques designing ion-irradiation experiments and using small-scale mechanical testing techniques for characterization of these materials through this research i hope to help new reactor concepts become viable for the worlds ever-growing energy need anderoglu said
2050,most college students view an ideal summer as one spent on a sunbaked beach but texas a&m university nuclear engineering student zachary hardy is under a different kind of heat in new mexico working alongside a research team at los alamos national laboratory (lanl) to try to validate a computational model for electrostatic discharge hardy and his colleagues are designing and conducting a specialized experiment to attempt to validate this model developed by the colorado school of mines which could have an impact on the electrostatic discharge safety procedures currently governing nuclear weapons handling validation of this model would remove some of the overly conservative assumptions currently used to characterize electrostatic discharge events sometimes enough charge can build up on a surface to ionize the air around it when this happens the air begins to conduct electricity and a spark occurs this is the same thing that occurs when you walk on carpet and then touch something and get shocked hardy saidthe primary concern for electrostatic discharge with regard to weapons is that the handling and maintenance processes could lead to a shock potentially causing damage according to hardy the safeguards in place likely give overestimates of the amount of energy that will be transferred from the surface where a charge is built up to the where the spark strikes through these experiments hardy and the other researchers hope that some of the costly procedures in place to prevent a spark can be eliminated while still guaranteeing safety assuming our physical results and the models calculated results agree this model could be adopted for use and could soon have an impact on the weapons complex because these events could be more accurately characterized hardy said this project has been ongoing for about two years at lanl where hardy worked last summer on a different project hardy came onto the project this summer and has been working with researchers at a variety of different levels as an undergraduate student involved in high-end research he says the experience has been surreal walking into lanl this summer i did not know what project i would be working on hardy said then i hear i am doing experimental work regarding electrostatic discharge something i have never studied before and did not know much about i did not think i would be involved in work this relevant or far away from my field of study this soon in my career but i feel honored for receiving this opportunity because of hardys extensive research activities at lanl and texas a&m he received the nuclear energy university program scholarship funded by the department of energy and the john r lamarsh memorial scholarship funded by american nuclear society based on a strong potential for continuing research in the field of nuclear engineering at texas a&m hardy has been conducting research under dr pavel tsvetkov who is developing machine learning optimization techniques for a variety of applications hardy and tsvetkov have applied genetic algorithms that mimic the biological process of natural selection to solve complex optimization problems in the nuclear engineering field thus far the algorithm has been used to solve quantum mechanics problems and to aid in optimizing the supply chain strategy in conjunction with fluor and nuscale for small modular reactors this upcoming year they plan to use this algorithm to develop a nondestructive material characterization technique in the quantum mechanics application we based it on a genetic algorithm found in a textbook and steered it from there hardy said weve been fine tuning to figure out how to construct this algorithm so that it can be applied to any suitable problem with minimal effort there are potentially countless applications for this
2051,most of us take flying in an airplane for granted we book our tickets sit through the long check-in lines and if were lucky take off on time to our chosen destination day in and day out we do this without any regard to the age and health of the airplane were flying on the airplanes that fly multiple flights a day incur wear and tear such as cracks in places not always easily seen while there are standards and careful procedures in place to inspect aircraft for excessive wear and tear or minor defects these important safeguards can be very expensive and time-consuming a team of researchers at texas a&m university is working to find a better method for detection of such cracks dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering and dr ibrahim karaman department head and professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m have received a national science foundation (nsf) grant for nearly $400 000 to investigate the feasibility of embedding stress-sensitive active material particles into structural components to identify cracks the moment they occur the project will be a part of the mechanics of materials and structures program portfolio at the nsf one of the greatest dangers to structural safety and reliability in airplanes is uncontrollable growth of cracks in unknown locations within the underlying material currently aircraft must undergo scheduled inspections taking them out of service and if necessary additional downtime is needed for repair this method has been effective limiting the number of incidents associated with aircraft structural failure to just four percent of all accidents unfortunately these inspections are time-consuming and may be performed on an aircraft that is in minimal danger of structural failure thus wasting time and manpower on the other hand standard inspections may not provide all the information needed to reveal underlying damage that can cause catastrophic failure later a fast and effective detection method that is unique to each individual aircraft and minimizes downtime would provide a more accurate description of the state of the aircraft utilizing a smarter monitoring system could result in an estimated 44 percent reduction in inspection time recently a nondestructive evaluation method has been proposed allowing for accurate crack detection in an aircraft or spacecraft structure by strategically embedding stress-sensitive active material particles into structural components the formation of cracks can be identified by detecting changes in the mechanical or magnetic responses of the embedded particles near such damage this method could allow earlier detection of cracks and other damage and preclude the need for traditional inspection approaches each vehicle could be repaired on an as-needed basis saving time and money while gaining valuable information about how these aircraft behave in harsh environments hartl and karaman propose to use a composite they are developing in which single and polycrystalline magnetic shape memory alloy (sma) sensory particles are embedded into aluminum alloys to detect cracks with the magnetic signals that emanate from these particles near the crack damage zone magnetic signature measurement is accurate and avoids false positives during operation smas are unique because the responses they exhibit are due to temperature stress or magnetic field-induced phase transformation as a crack forms particles in the vicinity of the damage will transform between two different material phases both are solid but they exhibit different properties so that the change from one to another can be detected using a number of different methods depending on the material the materials enabling this novel technology are a special sub-class of meta-magnetic smas (msmas) whose magnetic properties drastically change when they undergo a stress induced solid-solid martensitic transformation the small size and wide distribution of the particles throughout the material should permit damage detection much earlier than existing technologies leading to improved reliability and reduced costs a study will be carried out using models of embedded sensory particles each model having varying particle sizes and densities model simulations will be used to determine which size and density configurations maximize transformation signal strength while minimizing the effect that the particles have on overall performance of the material the focus of this research project will be on tailoring and fabricating specific sensory particle alloys and addressing the fabrication challenges for embedding these particles in aluminum alloys experiments will be performed to detect and interpret magnetic signals developing an accurate model of the msma material behavior and designing sensory particle distributions for damage sensing at the component level the end goal is the effective magnetic detection of cracks and the team hopes to demonstrate that phase-transforming sensory particles comprised of alloy systems exhibiting thermal-magnetic-mechanical couplings can be successfully embedded in aluminum components and can be used to provide magnetic signatures during experiments where damage is introduced into these components hartl says by combining the research strengths of my team with that of ibrahims i have no doubt that some important developments will result from this new support
2052,dr ali mostafavi assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was awarded an early-career research fellowship from the national academies gulf research program (grp) the early-career research fellowship recognizes professionals at the critical pretenure stage of their careers for exceptional leadership past performance and potential for future contributions to improving health and well-being in coastal communities mostafavis interdisciplinary research is positioned at the intersection of infrastructure engineering complex networks science and community resilience his research investigates the network dynamics of communities in response to stressors such as sea level rise and natural disasters through the use of systems analytics and complex network models his work creates complex system models of coastal communities in order to devise the actionable science required for robust adaptation planning under deep uncertainty he works closely with community partners to extend the broader impacts of his research mostafavi is a faculty researcher at the center for infrastructure renewal and the institute for sustainable communities at texas a&m he has published more than 25 peer-reviewed international journal papers and has delivered more than 60 national/international conference presentations and invited talks click here for more information on the gulf research program early-career research fellowship
2053,as of september 2017 the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university will be home to three ongoing national science foundation (nsf) projects through the designing materials to revolutionize and engineer our future (dmref) projects the goal of the program is to accelerate the development of groundbreaking new materials while reducing development costs to have three ongoing dmref projects in a department as new and small as ours is a testament to the terrific growth we have experienced over the past few years said dr ibrahim karaman materials science and engineering department head the departments newest dmref project will launch under the leadership of dr miladin radovic it joins two pre-existing projects led by dr raymundo arróyave and dr michael demkowicz radovics project focuses on designing alumina-forming max phases: a class of materials with outstanding mechanical properties at extremely high temperatures their potential future applications include power generation energy conversion transportation and defense the ultimate goal of this project is to achieve unprecedented max phase performance at temperatures up to 1500 degrees celsius said radovic associate professor in the department we will investigate a wide range of max phase alloys and microstructures using high-throughput computations synthesis and characterization radovic is collaborating with co-principal investigators arroyave and dr ankit srivastava from texas a&m and dr michel barsoum from drexel university arróyaves project uses advanced computing to create novel high-temperature shape memory alloys these materials can be used to build miniaturized motors and shape-changing structures solid-state actuators for aeroelastic tailoring noise and flow control and light-weighting in airplanes automobiles and for energy extraction in the oil and gas industries our work focuses on identifying the alloy chemistry and thermal processing necessary to import these enabling materials with desired performance metrics to be used in next-generation subsonic supersonic and hypersonic flights said arróyave professor and presidential impact fellow in the department this is truly a hard problem in materials research that we are trying to solve through a highly interdisciplinary approach if successful our project will demonstrate a powerful accelerated materials development framework that could be applied to a wide range of materials arróyave is collaborating with co-principal investigators dr dimitris lagoudas karaman dr amine benzerga and dr ed dougherty from texas a&m and dr theocharis baxevanis from the university of houston demkowiczs project develops ultra-strong metals that are also immune to radiation and corrosion the key is to construct these materials from nanometer-scale building blocks said demkowicz associate professor in the department the problem is that such nano-composite materials often break suddenly without warning our project will make metal nanocomposites more reliable and robust accelerating their transition from the lab to the market demkowicz is collaborating with principal investigators dr amit misra from the university of michigan and dr mitsu murayama dr sean corcoran and dr bill reynolds from virginia polytechnic institute and state university the three dmref projects led by materials science and engineering faculty supports 10 graduate students and five postdocs at four institutions across three states they also sponsor a range of outreach and education activities such as the college of engineerings trajectories toward graduate school program and the texas a&m summer school in computational materials science
2054,dr tony mcdonald has joined the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university as an assistant professor i am excited to start my academic career in such an outstanding department and i look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with my distinguished colleagues both within the department and college and at the texas a&m transportation institute said mcdonald before joining texas a&m mcdonald was a manager of software development and senior software engineer at oracle for three years my primary goal is to innovate in my research methods as well as in the classroom where i hope to leverage my industry knowledge and methods such as ‘flipping the classroom to keep students engaged and prepare them for both industry and academia said mcdonald his research uses machine learning to solve human factors issues in the transportation and health care domains specifically he is interested in designing and improving models of human behavior for driving applications and chronic disease management technologies we are delighted to have someone of dr mcdonalds skill joining our human systems group said dr mark lawley industrial and systems engineering department head his work spans the domains of human factors and data analytics which represents a strategic opportunity for our department mcdonald received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology and his masters and doctoral degrees in industrial engineering from the university of wisconsin-madison
2055,the engineering studio for advanced instruction & learning (esail) in the texas a&m university college of engineering formerly remote learning has formally launched to provide professional support for departments and faculty engaged in distance education led by assistant vice chancellor for engineering remote education dr sunay palsolé the esail team has 12 professionals with a broad range of experience and skills in planning designing building promoting and supporting distance education courses graduate degrees and certificate programs the goal of esail is to actively partner with faculty throughout the course design process the team of learning architects and instructional designers paired with multimedia staff can tailor an effective distance course that ensures learning outcomes are achieved while creating an easy pathway for faculty engaged in this enterprise as part of the endeavor to support innovative solutions for engineering education and after conferring with a faculty focus group the team has developed fully online faculty training modules this professional development series will equip faculty members to use technologies and effective teaching strategies specific to online instruction the first module of the essentials series getting started with online teaching is available through the esail website for technical support email engrlearntech@tamuedu
2056,industry innovator and national academy of engineering member dr m cynthia hipwell has joined the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university as a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor hipwell worked 21 years as a technology and business process innovator to develop industry-leading technologies as well as innovate how the work was done to accelerate technology development and increase business impact she said she is motivated to teach and looks forward to sharing her knowledge with students at texas a&m i think that there is often a gap where it is not clear to students how they are going to apply what they are learning in class later in their career she said theres a lot of difficult material that you have to learn to get through the engineering program and i think being able to see what theyre going to be able to do with this at the end and the excitement that generates is really important in motivating and retaining students within the engineering program before joining the faculty at texas a&m hipwell led r&d and product development groups at seagate technology and engineering and industrial solution provider buhler at both companies hipwell worked to innovate technology and development to create positive impacts for business and the economy hipwell said she met with dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of tees earlier this year about teaching at texas a&m and was impressed with the vision that banks had for the university i was impressed that she was looking to innovate to keep texas a&m engineering relevant as our world changes and extremely competitive moving into the future i was taken in by the impact that i could have with the students and the other faculty bringing an industry perspective and looking at how do we create innovations from discoveries how do you make the research more impactful for the businesses within texas and really teaching people how to do what ive been doing for 20 years she said hipwell said she looks forward to being a mentor and role model for other women in engineering diversity in all ways is really important for innovation because you get more different ideas hipwell said if youre really looking at driving business growth companies that have more diversity that have women on their boards and in their leadership are achieving more profit than companies that dont along with teaching hipwell said she hopes to collaborate with faculty and graduate students who may want to take their ideas further commercially as well as partner with companies to accelerate their technology development hipwell received her bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from rice university and her masters and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from the university of california berkeley her areas of research include devices based upon nanoscale phenomena and the application of tools for innovation acceleration such as 3-d printing machine learning and design virtualization
2057,"in august the texas a&m engineering experiment stations nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) led a nuclear facilities experience (nfe) in japan for graduate students and staff from eight us universities and five national laboratories this event was coordinated with several institutions in japan including the hiroshima peace memorial museum the japan atomic energy agency the integrated support center for nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear security tokyo electric power company and japan nuclear fuel limited support for the nfe was provided by the next-generation safeguards initiative (ngsi) of the office of nonproliferation and arms control in the defense nuclear nonproliferation program office of the national nuclear security administration the graduate students were selected based on their specializations in nuclear nonproliferation-related topic areas four students from texas a&m university were joined by graduate students from clemson university oregon state university virginia commonwealth university the university of georgia and uc berkeley six national laboratory employees were selected by ngsi sponsors and included early-career research staff members from the y-12 national security complex sandia national laboratories lawrence livermore national laboratory pacific northwest national laboratory and oak ridge national laboratory the group was accompanied by faculty members dr craig marianno deputy director of nsspi and an assistant professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m and dr marek flaska from pennsylvania state university the nfe began in hiroshima where participants toured the hiroshima peace park and the peace memorial museum participants were also given a first-hand perspective on the dropping of the atomic bomb on hiroshima from survivor ms keiko ogura who gave an account of her experiences and observations of august 6 1945 the nfe then took participants to the tokyo institute of technology where they interacted with students and staff from nsspi's peer institute the academy of global nuclear safety and security which is run by professor masaki saito marianno flaska and saito all gave presentations on the nuclear security and safeguards educational programs at their respective universities and two students presented their research to the group for the remainder of the visit participants toured various institutions and facilities throughout japan such as the plutonium fuel development facility the tokai reprocessing center and the rokkasho reprocessing plant the group spoke with researchers technicians and managers with experience in nuclear material accountability and control and facility/process operations they were also able to view areas in facilities with active safeguards infrastructure in place through these interactions the students and professionals gained knowledge on safeguards practices and the interaction between operators and the international atomic energy agency (iaea) inspectors the participants were also given the opportunity to visit the fukushima daiichi nuclear power station site according to marianno ""this was a unique experience and all the participants thought it was one of the highlights of the trip"" at fukushima representatives from the tokyo electric power company briefed the group on the status of the cleanup efforts at the site and gave them an extensive tour of the protected area experiences like the nfe allow graduate students and early career professionals in nuclear safeguards and security to see first-hand how safeguards are implemented at various types of facilities and to network with their peers this is the second nfe conducted by nsspi this year the first being a visit to facilities in the uk in may and the third facilities tour led by nsspi to take place in japan"
2058,students from across science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) majors at texas a&m university had the opportunity on sept 23 to complement their classroom knowledge with advice from professionals were all trying to get through college and onto a career path that in some way or another is a little bit different than what were used to said junior maricarmen del toro-montanez the conference brought together faculty industry engineers of practice and anyone that was interested in advancing careers for females in stem montanez is chair of the student organization meen girls which provides opportunities for women within the department of mechanical engineering the organization hosted its inaugural aggie women in stem conference on sept 23 representatives from accenture air liquide baker hughes-a ge company basf bp and pepsi co hosted professional development workshops with students to discuss finding professional mentors public speaking interviewing with confidence and more frida rivera class of 2018 and external affairs director of meen girls said these are topics that may not be discussed by professors theres certain things that when youre looking for jobs in the stem field that people dont necessarily develop in the classroom so we just wanted them to get that opportunity rivera said shawna fletcher director of texas a&ms women in engineering program said the goals of the event were to network learn from field experts and attend development workshops the importance of this event is to draw together our community of women students and its not just for engineering students she said this conference actually spans the campus and spans different majors montanez class of 2019 and engineering honors student said the idea for the conference came from discussions with representatives from bp the founding sponsor of meen girls who were interested in giving back to the community meen girls proposed a women stem conference to provide a supportive network for students at texas a&m when the idea of the conference was approved the bp representatives requested that the event be open to not just mechanical engineers but anyone who was in stem-related fields rivera said along with the breakout sessions the conference included a number of speakers dr andreas polycarpou head of the mechanical engineering department discussed how the landscape of the engineering school and texas a&m has changed over the years as women have been admitted he said he would like to continue to increase the number of women in mechanical engineering which sits at about 19 percent at the university i encourage you to pursue your dreams with conviction and passion and if you do so you will never ‘work a single day in your lives he told attendees cindy yeilding senior vice president of bp america was the conferences keynote speaker she discussed how the workplace is constantly changing and offered some advice on how the next generation of stem employees can thrive including being flexible things do change priorities change business patterns change and sometimes you dont quite understand the change she said be logical shayla rivera director of the engineering[x] program at texas a&m encouraged the attendees to step outside their comfort zones to be able to try new opportunities what youre unaware of controls you; what you become aware of you can change she said youve got to become aware of these places where you are limiting yourself if youre not aware of them theyre in charge meen girls was established in 2016 and works alongside the texas a&m chapter of the american society of mechanical engineers their mission is to provide opportunities that lead to professional networking peer learning faculty interaction and social events for more information about the organization visit the texas a&m meen girls facebook page
2059,with nearly 40 sections worldwide the national association of corrosion engineers (nace) now has a home at texas a&m university the idea came to light when students working with faculty members in the department of materials science and engineering began meeting on a regular basis the research groups working with dr homero castaneda and dr raymundo case met weekly to discuss technical corrosion research and developments said arash shadravan president and founder and graduate student in materials science and engineering we also attended the 2017 nace annual meeting which motivated us to start a chapter of this organization on our campus at the meeting reece goldsberry member and chapter officer competed in the undergraduate poster competition and earned the top spot out of 160 accepted posters it was so exciting to attend the nace annual meeting and have one of our members receive the best undergraduate poster award said shadravan this was the largest turnout ever and even more exciting was to have an aggie earn the award during such a competitive contest the mission of nace at texas a&m is to be the preeminent community for disseminating knowledge enhancing skills and expanding the professional networks of corrosion control and asset protection of future professionals we provide our members with the seed for research ideas and prepare them to work at various industries and academia to reduce the cost of corrosion estimated by nace as 25 trillion dollars annually worldwide said shadravan last spring we extended our efforts to the bryan/college station community to raise awareness of the value of corrosion research nace international offers opportunity for members at all levels to build the foundation for success in their future careers receive educational resources and remain up-to-date with the latest news in the industry members may also connect with peers industry professionals and potential employers at trainings annual meetings and other events a couple weeks ago our chapter organized a career fair preparation workshop involving six departments and more than 46 phd students said shadravan it was so exciting to see peers from the college of engineering and the college of science come together to learn about taking control of their future careers
2060,it is estimated that nearly 60 percent of the worlds population carries helicobacter pylori (h pylori) a gram-negative bacterium that has been categorized as a class 1 carcinogen although a great majority of infected individuals will probably never develop symptoms or complications from the pathogen an infection increases the risk of gastric cancer as well as many other illnesses such as peptic ulcer disease and gastritis h pylori infection is currently treatable with antibiotics but there is a growing concern about the threat of antibiotic resistance according to dr pushkar lele assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university this could become a major concern once someone contracts h pylori it can persist lifelong unless the individual undergoes a combinative antibiotic course lele said as bugs become more and more resistant to antibiotics we might have a situation where a class 1 carcinogenic pathogen gains multidrug resistance that is a medical nightmare in the making lele along with dr arul jayaraman holder of the ray b nesbitt chair in the chemical engineering department has received a high impact high risk awards grant from the cancer prevention and research institute of texas to study a different approach to fighting h pylori infections the team led by lele will study the flagellum – a string-like appendage that enables a bacterium to swim and investigate its role as a sensor for mechanical cues that originate within the host according to lele understanding the process of sensing and how it promotes host colonization will provide vital insights that may help prevent h pylori infections and avoid the possibility of increasing antibiotic resistance this leads to the question of whether it is possible to manipulate or interfere with the sensing process without applying a strong selection pressure and if the host can be camouflaged by interfering with sensing pathways the bug could be defeated without triggering its defense mechanisms this study will look at two main questions first do h pylori flagella act as mechanical sensors second does the sensing trigger the secretion of toxins and/or other virulence factors that facilitate infections to answer the first question lele and his group will employ several microscopy-based mechanical stimulation assays and advanced image analysis techniques to measure functional-changes in single-motors of live h pylori cells the experiments are anticipated to reveal the mechanistic principles that govern the ability of cells to detect suitable habitats within the host subsequently jayaraman and his team will grow gastric epithelium cells in vitro to test if mechanical sensing by the flagella leads to increased production of toxins and infection by h pylori according to jayaraman the collaboration between his group and leles is a perfect combination of fundamental mechanistic studies and their application to problems in human health jayaraman adds that as leles group comes up with different models to explain flagellar sensing in h pylori they will test them in an in-vitro model system and the results will feed back to revise the hypothesis and models ultimately lele and jayaraman hope that a greater understanding of the mechanosensing properties of h pylori will lead to a treatment that eliminates the reliance on antibiotics and that prevents the onset of gastric cancers
2061,six new faculty members have joined the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university this semester the new faculty members include an associate professor a professor of practice and four assistant professors with research specializations in areas such as data storage systems analog and mixed signal integrated circuit design power systems security intelligent transportation systems biomedical systems and cybersecurity dr chao tian associate professor studies data storage systems information theory data communication and networks and signal processing he was an associate professor at the university of tennessee at knoxville before joining texas a&m he received his bachelors degree from tsinghua university in 2000 and his masters and doctoral degrees from cornell university in 2003 and 2005 respectively dr katherine davis joined texas a&m as an assistant professor and was previously at the university of illinois urbana-champaign texas a&m is a world-class institution in power systems engineering research and education and we are continuing to build strength said davis the electrical and computer engineering department is a great place for me based on my background interests and expertise – broadly on data-enhanced and security-oriented power system modeling and analysis davis received her bachelors degree from the university of texas at austin in 2007 and her masters and doctoral degrees from the university of illinois urbana-champaign in 2009 and 2011 respectively she is teaching ecen 214 circuit theory this semester she is also the new faculty advisor for texas a&ms joint the power electronics society power and energy society and industry applications society student chapter her research is interdisciplinary she studies power systems security and cyber-physical analysis research that has applications to military requires expertise in cybersecurity communications networking control and involves large-scale extreme event preparation and response leading interdisciplinary projects and teams of researchers has been a large part of my life prior to joining texas a&m and i will be continuing that here as well said davis in the department i hope to demonstrate and strengthen our ability to form good long-term interdisciplinary collaborations that are needed to solve specific problems dr dileep kalathil joined the electrical and computer engineering department as an assistant professor after completing his post-doctoral research at the university of california-berkeley his research area is at the intersection of statistical learning stochastic control and game theory with a focus on problems in cyberphysical systems intelligent transportation systems and renewable energy systems kalathil said the nature of his research being primarily interdisciplinary would address many important problems of the next generation engineering systems while focusing on the fundamental theory there is an active and energetic interaction among different research groups in the electrical and computer engineering department said kalathil i am excited to be here and looking forward to becoming a part of it kalathil received his bachelors degree from the national institute of technology india in 2006 his masters degree from the indian institute of technology madras india in 2008 and his doctoral degree from the university of southern california in 2014 this semester he is teaching ecen 303 random signals and systems an introductory course for probability theory he is also interested in high school outreach programs to promote engineering mathematics and programming kalathil believes a research advisors role is much more than just providing technical feedback about research to his or her students he plans to develop a mentoring style where his students can actively interact and gain confidence to challenge themselves and explore new ideas and in the process i hope to learn from my students as well said kalathil i also plan to teach some ‘special topics classes introducing some cutting-edge research ideas to graduate students my plan is to make this a project based course and i am really excited to see those amazing projects the students come up with dr hangue park is an assistant professor doing research in neuro-prosthesis intraoral device rehabilitation and overall biomedical system and integrated circuit design the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m has respectable faculty and an environment to collaborate with other departments for interdisciplinary research said park park is an electrical engineer and a neuroscientist he received his bachelors and masters degrees from seoul national university in 2006 and 2008 respectively he received his doctoral degree from the georgia institute of technology in 2017 he is teaching ecen 689 assistive neuroelectronics systems this semester in my special topic class i teach how we can use electrical engineering to help the operation of the human body said park my specific interest lies in the neuroprosthesis which communicates with the human body and assists its operation dr jeyavijayan jv rajendran assistant professor was intrigued by the strong computer engineering research area within the electrical and computer engineering department and the texas a&m cybersecurity center he studies hardware security nanoelectronic computing architectures and very-large-scale integration designhe is teaching ecen 474/714 digital integrated circuit design class this semester before joining texas a&m rajendran was an assistant professor at the university of texas at dallas he received his bachelors degree from anna university in india in 2008 his masters degree from the polytechnic institute of new york university in 2010 and his doctoral degree from new york university in 2015 rajendran looks forward to developing his students interest in attacks on cyberinfrastructure that are happening around the world making security an important issue to tackle as a computer engineer dr oscar moreira is the second professor of practice to join the department after dr stavros kalafatis he is teaching courses such as ecen 325 electronics and ecen 215 principles of electrical engineering this semester moreira an aggie plans to use his experience working in analog design engineering to give an industry perspective to his students he graduated from the universidad nacional autónoma de méxico in 1990 with a bachelors degree california state university in 1992 with a masters degree and texas a&m with a doctoral degree in 1996 his research interests include analog circuit design power management analog to digital conversion and digital signal processing in my years of experience in industry i found that texas a&m graduates are well qualified and highly competitive particularly in the area of analog and mixed signal integrated circuit design said moreira i look forward to helping strengthen the undergraduate program in areas such as recruitment research retention and placement after graduation
2062,dr yossef elabd professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was appointed holder of the joe m nesbitt professorship in chemical engineering effective sept 1 2017 this is just the latest in a long list of titles and honors for elabd this summer elabd received three national science foundation (nsf) awards and also served as a fish camp namesake (session c color purple) last year elabd was named the associate department head and director of the undergraduate program in the department also in 2016 elabd was elected a fellow of the american physical society in 2015 he was awarded a senior visiting fellowship at the university of bologna in italy the worlds oldest university in addition to these honors elabd has also received the nsf career award (2007-12) the dupont science and engineering award (2005-06) the army research office young investigator award (2004-07) and an nrc postdoctoral award (2001-03) in addition to these appointments and awards elabd has also made significant advances with his research in 2014 and 2016 elabds research led to two patents on the synthesis of a new class of materials polymerized ionic liquid block co-polymers which are now being implemented in improving the efficiency and lower the cost in fuel cells and lithium ion batteries
2063,in july the department of energy (doe) announced a new $194 million investment in advanced vehicle technologies the program includes phase i of battery seeding projects 15 projects aimed at innovative research in battery materials and approaches that complement the vehicle technologies office (vto) battery500 consortium's multi-institutional research this effort aims to more than double the specific energy to 500 watt-hours per kilogram of lithium-sulfur battery technologies ultimately the goal of this research and of the batteries charging and electric vehicles segment of the vto is aimed at creating smaller safer lighter weight and less expensive battery packs to make electric vehicles more affordable two faculty members in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university dr perla balbuena holder of the gpsa professorship and dr jorge seminario holder of the lanatter & herbert fox professorship were awarded a $400 000 grant for 18 months to study the development of advanced solid electrolyte technology for lithium-sulfur batteries in this work set to begin in october balbuena and seminario will use atomistic methods to identify and characterize solid electrolyte materials the materials selected will be analyzed computationally and will then be synthesized and tested at doe national laboratory facilities further integrated computational and experimental tests will be used to fully address interfacial issues one of the key issues with lithium-sulfur batteries is associated with the extreme reactivity of the lithium metal in contact with liquid electrolytes balbuena said it is expected that the use of well-designed solid electrolytes will allow lithium ions to diffuse through the solids in a more controlled way the design also requires a smooth interfacial contact with the metal surface and low reactivity in addition the electrolyte must also provide a stable interface to the sulfur electrode where additional challenges exist and will be addressed the electrolyte composition and properties are essential for overall improved battery performance this research demonstrates the progress in computational techniques which are able to provide reliable characterizations and designs for advanced battery technologies in 2016 a team led by balbuena which also included seminario and dr partha mukherjee assistant professor and morris e foster faculty fellow ii in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m was awarded a $12 million doe grant to study and model battery reactions
2064,dr richard miles tees distinguished research professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and his research is featured in an engineering and technology article on scientiaglobal titled hypersonic laser tagging: a new way of understanding fluid mechanics scientiaglobal is a website with a series of outreach research publications that help researchers communicate their findings beyond their specialty and into the world their goal is to connect scientists educators policy-makers and researchers with the public and private sectors miles research focuses on the use of lasers electron beams microwaves and magnetic devices to observe control accelerate extract power and precondition gas flows for supersonic and hypersonic fluid dynamics combustion propulsion and homeland defense applications his research group is widely recognized for inventing new linear and nonlinear optical diagnostics developing a new understanding of plasma aerodynamic interactions and exploring new concepts for hypersonic ground test facilities an emeritus professor at princeton university miles joined the faculty in aerospace engineering in 2017 key collaborators on his team include aerospace faculty dr albina tropina research professor and dr chris limbach research assistant professor to read the article in its entirety click hypersonic laser tagging: a new way of understanding fluid mechanics to listen to the podcast episode visit scipod
2065,the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university hosted a research symposium on tuesday aug 22 in total 131 attendees were able to view keynote presentations practice the necessary skills to present posters and even compete for awards at the symposium which the department intends to host annually in addition to the large number of attendees 44 poster submissions were received and awards were given for the best oral presentation and best poster the idea of the symposium became reality due in part to the departments emphasis on creating a culture of excellence this annual symposium is one early result of our recent attention to creating a culture of excellence within the department aimed specifically at increasing the emphasis on early and intense involvement in all aspects of the research community said dr michael mcshane interim department head it was intended to bring the entire biomedical engineering research community together for a full day of scientific exchange serving as a forum for students to share their work with others and receive feedback on their projects the symposium was established not only to allow students to participate in an event that helps them prepare for a post-graduation career but also as a way to stimulate new ideas and potential collaborations the event was organized and hosted by students from the biomedical engineering graduate student association (bmegsa) to help other students learn leadership and project management skills in a context similar to large-scale professional conferences bmegsas ability to promote the departments initiative toward fostering a culture of excellence was met with excitement within the organization since our founding three years ago we have worked diligently to increase communication among all labs and research disciplines within our department said david luna vice president of bmegsa bmegsa planned and organized the symposium with the help of an assembled team that brought the vision of increasing awareness and communication to the forefront and executed an extremely successful event current and past members also pitched in to ensure the symposium was an event that gave students within the department something to look forward to each year as well as the opportunity to explore a wide variety of research being performed within the department and the chance to present findings we look forward to working with the biomedical engineering graduate student association in further years as they continue to refine the event and expand participation said mcshane we hope to include industry partners and other sponsors that can benefit from engagement with our students and faculty on a technical level
2066,the texas a&m university college of engineering recently named dr mark h weichold senior associate dean of academic affairs weichold a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering is executive director of the halliburton engineering global programs and previously served as dean and ceo of texas a&ms branch campus in doha qatar weichold began his new role leading engineering academic and student affairs this summer and he said hes enjoying the opportunity to make an impact on the success of students when we admit students to the texas a&m engineering program it is a very careful process he said through our holistic review process were looking at more than just a students grades were looking at the whole student they might not have the best sat score but they were great in drama or swimming and thats important too weicholds goal is to retain 90 percent of all first- and second-year engineering students to achieve this hes taking a close look at how the college helps undergraduate students freshmen in particular succeed the benefit will be an engineering student body that is much richer he said when you have different kinds of students sitting at a design table from different backgrounds and with different skills the end result will ultimately be a better design weichold said that companies are interested in hiring engineers who are well-rounded and can easily adapt to change thats why the college has created engineering x (engr[x]) a program that requires all engineering students (beginning with incoming freshmen this fall) to pursue activities outside the classroom that can broaden their knowledge and skillset from studying abroad to volunteering participating in aggies invent or leading a student organization graduates from the college of engineering will have a resumé that is even more attractive to potential employers weichold said that texas a&m engineering students already stand apart and engr [x] will help highlight the activities students are already doing and provide a platform for them to share their success based on the feedback i receive from people who hire our graduates our students are well-prepared technically but they also have great work ethic he said they are ready to hit the ground running and they have a desire to excel and work hard people always comment on how quickly students from texas a&m set themselves apart with their leadership abilities and their ability to work in teams engineering graduates need to think of the big picture weichold said and thats the guiding force behind his strategy as senior associate dean the texas workforce commission projects the need for 53 000 more engineers in texas by 2024the college of engineering is answering that call with the 25 by 25 initiative which will increase the number of engineering students in the texas a&m engineering program to 25 000 by 2025 while also increasing the quality of education weichold said he is excited for the opportunity to take on this challenge i have a pretty diverse set of experiences that i bring to the table he said i am a first-generation college student i have industry experience as an electrical engineer i worked in a government lab at the us army electronic technology and devices lab and i worked overseas at our branch campus for nine years weicholds collective experience gives him a unique perspective as he takes on the challenge of increasing overall student success and ultimately preparing the future workforce to solve many of the worlds problems weichold joined the college of engineering at texas a&m as an assistant professor in 1982 and became dean and ceo of the qatar campus in 2007 he has also served as the dean of undergraduate programs and associate provost for academic services at texas a&m in college station from 1998-2006 in 2009 he was recognized as a regents professor for his outstanding work and exemplary contribution to texas a&m in 2013 he was awarded the abdullah bin hamad al attiyah international energy award for lifetime achievement for the advancement of education weichold is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers a member of the american physical society and a registered professional engineer in the state of texas
2067,‘talk text crash 'drink drive go to jail ‘click it or ticket weve all heard these and many other campaigns from the texas department of transportation (txdot) encouraging texas drivers to be more careful on the roads to reduce accidents and save lives what isnt well known is that john a barton the associate vice chancellor for strategic initiatives for the texas a&m university system was a driving force behind these and many other roadway safety initiatives prior to joining the a&m system barton who is also a professor of practice for the zachry department of civil engineering and director of the texas a&m rellis campus was the deputy executive director of txdot where he provided executive control and oversight of all txdot operations and the states transportation system barton was selected as the 2017 public sector recipient of the john jake landen memorial safety award by the traffic safety industry division (tsid) of the american road & transportation builders association (artba) for his role spanning a 30-year career at txdot established in 1989 in memory of the tsid leader and past artba chairman (1976) jc landen this annual award recognizes individuals who have made significant lifetime contributions to the improvement of roadway infrastructure safety throughout his long and distinguished career with txdot john barton not only advocated for personal safety but also for safer roads and bridges throughout texas said txdot executive director james bass on behalf of everyone at txdot i congratulate john for receiving this prestigious honor and thank the selection committee for bestowing it on such a deserving candidate whose contributions to safety will continue to protect and benefit texas motorists for generations to come in his current role barton provides direction guidance and advice on strategic projects for the a&m system including the development of the new rellis campus and provides classroom instruction to educate students through lectures and seminars focused on leadership public administration and emerging transportation technologies whenever we face a transportation issue within the texas a&m university system i immediately look to john barton said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system his knowledge expertise and passion for transportation-related matters make him a valuable asset to the a&m system and the state of texas the john jake landen memorial safety award was presented sept 18 at the artba foundation awards luncheon it is a great honor to be selected to receive this award i am humbled to be among those recognized previously for their contributions to making our transportation system safer barton said millions of people depend upon a safe and reliable transportation system each day i count it as one of my greatest career achievements to have been able to promote and contribute to making these systems safer now and for generations to come other honors for barton include the distinguished graduate award of the department of civil engineering at texas a&m the governor rick perry leadership in transportation award the american association of state highway and transportation officials (aashto) presidents special award of merit and the federal highway administrations public service award barton also served on the board of directors of the intelligent transportation society of america chairman of the american association of state highway and transportation officials subcommittee of traffic engineering and board of directors of the national operations center of excellence barton currently serves on the safety advisory board for uber and the advisory board for southwest research institute
2068,dr mahmoud el-halwagi managing director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) gas and fuels research center and holder of the mcferrin professorship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university recently published the second edition of his textbook sustainable design through process integration: fundamentals and applications to industrial pollution prevention resource conservation and profitability enhancement the textbook published by elsevier covers fundamental concepts and practical techniques on the use of process integration to maximize the efficiency and sustainability of industrial processes until recently sustainability as a concept was based on subjective opinions and anecdotal solutions in the past two decades however as the field of process integrations has grown engineers and plant designers have begun to reevaluate fundamental concepts and techniques to maximize the efficiency and sustainability of industrial processes this textbook covers the many topics that are central to the process integration field including benchmarking process performance identifying root causes of problems and opportunities for improvement designing integrated solutions enhancing profitability conserving natural resources and preventing pollution the second edition of the book has expanded to include recent and developing topics like water-energy nexus multi-scale system optimization industrial symbiosis and shale gas monetization beyond covering and exploring the topics and trends surrounding process integration the textbook is filled with numerous industrial examples and case studies all of these examples draw directly from el-halwagis more than 30 years of experience in academic research and industrial consulting according to el-halwagi the textbook offers a great potential to impact the broader engineering field and helps spread the benefits of his experience and research on process integration i take special pride in teaching these tools and techniques to our students because i believe that such methods will support their preparation in becoming superb engineers and in making a difference not only to their future employers but to humanity at large said el-halwagi this is particularly important for our students since most of them are employed by the chemical and energy industries the textbook also helps me reach out to a broader audience of students and practicing engineers around the world el-halwagi has written two other widely used textbooks co-edited six books and co-authored more than 350 refereed papers and book chapters el-halwagi is a recipient of the american institute of chemical engineers sustainable engineering forum research excellence award the national science foundation's national young investigator award as well as many university-level awards more information on the book can be found on the elsevier website
2069,an international team which included researchers from texas a&m university the instituto nacional de pesquisas espaciais (são josé dos campos brazil) and the centro universitario de la defensa - zaragoza (spain) placed first in the star trackers – first contact challenge sponsored by the european space agencys advanced concepts team space navigation is quite different from ground navigation the main difference is that in space the most accurate references are the stars therefore spacecraft navigate using the stars as references to achieve very precise pointing of their instruments this is a complex process known as the star identification problem star trackers are devices commonly present in most spacecraft to determine orientation based on camera images of stars in 2016 the advanced concepts team issued a yearlong star trackers – first contact challenge to researchers all over the world to identify the fastest and most robust star identification solution and advance the state-of-the-art the process begins with the cameras on board the spacecraft observing the sky and providing a picture containing a handful of stars which form patterns that must be found and identified in a much larger star catalog containing thousands of stars and potentially millions of patterns the software that accomplishes this task must be very fast and reliable to work on board the spacecraft autonomously in addition it must be robust to discriminate actual stars from other objects that may be present in the picture (visible planets reflections from debris or other satellites etc) in the competition a star catalog is given together with a number of possible scenes and the participants are asked to submit a file containing the identification made for all stars in each scene and optionally a separate file containing their code given only one image as information the scenario models a spacecraft being lost in space which means there is no prior information on the spacecrafts orientation the goal is to recover a sense of orientation allowing the spacecraft to keep pursuing the goal of its mission the challenge ended aug 31 2017 the winning team placed first for both robustness and speed with their new algorithm called super k-id the super k-id winning team members include: dr marcio fialho (instituto nacional de pesquisas espaciais) who led the effort by coding debugging testing and improving super k-id to the winning version; david arnas (the centro universitario de la defensa - zaragoza) who developed optimal combinatory kernel sequences making the algorithm very robust; dr christian bruccoleri (texas a&m) who provided a large experience on star-id algorithms; dr daniele mortari (texas a&m) doctorate advisor of fialho and bruccoleri who developed the k-vector technique making the algorithm very fast
2070,two texas a&m university former students john m yantis 53 and general (ret) william m fraser iii '74 were recently selected to receive a 2017 distinguished alumnus award from the association of former students both yantis and fraser graduated with a degree from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution yantis received a bachelor of science in industrial technology in 1953 and fraser received a bachelor of science in engineering technology in 1974 the distinguished alumnus award is the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of texas a&m awarded since 1962 to only 271 of texas a&ms 469 000 former students presented jointly by the university and the association of former students this award recognizes aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions and made meaningful contributions to texas a&m and their local communities yantis founded the san antonio construction firm yantis co in 1965 and was named the ernst & young entrepreneur of the year in 1988 he is deeply involved in philanthropy and service in san antonio and at texas a&m; he established a student assistance fund with the association; and has served on the 12th man foundation board
2071,fraser has served as vice chief of staff of the us air force assistant to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and commander of air combat command and us transportation command he has served texas a&m in numerous positions including as a member of the presidents board of visitors
2072,i am humbled and honored to have been selected says fraser i am still awed when i see what others have done to be selected as a distinguished alumnus and never expected to be recognized this way yantis and fraser will receive their awards from university president michael k young at the annual distinguished alumni gala on september 29
2073,this summer dr yossef elabd professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was awarded two new national science foundation (nsf) grants for integrating polymers into electrochemical devices most notably fuel cells elabd associate department head director of the undergraduate program and recently appointed holder of the joe m nesbitt professorship is single principal investigator (pi) on the two grants and he received a third nsf grant as a co-pi with dr costas kravaris as pi also a professor in the chemical engineering department elabds research focuses on the main incentive for fuel cell research which is to apply the technology to vehicles while there are numerous benefits to using fuel cells in vehicles as opposed to the now standard battery powered vehicles one stands out according to elabd the main benefit of the fuel cell is that the energy density is just so much higher than a battery - six times higher in a nutshell a fuel cell produces electric energy directly from an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen fuel cells use positive and negative electrodes anodes and cathodes respectively to move protons through an electrolyte polymer converting the chemical fuel directly into electrical energy currently the electrodes in fuel cells are primarily composed of platinum platinum is one of the most expensive commodities on earth the price of platinum is one of the primary limiting factors for the adoption of fuel cell technology the two nsf grants will allow elabd and his research group to look for a way around the platinum bottleneck the first grant nanomanufacturing of three-dimensional nanofiber-nanoparticle electrodes for ultra-low platinum fuel cells aims to dramatically reduce the use of platinum in fuel cells this grant will help elabd further develop a new electrode manufacturing process this process consists of electrospinning polymer fibers and electrospraying a catalyst to create a new nanofiber-nanoparticle electrode these new electrodes currently produce nearly the same power density as the current standard electrode while using only around 16 percent the amount of platinum this new grant will target reducing this platinum amount even further the second grant polymerized ionic liquid multiblock polymers as anion exchange membranes for alkaline fuel cells will build on elabds research toward developing a novel class of fuel cell electrolytes on the whole the chemical structure and makeup of a fuel cell is determined by the electrolyte currently there are relatively few proven electrolytes which limits the flexibility and variety of every other component of the cell however using polymerized ionic liquids as the electrolyte opens the door to the use of a wide variety of different chemistries in fuel cells which also provides the ability to remove platinum completely from the equation while fuel cell vehicles may not currently have the same popularity as battery-powered electric vehicles advancements in research that reduce cost could change all this because fuel cells have six times higher energy density compared to batteries and vehicles with fuel cells are not limited by weight constraints the same constraints that dramatically limit the range of current electric battery vehicles
2074,numerous faculty members have been appointed new endowed positions in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university dr hong liang has been appointed the oscar s wyatt jr professor the texas a&m professor received her doctoral degree from the stevens institute of technology and is a fellow of american society of mechanical engineers as well as a fellow of the society of tribologists and lubrication engineers and has been awarded a charles h barclay jr 45 faculty fellow from the texas a&m college of engineering her research interests include surface science tribology and advanced materials and structures associate department head for graduate programs dr daniel mcadams has been appointed the robert h fletcher professor mcadams has received many awards including the 2017 outstanding faculty mentor award from the department of mechanical engineering and a recent best paper award from the american society of mechanical engineers for a publication on his research efforts in engineering design the texas a&m professor received his bachelors and doctoral degrees from the university of texas his research interests include design theory and methodology with specific focus on functional modeling bio-inspired design methods materials design and technology evolution dr anastasia muliana has been appointed the g paul pepper 54 professor the texas a&m professor was previously appointed the cain faculty fellow i muliana received her bachelors degree in indonesia at the bandung institute of technology and received her masters and doctoral degrees from the georgia institute of technology in 2015 muliana was awarded the dean of engineering excellence award from the texas a&m college of engineering her research interests include nonlinear and time-dependent constitutive material modeling mechanics of composites and smart materials nonlinear analyses of flexible structures and durability of polymers and composites dr richard malak has been appointed the gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor i malak is an associate professor and has been previously appointed the morris e foster faculty fellow i he received a bachelors and masters degree in computer and electrical engineering and a masters and doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the georgia institute of technology his research interests include theory and computational methods for complex systems design dr david staack has been appointed the sallie and don davis 61 career development professor staack is an associate professor at texas a&m and received his doctoral degree from drexel university after receiving his masters degree from princeton university and bachelors degree from the university of virginia staack previously held the position of pioneer natural resources faculty fellow i and is the director of engineering laboratory instruction his research interests include plasma engineering micro-and nano-scale plasmas and plasma enhanced fuel conversion and combustion assistant professor dr douglas allaire has been appointed the sallie and don davis 61 faculty fellow allaire received his bachelors masters and doctoral degrees from the massachusetts institute of technology in aerospace engineering in 2017 he was awarded both the dean of engineering excellence award and the james j cain graduate teaching award his research interests include computational methods for the analysis design and operation of complex systems texas a&m university professor dr debjyoti banerjee has been appointed the james j cain 51 faculty fellow i debjyoti earned a bachelors degree at the indian institute of technology a masters degree from the university of mississippi in engineering science and computational science and a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering at the university of california los angeles his research interests include thermos-fluidics fundamentals micro/nanotechnology and nanofluids associate professor dr waruna kulatilaka has been appointed the morris e foster faculty fellow i kulatilaka received his bachelors degree from university of moratuwa sri lanka his masters degree from texas a&m and his doctoral degree from purdue university all in mechanical engineering he is a fellow of american society of mechanical engineers and an associate fellow of american institute of aeronautics and astronautics his research interests include combustion and propulsion optical diagnostics and imaging and laser spectroscopy assistant professor dr justin wilkerson has been appointed the james j cain 51 faculty fellow ii wilkerson received a bachelors degree at texas a&m in aerospace engineering and both his masters and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from johns hopkins university his research interests include nanomechanics dynamic behavior of materials shock physics and planetary science
2075,international fears of nuclear war were once concerns of the cold war era but geopolitical and international developments within the last century have placed countries like north korea and iran at the forefront of nuclear tensions and capabilities as concerns of proliferation the spread of nuclear weapons development grows among hostile foreign powers researchers at texas a&m university are improving technologies that help monitor nuclear materials across the globe geopolitical tensions and issues will likely always continue to be in flux said dr sunil chirayath associate professor of nuclear engineering and the director of the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) whats important is that we continue the work weve been doing at texas a&m to combat these threats texas a&m has a strong legacy of working in nuclear nonproliferation and forensics as the first university to create an education and research program combining the technical and policy aspects of nuclear security through the department of nuclear engineering in 2003 with the establishment of nsspi in 2006 texas a&m has served as a watershed for the development of multidisciplinary solutions to nuclear security challenges and policy issues two of which include the self-interrogation neutron resonance densitometry (sinrd) detector and the further development of nuclear forensics methodologies for tracking black market nuclear materials to its source these projects we have worked on and developed are part of the cutting edge of nuclear security and safeguards projects chirayath said they will give organizations like the international atomic energy agency (iaea) better tools for verification and accountability nsspi collaborated with los alamos national lab to develop a sinrd detector which improves existing nuclear material accountancy measures for light water reactors the sinrd detector provides numerous improvements over current iaea verification tools advances in nuclear forensics by nsspi with sponsorship from department of homeland security generated a specialized methodology to track nuclear materials to their source investigators would then be able to use this methodology by analyzing plutonium isotopes to keep weapons-grade plutonium out of the hands of terrorists or hostile powers this new methodology is envisaged to support the deterrence aspect of nuclear security such methods help agencies like the iaea police the proliferation of nuclear materials in 1970 the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons came into effect with 190 countries ensuring that countries that work with nuclear materials are able to account for safeguard and monitor uranium enrichment facilities and plutonium processing facilities to ensure weapons-grade nuclear material isnt diverted for military purposes ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ nuclear weapons-grade material is a material that can sustain a rapidly growing chain reaction in which fast neutrons cause atoms to split releasing more fast neutrons over and over again until it leads to an uncontrolled nuclear fission chain reaction this uncontrolled chain reaction generates a nuclear explosion weapons-grade plutonium and uranium are not naturally present in the environment but can be produced in suitably designed facilities ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ as more advances are made in nuclear safeguards and security efforts texas a&m looks forward to leading the way in practical solutions to the nuclear security challenges to address nuclear threats worldwide its a great feeling to be a part of these international efforts to help increase worldwide security against the threats said dr craig marianno assistant professor of nuclear engineering and the deputy director of nsspi the work we and our partners are doing is directly impacting the world community by preventing and protecting against these nuclear security scenarios
2076,the sixth annual summer school in computational materials science ( cms 3 ) was held at texas a&m university cms 3 hosts graduate students postdocs junior faculty research scientists and engineers from universities and companies around the world additionally the instructors of the school are leaders in their respective fields topics covered during the program included thermodynamics and kinetics of microstructures micromechanics of plasticity fracture and phase transformations mesoscale modeling atomistic simulations and elements of materials informatics and integrated computer-aided materials design said raymundo arróyave an organizer of the school and presidential impact fellow in the department of materials science and engineering the program is unique in that it incorporates both theory and practical components for students to carry out computational exercises each day the main organizer of cms 3 is dr amine benzerga professor in the departments of aerospace engineering and materials science and engineering and director of the center for intelligent materials and structures co-organizers of this event include department of materials science and engineering assistant professors dr ankit srivastava and dr xiaofeng qian; and arróyave the purpose of cms 3 is to provide a highly educational environment for graduate students interested in the area of computational materials science across multiple scales for faculty and graduate students to exchange ideas and time and a platform to explore the latest advances in materials informatics for materials discovery and design benzerga said the laboratory of molecular simulation (lms) directed by chemistry professor dr michael hall and managed by associate research scientist dr lisa perez contributes the infrastructure to carry out the practical sessions perez coordinates all laboratory sessions the students coming from institutions of higher education are provided travel and lodging support which comes from the center for intelligent multifunctional materials and structures (cimms) the materials science and engineering department at texas a&m and the national science foundation this program is jointly organized by cimms the materials science and engineering department and the data-enabled discovery and development of energy materials program (d3em)
2077,friend confidant advisor advocate these words have long been used to describe the personality and drive julianne (jules) henry encompasses in her every day work as the sole academic advisor for more than 150 students in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university she has taken on any necessary roles for each person that walks through her door jules is one of the reasons i attended texas a&m said wesley higgins current graduate student in the department she gave me a one-on-one recruitment experience to the materials science and engineering department showing me everything texas a&m has to offer she strives to see every one of the students in our department succeed while henrys job description is but one small piece of what her normal day entails students find her dedication and compassion unmatchable this unswerving loyalty is truly awe-inspiring as jules gives limitless grace and mercy to those around her said evan prehn current graduate student she not only respects aggieland and its traditions but she also shows the upmost respect for each student she sacrifices time and energy for students staff and faculty around her on a daily basis henry recently received the 2017 kunze award from the graduate and professional student council this award is an annual achievement award that recognizes a faculty or staff member of texas a&m university that has made outstanding contributions to the success and prosperity of the welfare of a graduate student or group of students said paul taele 2016 president of the graduate and professional student council based on the nominations we received from students it was very clear that [jules is] extremely deserving of the values this award stands for although she is humbled to have been selected as the first staff member to receive this award she finds greater satisfaction in knowing she has positively impacted the lives of the students she interacts with i want to inspire others to have faith in their capabilities to achieve their life goals henry said i feel the reason i have that desire is because i did not have the best experience with advisors when i was in school many times i found myself experiencing conversations of doubts when all i needed to hear were my options henry remembers two distinct conversations that shaped her growth and development during her undergraduate and graduate studies for one a business law professor encouraged her to go outside her comfort zone and try something new her advice to her was success is not a matter of where you stand but what direction you are moving the words spoken that day shaped her outlook on life henry is reminded to heed these words that drive her and strongly wants to pay that impact forward to others this motivation to continue impacting students has resulted in eight nomination letters detailing the numerous occurrences she has impacted those she serves regularly she takes every student under her wing and helping through whatever process or event life throws at them her commitment to seeing every student succeed exudes the enthusiasm she has when one reaches their goals jules dedication for the success of our students tremendously impacted the department and our students are much happier than before said dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor and head of the department of materials science and engineering her recruitment efforts help increase the number of students in the department more than 30 percent and the number of domestic students has doubled since she joined the department i have these day-to-day interactions with people but i did not think i was making any kind of impact henry said as i continue to learn about each of our students they inspire me to do better as a result of this there is something inside me that feels more ‘complete due to having passed on a piece of myself and my mentors energy to the future generations in the most humbling of moments the kunze award is an honor and a responsibility for me to carry forward
2078,texas a&m engineering climbed to seventh among public engineering schools offering a doctorate and 14th overall in the 2018 us news and world report best college rankings for undergraduate engineering programs released this week the college rose two places overall from 16 to 14 and one place among public institutions from eight to seven among its peers the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and the department of biological & agricultural engineering which is part of both the college of engineering and the college of agriculture and life sciences at texas a&m moved up to the top spot in the individual program rankings five more departments aerospace engineering (7th) civil engineering (8th) computer engineering (8th) industrial & systems engineering (8th) and mechanical engineering (7th) ranked in the top 10 among public institutions and top 15 overall
2079,the texas a&m university student chapter of the institute of transportation engineers (tamuite) took an insiders look at the aggie spirit transit services being an integral part of the university aggie spirit transit has played a critical role in providing accessibility to far corners of texas a&m to faculty students and visitors alike due to the vastness of its operations it can be easily compared with most city transit organizations in 1982 transit services began as bus operations by providing transportation for texas a&m using a fleet of 33 buses as an off-campus shuttle service as the university continued to grow a need for an intra-campus shuttle system emerged therefore in 1984 the on-campus shuttle system was created today transportation services has a fleet of 98 buses providing on- and off-campus paratransit and charter services for texas a&m the transit area employs over 260 student drivers the field trip started with a facility tour given by justin tippy manager of transit the students witnessed live dispatch operations camera feeds for the operating buses and learned about the average bus ridership working hours gps speed-location tracking and the automated passenger counting system available on the buses they toured the inside one of the newly refurbished buses to study every component from the smoothness of the ride to the convenience for the passenger later tippy showed the transit system that uses collected data to determine frequency and route paths for buses overall the trip provided insight on system functionality and university interaction and allowed students to apply gained knowledge to a familiar form of transit furthering their technical perspective of transit systems
2080,patricia varela doctoral student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and member of the stochastic geomechanics laboratory (sgl) recently attended a three-week workshop open science for synthesis: gulf research program that focused on cultivating data science skills the workshop organized by the national center of ecological analysis and synthesis (nceas) and funded by the national academies of science engineering and medicine (nasem) through the gulf research program provides training on topics like data management integration analysis and sharing via the use of open source community-supported tools nceas a research center located at the university of california santa barbara focuses on promoting collaborative synthesis research over an interdisciplinary platform in the ecological sciences scientists across various academic domains work together to reshape and refine existing data and methods generating new informatics approaches to synthesize analyze and share data overall improving our environmental understanding in sgl we actively work to integrate the effects of multiple threats with their corresponding impacts said dr zenon medina-cetina varelas doctoral advisor the nasem-nceas workshop couldnt be better aligned to add to our efforts of integrating all active sectors in the gulf of mexico from tourism energy and fisheries to commerce and policy-making through the workshop lessons varela gained training and hands-on experience applying the newly found skills to scientific synthesis projects based on the gulf of mexicos human environmental and energy systems a workshop activity placed varela on a team collaborating on a project prompting use of prior knowledge to inform restoration projects in estuaries of the gulf of mexico her interdisciplinary team members came from backgrounds in forestry and estuarine ecology epidemiology conservation biology and engineering her team was given a case study for the evaluation of restoration activities using historical data provided by water quality monitoring stations located in tampa bay florida her principal contribution to the project was related to the integration of a methodology widely used for decision-making purposes known as bayesian networks this technique enables the incorporation of disparate sources of information including measured data model predictions and experts educated beliefs a bayesian decision network was implemented to estimate the potential impact of such restoration activities on beach tourism and recreational fishing which can potentially be used to monitor and design future restoration activities scalable to the rest of the gulf of mexico the workshop provided an invaluable opportunity to enhance collaborative efforts among peers said varela the most important lesson learned was understanding the multiple benefits of conducting reproducible research through open science my group members are committed to give continuation to the project practicing the newly learned collaborative skills hopefully resulting in a scientific publication final presentation: https://fawda123githubio/oss2017_synthesis/presentations/final_pres#/
2081,by the year 2025 it is projected that nearly 2 billion people will live in areas of water scarcity these projections point to the need for advanced water and wastewater treatment technologies to provide options for an ever-increasing water demand one of the steps in water decontamination is filtration to remove harmful pathogens like bacteria viruses and other unwanted particles ongoing research projects at texas a&m university are building upon earlier work to improve filtration methods in order to provide cost-efficient clean drinking water dr shankar chellam j walter deak porter 22 & james w bud porter 51 professor in the zachry department of civil engineering was recently awarded two national science foundation grants to solve filtration challenges one a collaborative project with dr ruth baltus of clarkson university seeks to understand factors that allow more complex particles like viruses across the filter membrane the other a collaborative project with dr nick cogan of florida state university is to determine a solution to clear up the associated clogging of these filters preventing virus contamination of drinking water is of paramount importance for public health while technologies like micro and ultrafiltration can directly remove difficult-to-disinfect parasites such as giardia and cryptosporidium along with most bacteria and other materials these methods are not effective in removing viruses and some bacteria previous filtration models considered particles of a simpler shape like spheres and capsules with those shapes in mind filters have been designed to provide the ultimate rejection rate however viruses and bacteria come in many shapes and sizes some even have a head and tail that may give them an advantage to slipping through the filter think of the filter like an obstacle course said chellam the majority of contaminants are rejected as they pass through the filter however some are able to maneuver through the filter due to a more flexible shape or ability to deform or break apart as a filter is used it becomes caked with particles the current unclogging responses to regenerate the filter result in a high cost in time labor or material expenses a primary solution the team is pursuing is to solidify or clump up the viruses increasing their size to better filter them which simultaneously affects the amount of filter clogging in response to the clogging issue the team plans to study a backwashing process to clear up the clogged filter the team will periodically reverse the direction of water flow to remove the particles originally deposited on the filter surface results of the teams work will be useful to municipal and industrial water treatment communities where these solutions would reduce capital and energy costs the team will also study the mechanics behind viruses passing through the filter pores while this part of the work may not offer a solution to the problem it will add to the fundamental understanding of virus mobility and filtration this particular project will focus on the best way to hinder different shaped particles such as tailed viruses flexible filamentous viruses and deformable bacteria across membranes an important aspect of the research is that experiments will be designed to mimic complex systems that represent real-world systems through integrated experimental and theoretical efforts the team endeavors to develop an improved understanding of the factors that allow particles to transport through filters once the researched methods prove to be effective and points to a true understanding of how pathogens are filtered then filter membranes can be optimally implemented if and when they are they will work better than existing conventional sand filters in improving public health and preventing contamination in industrial and biotechnological processes this will negate the need to take the conservative approach of using a tighter membrane filter with very small pores which unnecessarily increases the cost these two grants also have implications for distributed water purification which describes on-site treatment rather than a centralized treatment for example in emergency situations after hurricanes or floods although membrane filtration technology is not yet far-spread due to the relatively high costs and lack of a simplified adoptable method a successful conclusion in the research will allow more of the advanced technology to be implemented for municipal and industrial applications results generated from this project will be important for a more optimal design of micro and ultrafiltration systems and for practical applications related to water and wastewater treatment and food biotechnological and pharmaceutical operations broader educational impacts include the development of science outreach activities geared toward science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) in primary education for more information visit: https://awt-labtamuedu/
2082,the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university welcomed three tenure-track faculty members this year drs maria koliou petros sideris and matthew yarnold join as assistant professors koliou joins the department from a postdoctoral fellowship at the national institute of standards and technology funded center of excellence for risk-based community resilience planning at colorado state university she received her bachelors degree in civil engineering from the university of patras greece and her masters and doctoral degrees from the university at buffalo - suny her research interests span the fields of structural dynamics earthquake engineering and multi-hazard performance-based design for system functionality and community resilience her research focuses on developing novel sustainable structural designs and systems against natural and man-made hazards and formulating fundamental mathematical frameworks to assess system functionality and community resilience she is a member of the national earthquake hazards reduction program provisions update committee it-9 as well as the american society of civil engineers (asce) technical committees she also serves as the co-chair of the earthquake engineering research institutes younger member committee prior to joining the department sideris was an assistant professor at the university of colorado – boulder where he also served as director of the structures and materials testing laboratory he received his masters and doctoral degrees in civil engineering from the university at buffalo - suny and his bachelors from the national technical university of athens greece his research focuses on mitigating the effects of natural hazards on the built environment through the development of resilient and sustainable infrastructure systems integrating advanced materials and response mechanisms his research further attempts to broaden conventional structural design to incorporate the novel concepts of accelerated construction rapid post-event retrofit and hazard energy harvesting his endeavors combine fundamental mechanics structural modeling and simulation techniques and experimental explorations he is a member of various technical committees with the transportation research board and the asce he has received numerous awards for his research teaching and service including the 2014 asce outstanding reviewer award and the 2017 asce exceed teaching fellowship yarnold joins the department after having been an assistant professor at tennessee technological university he began his career at lehigh university earning his bachelors and masters degrees following graduation he accepted a position as a bridge engineer for ammann & whitney during which time he contributed to more than 15 bridge design and rehabilitation projects along with obtaining his professional engineering license he then returned to academia and received his doctoral degree from drexel university yarnold has been a principal investigator for two projects funded by the national science foundation as well as a project for the tennessee department of transportation he serves on several national committees through the asce and transportation research boards his research aims to further the understanding of structural systems through numerical modeling large-scale laboratory testing and field experimentation/monitoring
2083,a texas a&m university system-led consortium of industry government partners and universities has been awarded a prestigious national science foundation (nsf) engineering research center (erc) on precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) with the goal of addressing the grand challenge of overcoming the human and economic burden of diabetes and heart disease in underserved communities institutional partners in paths-up include florida international university rice university and the university of california at los angeles along with several companies and other federal agencies the erc is the most significant nsf research grant an institution can receive in engineering and is a tremendous endorsement of the quality research being conducted within the texas a&m systems engineering program said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp this program is dedicated to helping underserved populations in rural and urban areas achieve greater access to health enhancing technologies and systems that aligns perfectly with our values as a land grant institution
2084,the prestigious nsf erc is an interdisciplinary initiative that connects academia industry and government partners to integrate engineering research and education with technological innovation to transform national prosperity health and security texas a&m university is an incubator of ingenuity and leadership dedicated to addressing the grand challenges facing our nation and world said texas a&m university president michael k young selection for the award by the national science foundation is a strong affirmation of our commitment to purpose-driven research to tackle the most pressing issues of our time and developing affordable access to life-saving technologies is among the most important the erc is initially funded by a five-year base award of $1975 million (which can be renewed for another $1556 million and a total potential term of 10 years for a potential total of over $35 million) ercs often become self-sustaining and typically leverage more than $50 million in federal and industry research funding during their first decade the grant will be administered through the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) for over 30 years nsf engineering research centers have promoted innovation helped to maintain our competitive edge and added billions of dollars to the us economy said nsf director france córdova they bring together talented innovators and entrepreneurs with resources from academia industry and government to produce engineers and engineering systems that solve real-world problems i am confident that these new ercs will strengthen us competitiveness for the next generation and continue our legacy of improving the quality of life for all americans nsf program director for paths-up deborah jackson emphasized the important role the center could play in bringing down costs the paths-up erc comprises a team of extraordinarily dedicated researchers who aim to develop cost-effective health care for underserved populations said jackson if paths-ups chronic disease interventions are successful they will have tackled a significant source of the skyrocketing national health care costs paths-up will be led by director dr gerard coté a texas a&m professor of biomedical engineering and will be housed in the health technologies building a newly renovated state-of-the-art 25 000-square foot building located in texas a&ms research park dr cote has a proven track record in developing innovation ecosystems driven by stakeholder input with a clear goal of commercialization of health-enhancing technologies said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering this aligns closely with our new enmed program in partnership with houston methodist which prepares physician engineer graduates with the clinical skills to diagnose symptoms and treat patients along with the engineering mindset to solve problems invent new technologies and rapidly move these innovative ideas to practice in patient care paths-up has two overarching goals the first is to engineer technologies that can overcome the barriers usually faced by point-of-care devices the technologies developed need to be deployable highly accurate easy-to-use and affordable the second goal is to recruit and educate a diverse group of scientists and engineers who will lead the future in developing enabling technologies to improve health in underserved communities on average every 30 seconds one person in the united states will be diagnosed with diabetes and another will suffer a coronary event like a heart attack these diseases are even more devastating in rural and urban underserved communities where they occur at much higher rates than the national average said coté i have been blessed with being able to lead an awesome team of technically excellent people who have a collective vision and a passion to change this paradigm for the health of the underserved populations by engaging them toward developing innovative user-friendly and cost-effective technologies and systems that can be used at the point-of-care in these communities this initiative will also include broad societal outreach including participatory design and community engagement that will prevent paths-up from perpetuating shortfalls in current biomedical practices in underserved communities and will instead establish relationships to develop technologies that seamlessly integrate into peoples lives the program will focus on two transformative engineered systems known as lab-in-your-palm and lab-on-a-wrist lab-in-your-palm allows for inexpensive remote diagnostic capabilities while lab-on-a-wrist allows for near continual monitoring paths-up will be the third active nsf erc in the state of texas the nanomanufacturing systems for mobile computing and mobile energy technologies (nascent) erc was established at the university of texas at austin in 2012 and the nanotechnology enabled water treatment (newt) systems erc was established at rice university in 2015 click here for more on paths-up
2085,researchers in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded a $2 million grant from the national science foundation (nsf) as part of a program supporting projects that are revolutionizing engineering education aerospace engineering at texas a&m like most aerospace engineering departments has a long tradition of producing graduates with a deep understanding of fundamental math and scientific principles and how to use these principles to solve problems in traditional aerospace applications graduates from the department have produced many meaningful aerospace contributions such as developing the boeing 787 dreamliner and managing the international space station other aerospace graduates have found somewhat unintentionally that their aerospace foundation has prepared them to make lasting impacts in other fields such as health care and energy researchers at texas a&m now aim to instill knowledge of these opportunities in all aerospace engineering graduates the nsf-sponsored revolutionizing engineering departments (red) program at texas a&m aims to revolutionize the aerospace engineering educational experience by demonstrating how aerospace skills can be used to solve important problems in other domains such as energy systems aerospace medicine the environment health care and others yet to be determined the program goal is to change the culture of instruction and learning in a way that imparts students with knowledge skills and confidence to look beyond traditional boundaries doing so will lead to a new aerospace engineering educational experience that will appeal to a more diverse student population and will strengthen the impact of texas a&m graduates in both traditional and nontraditional fields a diverse base of highly talented students and preparing them for the 21st century workforce is a national priority that affects us innovation and competitiveness the red program now in its third year includes only 19 engineering and computer science departments across the nation the aerospace engineering department at texas a&m is the only aerospace engineering department in the elite group principal investigators for the project include dr rodney bowersox dr kristi shryock and dr edward white (aerospace engineering); dr jeffrey froyd (engineering academic and student affairs); and dr isaac sabat (psychology) the texas a&m college of engineering has ambitious goals for improving diversity and this project will also support that aim by enacting bold purposeful initiatives to improve inclusion at all levels
2086,the fall meeting of the texas a&m university department of mechanical engineering industry advisory council (iac) will be held on friday oct 13 from 8 am to 5 pm in conference room 301 of the mechanical engineering office building on the texas a&m campus the industry advisory council reports to the head of the department of mechanical engineering and provides support consistent with the departments goals and objectives the support from the iac is delivered through a structure of five committees; executive committee faculty-industry liaison committee resource and development committee student development committee and steering committee each committee has a set of responsibilities consistent with its particular area of interest and focus and each member of the iac is encouraged to actively participate in one of the five committees in addition the goals and objectives of the department are supported through annual gift contributions from the iac membership directed to the mechanical engineering advancement fund this fund is an important source of support for the department enabling student scholarships faculty endowments and recognition and providing a financial means to progress priority initiatives of the department the annual contribution cycle for 2018 will begin with the fall iac meeting and end in may 2018 the executive committee will establish the fund contribution goal for the 2018 cycle and will communicate this to the iac members during the fall meeting new members are added each year to the mechanical engineering iac through a formal nomination process nominations for potential new members may be brought forward by the head of the department dr andreas polycarpou current iac members and/or the mechanical engineering department development officer jonathan pozzi if you have questions or a general interest in the mechanical engineering industry advisory council please contact clay vaughn iac executive committee chair at claywvaughn@gmailcom
2087,dr akhilesh k gaharwar an assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a national science foundation (nsf) grant for his work 3-d bioprinting of complex tissue structures using nanoengineered ionic-covalent entanglement (nice) bioinks the $300 000 grant funded by the biomedical engineering program in the chemical bioengineering environmental and transport systems (cbet) will allow gaharwar to integrate research education and outreach programs these programs will focus on designing a novel family of nice bioinks for 3-d printing engineering complex tissues that can mimic augment or replace native tissue functions holds enormous potential for treating organ failures resulting from injuries aging and diseases three-dimensional bioprinting is an emerging approach for the rapid fabrication of complex tissue structures using cell-loaded hydrogels called bioinks however 3-d bioprinting has hit a bottleneck in progress due to the lack of suitable bioinks that are printable and can guide cell functions this work will elucidate key fundamental properties of ionic covalent entanglement networks loaded with unique 2-d nanoparticles leading to transformative technology for 3-d bioprinting said gaharwar the work will lead to a novel platform technology to selectively control and pattern cell behavior and will have broad scientific impact on human health; specifically regenerative engineering and therapeutic delivery the development of a new family of bioinks from this research will spur growth in biofabrication leading to a positive impact on society and the national economy the integrated multidisciplinary research platform will provide a unique environment to attract motivate and retain students particularly underrepresented groups in science and engineering education this nsf award will provide educational and outreach opportunities through a diverse array of k-12 activities including developing educational screencasts teacher training engaging local schools in after-school programs and hosting high school students for research specifically a range of educational and research screencasts will be developed to engage and promote awareness about nanomaterials and bioprinting in addition undergraduate and graduate students will be trained to face multidisciplinary real-world engineering challenges gaharwar received his doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from purdue university in 2011 and completed his postdoctoral training at the massachusetts institute of technology and harvard university the goal of his lab is to understand the interactions of cell-nanomaterials interactions and to develop nanoengineered strategies for modulating stem cell behavior for the repair and regeneration of damaged tissue in particular his lab is leveraging principles from materials science stem cell biology high throughput computational genomics and additive biomanufacturing to design nanoengineered biomaterials with wide-ranging applications in the field of regenerative medicine see more details at inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering laboratory
2088,vishala a doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the heep graduate fellowship by the hagler institute for advanced study the heep graduate fellowship is awarded to those who demonstrate outstanding academic performance research ability and potential and leadership qualities under the supervision of dr robert skelton vishala is working on different applications of tensegrity structures
2089,texas a&m university was recently ranked seventh in the nation and 10th in the world for mechanical engineering according to the mechanical engineering subject area in the 2017 academic ranking of world universities (arwu) from shanghairanking to be included in a subject ranking each university was required to have a minimum number of research publications during the period of 2011-15 different weights were allotted to the gauges for different subjects for each gauge institutions were calculated as a percentage of the top-scored institution and then multiplied by the allocated weight from there a final score was calculated to be ranked among the top 10 institutions in the world for our field is an enormous accomplishment and one that i do not take lightly said dr andreas polycarpou mechanical engineering department head james j cain chair and meinhard h kotzebue '14 professor it is an honor to be recognized in this way for our renowned faculty excellent academic standards and highly impactful ongoing research arwu is a prominent influence due to its methodology being scientifically sound stable and transparent in the latest us news and world report both the undergraduate and graduate programs in the department were ranked eighth in the nation among public institutions
2090,tasked with designing a new material that can transform its shape at very low temperatures a team of undergraduate and graduate students in the texas a&m university college of engineering went above and beyond the competitions requirements and conquered the consortium for the advancement of shape memory alloy research and technologys (casmart) challenge to develop new materials and hardware using shape memory alloy technology under the direction of dr ibrahim karaman head of the department of materials science and engineering the team consisted of william trehern nathan hite nathan malone ben loveall hande ozcan and brian franco for the challenge they designed a material for an expandable habitat in space application we had one semester to design a material said ozcan graduate student advisor for the team specifically we were looking for some alloy compositions that could show giant shape change at -150 degrees celsius the material designed by the team who call themselves the space cowboys was to be used for an expandable space habitat that can be deployed for deep space exploration to do so the material must be able to begin transforming at -150 degrees celsius during cooling and heating or under mechanical stress shape memory alloys are a multifunctional material that goes through a phase transformation from austenite to martensite ozcan said unlike other materials shape memory alloys can recover large deformation and go back to their original shape thats why they are called smart materials after an extensive review of literature and using prior experiences of the research group led by karaman the space cowboys began working and melting 40-50 metals with various compositions to hone in on the perfect properties testing their ability to actuate at low temperatures basically what we try to do is conduct different heat treatments and experiments to improve microstructure and mechanical properties ozcan said we play with processing techniques and change the microstructure so that we can achieve our desired mechanical property after melting the materials the team must decide how to proceed do we want to do some type of hot rolling or do we want to skip that completely and go to different heat treatments and try to manipulate the microstructure trehern said from there we cut out a few samples and began testing on resistivity versus temperature to show us shape memory effect at very low temperatures one of the biggest obstacles to overcome was finding a way to test these alloys at very low temperatures since there are very few machines that are capable of testing materials at such low temperatures they used a machine that uses liquid helium to cool down the sample and test in the end we chose to investigate four different materials: nickel-titanium nickel-titanium-iron an iron based alloy and copper-based alloys trehern said to determine the amount of transformation in these materials we designed and developed a unique testing apparatus that could reach these ultra-low temperatures using this setup we were able to show that several of our materials were able to surpass all the requirements of the challenge at the end of the semester the team set off to compete at the shape memories and superelastic technologies 2017 conference where they presented their poster highlighting their discoveries for casmart three team members competed against 10 other teams from universities all over the nation the space cowboys impressed judges and competitors by presenting results for more than just one alloy earning first place overall as for the creative team name the team turned to music for inspiration to set them apart from the other competitors everyone else had these names that were so typical for materials science so we figured we could add some comic relief to the competition as well as represent the state of texas ozcan said we began listening to different songs to get inspiration and found the joker by the steve miller band in which the lyrics include the phrase ‘space cowboy upon the completion of the competition trehern decided to pursue a doctoral degree in materials science due to his experiences with casmart the competition had such a positive impact on william he decided to stay as a phd student with dr karaman ozcan said now he is working on a continuation of this project with nasa and extreme temperature shape memory alloys
2091,student innovation and entrepreneurship was on display at last weekends aggies invent: bring your own idea aggies invent an intensive design experience offered at the texas a&m engineering innovation center at texas a&m university provides an environment made to inspire and support entrepreneurship and innovate thoughts among aggies students have 48 hours to create prototype solutions for issues presented at each aggies invent competition each event has a completely different theme keeping the students ready for a challenge aggies invent: bring your own idea kicked off with students pitching their innovative idea or problem to solve to the group then students voted on which project theyd participate in selected projects ranged from vehicular safety to disability assistance to mobile applications this aggies invent had 62 students participate from 20 different majors and ranged from freshmen to doctoral candidates across campus bread took first place with their grocery shopping assistance application bread features an interactive shopping list scanner to compare options and a rewards system for coupons team members included jasmin cho computer science and engineering; ross raybon electrical engineering; yamen al masalmeh nathan spangenberg and maria teleki general engineering; and diego contreras business visor vision took second place with their innovation created to help block the sun while driving when the standard visor doesnt block it team members included blake karwoski mechanical engineering; chien-hua wang industrial engineering; mackenzie cardamone business;ignacio galvan iii engineering at mcallen; and benjamin shrader team blinn gutsy decision took third place with their device to better mimic the environment of the small intestine for a bacteria study the purpose is to aid in bacteria and superbug research team members included alex strasser chemical engineering; and ashley holt charlene morrison jacob ward meredith davies and samuel fowler biomedical engineering the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively the engineering innovation center and aggies invent also offer support for students to continue working on their project aggies invent is a program within engineering entrepreneurship in the college of engineering engineering entrepreneurship offers a wide range of programs and events that will help promote students understanding of business principles from an engineering perspective
2092,dr jaime grunlan linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university; dr kevin holder a former doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering; and ryan smith a current doctoral student in the department of chemistry completed a review paper about one of the first major breakthroughs in the past few decades in this established industry – protective flame retardant nanocoatings for polymeric surfaces this paper will be featured as the cover article of the november 2017 issue of the journal of materials science invented in grunlans polymer nanocomposites laboratory at texas a&m these flame-retardant nanocoating treatments create an outer barrier to extinguish flames before they spread while also addressing concerns regarding the toxicity of the flame retardant chemicals currently available my group is using water-based solutions of polymers and particles such as clays carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide to deposit thin coatings onto various polymeric substrates such as polyurethane foam cotton and cotton-blended fabrics to cause flame-retardant behavior said grunlan we were the first group in the world to demonstrate that the layer-by-layer deposition technique could be used to deposit very thin very effective and environmentally benign flame-retardant coatings clay and other nanoparticle-based coatings act as thermally insulating barriers on the surface of these substrates protecting the underlying material from further degeneration many severe fires that result in major property damage and loss of life are fueled by foam upholstery clothing etc which are very flammable grunlan said by understanding how phosphorus and nitrogen-based chemicals sometimes in combination with clay and other ingredients stop fire we can design more effective and safe flame-retardant treatments following a seminar i gave in new orleans in 2008 at an american chemical society (acs) national meeting and a subsequent paper in acs applied materials and interfaces in 2009 numerous research groups government agencies and companies began studying these systems worldwide it's a testament to how powerful and useful this technology first conceived at texas a&m is to fire safety grunlan began studying this subject while working on gas barrier thin coatings for food and electronics packaging grunlans team sent coated foam to the national institute of standards and technology (nist) in 2006 and the scientists there were shocked at how the coated foam resisted their fire testing grunlan received funding for this work from nist for six years which drew interest from many companies since beginning this work in 2006 grunlans research group has had three patents issued dozens of papers published and signed licensing agreements with several major corporations they are currently working on reducing processing steps and improving flame-retardant performance and durability of these coatings to make them more favorable to commercialization dr woo-sik jang a researcher at the university of pennsylvania and ian rawson a former student were the first two people to work on this in grunlans group since then grunlan further developed this technology with several more doctoral students and postdocs: dr galina laufer senior engineer at pepsico advanced research; dr yu-chin li research and development manager at preferred sands; dr amanda cain senior engineer at huntsman; dr marcus leistner product development specialist at albis plastic; dr tyler guin scientist ii at the air force research laboratory; and others
2093,texas a&m universitys college of engineering will be offering a new online degree master of engineering technical management (metm) beginning in fall 2018 metm is a 21-month part-time program designed for working professionals
2094,the metm curriculum is tailored to meet the needs of engineering and technical professionals looking to enhance their technical management skills business acumen personal leadership effectiveness and project management skillset classes are taught by veteran industry professionals and professors with industry experience courses will focus on business concepts such as data-driven decision making engineering finance project management and new product development while building a foundation in leadership utilizing emotional intelligence metm differs from a traditional master of science degree in engineering by concentrating on current industry best practices rather than research and differs from a traditional mba by emphasizing the technical and engineering context of business decisions metm students will begin each academic year by completing a week in residency in college station texas throughout the week they will work side by side with faculty hear from executive speakers and create a lifelong network with the people they meet the week in residency provides students an opportunity to immerse themselves in the program creating a foundation of leadership they can build upon throughout the year during the second year of the program students will focus on a capstone project capstone projects will be customized to each student with a focus on their industry and position students are encouraged to select a project from their current line of work allowing them to directly apply the knowledge gained throughout the program working with metm faculty students will create a project and develop a strategy to resolve real-world problems capstone projects will bring both students and employers a tangible return on investment from participating in the metm program to conclude the program metm students will come together in college station for one final session during this three-day session students will present the results of their yearlong capstone project to faculty and classmates and reflect on the knowledge they have gained on the third day metm students celebrate with their cohort by participating in graduation ceremonies alongside on-campus students for more information including upcoming information sessions visit the metm website if you have additional questions contact jordan sass at jsass@tamuedu
2095,"a rendering of blood cells with one infected cell an interdisciplinary team of researchers at texas a&m university has been awarded a division of computing and communication foundations grant by the national science foundation to develop a gut-microbial investigation model that can identify critical dietary risk factors that cause colorectal cancer the three-year $350 000 project is a direct outcome of texas a&m engineering experiment stations interdisciplinary seed grants for strategic initiatives which provided initial funding to establish the collaborative research effort the project titled minimum mean square error estimation and control of partially observed boolean dynamical systems with applications in metagenomics aims to develop and apply innovative signal processing techniques to uncover the complex interactions among microbes human cells and their metabolic products in the gut the project will produce innovative methods for estimation and control of processes that consist of the complex interactions of many switching elements such as ""presence"" and ""absence"" of a particular microbial species in the gut which are only indirectly observed through noisy biomedical assays our goal is to develop a signal processing framework that formalizes the interactions of the complex eco-system observed in the human gut such as the microbial communities and their interactions with the gut epithelial cells said dr ulisses m braga-neto associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m and the principal investigator of the project this framework will allow us to study the effects of nutritional supplementation on this complex eco-system in terms of changes in the microbial diversity and human gut gene expression in cell-signaling pathways the project will provide life scientists with computational tools for biochemical pathway discovery as well as rational intervention design as in optimal drug scheduling and diet modifications to treat human disease the project will also provide training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students preparing them for highly interdisciplinary biomedical research braga-neto is assisted by an interdisciplinary collaborative team that includes dr robert s chapkin distinguished professor in the department of nutrition and food science at texas a&m agrilife; dr arul jayaraman ray b nesbitt endowed chair professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering; dr xiaoning qian assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department; and dr ivan ivanov clinical associate professor of bioinformatics in the department of veterinary physiology and pharmacology dr johanna w lampe associate division director of the cancer prevention program in the division of public health sciences at the fred hutchinson cancer research center is an external collaborator"
2096,combining more than 40 years in materials and science engineering and pavement design research dr dallas little with the texas a&m university college of engineerings zachry department of civil engineering and the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) has produced a novel text dealing with research techniques in pavement analysis modeling and installation titled modeling and design of flexible pavements and materials this book is a culmination of my research said little snead chair professor and regents professor in the department the computational portion of the book is relatively intense as it does take someone through that process in a step-by-step approach rather than just throwing them in with no background for that reason i don't think there's any book out there that approaches the computational portion in this manner the book is intended as a reference book or as a textbook for the computational modeling of flexible material pavements like asphalt littles research has provided industry practitioners and consultants with working knowledge to model pavement design or access pavement damage with different techniques myself and my co-authors dr david allen senior researcher at tti and dr amit bhassim associate professor at the university of texas at austin felt that this comprehensive knowledge didnt exist in an easily accessible form little said there are a lot of books on continuing mechanics but not applied to asphalt pavements specifically flexible pavements little and others will be using concepts highlighted in the book to teach a short course in april at the mays business school in houston where they will emphasize how the principles in the book can be applied to create longer lasting and more cost-effective pavements i think were already seeing researchers and consultants find this computational work valuable in building better roadways for the future little said
2097,two researchers in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university were recently awarded the nakayama medal at the 14th international conference on fluid control measurements and visualization (flucome) at the university of notre dame dr william saric distinguished professor of aerospace engineering was awarded the nakayama medal for giving the keynote talk his presentation was on flight experiments on discrete roughness element technology for laminar flow control saric has been a professor in the department since january 2005 he is a registered professional engineer in virginia and was an aerospace engineering evaluator for the accreditation board for engineering and technology (abet) he is a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) the american physical society (aps) and the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) he received the aiaa fluid dynamics award in 2003 the gi taylor medal from the society of engineering science (ses) in 1993 and the scientific achievement award from the advisory group for aerospace research and development (agard) for the north atlantic treaty organization in 1996 in 2006 he was elected to the national academy of engineering for contributions to the fundamental understanding and control of shear-flow and boundary-layer transition saric has established two major wind tunnel research facilities and a flight research center at texas a&m and was the director of the air force office of scientific research/nasa national center for hypersonic laminar-turbulent transition research most recently he has conducted experimental and flight research on stability transition and control of two-dimensional and three-dimensional boundary layers for subsonic aircraft supersonic aircraft and reentry vehicle applications dr christopher limbach research assistant professor was awarded the nakayama medal with special recognition as a young researcher his presentation was on visualization and applications of femtosecond nanosecond and dual-pulsed laser-induced plasmas limbach joined the department in january 2017 he is director of the laser diagnostics and plasma devices lab (ldpdl) at texas a&m he obtained bachelors degrees in engineering physics and astronomy from the university of arizona in 2009 and a doctoral degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from princeton university in 2015 before coming to texas a&m limbach was a research scientist at colorado state university where he studied novel laser plasma sources and techniques for gas and multiphase combustion ignition at texas a&m he has been leading the development of advanced non-intrusive laser diagnostic techniques for measuring plasma parameters and species composition in dissociated ionized and non-equilibrium flows with applications to ground test facilities propulsion plasma science and plasma chemical processing he is also leading investigations of gas plasma and liquid phase transport phenomena with applications to two-phase flows sprays aerosol science and droplet combustion the nakayama medal was established by the flucome international steering committee in memory of professor y nakayama flucome founder and distinguished international leader in the flow visualization community
2098,dr kentaro hara assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2018 young investigator research program (yip) award from the us air force office of scientific research (afosr) his research project is titled theoretical characterization of electron transport in partially magnetized plasmas this research focuses on understanding the mechanism of how the electron flows along and across the magnetic fields using computational models this phenomenon is particularly important in a hall effect thruster a promising electric propulsion device developed and employed for in-space missions both domestically and internationally he will receive the grant over a three-year period totaling $450 000 the yip is open to scientists and engineers at research institutions across the united states who have received phd or equivalent degrees in the last five years and who show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research afosr awarded more than $191 million in grants to 43 scientists and engineers from 37 research institutions and businesses the objective of the program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the air force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering hara received his phd in aerospace engineering from the university of michigan and was a postdoctoral researcher at the princeton plasma physics laboratory prior to joining the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m in 2016 his research interests include electric propulsion plasma physics and applications kinetic theory and simulations and computational fluid dynamics the official announcement can be found here: http://wwwwpafbafmil/news/article-display/article/1339310/afosr-awards-grants-to-43-scientists-and-engineers-through-its-young-investigat/
2099,for most students surviving the academic struggle that is engineering at texas a&m university is enough of a challenge but senior nuclear engineering student jonah haefner has never stopped challenging himself a high-performing student and student leader haefners achievements have culminated into his receiving the craig brown outstanding senior engineer award it's a great honor for me to receive this award and i feel so fortunate because of what it says about my involvement and academic success haefner said eligible students for the award are required to be engineering students of good standing and maintain an overall grade point ratio of 35 winners are selected by engineering academic and student affairs after a nomination is confirmed by the students engineering department where they are then evaluated on scholastic achievement leadership and character the award also comes with a $5 000 scholarship in addition to maintaining his academic standing haefner is also involved in several on-campus organizations for me my involvement is about helping other people haefner said in the corps i dedicate a lot of time to ensure my underclassmen are successful and have the tools they need to succeed because i want them to find that fulfillment in their own lives in addition to his role as the executive officer of company g-2 in the corps of cadets at texas a&m haefner is also the executive officer of the or simpson honor society a special society within the corps of cadets that is dedicated the academic mentorship and success of other cadets and is involved in the corps of cadets athletic teams participating in the marathon and triathlon teams haefner also works as an undergraduate researcher at the department of nuclear engineering thermal hydraulics laboratory and is doing an undergraduate research thesis with the engineering honors program previously i've done some heat transfer and fluid flow correlations for cross flow heat exchangers for a molten salt reactor haefner said but now i am working on a project setting nozzle flow for a terry turbine in a rcic [reactor core isolation cooling] system haefner who is contracted with the us navy will be commissioning as an officer upon graduation with the hope of working as a naval reactor engineer in washington dc and then one day coming back to texas a&m to pursue a doctoral degree and conduct research i think that this award is about more than being academically successful or being really involved on campus said haefner ive just done my best to help others succeed and i take pride in doing that for others
2100,dr daniel a jiménez professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been inducted into the institute of electrical and electronics engineers association for computing machinery international symposium on microarchitecture (micro) hall of fame for his contribution of eight high-impact research papers the induction took place at the awards ceremony of the micro conference in boston massachusetts oct 17 this prestigious distinction was given to only six members of the micro community this year micro is the premier symposium for researchers to present discuss and debate innovative microarchitecture ideas and techniques for advanced computing and communication systems im honored to be included among the other members of the hall of fame and very grateful to my micro co-authors especially my former students for helping to make this possible jiménez said jiménezs research focuses are computer architecture and compilers he was also inducted into the high performance computer architecture hall of fame in 2015 and is notable for inventing the perceptron branch predictor published with co-author dr calvin lin professor at the university of texas at austin as well as other impactful research branch predictors designed by jiménez or inspired by his research are currently deployed in a wide variety of microprocessors from several companies
2101,rana soltani-zarrin a doctoral student in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the fran osullivan women in lenovo leadership scholarship from the society of women engineers (swe) for outstanding academic achievement and strong engineering potential in her field the scholarship is given yearly to one student and this year swe reviewed over 1800 applications soltani-zarrin is the first engineering student from texas a&m to receive the award soltani-zarrins research interests are robotics and control with a focus on rehabilitation robots in partnership with amin zeiaee a doctoral student in the department she is currently working on the design and control of a new upper-limb exoskeleton that can be used to rehabilitate stroke victims in the mechanical engineering departments laboratory for control robotics and automation at texas a&m under the supervision of dr reza langari a professor in the department the exoskeleton that we have developed can be used for the rehabilitation of stroke patients at various levels of disability said soltani-zarrin it can provide customized patient specific trainings and intelligently adjust the assistance and modify the trainings based on patient progress during her time at texas a&m soltani-zarrin has been involved in mentoring students within the aggie challenge program and the women in engineering program and has held several leadership positions she currently serves as chair-elect of the graduate student branch of the texas a&m chapter of swe swe is the world's largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology its mission is to stimulate women to achieve full potential in careers as engineers and leaders expand the image of the engineering profession as a positive force in improving the quality of life and demonstrate the value of diversity
2102,"dr alfredo garcia has joined the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university as a professor before coming to texas a&m garcia served as commissioner of the colombian energy regulatory commission from 1998-2000 he then served as a member of the faculty at the university of virginia and university of florida for 16 years ""i am excited to join one of the top engineering schools in the nation "" said garcia ""i intend to contribute to (the departments) research footprint in systems engineering and to develop new course offerings in systems science"" garcias research interests include game theory and dynamic optimization with applications in electricity and communication networks we are very lucky to have dr garcia join us said dr mark lawley department head of the industrial and systems engineering department his expertise in operations research coupled with his extensive knowledge of energy systems will put us at the forefront of smart and resilient energy delivery garcia received bachelors degrees in electrical engineering from the universidad de los andes colombia and the université paul sabatier toulouse france he received his masters and doctoral degrees in industrial and operations engineering from the university of michigan"
2103,andrew nelson mayor of the city of bryan and former texas a&m university student has found during his time since graduation that a degree in mechanical engineering can prepare students for a broad range of careers including those outside the traditional engineering industry its the ability for an engineering degree to train you to frame problems and solve them nelson said the ability to define and solve problems is something we need in society whether you are in politics engineering or a school teacher being able to frame and solve problems is an essential skill nelson graduated with a bachelors degree from the department of mechanical engineering in 1992 i enjoyed math and science he said i was drawn to an undergraduate degree in engineering because at least at the undergraduate level your opinions were mathematical and they could be defended on paper i liked that objectivity after graduating from texas a&m nelson took a job with anderson consulting to work in business consulting and information technology he has worked in the software industry since and started several companies as an entrepreneur the latest of which is lisam america where nelson serves as ceo and co-founder the company is a joint venture with the texas a&m university system and the belgian software company lisam systems the bryan-based company has developed software to benefit businesses and research in 70 countries to communicate chemical hazards in products through safety data sheets that can be printed in 50 different languages nelson said the endeavor has created an international gateway we have several belgian companies that are investing in bryan-college station and texas a&m and doing research for texas a&m he said we started that relationship and so even though its been software it has i think furthered the relationship for research at texas a&m economic development for the university and bryan-college station and it also is great because it ties us into the international community now serving as mayor of bryan since november 2016 nelson said he sees his role as mayor as another way to serve his community he offered this piece of advice for students stay creative and stay open-minded to careers that may come in front of you that are a little different than what youre thinking nelson said when i got my degree in mechanical engineering the last thing i was thinking about was to do software but in fact we do lots of software coding and development when we are getting mechanical engineering degrees and i was open to that and it served me very well
2104,from left: meena alavi (sponsor) dr mike graul adrian diaz erin peterson catalina ramos michael harrison lauren frith (sponsor) every semester seniors in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university enroll in the capstone senior design course the courses main objective is to provide students with experience in working on a real-life problem using the general and engineering skills they have gained during their undergraduate education at the end of the semester each team presents its project and poster to other students faculty members and sponsors teams are judged by an adhoc committee comprised of faculty michael harrison adrian diaz erin peterson and catalina ramos were part of the team sponsored by general electric oil & gas that won first place for the spring 2017 capstone senior design course in the industrial and systems engineering department for their project on lean six sigma a methodology that is continuously engineering the production system to be efficient (waste free) and systematic (variation free) the main goal of their senior capstone design project was to reduce lead time on an entire product line and decrease downtime for mill-turn machines when asked what interested her most about this project diaz said it involved every single tool we learned in our major lean six sigma is a tool that is being used more often now in the industry and this project involved a lot of those procedures their first task was to reduce the lead time from approximately 26 weeks to less than 10 weeks the team worked with various functions across the business to learn the process collect data and conduct time studies they then worked with plant leadership to implement improvements the next task was to determine the best method for collecting data analyzing the data and decreasing machine downtime in addition the team worked with stakeholders to identify the best data to collect for analyzing future downtime as industrial engineers we learn lean and six sigma techniques in class and hear the terms thrown around all the time peterson said this project actually took those techniques and helped me gain a whole different understanding of them after collecting data for many weeks the students collaborated with their project sponsor as well as their faculty sponsor dr mike graul associate professor of practice in the industrial and systems engineering department to come up with a least cost/highly effective solution with this solution they were able to decrease downtime on a line of mill-turn machines and reduce lead time on an entire product line erin catalina michael and adrian are exactly the kind of engineers that (texas a&m) must continue to produce for industry said graul it was a pleasure to work with the entire group and i know that the ge engineers who supported this project lauren frith (lean six sigma blackbelt) and meena alavi concur of the engineering disciplines (industrial and systems engineering) is unique in its need for engineers to be immersed into the nature of the ‘man-machine environment the team attacked the machine downtime issues through observation research analysis and skilled problem solving during the semester they spent hours on the shop floor on-site followed by hours meeting each weekend here at (texas a&m) identifying the sources of downtime and low cost remediations for more information about the capstone program email jose vazquez at vazquez@tamuedu
2105,dr nickolaus bruno ‘15 a former teaching assistant in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has accepted a tenure-track faculty position at the south dakota school of mines and technology bruno earned his bachelors and masters degrees from northern arizona university and his phd in mechanical engineering at texas a&m he worked under dr ibrahim karaman department head in materials science and engineering while researching the magneto and elasto-caloric effects and multi-functionalities in magnetic shape memory alloys with roots in mathematics and mechanical engineering i developed a taste for understanding the behavior of solids bruno said i now strive to understand why multi-functional and multi-ferroic materials exhibit their fascinating behaviors in gaining this understanding i hope to redefine the technological paradigms currently limiting scientific progress in the area of materials for energy conversion bruno has authored and co-authored nearly 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and served as a peer reviewer for over 30 articles in scientific journals during his time at texas a&m he was awarded a national science foundation integrative graduate education and research trainee fellowship and while working in industry the intel technology and manufacturing group – logic technology development achievement award in 2017 he received the reviewer honorarium for acta materiala which honors those who help ensure the continued quality of the journal he will begin his research and teaching appointment with the mechanical engineering department at the south dakota school of mines and technology in spring 2018
2106,dr xiaoning qian is collaborating with researchers from texas a&m agrilife on a project that aims to develop systems-based high-tech solutions addressing the needs of farmers and processors for sustainable and healthier supply chains for fruit qian is an assistant professor at the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m the $44 million project hes collaborating on seeks to discover ways to improve the us melon industry the four-year project a sustainable systems-based approach for a safer and healthier melon supply chain in the us will be led by dr bhimu patil director of agrilife researchs vegetable and fruit improvement center and professor in the horticultural sciences department qian will help analyze the next-generation sequencing data to understand the changes in melons under biological (biotic) and non-biological (abiotic) stresses such as pathogens and conditions of drought and heat qian is a member of the texas a&m engineering experiment station-agrilife center for bioinformatics and genomic systems engineering his research specializations include statistical learning and optimization signal and image processing and their applications in life and materials sciences in the past his research has been funded by an national science foundation career award and by other federal agencies including the national institutes of health united states department of agriculture and defense advanced research projects agency
2107,dr shankar bhattacharyya was one of the invited distinguished speakers to deliver a keynote address at the 2017 national congress of automatic control jointly organized by the mexican association of automatic control and the universidad autónoma de nuevo león in monterrey mexico bhattacharyya is the robert m kennedy '26 professor ii in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university he studies automatic control systems and theory and applications of robust stability bhattacharyas presentation described a modern approach and recent results on multiobjective classical control design methods developed at texas a&m and historical reasons for the recent upsurge of interest in classical controllers it turns out that these controllers rather than high order modern controllers account for 99 percent of controllers in use in diverse traditional industries such as robotics aerospace controls and biomedical engineering said bhattacharyya in fact they are also the controllers of choice in driverless cars and unmanned aerial vehicles as well bhattacharyya also demonstrated how recent single-input single-output results in classical control can now be extended to multivariable systems bhattacharyyas awards and honors include national academy of sciences- nasa research associate (1974-75) ieee fellow (1989) international federation of automatic control fellow (2011) boeing-welliver faculty fellow (1999) foreign member of brazilian academy of sciences (2011) foreign member of brazilian academy of engineering (2016) and professor visitante especial by the brazilian research council (2014-17) his research has been funded by the national science foundation for 34 years and also through the qatar national research fund national instruments and the brazilian research council
2108,dr pushkar lele assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded a single-pi research project grant (r01) from the national institutes of health (nih) the r01 grant is one of the most sought after federal grants and the leading nih grant the grant mechanical regulation of ultra-sensitivity in e coli flagellar motors will allow lele to expand upon his research on the sensing and intracellular transduction of mechanical signals in bacteria with the aid of extracellular appendages one such appendage is the flagellum which enables a bacterium to swim and navigate in response to chemical signals a process that is known as chemotaxis lele and his research team have already shown that the flagellar motor which operates the flagellum is able to detect mechanical cues and undergoes structural changes it is unclear how the structural and functional adaptations within motors facilitate chemotaxis colonization and infections with this grant lele and his team will explain how mechano-responses influence chemotaxis and swarming motility two processes that likely aid in the detection and colonization of a solid surface all living systems have highly sophisticated mechanisms that serve to amplify important environmental signals and to suppress noise lele said it takes a lot of resources for a bacterium to colonize a surface so it has to have some certainty about the signal otherwise it will have wasted a tremendous amount of energy specifically lele is interested in how the output of the chemotaxis network a molecular switch responds to mechanical cues for decades it was believed that chemical inputs alone controlled the switch activity however lele and his research team found that the cell must ‘tune its chemotactic output to mechanical signals in order to colonize a surface that said the mechanisms of such adaptation remain unclear this is a crucial bit of missing information that lele believes could help influence current clinical strategies for tackling infections and antibiotic resistance such potential breakthroughs may prove instrumental in the prevention of bacterial infections without triggering the pathogens defense mechanisms leles receiving the grant is unique r01 investigators under the age of 36 as a group make up around three percent of the award total down from 18 percent in 1983 a decline that is even more pronounced when considering that the overall nih funding for such investigators is 13 percent lele falls in a rare category of young investigators under the age of 35 to receive this award lele is currently looking to hire postdoctoral researchers with experience with labview software
2109,a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has recently been able to travel the world thanks to her successes here at texas a&m madeleine durkee research assistant and doctoral candidate was selected to participate in multiple events over the summer durkee began her doctoral program at texas a&m in the fall of 2013 currently she works under the direction of dr kristen maitland associate professor in the biomedical engineering department at texas a&m within maitlands biomedical optics lab durkee is working to understand and detect harmful bacteria within live animals through the use of an optical imaging system she uses simulations of the system and physiology to improve the optical system to detect bacteria as a graduate teaching fellow durkee had funding that afforded her the opportunity to teach biomedical engineering courses in germany durkee notes that her teaching experience was very important because she had not taught on such a personal basis prior to her studies abroad durkee taught to a small group of students which is quite the opposite of the 130 students that are enrolled in a standard introduction level course in addition to teaching in germany durkee also worked for a startup company called enmodes gmbh based out of aachen germany the company was an industry partner for a design project associated with one of the courses durkee was teaching working with enmodes was my first experience working with a company all of my experience before that point was strictly in research and it was great to see the inner workings of a company said durkee that kind of exposure will absolutely make me a better professor it helped shaped my understanding of the field and market for biomedical devices in addition to teaching in germany durkee travelled to the island of ven in sweden to attend a graduate summer school on biophotonics and gave an oral presentation at the european conference for biomedical optics (ecbo) in munich germany the biophotonics summer school was one of the best technical and best networking events i have ever attended said durkee the top names in the field were presenting on both fundamental and cutting edge research
2110,"thirty-four students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university attended the 2017 grace hopper celebration of women in computing (ghc) the three-day event held in orlando florida from oct 4-6 is the worlds largest gathering of women technologists with 18 000 attendees this year the conference grouped tracks that cover similar topics into clusters such as artificial intelligence computer systems engineering data science interactive media human computer interaction security/privacy software engineering work-life balance and career development dr dilma da silva department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii participated in two panels at the conference one of which focused on building communities and the other on changing careers there were also keynotes panels interviews for job seekers and a career fair dr nancy m amato unocal and regents professor was also in attendance leading the computing research association's committee on the status of women in computing research research scholars program alongside dr andrea danyluk dennis a meenan '54 third century professor of computer science at williams college this is the second year we have run the program amato said we started it to provide undergraduates who are interested in research and graduate school a research-focused experience at ghc including mentors networking opportunities and assistance identifying the relevant programming at the conference based on an evaluation of the inaugural 2016 program the participants reported having significantly more knowledge about research and graduate school than a comparison group of students who did not attend the conference students who were able to attend ghc 2017 detailed the memorable experience i was surrounded by thousands of the most intelligent women in computing and was able to establish some great connections said sophomore mackenzie ford it was an honor just to be in the room this was my second time attending and i have loved it both years ghc is a rare and amazing opportunity to attend ""this was my first time attending the grace hopper conference and it was nothing less than extraordinary said sophomore mia brown being around so many successful women in the tech industry a male dominated field helped to boost my confidence as a future computer engineer the most beneficial thing that i took away from this years conference came from a conversation that i had with a representative from google she told me that i should never think that i am not good enough and told me to never give up because there are so many women out there who have successfully made it into the tech industry that are ready and willing to give me their support this piece of advice is what has stuck with me as i have returned to school and my regular routine and it is the piece of advice that i will use to propel me into my future until i have become another success story inspired by the legacy of admiral grace murray hopper dr anita borg and dr telle whitney co-founded ghc in 1994 the conference is produced by the anitaborg and presented in partnership with the association for computing machinery"
2111,"michael foss immediate past president of institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) and dr natarajan gautam recipient of the fellow award from the iise dr natarajan gautam of the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university received the fellow award from the institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) at the iise annual conference and expo in may 2017 gautam is a professor and the associate department head for undergraduate affairs the fellow award recognizes outstanding leaders who have made significant nationally recognized contributions to industrial engineering this is the highest classification of iise membership gautam is a leading scholar in the area of stochastic modeling and analysis for engineering systems he has performed impactful research teaching and professional service in promoting excellence in the field of industrial and systems engineering he recently authored the book analysis of queues: methods and application gautam is on the editorial board of iise transactions and chairs the content review board of the industrial engineering body of knowledge he received the iise outstanding young industrial engineer award and many teaching awards including those given by the iise student chapter gautam is the latest member of the department's faculty to be awarded fellow status others include drs kem bennett satish bukkapatnam guy curry yu ding georgia- ann klutke mark lawley césar o malavé don phillips hamid parsaei and wilbert e wilhelm ""it is a tremendous honor to be inducted as an iise fellow and join my 10 other current texas a&m colleagues (including emeritus) in that group "" said gautam"
2112,twenty-five students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university attended the 2017 acm richard tapia celebration of diversity in computing the three-day event held in atlanta georgia sept 20-23 is dedicated to providing a space of collaboration for undergraduate and graduate students faculty researchers and professionals in computing this years theme diversity: simply smarter! was a reminder that with a diverse set of perspectives experiences and people comes greater outcomes the tapia conference has been an incredibly insightful experience for me as a computer science major said graduating senior brian ta a big part of the conference is celebrating the notion of diversity -- something that we cannot take for granted in a growing population i had the opportunity to speak to students faculty and employers from different parts of the world and listen to unique perspectives on how they got into the field of computing one of the memorable experiences i had from the conference was listening in on the various workshops lectures and speeches given by wonderful engineers from different companies such as espn general electric google and much more this was my first time going to this conference and i would love to go again if i had the chance the goal of the event is to celebrate the diversity that exists in computing; connect with others with common backgrounds ethnicities disabilities and gender so as to create communities that extend beyond the conference; obtain advice from and make contacts with computing leaders in academia and industry; and be inspired by great presentations and conversations with leaders with common backgrounds the computer science and engineering department has been a long-time supporter of the annual conference the tapia conferences are sponsored by the association for computing machinery presented by the center for minorities and people with disabilities in information technology and are in cooperation with the computing research association
2113,two graduate students working for the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution recently won the excellence in societal/technical impact award at the 2017 global grand challenges summit (ggcs) in washington dc the biennial ggcs is jointly organized by the us national academy of engineering uk royal academy of engineering and chinese academy of engineering
2114,rana soltani-zarrin and amin zeiaee mechanical engineering doctoral students in the texas a&m university college of engineering presented their research poster at the competition titled virtual reality enhanced intelligent upper-limb exoskeleton for rehabilitation of stroke patients the project aims to help stroke patients relearn motor skills they have lost and regain abilities to perform activities of daily living using an intelligent upper limb robotic device the device provides assistance and resistance to patients with various levels of disability to increase strength flexibility and range of motion of their upper-limb making it a more effective recovery as an alternative to labor-intensive limited-time manual therapy furthermore training developed in augmented and virtual reality environments can be used as additional features to provide more entraining and motivating therapy for patients originally a proposal from the laboratory for control robotics and automation directed by dr reza langari department head in the engineering technology and industrial distribution department soltani and zeiaee began their research to bring the idea into reality in 2015 using a combination of electrical mechanical and mechatronic engineering soltani and zeiaee have been developing a prototype for clinical settings that will hopefully one day be provided as a home-based exoskeleton for rehabilitation only 37 graduate and 49 in undergraduate level students were selected for this competition among more than 150 submitted abstracts from united states united kingdom and china there were three awards for each category (graduate and undergraduate) the winners were selected for societal/technical impact of the research the novelty of research or the poster design judges were professionals from academia government and industry soltani and zeiaees research was selected as the winner of the societal/technical impact award each winning team was awarded a certificate and a cash prize of $2 000 by the national academy of engineering among the six winners one was from china one from the united kingdom and four winners from the united states
2115,even astronauts have to do the laundry five seniors from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are working together to develop clothes dryer technology to help astronauts save on clothes and supplies during future long-term missions the possibility that our dryer could go into space on the mars mission is really awesome said team member mason herpin the project is the teams senior capstone design project which aims to bridge the gap between classroom and industry by requiring students to use their knowledge and skills to complete an engineering design project the nasa team in meen 402 have been working since january to develop a clothes dryer prototype that will work in space currently what they do with the clothes is they wear them once they put them back in a supply pod and the supply pod is designed to burn up on reentry because they dont have any way to wash and dry clothes in space right now said team member nicholas hill the prototype dryer uses forced evaporation to dry the clothes with 12 fans blowing air over the material to test the design the team dries a dry-fit t-shirt a pair of gym shorts and a thick pair of cotton socks an outfit similar to an astronauts workout gear so far the team has run the test for two hours at the most running at about 30 watts of power the teams allowable power usage 150 watts is a tenth of an average hair dryer one major obstacle the students have to tackle is developing something that will function in zero gravity a challenge difficult to test at texas a&ms engineering innovation center when youre in zero gravity if you have a big barrel rotating inside a spaceship the angular momentum of the ship will change said team member casey peterson that will throw off the trajectory of the spaceship so that was one of the biggest issues we had to work through the team is also working on an adjacent project to develop a long-term trash stowage system that can be used on longer voyages currently trash is handled similarly to dirty laundry loaded into a supply pod and burned in the atmosphere however on a longer mission astronauts have to consider space and the possibility of bacterial growth the team has developed a box that food vacuum bags can be placed in and compressed as the bags are vacuum compressed an opening in the compactor allows astronauts to heat seal the bags team member julia devinney said the team has considered how either prototype or something similar could be have broader uses even though this is something were working on for nasa maybe this dryer could also be used in many different applications devinney said the senior capstone program is meant to help students develop skills needed to succeed in diverse industry design teams all of the nasa team members agreed that teamwork was a large component of the learning experience its been a really good learning experience for all of us too because this is kind of how projects work in industry everyone has got a different schedule and everyone has different meetings going on at different times and different places they have to be said project manager bailey c robbins being able to work together or separate to get the same end goal and bring it together is great experience the team members are expected to present a final presentation of their prototypes to nasa officials in houston in december for more information about the capstone program email dr joanna tsenn at joannatsenn@tamuedu
2116,dr dilma da silva department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university served as co-chair of the 2017 advanced computing systems association (usenix) annual technical conference (atc) in santa clara california july 12-14 as co-chair with dr bryan ford associate professor at the swiss federal institute of technology in lausanne da silva led the program committee responsible for the event the conference boasted industry talks a poster session and birds-of-a-feather sessions where attendees had the opportunity to meet in an informal setting the three-day conference which highlights innovative research brought together professionals from academic and industrial backgrounds and provided students the opportunity to interact with senior researchers in the field usenix is committed to providing open access to research the conference hosted over 300 attendees and had almost 300 paper submissions 60 of which were accepted in addition to serving as co-chair of the conference da silva was awarded a grant from the national science foundation which allowed the conference to provide travel awards to 20 graduate students serving at large conferences is always a lot of work but the usenix atc experience left me inspired by the dedication of the 33 program committee members da silva said altogether they wrote more than 920 detailed reviews and traveled to california for a two-day program committee meeting the result was an outstanding program
2117,cameron cassidy a senior in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university does not let his visual impairment slow him down as he pursues a degree in computer science he uses several adaptive technologies to help him in class such as a camera to help see text on the board and a closed-circuit television which is a digital magnifier that enlarges text on paper versus text at a distance each new course provides a new set of challenges so every semester he has to find new solutions to mediate the unique challenges that he faces this has led to becoming a skilled problem solver each semester everything is new you dont know how the professor teaches etc cassidy said in terms of problem-solving you learn to quickly respond and find a solution for things to prevent falling behind in the course cassidy is working closely with dr j michael moore an instructional assistant professor in the department on an undergraduate research project to create a new course i actually met dr moore at a conference in seattle cassidy said this conference was focused on creating courses regarding universal design and accessibility together we came up with this idea of creating a one-hour class to be taught at texas a&m as an elective for people who are majoring in university studies the department is also dedicated to helping those with the need for accessibility to succeed in this field dr dilma da silva department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii is a member of the alliance for access to computing careers or accesscomputing the alliance introduced cassidy to dr jeffery bigham an assistant professor in the human computer interaction institute at carnegie mellon university over the summer cassidy worked closely with bigham on a project relating to indoor navigation systems in pittsburgh funded by accesscomputing this grant program which supports the innovation of adaptive technologies is led by the paul g allen school of computer science and engineering the information school and the disabilities opportunities internetworking and technology center at the university of washington and is supported by the national science foundation upon graduation cassidy hopes to attend graduate school to study computer-human interaction though he has faced challenges cassidy has learned that through hard work and commitment great things can be achieved
2118,dr randy hoff has been awarded the 2017 distinguished alumni award in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university for his significant contributions in promoting the profession of industrial engineering he is one of the youngest recipients of the distinguished alumni award hoff has been the chief executive officer of cenergistic an energy conservation company in the dallas texas area for almost 14 years he graduated in 1998 with a bachelors degree in industrial engineering hoff has supported the industrial and systems engineering department as a member of the industry advisory council since 2010 in 2012 he created the trecie a '96 and dr randy d hoff '97 endowed scholarship in addition to others in the industrial and systems engineering department funded through the texas a&m foundation randys contribution to the community and industry leadership of excellence is a great example of texas a&ms finest said dr mark lawley department head of the industrial and systems engineering department we consider him to be an ideal role model for our students hoff received his masters degree in business administration from marquette university in 2000 and his doctoral degree in engineering management from southern methodist university (smu) in 2011 he also holds a certificate in environmental and civil engineering and sustainability from smu he joined cenergistic after a broad and varied career at general electric corporation during which he became a certified six sigma master black belt hoff is a certified energy manager and certified measurement and verification professional through the association of energy engineers he is also a registered professional engineer in the state of texas according to cenergistics website hoff is passionate about achieving 30 percent energy reduction for all clients he led the company to achieve the energy star partners status his clients were able to earn the energy star recognition as well thanks to his efforts as a result the company received the energy star partner of the year and partner of the year – sustained excellence awards for eight consecutive years randy exhibits the outstanding work ethic and levels of accomplishment that we look for in choosing our distinguished alumni said lawley he is richly deserving of this honor and we are very proud of him
2119,the grand challenge scholars program (gcsp) in the college of engineering at texas a&m university hosted dr jenna carpenter on friday sept 29 at a seminar on how success in the gcsp translates to success in ones field carpenter is a highly regarded national figure within stem higher education and is chair of the national academy of engineerings grand challenge scholars program as chair she is charged with leading a steering committee of which dr nancy m amato senior director for engineering honors and director of the texas a&m gcsp is a member carpenter ensures that the programs currently implemented at more than 40 engineering schools worldwide with 122 more schools to follow support the overall gcsp objective of educating a new generation of engineers expressly equipped to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing society in the 21st century carpenter is also the founding dean of campbell universitys school of engineering launched in 2016 previously carpenter was a wayne and juanita spinks endowed professor an associate dean for undergraduate studies and director of the office for women in science and engineering at louisiana tech universitys college of engineering and science at the seminar carpenter spoke about the gcsp its five main focus areasresearch experience interdisciplinary curriculum entrepreneurship global dimension and service learningand its objective her main point at the seminar was to explain how success in the gcsp would equal success in a career the texas a&m gcsp is a selective three-year program that aims to help students achieve in-depth understanding of technical areas as well as experience in its focus areas
2120,in august hurricane harvey caused unimaginable devastation to homes and infrastructure in texas and communities are now working tirelessly to rebuild neighborhoods restoring power after a major natural disaster is a significant step toward recovery many areas would take weeks or even months to fully restore the power infrastructure researchers in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university are on a mission to help develop a bank of knowledge about electricity needs in the areas affected by hurricane harvey and create technology to quickly reconfigure power electronics intelligence at the network edge (pine) dr le xie associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department along with dr prasad enjeti ti professor iii in analog engineering and associate dean for academic affairs and dr p r kumar college of engineering chair in computer engineering and distinguished professor received a rapid response research (rapid) grant from the national science foundation for their project titled rapid: powering through the hurricane: self-organizing power electronics intelligence at the network edge they aim to collect initial data and develop novel power electronics interface at the end-users level so that communities can restore at least portions of the critical power needs with distributed energy resources before the main power infrastructure is restored electricity is the lifeblood of modern civil society and it has not been fully restored in many neighborhoods yet said xie it takes a long time to repair the bulk of the power infrastructure the rapid projects goal is to enable end users to quickly restore prioritized electric loads during the recovery phase the researchers will collect data about the shortage of power in communities affected by hurricane harvey then based on the data they will formulate and compute energy-constrained microgrid scheduling lastly they will design and test the power-limiting control of power electronics interface at the end-user level almost half of the students at texas a&ms main campus and all of the texas a&m at galveston campus were affected by hurricane harvey said enjeti this project will provide direct benefits to the students and their families in this rebuilding phase this project will also provide relief to many remote areas which may have to wait for weeks or even months before the full restoration of the bulk power infrastructure the researchers believe their project is well aligned with the statewide rebuild texas initiative led by texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp
2121,because of the way it is constructed the virtual currency bitcoin offers a novel realization of a central bank-free financial instrument as well as an alternative approach to classical distributed computing problems and to numerous other applications such as smart electronic contracts at the core of bitcoin is the blockchain which is essentially a long line of chained blocks containing data (namely fund-transferring transactions) that is the enabling technology underneath the application those who attempt to build blockchains are called miners dr juan garay a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is focused on understanding the fundamental properties of the blockchain data structure and protocol it is called a protocol because it is a collection of programs one for each participant garay said there are multiple participants that perform so-called 'proofs of work' and exchange messages my work was the first to formally define this analyze it and prove the basic properties of the underlying data structure garays paper titled the bitcoin backbone protocol: analysis and applications was among coindesks top 10 2015 cryptocurrency research papers the blockchain implements a distributed ledger which keeps records of the transactions between the bitcoin users new transactions are added to the ledger when one of the miners generates a proof of work generating a new block which is then added to the blockchain proofs of work are generated by miners solving an algorithmic problem - these days using specialized hardware which expends energy to compute in bitcoin a solution to a proof of work is found when the output of a cryptographic hash function - a random function that maps arbitrary inputs to a small domain - applied to the current state of the blockchain and new transactions is smaller than a predetermined value proofs of work a cryptographic primitive originally designed to combat spam email and which also goes by the name of 'cryptographic puzzles' allows a party (the prover) to convince another party (the verifier) that she/he has invested a considerable amount of effort in solving a computational problem garay said my work aims to rigorously formulate such properties and then show how applications can be formally derived from them this entails the specification and contrast of computational models on which blockchain protocols are run together with the required trusted setup and computational assumptions and the cryptographic tools that enable their operation garays broader research focus is cryptographic protocols and schemes which play a fundamental role in enabling new functionalities and privacy-preserving ways of interaction in todays digital world garay first began studying the subject of blockchain protocols over three years ago and has since played a vital role in the continuous research on the subject header image: an abstract representation of blocks in a blockchain g and h are cryptographic hash functions and the xi's represent transactions the second block is linked to the first block by a solution of the cryptographic puzzle that includes information from the first block
2122,joshua harris a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was selected by the college of engineering as the recipient of the 2017-18 outstanding engineering master of science graduate student award this award was created to recognize current graduate students who have demonstrated excellence above and beyond usual levels of achievement for their field candidates are evaluated by faculty in the college of engineering on the basis of scholastic achievements leadership service and character recipients receive a commemorative memento of recognition and a monetary award of $5 000 as a one-time scholarship there are a total of 1 134 currently enrolled ms students in the college of engineering harris is a graduate research assistant in the vehicle systems & control laboratory and has been working with his advisor dr john valasek for six years harris earned his bachelors degree in aerospace engineering summa cum laude from texas a&m in 2014 he is a recipient of the national defense science engineering graduate fellowship the nasa aeronautics scholarship the federal aviation administrations pegasas center of excellence outstanding student researcher award and the sigma gamma tau outstanding texas a&m university aerospace engineering senior for 2014 harris is currently a member of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics intelligent systems technical committee this semester he will be defending his masters thesis nonlinear adaptive inversion control for variable stability small unmanned aircraft systems he has accepted a position as a software engineer with lockheed martin aeronautics in fort worth texas
2123,mechanical engineering alumnus ed wulfe 55 has been named a recipient of texas a&m university association of former students 2017 distinguished alumnus award wulfe who now lives in houston is the founder ceo and chairman of the wulfe and co commercial real estate brokerage development and property-management firm wulfe was also named a houston hero by the houston chronicle which cited his tireless efforts toward making houston a better place to live through his developments civic leadership and volunteer service which included steering the houston symphony out of a budget deficit he received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m wulfe serves as a guest on texas a&ms master of real estate advisory board and has been a lecturer for mba students and created an endowed scholarship in the mays business school he contributed an auditorium in the texas a&m hillel building wulfe serves as chairman of the houston symphony a director of the greater houston partnership the symphony and scenic houston and on the boards of the center for houstons future trees for houston; uptown houston holocaust museum houston the african american museum of houston; the methodist hospital center for performing arts medicine; and the university of texas health science center at houston in 2003 he chaired a city wide referendum to expand houstons light rail and transit systems wulfe was unable to attend the gala on sept 29 in reed arena he will be recognized during next years ceremony
2124,diagram of paths-up thrusts 1-4 with five-year technology (lab in palm) and 10-year technology (lab on wrist) a texas a&m university-led consortium of university and industry partners was recently awarded a national science foundation (nsf) engineering research center (erc) grant on precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) for studying remote wearable technology to help people monitor and manage diabetes and heart disease in underserved communities the nsf erc is one of the most significant engineering grants that an institution can receive it is an interdisciplinary initiative that connects academia industry and government partners to integrate engineering research and education with technological innovation to transform national prosperity health and security paths-up is initially funded by a five-year base award of $1975 million this can be renewed for another $1556 million over an additional five years ercs often become self-sustaining and typically bring in more than $50 million in federal and industry research funding during their first decade the grant will be administered through the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the paths-up proposal development was a two-year collaborative effort led by dr gerard coté professor of biomedical engineering and director of the center for remote health technologies and systems (crhts) dr mark lawley head of the department of industrial and systems engineering and crhts deputy director was also heavily involved in writing and coordination the grant eventually involved four universities dozens of researchers and many industrial partners paths-up will have four research thrust areas: (t1) implantable sensors for biomarker monitoring (t2) optical imaging for sensor reading (t3) user-centered wearable design and (t4) remote data analytics for population health (see figure) industrial and systems engineering department collaborators include lawley and dr farzan sasangohar assistant professor lawley will focus on thrust 4 which involves extracting actionable information from real-time data streams computer algorithms will be developed to quantify short- medium- and long-term patient risks and to initiate and track interventions that help patients manage daily health and avoid hospitalization (methods that lawley refers to as remote health analytics) sasangohar will work with a team of researchers focused on stakeholder development in under-served areas of south texas los angeles and miami this work will focus on collecting perspectives on remote technologies from patients nurses health educators primary care physicians and many others and synthesizing these perspectives into design requirements this vital work will ensure that the technology is fully functional and easy to use from the humans perspective the research made possible through this grant has the potential to improve the lives of millions throughout the world said lawley i am honored to play a role
2125,few students expect to be called upon to take action after a catastrophic event and even fewer answer that call after hurricane harvey struck the texas coast on aug 25 causing wind and water damage along the coast and the houston area a group of civil engineers worked to study and collect data about the geotechnical aspects of coastal impacts during the hurricane in an effort to prevent structural damage in the wake of a future storm a week after the devastation iman shafii a phd candidate in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university joined other civil engineers as part of an investigation team to assess the erosion impact on the coast by collecting data results from the erosion studies can be used by local state and federal organizations to aid in preparation for future weather disasters we can research how a structures foundation failed and how to improve it for next time said shafii before the next disaster we can get information from the soil and the areas around bridges and levees that failed in order to prevent a failure you have to modify the structure; if youre going to have the same structure in the next hurricane youre going to have the same problem shafii who has a concentration in geotechnical engineering said the national science foundation (nsf) funds different groups to conduct engineering investigations after major disasters including the geotechnical extreme events reconnaissance (geer) team which shafii joined once all the information is recorded the nsf shares it in a public archive for future use the whole purpose behind this geer team is to learn from the disaster and use that information for the next one shafii said the goal was to go to those areas that are more prone to failure because of the hurricane like the bridges and levees we tried to cover a good amount of locations the team traveled to southeast texas starting in the corpus christi area and went along the coast for four days investigating soil quality and places where structures had failed at 14 different sites they documented the hydraulic and geotechnical aspects of coastal impacts from hurricane harvey while on site team members tested various components of the soil property including compression strength undrained shear strength moisture content and soil erosion resistance shafii also collected more than 10 soil samples and is running erosion function apparatus tests on them at the texas a&m erosion laboratory where he works as manager shafii said by analyzing the samples he can better understand how the soil withstood different water flow conditions and note where each sample was retrieved from along the coast the first two days were spent in the rockport and corpus christi area the first places hit when harvey made landfall in the united states shafii said the team struggled to find a hotel to stay as they were all booked by people seeking shelter in the hotel where we ended up the roof was down and it didnt have water or electricity he said we saw people worse-off with no food and electricity and we saw people helping others out of their flooded homes and providing supplies it was nice to see people helping each other while shafii had not done field research in an area impacted by a hurricane before his masters and doctoral research included learning about hurricane katrinas impact on new orleans in 2005 all the time i was at the coast i was comparing what i had learned from katrina where there was erosion or partial structure failures i could see them and compare them in my mind to what id learned from different places impacted by katrina he said shafii received his bachelors in civil engineering from sharif university of technology and his masters from southern illinois university he expects to graduate in august 2018 he said he was drawn to civil and geotechnical engineering because he always had an interest in buildings geotechnical engineering is important because you have to make sure your foundation system is good enough to build any type of structure he said its the core in civil engineering in my mind
2126,"80 percent of the matter in the universe is dark matter researchers from institutions including texas a&m are studying germanium (ge) to develop technology that can detect dark matter texas a&m university researchers are part of an international collaborative project studying germanium for dark matter research that has received the national science foundations partnerships for international research education (pire) award dr rusty harris associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and the department of physics and astronomy is representing texas a&m as co-principal investigator in the germanium materials and detectors advancement research consortium (gemadarc) project he is joined by dr rupak mahapatra professor and dr nader mirabolfathi associate research professor in the department of physics and astronomy in the college of science pire is an nsf-wide program that supports high quality projects in which advances in research and education could not occur without international collaboration the gemadarc project aims to advance germanium (ge) materials for developing ge detectors and technologies aiding direct detection of dark matter and neutrino properties it consists of six domestic universities two national laboratories and four international institutes from canada china germany and taiwan germanium is a spectacular material and was used to make the first transistor in the 1950s we know how to make large chunks of germanium with near crystalline perfection said harris at the same time it happens to be the element that is most likely to interact with particles and produce small vibrations essentially quantum mechanical heat"" germanium provides the unique combination of interaction and electronic properties that allows for the sensitive exploration of natures fundamental properties said dr dongming mei of the department of physics at the university of south dakota and principal investigator of the gemadarc project gemadarc connects state-of-the art technology development with leading-edge physics research said mei this is an exciting opportunity for students faculty and researchers to build cross-disciplinary international alliances the pire program gives us the tools to develop a diverse globally-engaged us scientific and engineering workforce said harris we can now provide international exposure to undergraduate and graduate students k-12 teachers and postdoctoral fellows so that they become well-rounded future educators and scientists this is an exciting opportunity provided to these burgeoning scientists so that they may actually visit and conduct research at international facilities international collaborators include queens university in canada tsinghua university in china max planck institute in germany and academic sinicas institute of physics in taiwan pire:gemadarc directly supports and strongly interacts with major physics research collaborations and underground research facilities including legend majorana supercdms cubed and the sanford underground research facility"
2127,deeply concerned for the people and institutions affected by hurricane harvey the national science foundation (nsf) issued a call for research addressing new science and engineering challenges related to harvey including preparedness for future catastrophic events four faculty from the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university answered that call each receiving grants to research harveys impact on different systems and provide essential data for future weather-related disasters rapid response research (rapid) grants ask for proposals focusing on projects with severe urgency with regard to availability of or access to data facilities or specialized equipment including quick-response research on natural disasters the faculty are expected to turn in research results to the nsf within the first year of being awarded the grant dr shankar chellam j walter deak porter 22 and james w bud porter 51 professor will show how metal concentrations and microorganism diversity changed and how those changes may lead to toxicity in the water by collecting samples throughout the greater houston area he will characterize terrestrial floodwater and runoff through its makeup and microbial communities this research is a collaborative effort with dr jothikumar narayanan molecular biologist for the water sanitation and hygiene laboratory at the centers for disease control and prevention headquarters in atlanta drs ali mostafavi assistant professor and bjorn birgisson texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor and director of the center for infrastructure renewal have been awarded two nsf grants to study the emergency response to harvey analyzing ways to improve planning communication and coordination risks that may arise in future extreme weather events one research project will collect and analyze time-sensitive data in houston to document the needs challenges and required capabilities for enhanced management decision-making and situation awareness in developing processes for disaster response the co-principal investigators on the project are drs xia hu and ruihong huang from the computer science and engineering department their second project will collect data about the decision-making processes during the response to the storm as well as the inter-organizational networks that impact the relationships among flood protection emergency response and transportation infrastructure systems and processes hu is collaborating on this project as well along with drs arnold vedlitz from the bush school of government and public service and phil berke from urban planning in the college of architecture dr scott socolofsky professor will work with dr kristen thyng and other principal investigators from the oceanography department to study how galveston bay and the coastal gulf of mexico responded to the extreme amount of freshwater that poured into the gulf from rainfall and runoff from the houston area the project is taking time-critical measurements to understand the dynamics of freshwater flow from galveston bay onto the coastal gulf of mexico the measurements can then be used to calibrate models to help study the event
2128,texas a&m university and the association of former students have announced the recipients of the 2017 distinguished alumnus award and among them are four graduates of the texas a&m college of engineering: • john m yantis industrial technology class of 1953 of san antonio texas; • ed wulfe mechanical engineering class of 1955 of houston texas; • general (ret) william m fraser iii engineering technology class of 1974; • craig brown civil engineering class of 1975 of houston texas john m yantis '53 in 1965 yantis founded what is today the $70-million-per-year construction firm yantis co of which he served as chairman he was named the ernst & young entrepreneur of the year in 1988 and the company is a multiple-year honoree of the aggie 100 list of fastest-growing businesses he is deeply involved in philanthropy and service both in san antonio where he served on the board of directors for boysville (1980-84) and at texas a&m where he created a regents scholars student assistance endowment fund through the association of former students he also served on the chancellors century council and the 12th man foundations board and champions council he was chairman of the 2007 valero alamo bowl and has served on the board of associated general contractors and as president of oak hills country club former home of the valero texas open golf tournament in both 1990 and 1999 ed wulfe '55 wulfe is chairman ceo and founder of the wulfe & co commercial real estate brokerage development and property management firm among properties he has developed blvd place won a 2015 houston business journal landmark award; redeveloped meyerland place was honored with deals that make a difference in 1995 and 1996; and gulfgate center won the houston chapter of the urban land institutes 2012 development of distinction award and best rehabilitation renovation project in 2003 he currently serves as a guest on texas a&ms master of real estate advisory board has been a lecturer for mba students and created an endowed scholarship in the mays business school and contributed an auditorium to the texas a&m hillel building he has chaired houston mayors main street coalition and chaired a referendum to expand houstons light rail and transit systems (2003) and $100 million parks bond issue campaign (2012) general (ret) william m fraser iii '74 fraser served as the commander of us transportation command the single manager responsible for global air land and maritime transport for the department of defense from october 2011 to may 2014; commander of air combat command from september 2009 to september 2011; vice chief of staff of the us air force from october 2008 to september 2009; and assistant to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff from may 2006 to october 2008 his experience in wartime contingency and humanitarian relief operations includes operations southern and northern watch desert thunder allied force iraqi freedom and enduring freedom he serves on boards of visitors for the corps and texas a&m university at galveston he chairs the military child education coalition serving all military-connected children and is a member of mission readiness – council for a strong america which serves us youth craig brown '75 brown co-founded bray international a global manufacturer of rotary valves and actuators and is owner ceo and chairman since 1989 he has been chairman and co-founder of the craig and galen brown foundation which recruits top students to texas a&m including national merit scholars in the past 25 years more than 300 students have come to texas a&m as brown foundation scholars including 200 engineers and 40 doctors and veterinarians he has served on the college of engineering advisory council for more than 25 years and has been on the corps of cadets board of visitors and a member of the executive cabinet for the lead by example capital campaign he has been named an outstanding young houstonian an outstanding alumnus of texas a&ms college of engineering and an outstanding alumnus of the mays business school he has worked with kipp public charter schools and bos place a houston-based nonprofit bereavement center since the inception of the award in 1962 only 271 of texas a&ms 469 000 former students have been recognized with the distinguished alumnus award awarded jointly by the university and the association this honor recognizes aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions and made meaningful contributions to texas a&m and their local communities the 2017 distinguished alumni demonstrate the impact texas a&m has on the state nation and world said texas a&m university president michael k young this group includes incredible leaders and influencers in the fields of engineering construction real estate international and national defense law finance education and philanthropy their stories truly display the power of a texas a&m university education the recipients learned of their honor when surprised in their places of business and other locations by a group of university and association representatives including young the association of former students 2017 chair of the board of directors phil miner 80 association president and ceo porter s garner iii 79 texas a&m foundation president tyson voelkel 96 and a ross volunteer along with university mascot reveille ix and her handler miner said our 2017 distinguished alumni have achieved the highest levels of success in their professions and have made a lasting impact on their communities and texas a&m through their service they bring our texas a&m core values of excellence integrity leadership loyalty respect and selfless service to life garner echoed the sentiments of young and miner and offered his congratulations on behalf of the association of former students less than one-tenth of one percent of texas a&ms former students have been recognized with the distinguished alumnus award garner said it is indeed the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of texas a&m and our 2017 recipients have earned this honor through their exemplary achievements and service to texas a&m
2129,the national institutes of health (nih) has awarded an nih directors new innovator award to dr akhilesh gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university to develop mineral-based technology for regenerative therapies the award is part of the nih common fund high-risk high-reward research program and this is the first time that an award from that program has been received by a researcher in the texas a&m college of engineering by understanding how human stem cells interact with specific minerals gaharwar hopes to engineer therapeutics to regulate and direct the stem cell differentiation we know for example that calcium magnesium and zinc help to promote bone health but how what happens to the bone forming cells when they are subjected to these minerals how can the minerals be used to direct healing of broken bones gaharwar said established in 2007 the nih directors new innovator award supports unusually innovative research from early career investigators who are within 10 years of their final degree or clinical residency and have not yet received a research project grant or equivalent nih grant i continually point to this program as an example of the creative and revolutionary research nih supports said nih director dr francis s collins the quality of the investigators and the impact their research has on the biomedical field is extraordinary gaharwar said the reason he was awarded this grant was because of a unique bottom-up approach to develop regenerative therapeutics currently its possible to introduce growth factors a group of proteins that stimulates growth of specific tissues into the body but there are a range of complications including uncontrolled tissue formation inflammation and even formation of tumors gaharwars research looks to reduce or eliminate use of growth factors by introducing minerals a better understanding of how stem cells interact with minerals would help to design mineral-based nanocapsules that could stimulate repair and regeneration of damaged tissues imagine a nanocapsule that could specifically target knee cartilage he said right now the only treatment we have for severe osteoarthritis in the knee is replacing the entire knee which is expensive and has a plethora of complications what if we could regrow knee cartilage with a mineral nanocapsule gaharwars research will combine computational genomics stem cell biology materials science and microfabrication into what he calls ‘mineralomics or the large-scale understanding of the effects of minerals on cells the goal of this specific award is to gain novel insight into whats happening at a molecular level when cells uptake minerals and its effect on different cellular processes including cell differentiation he said gaharwar also recently received an award from the national science foundation to design next generation inks for 3-d bioprinting complex tissue structure both projects further the goal of his lab the inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering laboratory to develop nanoengineered strategies to regulate stem cell behavior for the repair and regeneration of damaged tissues
2130,dr william schneider retired professor of practice from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been recognized as part of the team that won the 2017 invention of the year from the nasa/johnson space center inventions and contributions board the winning invention was the inflatable spacecraft vessel from the johnson space center the pressurized module which is lightweight collapsible and compact prior to launch is capable of being enlarged to provide additional volume such as for human habitation laboratory work stowage containment and/or spaceflight according to nasa the vessel named the bigelow expandable activity module was successfully attached to the international space station in 2016 due to its ability to take up less launch volume ratio than typical metallic modules the inflatable vessel can help save on mass and increase efficiency schneider led the project when he worked at nasa before retiring and becoming a professor at texas a&m while at the university schneider patent owner of the vessel continued to work on the project with robert bigelow real estate tycoon turned space entrepreneur other members of the team included horacio de la fuente christopher johnson gerard valle kriss kennedy james daniel cooper jr gary spexarth chin lin jasen raboin richard malecki greg edeen linda hess and shalini gupta pandya the technology has been licensed by bigelow aerospace to further advance commercial space applications according to the board the annual invention of the year program recognizes inventions that have significantly contributed to nasa programs or that exemplify nasas mission to transfer cutting-edge technology to us industry
2131,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university welcomes seven new faculty members to the department dr theodora chaspari assistant professor received her diploma in electrical and computer engineering from the national technical university of athens greece and her masters and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the university of southern california chasparis research interests lie in the areas of biomedical signal processing human-computer interaction behavioral signal processing data science and machine learning she is a recipient of the usc annenberg graduate fellowship usc women in science and engineering merit fellowship and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers signal processing society travel grant dr juan a garay professor received his doctoral degree in computer science from pennsylvania state university he was a postdoc at the weizmann institute of science and held research positions at the ibm tj watson research center bell labs and at&t labs research prior to joining the department garay worked as a senior principal research scientist at yahoo research his research interests include both foundational and applied aspects of cryptography and information security he has published extensively in the areas of cryptography network security distributed computing and algorithms he has been involved in the design analysis and implementation of a variety of secure systems and is the recipient of over two dozen patents he has served on the program committees of numerous conferences and international panels including co-chairing crypto 2013 and 2014 the discipline's premier conference dr bobak mortazavi assistant professor received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the university of california berkeley and his doctoral degree in computer science from the university of california los angeles where he focused on the development of wearable embedded systems for the wireless health institute most recently he was a postdoctoral associate and then instructor in the department of internal medicine section of cardiology at the yale school of medicine he has recently focused on clinical research challenges in predictive models and comparative effectiveness techniques in order to better address the challenges of personalized health monitoring that enable the development personalized and remote monitoring systems for clinical outcomes dr zhangyang (atlas) wang assistant professor received his doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign prior to that he obtained his bachelors degree at the university of science and technology of china wang's research has been addressing machine learning computer vision and multimedia signal processing problems using advanced feature learning and optimization techniques he has co-authored around 40 papers and published several books and chapters he has been granted three patents and has received over 15 research awards and scholarships dr tanzir ahmed instructional assistant professor received his doctoral degree in computer science from texas a&m some of his research work is published in ieee infocom and bigdata his research interests include large scale information processing web crawling analysis of random graphs and their crawling design and analysis of high performance mapreduce etc prior to earning his degree at texas a&m ahmed earned his bachelors degree in computer science from the bangladesh university of engineering and technology and worked as a software engineer at ranks telecom ltd dr paula dewitte associate professor of practice received her bachelors degree in mathematics and her masters degree in education from purdue university in 2015 she was honored as the purdue university department of mathematics distinguished alumna she received her doctoral degree from texas a&m in computer science and her doctorate in law from st mary's university school of law she has worked extensively with startups and spent nine years in austin with technology companies her research interests are in law and policy as related to cybersecurity as well as risk assessment and management in cybersecurity dr shawn lupoli instructional assistant professor has almost 20 years of various teaching experience lupoli teaches mostly programming courses from introduction and data structures to web programming within the courses he teaches he has used various active learning and hands-on tools such as flipped campus-focused projects and arduinos he has also served in various administrative positions such as coordinator of classes building candidate pools for undergraduate teaching assistants core curriculum changes abet accreditation and mentoring new lecture faculty he has also received the graduate adjunct professor of the year award from hood college in 2012
2132,the devastation from hurricane harvey is widespread but through the hard times humanity has shined through han hong senior in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university played an active role in hurricane harvey relief efforts in houston texas hong who works for the 551st multi role bridge company of the texas army national guard worked with a team that responded to any immediate need from local authorities his unit had access to boats that were able to deploy in a short amount of time so they provided transportation by military vehicles that had the ability to travel through high water with these assets my team was the first to arrive to any major flooded cities and towns along the coast hong said houston is where our initial support role turned into a full search and rescue operation hongs team was next tasked with distribution after the flood started to recede they passed out supplies such as water and baby formula to many to be able to help those whose houses were completely destroyed was a really rewarding experience hong said hong was amazed by the amount of generosity he witnessed coming from those less affected to help their fellow neighbors relatives and texans every day our donation center was flooded with people bringing in essential supplies hong said some even set up camp right outside our area to cook and provide foods for troops while the days were long and the hours seemed endless he never lost sight of his mission to help as many people as he possibly could it's tiring and very cold being in a wet uniform hong said but at the end of the day the smile on the faces of the people we rescued made it all worth it hong has worked for the 551st multi role bridge company in el paso texas for a year now serving in this recent capacity brought even more clarity to his career aspirations my goal is more solidified after this event hong said in a way i want to contribute even more than what i did there i would love to develop programs and apps that can better map out flooded areas being an a&m engineering student definitely helps me a lot by enabling me to think outside of the box and to quickly adapt to sudden changes at texas a&m selfless service is a core value aggie engineers couple this core value with their education to improve processes think of novel ways to help more people and put themselves last when it comes to those in greater need throughout the rebuilding process for all cities states and countries affected by recent natural disasters aggies and aggie engineers stand ready to help in any way possible
2133,three texas a&m university professors are collaborating on a project that centers on what job recruiters are looking for in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) graduates dr gerianne alexander professor and cornerstone fellow in the department of psychology dr tracy hammond professor in the department of computer science and engineering and director of the sketch recognition lab and dr joanna lahey associate professor in the bush school of government and public service have been awarded a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to study how recruiters view resumes of recent computer science graduates this research aims to provide insight into what features are important in a resume by correlating recruiter ratings of resumes of hypothetical graduates with eye tracking technology that tracks where recruiters are looking when they view entry-level computer science and engineering resumes though each has studied this subject individually this will be their first collaborative project bringing together a strong set of collective expertise lahey has used eye tracking technology to study how human resource managers view entry-level administrative assistant resumes alexander has primarily used eye tracking to study human social behavior hammond has used eye tracking in her human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence research in medicine education and cybersecurity to determine what users are doing what they intend to do how they perceive the world and who they are hiring graduates from stem fields is important for the well-being of the economy being able to pinpoint what employers want from recent graduates and how they view resumes can help inform computer science programs and researchers about the skillsets that todays employers find important in turn impacting education research graduate students vijay rajanna and adil hamid malla are trying to understand and analyze the predictive behavior of recruiters based on the eye-movement data while they look at resumes of stem students in addition they are analyzing common questions such as the value of course projects over grade point average the desirability of a candidate with an internship versus without etc we are excited to apply our methods to learn about how we can better advise the university and the departments students on their resumes so they can continue obtain top positions right out of school hammond said
2134,dr nancy currie-gregg nasa astronaut and principal engineer in the nasa engineering and safety center has joined the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university as a professor of practice currie-gregg has joined the departments health and human systems engineering group where she will be developing initiatives in human-robotic interaction and spacecraft occupant protection our department is thrilled to have someone of dr currie-greggs caliber join us as professor of practice said dr mark lawley industrial and systems engineering department head she brings an immense legacy of achievement and her energy and spirit will be tremendously beneficial to our department college and university currie-gregg was selected as an astronaut at nasa in 1990 she served as a mission specialist on four space shuttle missions and accrued 1 000 hours in space following the columbia tragedy in 2003 she was selected to lead the space shuttle program safety and mission assurance office assisting with nasa's return to flight efforts a retired united states army colonel and master army aviator she has logged over 4 000 flying hours in a variety of rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft given the interdisciplinary nature of the industrial and systems engineering department currie-greggs role as a professor of practice will impact not only industrial and systems engineering but other disciplines such as aerospace and mechanical engineering my goal is to create an experiential learning environment providing a practical perspective of engineering principles by demonstrating the direct connection between theoretical material presented in the classroom to actual experiences said currie-gregg i incorporate a variety of industry and government examples and case studies into both lectures and assignments and have found this approach provides for context and enhances the students educational experience the professor of practice program was established by the texas a&m college of engineering as part of its 25 by 25 initiative to grow to 25 000 students (undergraduate and graduate students) by 2025 - controlled growth with excellence the program brings industry leaders to the classroom to help prepare the next generation of engineers by sharing their real-world experiences in industry
2135,dr xudong zhang has joined the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university as professor and holder of the liollio family faculty fellowship zhang will serve as the senior convener of the health and human systems engineering group he also holds a joint faculty appointment in the department of mechanical engineering before coming to texas a&m zhang was a professor at the university of pittsburghs school of medicine and school of engineering for nine years he was also a mechanical and industrial engineering faculty member at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign for eight years i am excited to be part of this wonderful department a collegial and enterprising organization that i had been watching with great fondness in the past 10 years or so said zhang i believe this is destined to be one of the very top industrial and systems engineering programs in the country his research centers on modeling analysis and simulation of the human musculoskeletal system and identifies a broad range of health care and human-machine systems engineering applications we are very fortunate to have dr zhang in our department said dr mark lawley industrial and systems engineering department head he has extensive expertise and research accomplishments in biomechanics and will serve as a cornerstone of our health and human systems engineering group along with this he is a fine colleague zhang received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from tsinghua university in china and his masters and doctoral degrees in industrial and operations engineering from the university of michigan at ann arbor
2136,two faculty members from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university were recently awarded a $554 678 national science foundation grant to enhance the knowledge and skill level of texas teachers in manufacturing to promote the science technology engineering and math (stem) career interest for middle and high school students manufacturing is a billion-dollar industry giant that has a shortage of workforce availability in texas this project seeks to meet the increasing demand for a qualified manufacturing workforce by training public school educators paving the way for more hands-on manufacturing school programs opportunities and student-led activities principal investigator dr wayne ngyuen hung and co-principal investigator dr mathew kuttolamadom will begin their project in summer 2018 the funded proposal is entitled ret site: enhancing teacher knowledge & skills in modern manufacturing hung and kuttolamadom will be working on the funded project alongside dr satish bukkapatnam from the department of industrial and systems engineering and dr bruce tai from the department of mechanical engineering the research experiences for teachers (ret) site will host 12 teachers at the texas a&m campus for six weeks each summer for three years teachers will take part in manufacturing-focused capsulated technical sessions complementary lab practice tours seminars and guided research projects within a design-thinking framework the program will engage the society of manufacturing engineers and local industries for support as well as leverage the existing infrastructure at texas a&m such as the enrichment experiences in engineering program and the annual p-12 teachers summit and leadership forum the on-site experience will be supplemented with follow-up visits to the teachers home institution and they will be required to provide regular status updates for a year the programs success will be measured by tracking the participation of students in science/engineering clubs at participating schools as well as the number of students entering stem programs and competitions during/after high school teachers from four texas independent school districts in bryan college station houston and pharr will begin participating in summer 2018
2137,five students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university participated in the maratonime international collegiate programming competition (icpc) winter school a programming contest training program held july 10-21 at the university of são paulo in são paulo brazil the two-week event was structured with a lecture-style setting in the mornings that included discussions about algorithms and how to solve various types of programming problems and five-hour practice contests in the evenings after the contests students would discuss solution strategies and at night would try to solve problems they couldnt solve during the contest itself the instructors were two former icpc world finalists one from slovakia and one from brazil the participants from texas a&m included senior brian maule and juniors chase hinesman nate leake and michael earl junior jordan lamkin participated remotely the team was led by dr john keyser a computer science professor i've never been more challenged by a set of problems i've always finished every problem for every class here at a&m even in dr keyser's contest problem class leake said at são paulo my team was solving about a third of the problems during the contest and another third afterward whereas other people were solving all of them the icpc is sponsored by association for computing machinery the competition started at texas a&m in 1970 and has grown to a worldwide competition involving more than 45 000 students from almost 3 000 universities in over 100 countries this was essentially an intense two-week training program where our students had a chance to join with some of the very best student programmers in brazil to practice and develop their problem-solving programming skills keyser said i think the students grew tremendously in their programming skills over the course of this program and it was a great opportunity for the students to get to know brazilian students and experience the culture of brazil additionally the students will be representing texas a&m in the regional icpc programming competition this november the regional competition will be held nov 3-4 where teams from texas a&m including these students will compete against other schools from texas louisiana and oklahoma for a chance to go to the world finals in beijing in may
2138,eight female engineering students at texas a&m university were recently accepted into the competitive clare boothe luce scholars program which provides funding for undergraduate research to talented female engineering students the $250 000 grant was awarded to texas a&ms women in engineering program this year in recognition of the college of engineerings commitment to supporting womens pursuits in academia and research the program benefits undergraduate students by providing an opportunity to pursue research for three years it also helps better prepare them for future academic success in graduate school the women in engineering program is proud to offer support for students pursuing research opportunities leading to graduate degrees said shawna fletcher director of we this is the first time the we program has been able to work closely with faculty and departments over a three year period students in the clare boothe luce scholars program will be able to choose complex research projects and showcase their findings during research week and possibly have their work published fletcher said the students will be able to grow as professionals during this experience established by clare boothe luce in 1987 the grant provided $7 million in funding to support women in stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) fields with 23 grant awards this past year these grants will provide opportunities and support for 89 women across the country in schools such as johns hopkins university and dartmouth college as well as the eight students from texas a&m the clare boothe luce grant provides stipends for students to perform up to 20 hours per week in research labs during the fall and spring semesters for three years the we program is targeting freshman and sophomore students with an interest in research that will lead them to pursue graduate education the following students have been accepted into the program: julia billman mentored by dr patrick shamberger assistant professor materials science and engineering billman a sophomore mechanical engineering major is interested in studying alternative energy efficiency models for refrigeration and cooling vapor compression cycles with magnetocaloric allows shelby warrington mentored by dr astrid layton assistant professor mechanical engineering warrington a sophomore mechanical engineering major will be researching the efficiency of man-made ecosystems that have been adapted to closely mimic nature breanna bassett mentored by dr natarajan gautam professor industrial and systems engineering bassett a junior industrial and systems engineering major will be using research simulations and mathematical analysis to study the efficiency of assembly lines in order to find more effective ways to make general systems run smoothly without sacrificing cost or safety bailey brawley mentored by dr tim jacobs professor mechanical engineering brawley a sophomore mechanical engineering major will be conducting research on supermileage vehicles she will be focusing on engine modification seeking feasible ways increase fuel efficiency tennille faber mentored by dr mark holtzapple professor chemical engineering faber a sophomore chemical engineering major will be using the mixalco process to increase the rate yield and product concentration of biofuels libby fears mentored by dr michael moreno assistant professor mechanical engineering fears a sophomore interdisciplinary engineering major will be conducting research into prosthetic limbs and seeking a way to connect blood vessels into the artificial limb for comfort and user confidence camella carlson mentored by dr kristen maitland associate professor biomedical engineering carlson a sophomore biomedical engineering major will be researching ways to detect tuberculosis (tb) using remote enzyme fluorescence by refining a probe carlson hopes that tb bacteria could be tagged with a fluorescence that emits a signal when imaged with certain wavelengths of light amanda rakoski mentored by dr daniel alge assistant professor biomedical engineering rakoski a sophomore biomedical engineering major will be developing a tissue-engineered model to study breast cancer cells in a microenvironment similar to body tissue ultimately creating a synthetic scaffold could lead to the development of better therapeutics for treating breast cancer and more effective ways of approaching future cancer research
2139,as cybersecurity emerges as a significant differential for economic progress across the globe an open dialog between cybersecurity experts and governments becomes critical in influencing the global community and ensuring a safe cyberspace for the world economy a team of aggies researching these cybersecurity issues has won the global cyber challenge peace-a-thon at the 2017 global conference on cyber space (gccs) which was inaugurated by the indian prime minister narendra modi in new delhi india bharadwaj satchidanandan a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is the team lead for aggies – the texas a&m team that emerged as the winner of best international team award at the hackathon challenge satchidanandans team included his research advisor dr pr kumar college of engineering chair in computer engineering and distinguished professor in the electrical and computer engineering department cyberspace remains a key area for innovation said modi in a speech at the conference nations must take responsibility to ensure that the digital space does not become a playground for the dark forces of terrorism and radicalization information sharing and coordination among security agencies is essential to counter the ever-changing threat landscape finalists for the challenge consisted 15 teams from india canada united states france and argentina the hackathon began with 14 problem statements in the area of cybersecurity and privacy the teams had 36 hours to present their solution to the problem statements and develop a proof of concept demonstrating their solution and satchidanandan presented texas a&m engineerings video on his research with kumar a jury selected the winners based on a pre-decided evaluation framework modi presented the winners with their awards after the event delegates and officials representing more than 120 countries attended the gccs event which was launched in 2011 to establish the internationally agreed rules of the road for behavior in cyberspace we as a society are becoming more and more reliant on the cyberspace said satchidanandan when asked about his biggest takeaway from the event and what he would like the local community to know about the cybersecurity issues he is studying the technical community policy makers and law enforcement agencies are hard at work behind the scenes to ensure that the privacy and security of each individual is ensured in the digital domain
2140,dr charles aubeny a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has produced a new guidebook on groundbreaking geotechnical research titled geomechanics of marine anchors creating a reference of knowledge based on the construction of offshore anchors for floating structures in the past these structures have been crucial for installations in the oil and natural gas industry aubeny said now were seeing more development in areas like renewable installations for offshore energy according to aubeny many disciplines come together to make the construction and implementation of these offshore installations possible an oil and gas company developing an offshore rig or an entity developing a renewable energy installation may be able to bring on a team to design the installations themselves but not typically will those individuals know the specifics of designing an offshore anchor specific knowledge of these anchors is usually limited to a geotechnical research specialist and aubeny saw the need to provide a guidebook on these anchors for both academic and industry use there are a lot of conventional geotechnical books that look at gravity foundations and there are a lot of research papers out there on anchors but they are scattered all over the place aubeny said i think students and practitioners will see a lot of use out of this because of the literature on the topic for practitioners they're knowledgeable about engineering but are not necessarily specialists in geotechnical floating structures and this can give them information they need these offshore anchors also have applications beyond the energy industry and can be used for harbor security systems or any application where a floating structure is required fixed structures or structures that are built into the seafloor are limited to a little over 1 000 feet of sea depth as human offshore expansion continues demand for offshore structures will increase and so will the need for students and practitioners to have a quality reference im really excited that students and practitioners can use this book as a guidebook for these anchors and give them an authoritative overview of the anchor design information that is out there aubeny said
2141,dr jeffrey otey an instructional assistant professor with the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university is teaching new and innovative visualization courses that aim to open a new dimension of engineering design for students problem solving communication and experience with modern tools for the civil engineering practice contribute to making our students ready to enter industry otey said otey teaches cven 250 introduction to graphics and visualization applications in civil engineering design and cven 489/689 special topics: visualization and building information modeling (bim) in structural engineering design the courses offer students the opportunity to work on projects that address typical engineering problems they will encounter in future classes and internships the students are introduced to common industry tasks such as the creation of site plans earthwork calculations virtual structure creation and methods of project visualization otey said the courses were created to accomplish a number of goals including increasing the students visualization skills when working to understand complex construction geometry and how different design components relate and interact with one another communication of technical ideas is vital to engineers because they rarely oversee the construction or manufacture of their ideas but rely on others in the product life cycle to carry out these steps otey said another goal is to familiarize students with computer-aided design and drafting (cad) software which otey said are commonly used in the civil engineering profession while also focusing on design concepts such as data analysis document creation rendering and animation through the software program the use of animations photo-realistic images and augmented reality are wonderful tools that reinforce design concepts to those who may not be able to read traditional two-dimensional engineering drawings otey said engineers need to sell their ideas and often have to present these ideas to nontechnical professionals the ability to describe and present your design ideas in three-dimensions gives the audience a true sense and understanding of your design concepts elizabeth kellen a senior civil engineering student said she was excited to take a course focused on graphics and visualization after taking a similar course in high school she said one of the skills shes acquired through the course is the ability to visualize projects better many people dont think of that as a skill and it doesnt sound too complicated when youre simply discussing visualization however as a civil engineer it is so important to be able to understand and visualize every aspect of the project youre designing and contributing to which isnt always easy considering the size and location of many civil projects kellen said professor otey was sure to incorporate a lot of visualization exercises throughout the course and its really cool to see self-improvement throughout the semester nicholas danney a junior civil engineering student has a focus in structural engineering as a part of his degree danney has taken both the introductory course in civil engineering graphics and visualization and a building information modeling course where he said otey taught students how to use programs to create graphics that were produced neatly and efficiently danney has been exposed to a variety of programs which he said are used in the structural engineering industry my learning of bim and industry software is currently being put to use in my senior design class in which i am both designing and modeling a reinforced concrete research building danney said i expect to utilize this knowledge further in my graduate studies where i will apply this knowledge to advanced courses in structural design and analysis kellen said she found the modeling software to be extremely valuable and is already seeing the benefits of the course outside of the classroom last summer kellen had an internship with a land development firm that only used civil 3-d software for their design work a program kellen had worked with through oteys class it was extremely helpful for me to not need a crash course in the software at the beginning of my internship and i think it was also helpful for my supervisors because they were able to put me right to work kellen said i definitely feel like i had an advantage by taking professor oteys class
2142,recently a group of 12 texas a&m university nuclear engineering graduate students from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) traveled to tennessee to participate in a short course in non-destructive assay (nda) techniques the short course was offered at the oak ridge national laboratory (ornl) in their safeguards laboratory it consisted of lectures and hands-on experience with safeguards instrumentation and software providing the students with practical understanding of a number of nda techniques used for measurements and characterization of special nuclear material in international safeguards applications this experience is intended to supplement the material taught at texas a&m in the nuclear fuel cycle and material safeguards (nuen 651) and radiation detection and nuclear materials measurement (nuen 605) classes taken by all students pursuing a graduate degree with a specialization in nuclear nonproliferation while in oak ridge the group had the opportunity to tour various nuclear facilities at ornl including the high flux isotope reactor the radiochemistry hot cell labs the graphite reactor and the spallation neutron source as well as the nearby y-12 national security complex they also traveled to the university of tennessee in knoxville to meet with faculty and students in their nuclear nonproliferation education program the students were accompanied by dr sunil chirayath nsspi director and associate professor of nuclear engineering and dr craig marianno nsspi deputy director and assistant professor of nuclear engineering jessica white horton at ornl coordinated the training program which was sponsored by the us department of energys national nuclear security administration
2143,heart disease is the leading cause of death in the united states dr ploy charoenphol research assistant professor with the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is working to help reduce that statistic and has recently received a grant to aid her in that endeavor because of the high risk of death from cardiovascular diseases theres a need to improve current diagnosis and treatment charoenphol said charoenphol recently received a scientist development award a three-year grant for $231 000 from the american heart association her research will focus on seeking alternative but effective ways to diagnose and treat symptoms that may lead to heart disease and stroke through a project titled engineering a multistage delivery system for intravascular administration of contrast agents in cardiovascular diseases our research focuses on developing smart carriers that recognizes plaque buildup in the arteries an underlying cause of cardiovascular diseases charoenphol said the carrier is a modular platform it can be used to carry drugs for treatment or a contrast agent to aid diagnosis because the carrier is designed to specifically target the plaque the required dosage is minimal there are different kinds of plaque buildup including stable and unstable stable plaque tends to accumulate narrow the arteries and restrict blood flow unstable plaque can rupture sending pieces through the bloodstream these small pieces might block blood flow to the heart or the brain leading to heart disease or stroke by having a multistage carrier one inside the other the contrast or treatment drug will be able to effectively move through the bloodstream to the site and lodge itself onto a piece of plaque it then disintegrates allowing for the second smaller carrier to move deeper into the plaque our contrast agent will be able to recognize certain molecules and light them up in images charoenphol said this helps doctors identify types and stages of lesions and better predict the risk of cardiovascular diseases with the grant approval charoenphol and dr brian applegate and dr javier jo associate professors with the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m are moving forward to develop the multistage carriers and evaluate their performance
2144,mangroves are not only found in mexico but also along the coastline of other gulf of mexico provinces particularly in florida and the caribbean as well as within the rest of the equatorial belt around the world the critical role of a healthy mangrove on the local environment is trifold they reduce coastal erosion by absorbing wave energy and stabilizing the soil filter salt from the local surface water and are home to various wetland species the main threats to these and most mangroves around the world are the results of human interaction through changes to land cover and pollution such an impact has been observed in the rio celestun biosphere reserve as groundwater reserves have been slowly diverted from their natural flow or depleted from over extraction increasing stress on the local mangroves currently researchers at the center for research and advanced studies of the national polytechnic institute (cinvestav) are actively working to revive a stretch of mangroves along the western coast of yucatan within the rio celestun biosphere reserve earlier this year dr zenon medina-cetina and natalie zielinski research assistant in medina-cetina's stochastic geomechanics laboratory and dr john walewski traveled to yucatan mexico where they met with leading government representatives and scientists to discuss collaborative opportunities within research and the community medina-cetina is an associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering with joint appointments in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university the visit was conducted in alignment with medina-cetinas yucatan initiative project which seeks to further develop texas a&ms research and academic relations within mexicos yucatan peninsula texas a&m researchers were able to gain an up-close look at current mitigation operations in celestun beginning with a tour through the reserve to various sites of ongoing revival a process that involves different phases from initial reestablishing of native wetland species to well-developed ecosystems the impact of the revival process over the past decade is evident in the transformation of the land from dry wasteland to an abundant and thriving green haven in rio celestun researchers toured a site for the monitoring of biomass accumulation and ground water level to catch the falling leaves and biomass scientists have placed nets near the ground in order to estimate the rate of soil accumulation various pipes have also been driven into the ground to measure the level of water available for the mangroves as the work in rio celestun continues the health of the mangroves and the understanding for their impact on the local communities improves with threats such as increased pressure on freshwater resources and land cover alteration for human use the survival of the mangroves in a changing climate will remain an important research area on which local communities and governments depend for future mitigation and management of natural resources the yucatan initiative looks forward to the collaborative projects and efforts that are being developed within cinvestav and texas a&m engaged faculty hope to further contribute to the body of knowledge on dynamic nature or mangroves and its restoration to stay informed on these collaborations visit their website author: rachel holanda contributing author: natalie zielinski photo credit: anna heller
2145,doctors use a wide variety of imaging techniques to diagnose diseases one such technique includes optical coherence tomography (oct) which is a noninvasive medical imaging tool that has helped doctors accurately diagnose pathologies in cardiology optometry and ophthalmology the oct technology was first introduced in 1991 and texas a&m university researchers are set to give it a major upgrade graduate students amir tofighi zavareh and oscar barajas along with dr sebastian hoyos associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering have developed a new generation of oct processing technology that will help doctors perform oct tests faster and make a more accurate diagnosis low-complexity asynchronous re-sampler (lasr) their proprietary oct processing technique has an increased processing speed which helps doctors make clinical decisions based on high-resolution real-time visualization oct is a noninvasive imaging technique capable of generating cross-sectional images of tissue architecture with high resolution said tofighi zavereh the technical lead on the project the biggest challenge in current oct technology was its slow scan speed which gave an unsatisfactory image resolution doctors such as ophthalmologists need high-quality visualization for clinical decision making the global oct market is set to reach $16 billion in 2023 from just $140 million a year ago tofighi zavareh and barajas identified and addressed the needs of the fast-growing oct market with their graduate research the national science foundations i-corp program awarded them a $50 000 grant to explore the commercial potential of their innovation with ophthalmology as a specific area of focus lasr will be implemented as a modular electronic device to integrate with an existing oct instrument the technology allows ophthalmologists to look at more eye tissues all in one scan the lasr technology will help ophthalmologist better diagnose conditions of the eye scan faster and potentially reduce the number of clinic visits said barajas the entrepreneurial lead all of these benefits will potentially help improve the vision of thousands of americans in dire need of better diagnosis technologiesdirectly lower medical costs the students who are in the analog and mixed signal interfaces laboratory in the electrical and computer engineering department said their technology is based on a family of novel signal processing algorithms that significantly improve the accuracy and speed required for the medical images tofighi zavareh and barajas i-corps project low-complexity asynchronous re-sampler for optical coherence tomography has been three years in the making they are collaborating with dr xiaomin yang senior licensing manager in texas a&m office of technology commercialization and industry mentor who helped them develop a business plan and get a provisional patent they are also working with their co-industry mentor dr saurabh biswas associate professor of practice in the department of biomedical engineering and the entrepreneur-in-residence in tees division of commercialization and entrepreneurship and the mcferrin center for new ventures and entrepreneurship in the mays business school to further develop their venture learn more about their research here
2146,dell sponsors event provides expertise and technology to students nearly everyone buys a car at some point however driving to a dealership talking to a salesman hassling with the negotiation filling out paperwork and going for a test drive can be a nightmare imagine being able put on some glasses rev the engine and see the car you wanted right from the comfort of your couch or imagine going to work in a factory and being able to see where invisible chemicals have leaked alerting you to potential danger and allowing you to escape in time with virtual and augmented reality the world is poised to become a safer more practical place and if you ask any of the 56 students who participated in the most recent aggies invent an intensive design experience offered at the texas a&m engineering innovation center theyll tell you the world will be a more exciting place as well augmented and virtual reality is taking the world by storm technology leader dell sponsored this aggies invent and brought all the latest technology and expertise for students to explore possible solutions to real world problems joining them were sponsors from accenture who brought the strategy and business side of these solutions meta rounded out the technology with their newest virtual reality headset for 48 hours the students focused on finding a solution to a need statement provided by dell and accenture the companies asked the students how this future technology could solve problems they face today and in the future students took these prompts and developed innovative ideas and solutions over the course of the two days 10 teams created a business model a presentation and a video on sunday the pressure was high as students presented to a panel of judges who were experts in augmented and virtual reality the judges included senior executives from dell and accenture as well as the director of the department of visualization at texas a&m university in the end a three-person team was declared the champion and each member was awarded a dell precision 5520 mobile workstation the winning team developed a business solution called shovel that would allow workers wearing augmented reality glasses to virtually dig and see where pipes are located underground allowing construction workers to know where it is safe to dig to place new utilities team members were mike momin computer science student; and mike choi and ayaz abdullah computer engineering students when asked if they will take their business model and transform it into a real business they paused and said why not its all a matter of getting all the resources together and seeing if we can materialize it abdullah said and just like that a business is born which in the end is the goal of the engineering entrepreneurship program according to director rodney boehm creator of aggies invent aggies invent gives students a chance to solve problems facing todays society using the latest technology and support from industry and university mentors said boehm they are so motivated that when we give them a creative environment and support they amaze us with what can be designed and built in just 48 hours we are seeing the next startup companies created right before our eyes aggies invent is open to all texas a&m students who participate for many reasons a big draw for sophomore electrical engineering student kamal kraigheh was the opportunity to play with augmented and virtual reality im in aggie_challenge and ive been doing virtual reality work as part of that he said when i actually started researching virtual reality this year i realized there is so much potential we are definitely going to see this in the future and im really excited to start working on it and to be on the forefront of that the second place team developed a business plan called aku which would change the car-buying experience by allowing a customer to interact with a dealer remotely and customize a car to his or her specifications while viewing the vehicle in different environments the third place team developed a system using augmented reality which would allow a construction company to easily see where mistakes are happening in real time greatly reducing the amount of costly errors arrchitecture would also allow customers to live stream with experts elsewhere to get assistance without having to wait for them to come to their location business student allison kornher who was on the third place team enjoyed the experience because she said it will prepare her for her future career this is the second time shes participated in aggies invent i wanted to meet students who are interested in entrepreneurship on the engineering side since i am a business student she said i want to be able to show that i can collaborate with engineers the next aggies invent will take place in february and will be a global collaborative [u] invent™ event invent for the planet
2147,to solve a problem you often need to find a pattern the deeper understanding researchers have of the factors and implications of clinical conditions the closer they are to offering prevention and better care practices to patients dr bobak mortazavi assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is working on a project to develop medical sensors that produce data for tracking risk factors for various cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and heart failure mortazavi is using data mining which is a way of examining large data sets in order to generate new information and machine learning applications to design clinical decision support systems and research clinical outcomes we can create models to predict the risk of complications for a patient using data available in clinical records as well as personal and wearable sensors mortazavi said then we use these outcome models to lead the design of new sensing systems in order to create dynamic personalized predictions based upon each patients daily data by developing medical sensors to track these risk factors on a daily basis mortazavi and his team have the ability to better understand long-term modeling of biomedical data to understand and design metrics for improvement in care and to potentially identify new characteristics of clinical conditions to improve personalized patient care the knowledge of the medical field is not enough to understand the engineering and development of the tools on the flip side understanding clinical research also is not solely useful for developing the newest sensing and learning techniques without thorough knowledge of each certain advancements would simply be impossible the importance of this work is in its truly interdisciplinary nature mortazavi said through our collaborations we aim to train researchers in all components of this end-to-end research from the sensing systems we teach how users collect data; to the data mining and machine learning applications we teach them to identify clinically-relevant patterns in data most importantly we all learn to understand the lessons from this data to assist in clinical decision-making and increase the potential of improving patient care mortazavi first began studying this topic in 2014 when he completed his postdoctoral studies at the yale school of medicine his doctorate studies involved human activity recognition wearable sensors and exergaming the development of gaming applications in user cyber physical systems to encourage activities with sports-levels of intensity while those systems worked in short spurts he became interested in learning how to apply such systems for longer-term use for clinical utility these studies include learning how long-term use of the systems can affect clinical adverse events how to identify risks of those events and how to design the user interfaces to such systems so the patients and clinicians can have improved decision-making about trajectories of care mortazavi who is a member of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center for remote health technologies and systems is collaborating with researchers and faculty members within the center and the department such as dr atlas wang assistant professor; dr theodora chaspari assistant professor; dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna professor; and dr roozbeh jafari associate professor in computer science biomedical and electrical and computer engineering he also has collaborators outside of texas a&m such as dr harlan krumholz who serves as the harold h hines jr professor of medicine (cardiology) and professor in the institute for social and policy studies of investigative medicine and of public health (health policy); director of the center for outcomes research and evaluation at yale-new haven hospital; and co-director of the robert wood johnson foundation clinical scholars program at yale university though he and his team are currently focused on cardiovascular diseases mortazavi hopes to branch out to a number of other health conditions in the future
2148,a big problem for autonomous robots is the challenge of navigating large environments that are void of a global positioning system (gps) saurav agarwal doctoral student and dr suman chakravorty associate professor from the department of aerospace engineering and the estimation decision and planning lab at texas a&m university have developed an indoor mapping technology that allows autonomous robots to be deployed in extremely large-scale environments (eg amazon warehouses that are millions of square feet in size) at an affordable cost agarwal and chakravorty discovered a major gap in automation for warehousing and logistics and received a $50 000 innovation corps grant (i-corps) from the national science foundation to research commercial needs for their technology their goal for the research was to develop tools and methods to enable robust long-term autonomy for mobile robots this i-corps project is a result of research into the problem of simultaneous localization and mapping (slam) in slam a robot is not given prior knowledge of its environment; it must use its sensory data and actions to simultaneously build a map of its environment and position itself within its uncertain map competing methods in this area exhibit positioning errors that may be unsuitable for long-term navigation agarwals and chakravortys mapping technology achieves three times more robustness in real-world and simulated tests compared to existing state-of-the-art technology they have shown that their algorithms allow robots to map environments in cases where openly available mapping technology fails an example of robots that navigate in indoor environments are material-handling robots that move goods (boxes pallets etc) in large warehouses and distribution centers using the mapping technology theyve developed enables robots to navigate safely and reliably thereby reducing labor costs for warehouse operators and reducing injuries to workers caused by human drivers of forklifts this will in turn enable cheaper and faster access to goods for consumers the broader impact/commercial potential of this i-corps project is to develop autonomous navigation technology that will enable systems to robustly operate in uncertain environments without gps commercialization of this technology has the potential to revolutionize space exploration self-driving cars unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) and other such systems that need accurate position estimation a key advantage of this project's technology is enhanced cybersecurity as it does not rely on external signals for navigation further this project will contribute open-source software to the scientific community it is envisioned that development of a software toolbox that integrates with the popular ros (robot operating system) library will allow researchers to simulate autonomous navigation without gps in less than a year agarwal and chakravorty have taken the idea from a mathematical concept to a proof-of-concept robot running in a live warehouse they have also shown through virtual reality simulations that their mapping and navigation technology is three times more robust (9999% success rate in testing) than openly available technology the technology has never failed in practice whereas competing technologies fail 50-60% of the time agarwal says we believe our navigation technology can revolutionize the field of autonomous robotics and speed up the time-to-market for safe and reliable commercial robots the main research challenge for agarwal and chakravorty is deploying this technology at scale in real-world warehouses factories and distribution centers they are exploring opportunities with the autonomous systems lab under dr srikanth saripalli associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m to deploy this technology on a real-world forklift two national science foundation projects were instrumental in the development of this technology: the projects studied robust estimation and motion planning under uncertainty paving the way for the robust autonomy solution developed by the two researchers
2149,on nov 2 2017 the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university hosted its annual banquet honoring recent donors of endowed scholarships or fellowships recipients of former student awards and students who were awarded scholarships or fellowships the distinguished graduate award was established in 2000 to recognize and honor former students who have excelled in the civil engineering profession highlighting their significant contributions and achievements including 2017s recipients 88 former students have been recognized since its formation this years recipients were fred balda 82 george cozart 74 and thomas stewart ii 72 balda currently provides strategic leadership and oversees all aspects of operations within the hillwood communities division continually expanding and redefining the divisions business plan to satisfy changing homebuyer demands and market opportunities balda also shares his industry insights and expertise through his involvement with various institutes commissions and committees including the civil engineering advisory council balda credits his uncle cesar as a key influencer in his life and career as a physician baldas uncle personified a tireless work ethic and sought to instill that same characteristic in balda encouraging him to better himself through higher education by serving as a living example cesar taught balda that family and faith are the strongest core values ross perot jr mentored balda over the course of his career and inspired him to expand his self-imposed boundaries through his exemplary leadership skills focus on family integrity work ethic fairness and focus on selfless - service balda learned that true success is achieved through a balance of these core values cozart has performed supervised and managed both geotechnical engineering and environmental consulting projects for more than 40 years he currently serves on terracons board of directors and as a national director for terracon in the area of risk management cozart has served as the geotechnical engineer for hundreds of projects involving retaining walls earth retaining systems foundation investigations soil and groundwater contamination studies municipal solid waste landfills and failure and remedial action studies cozart considers his cousin don murff a mentor and personal example for his professional career cozart credits him and influential professors like drs harry coyle bob lytton wayne dunlap and louis thompson as his personal motivators for his pursuit of a career in geotechnical engineering for cozart they set great examples of professionalism engineering excellence and embody essential virtues for a successful life described by colleagues and friends as a prime example of the aggie core values thomas stewart ii was the first black student to receive a bachelors degree in civil engineering from texas a&m stewart learned to be successful and productive in this changing and challenging field through a variety of positions he has held over the past 40 years as a professional engineer stewart has made significant contributions to numerous oil and gas and transportation infrastructure development projects around the world he developed and implemented project control systems (budget and schedule) for the eight-mile $300 million houston metro light rail starter line that runs from the astrodome through the medical district to the downtown central business district and had similar responsibilities for the dallas area rapid transit $400 million light rail green line expansion both projects were completed on time and under budget in stewarts current position with hs&s development inc he has initiated a joint venture with engineering and construction companies to plan for the onsite clean-up of the niger delta in nigeria the department awarded 244 scholarships and fellowships (28 more than last year) for a total of $688 100 a 16 percent increase the department also recognized those former students who established an endowment in the past year acknowledged for their recent gifts were: albert fernandez 54; san antonio tx annette browne; college station tx denise 76 & ken 75 meyer; elgin tx diana & mark 82 dunn; the woodlands tx fiona mccracken allen 82; arlington tx jean & don 70 murff; austin tx jeff robertson; bryan tx jq engineering llp; dallas tx kelsey 06 & scott whitmire; moulton tx patricia & richard 65 kistner; san antonio tx raul fernandez 59; san antonio tx sandy & les 74 pittman; bryan tx yma & chuck 75 urban; corpus christi tx in the last 130 years our department has graduated over 15 000 civil engineers said dr robin autenrieth department head of the zachry department of civil engineering this banquet serves as an opportunity to celebrate current and former students as each year we recognize the professional accomplishments of a few distinguished graduates who provide inspiring stories of their professional success the banquet is also a time for us to show appreciation for recent generous donors who have created endowments to support the next generation of civil engineers we also take time to celebrate the academic excellence of our student scholarship and fellowship recipients who are given an opportunity to meet those former students who have invested in them through established endowments
2150,"graduate students from the master of industrial distribution (mid) program at texas a&m university recently visited poland as part of a global distribution course that involves experiential learning with live projects the 58 students are working professionals from various companies each with an average of 13 years of work experience brenntag poland and rs components were two sponsor companies that hosted nearly 30 students each at their facilities in zgierz and warsaw brenntag provided a presentation lab and warehouse tour and participated in a q&a rs components had their team from poland and the uk present to the students and engage in meaningful discussions the students are split into 12 teams that are currently working to provide solutions for six project case studies for brenntag poland and rs components and will make their final recommendation presentations in november additionally executives from various companies participated in a panel discussion with the students and professors in warsaw the panel discussion focused on customers suppliers and trends in the distribution business globalization influences all distribution channels international firms face many challenges and opportunities and even local distributors are challenged with international sourcing and global competitors the global distribution course examines global competitive issues in sourcing operations and sales global networks of facilities human resources inventories and supplier relationships are examined together with legal issues and logistics the course features ""real-time"" case studies with distributors and their suppliers providing a problem environment for students to work on supply chain solutions an international trip to the supplier's and/or distributor's operation is included in the course past trips have involved mexico china france germany italy spain portugal and brazil each year new case studies are prepared for a new location with new problem environments to reflect the changing challenges facing global distribution the mid program is a 21-month distance education graduate program specifically designed for working professionals the program is designed to serve the needs of working professionals who require flexibility in their schedules and location courses have been developed specifically to maximize web-based learning advantages the program dramatically increases the participants ability to think globally integrate trends acquire knowledge and act strategically the rigorous and interdisciplinary degree ensures that students are well equipped to handle both the demands of daily business as well as the unique challenges of doing business in a global economy the mid program is the largest distance based graduate program at texas a&m university college of engineering"
2151,this fall researchers from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university teamed up with siemens to develop manned aircraft completely powered by electric propulsion systems over the past year dr darren hartl assistant professor of aerospace engineering and texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) principal investigator for this project has worked to build a relationship with siemens government technologies toward providing engineering services dedicated to this important goal from the first time that i heard what siemens was trying to do i was very excited about the challenges and potential i believed that our department needed to be involved in the long term hartl said to kick off the partnership and technical progress tees research engineer john rohmer has been contracted by siemens through the aerospace engineering department and over the next year will be embedded into the siemens eaircraft organization integrating and flight testing electric propulsion systems in general aviation and military aircraft additionally the group will be working towards the identification of commercially-viable applications for electric propulsion and collaborate with the federal aviation administration on the development of appropriate regulations for general and commercial electric aviation rohmer is a graduate of the texas a&m college of engineering completing his bachelors degree in 2013 and masters degree in 2016 both in aerospace engineering rohmers graduate research focused on novel electro-thermo-mechanical actuators for commercial aircraft applications so he was a natural fit for this new project since 2010 siemens has been working in europe on the electrification of manned and unmanned aircraft with breakthroughs in aerospace grade electric motors drives and propulsion systems as economics and regulations continue to push the aviation industry towards electrification eaircrafts goal is to be the market leader in electric and hybrid propulsion system integration service and condition-based monitoring along with their partners siemens has committed to proving the significant benefits of electric propulsion including increased aerodynamic efficiency by distributed propulsion reduced noise enabling more operational hours per day reduced fuel consumption and reduced emissions siemens approach to electrification has drawn from some of their best technologies utilizing product lifecycle management (plm) software and virtual twin concepts to design record breaking motors we look forward to new opportunities to work with siemens on this emerging technology from both the research and development sides hartl said what a great time to be an aerospace engineer
2152,dr mm faruque hasan assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has been awarded an american chemical society petroleum research fund (acs prf) doctoral new investigator award for research that could benefit the entire energy sector and the natural gas industry hasans funded project modular process intensification of methane separation storage and conversion could potentially open up large swaths of resources currently not being used in these industries currently there are many different natural gas sources that are not being utilized such as stranded natural gas associated gas distributed shale gas landfill gas biogas and fuel gas to name a few these gas sources are often small regionally distributed and unused for a number of different reasons all related to cost benefit in most cases these gases are just flared to avoid operational and environmental consequences they often contain impurities at widely different concentrations and the overall composition of these resources varies from source to source using the traditional method of transporting the raw gas through a pipeline to a distant processing plant is a significant investment one that does not make financial sense for the quantities of gasses at these disparate sources hasans research will use advanced process intensification methods optimization theory and algorithms to discover modular technologies that will turn this problem into opportunity specifically hasan will employ a novel process intensification method developed in his research group that combines multiple operations into a single multifunctional unit the goal is to develop modular technology that achieves the same performance of all of the processes that normally take place at a gas processing and conversion plant using less equipment in this particular case converting methane and/or other natural gasses into hydrogen the raw gas has to be treated many different times using many different processes before it is converted into pure hydrogen hasan hopes to combine all of these different processes into one multifunctional gas technology you dont want to have a huge pipeline connecting all of these different gas sources that is a huge investment that does not make sense said hasan the solution is to go to these sources not just to collect the gas but to produce chemicals on-site while modular process intensification is not a new concept the costs associated with the current technologies are quite high there are many different reasons for the high cost but they are mostly due to poor economies-of-scale hasan is working from the other direction by starting out with multifunctional and intensified equipment at smaller scales hasan will be designing completely novel technology for a completely novel process our methodology based on rigorous design and optimization theory and screening algorithms shows a lot of promise for discovering innovative processes without really waiting for a eureka moment said hasan one such technology discovered in hasans lab for integrated carbon capture and conversion has recently resulted in a patent application hasan has also had success in leading the frontier of process intensification research he is currently the principal investigator of a national science foundation grant and is one of the co-principal investigators in the rapid institute project a $42 million project led by the texas a&m energy institute last year hasan was invited to participate in the national academy of engineering eu-us frontiers of engineering symposium he was also awarded the ralph e powe junior faculty enhancement award from department of energy-oak ridge associated universities in 2015
2153,almost 200 students faculty staff and alumni filled a packed room in texas a&m universitys rudder tower for the 2017 ray rothrock lecture series presented by the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m the presentation titled the future of nuclear energy: challenges and opportunities included a series of presentations by renowned individuals from national labs and the nuclear industry as well as a question and answer panel the speakers included mark peters director of the idaho national laboratory (inl) kelly beierschmitt deputy laboratory director at inl the honorable jeffrey merrifield former commissioner of the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) and tim powell executive vice president and chief nuclear officer of the south texas project nuclear operating company the presentations also included a special video introduction from nuclear venture capitalist and ceo of redseal inc ray rothrock 77 the videos can be viewed via the following links:ray rothrock panel introductionmark peters presentationkelly beierschmitt presentationjeffrey merrifield presentationtim powell presentation the ray rothrock lecture series was established in spring 2016 with the intent of informing students and educators about different topics regarding innovation and change within the nuclear industry rothrock received a bachelors degree in nuclear engineering at texas a&m before becoming a partner in the venture capital firm venrock a firm dedicated to creating and financing technological solutions rothrocks advocacy of nuclear energy has stretched into involvement with the nrc the us department of energy and government legislators to help promote an environment in the nuclear industry that is conducive to the development of nuclear energy startups and power sources today with you is a distinguished panel many of whom i know quite personally said rothrock through his video introduction thank you so much [to the panel] for making the trip down to college station to bring the nuclear industry to the students there that are hungry to hear about it each speaker informed attendees regarding a different or related aspect of the nuclear industry including the international expansion of nuclear energy new reactor builds emerging research needs national nuclear policy and a variety of other subtopics students were also encouraged to ask questions regarding the nuclear industry during the question and answer session in the future of nuclear energy we have challenges but with these challenges come opportunity said dr yassin hassan department head of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m
2154,this fall julien bauer a petroleum engineering masters student and his french team members won first place at the international gas forum of st petersburg competition it was a big moment for him and bauer was proudly representing texas a&m university by wearing his corps uniform throughout the presentation a lot of people didnt suspect that it was an american uniform they thought it was a french uniform bauer said i explained that its not french its from my university in texas some people learned about a&m that way bauer is completing a dual degree with texas a&m and the french petroleum institute the two schools have developed a program together that creates a unique opportunity for students like bauer he spent last fall at texas a&m his spring and summer semesters studying in france and is now back at texas a&m for two semesters attracted at first to the partnership program bauer dove into research about texas a&m to decide if it was the right school and program for him this partnership is something that caught my attention when i researched a&m on the internet bauer said being an international student i hadnt heard about a&m before so i spent quite a bit of time on the website to be honest i looked also at the rankings i saw that a&m has a very good engineering program especially petroleum engineering being in the corps this semester has shown bauer even more of texas a&ms traditions which is something he enjoys about the university its rooted in tradition bauer said there are a lot of traditions here and i didnt expect that coming from france right now i am in the corps and i see all of these traditions like muster and the different yells all of these things are really interesting to me bauer does not even have a traditional undergraduate degree instead he already has a masters degree from mines paristech in france he studied for two years in preparation math and science courses then applied to many schools to complete his graduate engineering degree when bauer was in france he learned about the international gas forum of st petersburg russia he decided to apply for the french team because there were not enough applicants to create an american team bauer applied with a cover letter resume´ and case study related to a liquefied natural gas strategy of a company based on this five students were selected for each team bauer was the only engineering student chosen on his team which consisted of several political science students and a business student he believes this played a part in their success i was the only engineering student i think that gave us strength because we had all these different approaches he said i could understand the technical part and the guys from the business school could understand the economics and the guys from politics were more into the strategies we were quite complementary and that is what i believe made the presentation good judges evaluated teams on their presentation about the global energy strategy of a gas company bauers team chose shell and they had 10 minutes to present no more than 10 slides next they were asked questions by the jury and were judged by their responses the team then awaited the results with excitement and anxiety as the russian team had won the two previous years when the judge announced the french team won they were elated in addition to the honor of winning the competition bauer and his team won an all-expenses paid two-week trip to europe and russia its a really great opportunity bauer said of course petroleum engineering students can apply but it is not just limited to students in engineering i hope more us representatives apply next year and compete
2155,"twelve students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university participated in the association for computing machinery (acm) international collegiate programming competition (icpc) south central usa regional competition held nov 4 the south central usa region covers schools from texas oklahoma and louisiana the students from the department traveled to baylor university to compete though there were a total of four locations across the region over 70 teams participated in the event texas a&m was represented by four teams who ultimately finished third fourth fifteenth and sixteenth in the region overall dr john keyser a professor in the department served as coach for the students a team from the university of texas at austin placed first with a team from the university of texas at dallas placing second overall teams are ranked based on how many problems they solve and then on the time it takes to solve them these competitions are very difficult but are also very rewarding for the students involved seniors michael earl and nate leake and junior jordan lamkin were the sourcerers who placed third overall junior chase hinesman and seniors brian maule and christopher rech were the unordered cartographers who placed fourth overall senior nathan villanueva sophomore jack graham and graduate student bhavesh munot were the texas a&m maroon team who placed fifteenth overall sophomore giuseppe rizzi sophomore luke witt and junior gabriel stella were the texas a&m white team who placed sixteenth overall my favorite aspect of icpc is that it gives me an avenue to meet people who are as passionate about algorithms as i am graham said to prepare for the competition the students participated in several practice sessions for more than a month practices ranged from review sessions describing various algorithms and how they can be used to solve problems to running sample contests ranging from 45 minutes to five hours long during the competition students have to write programs that can solve problems stated precisely the regional contest problems ranged in difficulty from easier problems such as computing a baseball players slugging percentage to more difficult problems such as finding possible destinations for a robot that had bugs in its motion program ""competitive programming makes you challenge yourself to improve as a programmer like nothing else does earl said the contest fosters creativity teamwork and innovation in building new software programs and empowers students to perform under pressure it is the oldest largest and most prestigious programming contest in the world"
2156,"texas a&m university aerospace engineering professor dr bonnie j dunbar was elected president of the association of space explorers (ase) international at the 30th annual ase congress in toulouse france on oct 20 she is the first woman to be elected ase president dunbar a tees distinguished research professor in the department of aerospace engineering and director of the institute for engineering education and innovation (ieei) flew five times on the space shuttle for 50 days in space and previously was inducted into the astronaut hall of fame she also established the aerospace human systems laboratory at texas a&m which is dedicated to leading research on systems for ensuring the survival of humans in space or extreme environments including new technologies for spacesuits and habitats specific topics include human systems modeling multifunctional materials and partial gravity fluid physics ase is the professional organization for more than 400 astronauts and cosmonauts from 37 different countries representing five major regions: the united states russia europe asia and at large the five-day congress held in a different nation every year conducts free access public sessions on several topics of human space exploration including international space station research lessons learned in spaceflight operations technical advances in space systems progress in planetary research and current national initiatives in space exploration the fliers also reserve one day for visiting with schools universities companies and civic groups across the host country in what is called community day the visits focus on science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) education as well as the inspiration for space exploration ase was founded in 1985 by a small group of american astronauts and russian cosmonauts and has since expanded to include all space fliers from europe asia and other nations the qualification for membership is one full orbit of the earth in a spaceship ase international has a standing committee on near earth objects (neo) with observer status at the united nations and is a member of the international astronautical federation (iaf) at the 30th congress two additional ase standing committees were established: orbital debris and exploration crew health dunbar is chair of the international committee on crew health the 2018 congress will be held in minsk belarus and the 2019 congress will be back in the united states in houston oct 14-18 this will be only the fourth time it has been in the us since 1985 dunbar is the 2019 congress chair capt dick richards retired astronaut and boeing executive is vice chair ieei is the academic sponsor for the 32nd congress which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the apollo moon landings opening and closing events will be at space center houston ieei will coordinate the statewide visits of astronauts to schools and universities on oct 16 2019 and will host at least six of them on the college station campus on oct 16 2019 additional astronauts will also visit other texas a&m and texas a&m engineering experiment station locations across the state reference: http://wwwspace-explorersorg/ photo captions for above pictures in order: ase attendees in toulouse frace at cite de la space dunbar presiding over the ase opening ceremonies ase astronauts dr soichi naguchi (jaxa) and dr janet kavandi (nasa) with french school children ase technical session on european space agency plans to build a ""moon village"" ase international panel with ase members soichi naguchi (japan) michel tognini (france) bonnie j dunbar (usa) alexander alexandrov (russia) and reinhold ewald (germany)"
2157,for engineering students in search of humanitarian work while studying abroad engineering rwanda offers both and more not only are you taking classes and immersing yourself in another culture you are getting applicable work experience it is also unlike any other study abroad because not only are you benefitting from being in the country but you are giving back to the country in a very tangible way said junior biomedical engineering major taylor boles who participated in the 2017 summer program the texas a&m university college of engineering works each summer with engineering world health (ewh) to bring more than 20 students to rwanda for two months to assist with a serious problem in the medical community rooms filled with inoperative medical equipment in need of repair so that it can be returned to service in local hospitals theres this huge backlog of equipment that needs work and critically limited local manpower to do the work said dr michael moreno assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering and program coordinator were not working on medical devices that you would implant in a patient rather were working on medical equipment that is primarily used for diagnostics patient monitoring or patient maintenance so all engineering students can benefit from the program moreno said the training and experience acquired makes the program an excellent alternative to a summer internship or co-op one common piece of feedback he receives from participants is that the program is a life-changing experience they will get a sense that theyve made a substantial contribution to solving a problem moreno said as an undergraduate engineer you might question what youre really capable of doing through this program theyre going to be confronted with problems that they will definitely be able to solve and theyre going to feel a personal sense of accomplishment for the first month students train in kigali rwandas capital city students stay with locals in homes near the campus many of which dont even have running water the students learn right away that theyre not in the us anymore moreno said i think a lot of them actually like that because its real its a genuine experience abroad to a resource-limited country [in rwanda] its a whole other kind of experience though resources are limited there are shops and restaurants in kigali that will offer familiar items and cell phone and internet service can be found though it is not as reliable and widespread as it is in the us in class moreno and his teaching assistant train students on the medical equipment and how best to troubleshoot common problems once a week students visit hospitals in kigali and moreno educates students on why there is so much obsolete equipment most of which is donated that became the problem because theyre essentially getting rid of obsolete equipment by giving it to this country thinking ‘well here you can use this the reality is they could but since its no longer supported theres no spare parts for it theres no manuals moreno said in the second month of the program students are deployed in teams of two into hospitals in other more rural parts of country where they work with locals that have been trained as technicians if we were not there the work would not be completed boles said the technician in our hospital worked very hard but he had so much administrative work to do that he rarely had time to fix equipment or train the staff on the equipment along with fixing equipment students are expected to identify opportunities to design a solution to a problem whether it has to do with the medical equipment itself or ways to make work at the hospital more efficient our first project was designing and building a rack for oxygen cylinders so they would not fall over which can be really dangerous boles said our second project was installing hand sanitizer dispensers around the hospital which was needed because often doctors would not even wash their hands before meeting with a patient boles said the problem solving and independence skills he gained and refined will help him as he moves forward with his career we were forced to fix equipment with very limited resources so we often had to improvise solutions he said we often had to think outside the box to fix the equipment i think that this experience with creative problem solving will help me in the future to solve problems outside of work moreno said students are free to pursue other activities boles participated in a safari visited a rainforest and hiked volcanoes among other trips moreno said rwanda is one of the most politically stable countries in africa with one of the fastest growing economies and is accommodating to international visitors students can earn two courses worth of credit through the program the 2018 program is from june 3-aug 5 and moreno said considerable financial aid is available through texas a&m and ewh for more information email moreno at michaelmoreno@tamuedu visit the ewh website
2158,"texas a&m university has been named the recipient of two grants from texas governor greg abbotts governors university research initiative a program aimed at bringing the best and brightest researchers in the world to texas ""texas universities continue to make great strides in the fields of science technology engineering mathematics and medicine making the lone star state the home of innovation "" said abbott ""not only do our university faculties spearhead cutting-edge research but they continue to educate and develop the leaders of the future i look forward to the opportunities that these world-class researchers will bring to texas to further solidify our universities as some of the best in the world"" dr roderic i pettigrew a physician-scientist and internationally recognized leader in biomedical imaging and bioengineering will join texas a&m to lead engineering health (enhealth) the nations first comprehensive educational program to fully integrate engineering into all health-related disciplines pettigrew is a member of the national academy of engineering as well as the national academy of medicine dr m cynthia hipwell also a national academy of engineering member has joined the department of mechanical engineering as a texas a&m engineering experiment station distinguished research professor the governors university research initiative is the kind of smart strategic investment that will keep our great research universities at the forefront of innovation said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system governor abbotts investment in higher education will pay off in a more educated workforce a stronger economy and great universities the programs goal is to attract transformative researchers who will in turn serve as economic catalysts to the texas economy for years to come the governors university research initiative provides a tremendous investment in human capital and gives us a competitive edge so that we can attract top scholars like cynthia hipwell and roderic pettigrew to texas a&m said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering scholars of this caliber attract other top faculty researchers students and new funding opportunities which are critical to our success as a public university the two grants are for $3 million each which is used for recruitment costs including the purchase of research equipment and construction or renovation of facilities necessary to support the distinguished researchers efforts the governors initiative has already had a substantial impact on texas a&m last year dr girish saran agarwal (biological and agricultural engineering) dr leif andersson (veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences) dr richard b miles (aerospace and mechanical engineering) dr thomas j overbye (electrical and computer engineering) and dr george m pharr iv (materials science and engineering) were recipients of guri grants totaling $20 million"
2159,"dr cynthia hipwell has been named one of the beneficiaries of texas governor greg abbotts 2017-18 governors university research initiative (guri) a program aimed at bringing the best and brightest researchers in the world to texas hipwell a national academy of engineering (nae) member joined the department of mechanical engineering as a texas a&m engineering experiment station distinguished research professor we are proud to be part of such a transformative initiative that will enable the department of mechanical engineering to be a leader in the area of innovation said department head dr andreas polycarpou the guri programs goal is to attract nationally recognized and transformative researchers to texas institutions of higher education hipwell is looking to do two things with the grant funding: leverage her experience developing commercially relevant nanoscale technology and create new tools and business processes to promote innovation and speed technology development first she would like to expand texas a&ms capability in devices and industrial applications based on nanotechnology she would also like to explore how new tools such as virtual and augmented reality and machine learning applied to mechanical engineering problems can speed the innovation and technology development process this grant will allow me along with my collaborators to establish a strong presence for texas a&m in these areas hipwell said guri recipients aim through their research to serve as economic catalysts for the texas economy for years to come ""texas universities continue to make great strides in the fields of science technology engineering mathematics and medicine making the lone star state the home of innovation "" said governor abbott ""not only do our university faculties spearhead cutting-edge research but they continue to educate and develop the leaders of the future before joining the faculty at texas a&m hipwell led r&d and product development groups at seagate technology and engineering and industrial solution provider buhler at both companies hipwell worked to innovate technology and development to create positive impacts for business and the economy hipwell received her bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from rice university and her masters and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from the university of california berkeley her areas of research include devices based upon nanoscale phenomena and the application of tools for innovation acceleration such as 3-d printing machine learning and design virtualization"
2160,texas a&m universitys department of mechanical engineering rose in undergraduate rankings compared to other public institutions according to the 2018 us news & world report best college rankings the department was ranked eighth based on last years report but raised its position to seventh among public institutions for undergraduate rankings the department also maintained its ranking of eighth for graduate programs we are proud of the work of our faculty staff and students to continue to propel our department toward preeminence said department head dr andreas polycarpou the improved ranking indicates success within our department college and university as we impact the world around us overall the texas a&m college of engineering rose two places from 16 to 14 and one place for public institutions from eight to seven among its peers
2161,dr dmitri loguinov a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded a grant from the national science foundation for his work centered on high-performance virtual-memory streaming modern programs commonly process large amounts of input and operate on data that resides in external memory for example hard drives and network one particular type of sequential access streaming has become dominant in such applications especially in a now-ubiquitous computational model known as mapreduce traditionally however operating systems have provided a poor input/output (i/o) interface for streaming and required tedious nonreconfigurable and error-prone code development loguinovs project aims to create algorithms for a virtual-stream interface that would enable development of big data software that is more easily managed simpler to understand inherently faster and less susceptible to bugs besides i/o his work aims to provide novel abstractions for moving data between threads which are parallel parts of a program that execute within the space of a single process operating systems have used memory paging for many decades; however the idea of exposing an interface that offers user-level processes a true streaming experience has not been widely considered before loguinovs research shows that this is not only possible but also highly desirable in data-intensive applications in a nutshell virtual streams are a great way to speed up transfer between threads increase efficiency of external-memory algorithms simplify the programming interface and improve various applications that require computing at large scale loguinov said this research can not only address the key deficiencies in the current i/o model but it also offers additional benefits such as the ability to reuse existing libraries on input larger than ram significantly faster sorting and more scalable mapreduce computation the initial framework where the process directly manages its memory from user space can be deployed immediately; however loguinov expects the projects results to eventually be of interest to operating system developers with additional help from the operating system streams should support even faster and lower overhead operation lifting the various barriers that exist today this project spans a variety of areas in computer science including operating systems algorithms networking distributed systems and architecture loguinov credits development of the initial concepts and prototypes to undergraduate students at texas a&m especially john keech and yuan yao for their relentless pursuit of this topic despite their heavy course load
2162,"blake williford a doctoral student in the department of computer science and engineering and member of the sketch recognition lab (srl) at texas a&m university earned first place at the chi play 2017 student game design competition for the game ""zensketch"" which he created with fellow srl graduate students matthew runyon and adil hamid malla the competition held oct 15-18 in amsterdam netherlands was part of an international interdisciplinary conference for researchers and professionals across all areas of play games and human-computer interaction chi play is sponsored by the association for computing machinery (acm) special interest group for computer-human interaction (sigchi) with over 30 games submitted from around the world ""zensketch won the jury award and was selected best game at the event williford runyon and malla developed the game with the intention of helping people develop confidence in their drawing abilities the intuition behind ‘zensketch was that even the most atomic element of any drawing – a single line – can be a fun exercise and can build confidence in people who want to learn how to draw williford said williford works in the sketch recognition lab under dr tracy hammond director and computer science professor the labs mission is to identify and understand a persons behavior and actions and infer and predict a persons intentions and future choices using activity recognition algorithms ""zensketch"" was created after years of collaborative research on the national science foundation funded project ""sketchtivity"" which is a joint project with the georgia institute of technology hammond; dr julie linsey associate professor; and wayne li james l oliver professor from georgia tech; are the principal investigators of this project this research explores the opportunity to improve upon how sketching is traditionally taught by providing real-time feedback to students via sketch recognition this work represents a transformative moment in creativity drawing and gamification hammond said williford hopes the research will eventually enable people to draw in a new way the goal of this research is to one day empower millions of people to learn how to draw in a novel way thats more engaging and motivating than traditional methods williford said chi play is sponsored by the acm special interest group for computer-human interaction (sigchi)"
2163,college is often considered a time for young students to grow and learn experiencing new ideas people and cultures for petroleum engineering student reggie rodriguez the organization that has influenced him the most has been the texas a&m university zachry leadership program that he began as a student while at the texas a&m engineering academy at blinn-bryan i know a few of my friends that completely dismissed a&m because they got into the academies program and thought it wasnt a good deal rodriguez said i understood that at the time but the academy program is a great program and became a great experience for me the engineering academies allow students to be co-enrolled at one of seven locations as well as at texas a&m making them texas a&m engineering students there are engineering academies at the blinn-brenham and blinn-bryan campuses plus the chevron academies with austin community college el centro college and richland college in dallas houston community college and texas southmost college in brownsville the alamo colleges district in san antonio starts classes in fall 2018 when rodriguez got into the engineering academy at blinn-bryan he was initially a little discouraged however as time went on he began to realize the opportunity he had been given the blinn teachers knew they were the ones teaching the academy kids and because of that they didn't hold back rodriguez said they pushed us knowing what we were trying to do and where we were trying to go and i was glad that they did that for us i never felt like i was getting it easier than the kids at the main campus this fall rodriguez transitioned to full time at texas a&ms department of petroleum engineering after two years during his time co-enrolled at texas a&m and blinn-bryan rodriguez joined the zachry leadership program which he says helped keep him grounded a five-semester program built through the partnership of texas a&m and zachry group to help develop leaders in engineering the program begins during the students sophomore year and strives to teach them collaborative decision-making confidence and familiarity with business principles the program really helped me mature and bridge the gap for me of where i was and where i needed to be to be ready for engineering rodriguez said it kept pushing me and allowed me to visualize my future and see myself succeeding it was a compass for me rodriguez also appreciates that the zachry leadership program helped him expand his entrepreneurship skills once he is established in his career rodriguez hopes to eventually help low-income college students by creating scholarships and giving them the resources to attend a quality university and not have to worry about the cost rodriguez also believes the program helped make him a more marketable and well-rounded professional because it has given him the ability to see other perspectives and appreciate the importance of interpersonal communication in the workplace you get to know the way other people think and you get to understand them rodriguez said this program has helped me the most in this way and it is equipping me to become a better engineer in the workforce rodriguez is looking forward to learning more within the zachry leadership program after his full-time transition to the college station campus i think the zachry leadership program is one of the greatest things i've ever done rodriguez said it keeps you motivated to work towards the future you get to see how you need different kinds of people in your company and how everything works at the big picture im excited to take what im learning here and apply it in the real world
2164,dr dilma da silva department head professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was named interim deputy director of the texas a&m institute of data science (tamids) tamids will foster collaborations across texas a&m and its affiliated agencies and will support data science applications across the university the institute which will be jointly administered by the university the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and texas a&m agrilife research will focus on research education and outreach da silva will serve tamids alongside dr simon sheather interim director of the institute professor and academic director of the master of science (analytics) and online programs in the department of statistics at texas a&m i already have my dream job as department head of the department of computer science and engineering but i am very excited about the opportunity that this new role gives me to enable multidisciplinary initiatives that can impact the biggest challenges in our society da silva said da silva works in the areas of cloud computing distributed systems and distance education before her current role as department head she spent 14 years at industry research labs leading large research projects in distributed computing and operating systems that targeted foundational challenges in the scalability of system software she is an association for computing machinery (acm) distinguished scientist and has published over 80 technical papers and filed 15 patents she is an associate editor for several journals has chaired 30 conferences/workshops and participated in over 100 program committees da silva is a member of the board of the computer research association committee on the status of women in computing research and a co-founder of the latinas in computing group she served as an officer of the acm special interest group on operating systems from 2011 to 2015 and chaired the acm senior award committee in 2015
2165,fusion is the process that powers the sun harnessing it on earth would provide unlimited clean energy however researchers say that constructing a fusion power plant has proven to be a daunting task in no small part because there have been no materials that could survive the grueling conditions found in the core of a fusion reactor now researchers at texas a&m university have discovered a way to make materials that may be suitable for use in future fusion reactors the sun makes energy by fusing hydrogen atoms each with one proton into helium atoms which contain two protons helium is the byproduct of this reaction although it does not threaten the environment it wreaks havoc upon the materials needed to make a fusion reactor helium is an element that we don't usually think of as being harmful said dr michael demkowicz associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering it is not toxic and not a greenhouse gas which is one reason why fusion power is so attractive however if you force helium inside of a solid material it bubbles out much like carbon dioxide bubbles in carbonated water literally you get these helium bubbles inside of the metal that stay there forever because the metal is solid demkowicz said as you accumulate more and more helium the bubbles start to link up and destroy the entire material working with a team of researchers at los alamos national laboratory in new mexico demkowicz investigated how helium behaves in nanocomposite solids materials made of stacks of thick metal layers their findings recently published in science advances were a surprise rather than making bubbles the helium in these materials formed long channels resembling veins in living tissues we were blown away by what we saw demkowicz said as you put more and more helium inside these nanocomposites rather than destroying the material the veins actually start to interconnect resulting in kind of a vascular system this discovery paves the way to helium-resistant materials needed to make fusion energy a reality demkowicz and his collaborators believe that helium may move through the networks of veins that form in their nanocomposites eventually exiting the material without causing any further damage demkowicz collaborated with di chen nan li kevin baldwin and yongqiang wang from los alamos national laboratory as well as former student dina yuryev from the massachusetts institute of technology the project was supported by the laboratory directed research and development program at los alamos national laboratory applications to fusion reactors are just the tip of the iceberg demkowicz said i think the bigger picture here is in vascularized solids ones that are kind of like tissues with vascular networks what else could be transported through such networks perhaps heat or electricity or even chemicals that could help the material self-heal
2166,there are many ways to show the aggie spirit sam tomaso senior in the zachry department of civil engineering shaves the number 12 onto his chest for home football games gaining him the nickname 12th man jesus im just there to have fun i think its great to get the 12th man more excited than they already are and get them involved in the game tomaso said tomaso had the idea the week of the 2016 game against tennessee with help from his roommates he had the number shaved onto his chest on game day he spent time before the game visiting tailgates and telling friends to keep an eye out for him on the jumbotron i ended up getting on screen for probably 45 seconds it was a long time the longest i had ever seen anybody on the screen tomaso said tomaso spent about an hour after the game which the aggies won in double overtime taking photos with fans and continued the tradition for home games the rest of the season however he said the fame didnt kick in fully until this season when members of the universitys water ski team of which tomaso is a member started a petition to have tomaso lead the football team out during the 2017 alabama game the petition was shared across social media and tomaso said within a few hours it had more than 1 000 signatures by game day three days later it had 10 000 signatures while the university did not reach out to tomaso he said there were plenty of people who recognized him at the game and a number who wanted photos the story was shared in local state and national news outlets tomaso said he finds it funny how quickly the petition story spread and how he is now often recognized on and off campus however he has not let the fame go to his head and his goal remains to bring spirit to kyle field on game day he recalled the 2017 game against south carolina when a targeting call was made against a texas a&m player everyone was pretty upset there was some time where they were filming people in the crowd so my friends lifted me up and they caught me on camera immediately the crowd got even louder there was a huge jump in the noise right then tomaso said when hes not in the stadium tomaso studies civil engineering with a structural emphasis and participates in the university honors program he was interested early in his education to go into humanitarian work tomaso expects to graduate in may 2018 and plans to attend the cistercian abbey our lady of dallas to study to become a catholic priest outside of class tomaso participates on the universitys water ski team and plays music for mass and events at st marys catholic center tomaso is a third-generation aggie and the first in his family to study engineering he said his family like himself finds the 12th man jesus fame funny and a positive way to show the aggie spirit he said even members of his family who are not aggies have shown their support including his uncle who tomaso called a diehard longhorn none of his co-workers believed when he said that i was his nephew he had to take a picture with me to prove it to them tomaso said i think that was one of my proudest moments that i got a diehard longhorn to take a picture with me while i was giving a big old gig ‘em with a 12 shaved into my chest he offered some advice to current and incoming students to not stress about what organizations they may feel they have to join just do what you are passionate about tomaso said if you enjoy it who knows maybe youll be famous someday
2167,more than 100 power systems experts utility operators and vendors from across the globe gathered at a conference and workshop organized by representatives from texas a&m university to discuss how big data and intelligent systems are revolutionizing the power grid operation in a competitive environment with a high penetration of renewable energy the 19th international conference on intelligent system applications to power systems (isap) conference was held sept 17-20 in san antonio the conference was organized by dr karen butler-purry interim vice president for research and professor; dr chanan singh regents professor and irma runyon chair professor; and dr le xie associate professor; all in the texas a&m college of engineerings department of electrical and computer engineering xie also led the organization of the first institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) utility big data workshop held sept 18 in conjunction with the conference the conference was the first of its kind to focus on big data topics in the power systems engineering area participants represented the power systems industry such as utilities providers vendors and higher education experts more than half (of the) attendees came (from) outside the us such as brazil china germany india japan turkey and portugal said dr hung-ming chou technical committee co-chair of the event the workshop was the first of its kind to focus (on) big data topics in the power systems engineering area -- big data challenges and opportunity platform and warehouse research and case studies the electric reliability council of texas (ercot) centerpoint energy oncor electric delivery company austin energy and cps energy were among the participants bill magness chief executive officer of ercot delivered the keynote address the next isap conference is scheduled to be held in india read more about the conference here
2168,exploring a different culture and country while learning mechanical engineering at the same time thats what this study abroad program can offer students through its six-week summer program in spain co-hosted by the department of mechanical engineering and the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university the faculty-led program will take place from may 20-june 29 in the spanish region of castilla–la mancha located in the heart of the iberian peninsula the university of castilla-la mancha is a regional institution that consists of four campuses with 30 000 students the program begins in the historic city of toledo and then shifts to the campus in ciudad real its a life changing experience especially if youve never been out of the country said dr harry hogan a mechanical engineering professor who has participated in the program eight times even if you have spending six weeks in another country is different than a two-week vacation for most of the students the next time theyll have the opportunity to spend six weeks in europe will probably be when they retire tristan honaker class of 18 agrees he said the experience [had] been nothing short of spectacular and that he had developed relationships that would last beyond the program jadha gunawan class of 18 said he originally had concerns before joining the program because of the cost and traveling to a country where he was not fluent in the language but they were quickly dispelled after participating in the program i can say that it was one of the best decisions i have made in my life gunawan said being exposed to a whole new culture was worth every penny it was nice participating in a program where a lot of the trips were already planned out by the faculty spain is a really big country and i would not have known where to start participants in the program said the six weeks were an opportunity to step outside their comfort zone and have a unique experience where students have the opportunity to learn about different cultures and themselves it allows engineers to think more outside the box gunawan said being exposed to a different culture lets us realize that…we may need to be able to share/pitch our ideas and knowledge to people outside of our own country later in the industry being exposed to a different culture also gives us an advantage in the sense that we get exposed to different engineering solutions done by other people in the world students from the university of castilla-la mancha also participate in the classes hogan said but they usually dont fully take the courses as they are finishing their own spring semester with exams and projects however the texas a&m students will have time to be able to learn from their interactions with these students from the host university the six-week program also includes planned excursions for three of the five weekends students will be abroad the schedule allows for several four-day weekends too which hogan said makes the program intensive both inside and outside the classroom trips include technical and cultural trips to provide students a more immersive experience its a lot to get in six hours of an engineering class in six weeks hogan said we work pretty long and hard while were there but then we have three- or four-day weekends students have the other weekends free and most students use this time to travel in smaller groups to other locations in spain or throughout europe another hallmark of the program hogan said is that students have the opportunity to stay with host families once accepted into the program students fill out a housing questionnaire to best match them with a host family although a host family is not guaranteed former participants said they found their host families to be instantly welcoming and friendly one thing i did not expect was the level of care and interaction you should expect if you live with a host family i now have a mamà a papà and two little brothers in addition to my original family said ross curran class of 18 the mechanical engineering track for summer 2018 will be taught by dr daniel mcadams associate department head for graduate programs and the courses are meen 368 (solid mechanics in mechanical design) and meen 475 (materials in design) which hogan said are required courses for mechanical engineering majors while knowing spanish is not a requirement to participate in the program there are some qualifications for students including; a minimum 25 gpa good academic standing with university participants are required to attend all program specific orientations hogan said some students may hesitate to apply because they might lose the chance for a summer internship however the opportunity for international learning about other cultures can have an impact on future employers as well if i was an employer and saw that a student has taken the time effort investment and expense to do a study abroad program it tells me that theyre probably a little more adventuresome hogan said theyre probably more open-minded and more interested in other cultures and willing to take risks the official deadline for registration is feb 16 2018 acceptance is on a first-come first-served basis
2169,the texas a&m university student chapter of the american concrete institute (aci) recently took the egg drop test to the next level by placing 12th worldwide in the acis international concrete competition of egg protection devices the team also placed first in texas and second in north america during the aci fall 2017 conventions student concrete design competition hosted in anaheim california oct 15-19 the objective of the competition was to design and build the highest-impact-load resistant plain or reinforced concrete egg protection device (epd) at the competition the contraption is dropped from increasing heights the highest being three meters which is about 98 feet mostafa jalal civil engineering doctorate student in the materials and pavements division is president of the aci-texas a&m chapter and competition team mentor jalal said even with the challenges of working with team members and developing a successful design the project was a great experience it gives students an amazing chance to apply your knowledge and gain hands-on experience and in the meantime practice teamwork jalal said the networking opportunity with students professors and company representatives at the competition along with (the) aci exhibit and conference is a unique opportunity that may not be found easily anywhere else in the process of the project teams had to learn and report on concretes sustainable benefits related to durability impact resistance and other real-life aspects that an epd simulates brittany beisert is a senior civil engineering major who aims to become a professional licensed practicing civil engineer she said she appreciated the professional technical and social skills she learned and refined throughout the project she said aci-texas a&m helped supplement the departments goal of giving students hands-on learning opportunities and direct lines of communication to people in the industry the experience felt like it was (a) once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go present a student project to industry professionals and international peers beisert said i enjoyed and recommend attending any and every aci convention for both the wealth of knowledge one can obtain from the speakers and guest lecturers the interesting and new technology showcased on the exhibit flow and the experience to travel and see a new and potentially exotic place aylie hood junior general civil engineering major is interested in working in construction with a focus in using energy-efficient designs and green solutions for new structures she said the project provided her with learning opportunities that she would not have had in a classroom working with a team can be difficult with conflicting ideas and time management but being a part of this one helped me learn how to overcome these situations preparing me for my future career and other circumstances in life hood said
2170,dr roderic i pettigrew a physician-scientist and internationally recognized leader in biomedical imaging and bioengineering will join texas a&m university to lead engineering health (enhealth) the nations first comprehensive educational program to fully integrate engineering into all health-related disciplines enhealth will be an innovative multicollege engineering health initiative based in houston texas designed to educate a new kind of health care professional with an engineering mindset who will invent transformational technology for health cares greatest challenges with texas a&ms interdisciplinary makeup and colleges of dentistry medicine nursing pharmacy public health and veterinary medicine enhealth will have a profound impact on both human and animal health enmed the universitys engineering medicine track in partnership with houston methodist hospital will serve as the first program for enhealth it is a coup for the texas a&m (university) health science center to land one of the most heavily recruited leaders a double national academy member in this exciting new field of engineering medicine said chancellor john sharp the innovations that come out of this field will not only save lives but enhealth and enmed also will be an economic boon to the texas medical community and our state economy as a whole the way to solve the worlds most challenging health care problems and perhaps prevent many of them in the first place is to take a more integrated approach to education and treatment said michael k young president of texas a&m with this announcement texas a&m is harnessing the best across two historically different disciplines–engineering and medicineto accelerate quality and delivery of care its a new day for integrated health care and were so proud to have dr pettigrew at the helm of this endeavor pettigrew will assume his new role of ceo of enhealth and executive dean for enmed in november along with the appointment pettigrew will also hold the endowed robert a welch chair in chemistry with a portfolio of international accomplishments in advancing biomedical innovation pettigrew served as founding director of the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering (nibib) at the national institutes of health (nih) he is an elected member of both the national academy of medicine and the national academy of engineering and is an elected foreign fellow of the national academy of sciences india prior to his appointment at the nih pettigrew was a professor of radiology at emory university professor of bioengineering at the georgia institute of technology and director of the emory center for magnetic resonance research at the emory university school of medicine pettigrew will join the university through the governors university research initiative (guri) enacted by governor greg abbott in 2015 to attract distinguished researchers who will in turn serve as economic catalysts to the texas economy for years to come pettigrews recruitment marks a significant step forward for texas a&m and the texas a&m university system specifically at the intersection of the health disciplines and engineering said dr carrie l byington dean of the texas a&m college of medicine senior vice president of the texas a&m health science center and vice chancellor for health services at the texas a&m system we are in an era of dynamic transformation in health care with a focus on the patient as a land-grant medical school founded by the teague-cranston act in 1977 texas a&m is committed to addressing the health needs of both military personnel and those who live in rural areas byington said this focus demands novel collaboration between the brightest minds in medicine and engineering to develop systems and technologies that can address significant problems including rural access to health care remote monitoring and especially for our military personnel recovery from injury with our world-class engineering program emerging health sciences education and research and dr pettigrews unparalleled expertise and acclaim in bioengineering texas a&m can truly lead the way in addressing health cares greatest challenges under pettigrews guidance nibib is internationally recognized for its global leadership in developing and accelerating the application of transformative health care technologies a testament to his expertise in 2012 the us senate unanimously passed a resolution commending nibib for its impact on improving the health of the nation through technological innovation and progressive educational initiatives at texas a&m pettigrew will lead the continued development of enmed a partnership announced last summer between the states top-ranked houston methodist hospital the college of engineering and the college of medicine to educate a new type of doctora physician engineeror physicianeer enmed which will welcome its inaugural class in fall 2019 is expected to be the largest engineering-based medical degree program in the nation with the creation of our enmed program and its unique focus on inventing and rapidly moving new medical technologies into practice we realized the potential to impact all areas of health and the idea of enhealth was born said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering dr pettigrew is the ideal leader for this initiative and has the transformational vision to develop this new type of health care ecosystem with more than 10 000 students in health-related programs across the texas a&m system enhealth has the potential to impact communities across the state and nation by producing a new type of clinician who will be able to design patient-oriented solutions in the care they provide wherever they practice this is a tremendously exciting initiative founded on a sound concept that has been emerging internationally for years pettigrew said at its core is the understanding that the most effective and efficient solutions to our most daunting health care challenges will come from approaches that integrate all of the sciences and engineering after all these are seamlessly interwoven in nature so it follows that solutions to natural problems will also be born from a convergence of the science engineering and technology disciplines enmed will initially hire 25 faculty members and utilize instructional and research space in the texas medical center including space in houston methodist hospital the texas a&m health science centers institute of biosciences and technology (ibt) and a recently purchased building in the texas medical center that will be renovated to serve as the education and training campus for enmed and enhealth students the initiative builds on texas a&ms long-standing research and education presence in houston the ibt was founded in 1986 in the texas medical center to foster creative research related to medicine agriculture animal sciences and engineering and currently offers a doctorate in medical sciences in addition students in the college of medicines md and md/phd programs are trained at houston methodist a partnership that began in 2014 to bring more innovative research and medical education to the state and laid the groundwork for enmed faculty from each program will play an important role in the education of enmed students the texas medical center with its great research and clinical resources as the worlds largest complex of medical institutions is an ideal location for headquartering enmed and catalyzing enhealth pettigrew said this will constitute a living crucible of scientific discovery and technological innovation to transform the practice of medicine
2171,texas a&m universitys engineering honors recently held its first undergraduate research showcase & opportunities fair for all undergraduate members students were encouraged to learn about the research of their fellow scholars and be inspired for their own research that is required for engineering honors students students were also able to learn about research opportunities that are available to all undergraduate students students from ten engineering departments presented their research to fair attendees prizes were awarded best eh poster to the students who presented their research in the poster competition select engineering faculty members judged the posters and ranked them based on specific criteria including novelty utility difficulty and verbal and written presentation ten departments represented were the following: aerospace engineering biomedical engineering chemical engineering civil engineering mechanical engineering petroleum engineering electrical engineering nuclear engineering engineering technology & industrial distribution and computer science and engineering student posters displayed research with topics such as motivating stem participation through ‘making as a micro-manufacturing model optimized solar harvesting system for residential applications using high frequency gan devices and design of a self-contained sma-based deployable space habitat research opportunities through departments were vast and included subjects such as groundwater sustainability--assessing conservation technologies and their impacts on ecosystems building a more secure google chrome web browser and modeling and simulations of plasma dynamics of in-space propulsion devices the winners of the competition included three runners-up including interdisciplinary engineering student luke oaks for development of an essay for detecting an oral cancer biomarker using surface enhanced raman spectroscopy computer science engineering student ankit ramchandani with studying accessibility of ligand binding sites with motion planning and computer science and computer engineering student diego ruvalcaba with workplace skeleton tools for motion planning antara dattagupta from chemical engineering won the grand prize on her poster detailing her research in elucidating the mechanisms underlying salmonella virulence inhibition by micro biota metabolite indole this event will be reoccurring for information about future events like this please visit craig and galen brown engineering honors page
2172,in september dr jodie lutkenhaus associate professor and holder of the william and ruth neely faculty fellowship in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university delivered a lecture at the japanese-american-german frontiers of science symposium in bad neuenahr germany the symposium was hosted by the alexander von humboldt foundation the japan society for the promotion of science the national academy of sciences and the kavli foundation lutkenhaus presented a lecture titled plastic power: organic polymer batteries in which she discussed the functions and opportunities of energy storage platforms primarily consisting of polymers along with presenting this lecture lutkenhaus was also named a kavli frontiers of science fellow later in the month lutkenhaus received a tremendous honor from the american chemical society (acs) she was named a women chemists committee (wcc) rising star according to the acs the wcc rising star award recognizes women scientists approaching mid-level careers who have demonstrated outstanding promise for contributions to their respective fields along with the award all of the winners are invited to present at a symposium in their honor these are just the two latest in what is growing to be a tremendous number of awards for lutkenhaus in late 2016 she received the van ness award from rensselaer polytechnic institute in march of 2017 she was invited to participate in the world economic forum's young scientists program also in march lutkenhaus and her collaborators work was featured on the cover of an issue of advanced materials interfaces
2173,alfredo costilla-reyes a graduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the mexico national youth award the highest award presented by the government of mexico to the countrys youth costilla-reyes received the award in the entrepreneurial ingenuity category competing against two other mexican students mexican president enrique peña nieto presented the award to costilla-reyes at a reception in mexico city in addition to his doctoral studies costilla-reyes is actively engaged in the development of an intelligent system in agriculture to grow food indoors through the internet of things in 2015 he launched bitgrange a startup company that is engineering a water-based plant system that can be sustained without soil or sunlight the water-based plant system also known as hydroponics is not a new concept but costilla-reyes has designed a path to sustainable hydroponics-based farms using just an led light costilla-reyes developed a novel prototype containing electronic components for sensing power communications and led light and a 3-d printed container to accommodate electronics and seed the electronic components constantly measure the environmental variables such as temperature and light which are necessary to sustain the plants meanwhile the bitgrange software evaluates these variables in real time and notifies the users through bitgranges iphone app to take necessary actions such as adding more water or plant food costilla-reyes says he is able to predict how lettuce for example will survive based on an extensive bank of past data that he has collected all the calculations happen behind the scenes on the cloud-based bitgrange website which accesses the data about the plants through the internet he is collaborating with researchers from the university of manchesters school of electrical and electronic engineering to incorporate artificial intelligence to create a closed loop control system to set up the plant settings to let it grow safely and automatically being able to correlate the present and past data makes the system very reliable said costilla-reyes and it makes the whole system inexpensive too bitgranges four step process ‘plant-connect-sync-play aims to gamify agriculture for its users while the prototype is still in its first generation costilla-reyes is testing varieties of flowering plants too while there is an obvious goal of growing your own food i am looking at growing your own flowers in order to expand the scope of bitgrange said costilla-reyes in july costilla-reyes was named the 2017-18 kirchner food fellow the kirchner food fellowship is a highly competitive program giving students an opportunity to learn entrepreneurial leadership skills to invest money into agriculture-oriented businesses that offer the promise of a sustainable solution for the future he was also selected as the first place recipient of the grand challenges challenge an inaugural competition by the college of agriculture and life sciences the year-long process included a series of lectures white paper development and a town hall meeting which developed costilla-reyes confidence as a public speaker and an entrepreneur he also received a certificate in business for graduate students from mays business school and has been collaborating with startup aggieland to develop bitgrange he developed bitgranges customer discovery strategy through the national science foundations i-corps site program that facilitates commercialization of technology on the texas a&m campus and he eventually wants to launch a kick-starter campaign to amplify the reach of his startup we live in a disrupting era said costilla-reyes electrical engineering and agriculture on their own may face a lot of competition necessitating innovative interdisciplinary ideas to power the future of sustainable living as the world population surpasses 74 billion sustainable agriculture in some countries is not optional anymore costilla-reyes vision is to empower the children of the global society to embrace indoor farming using technology to grow their own fruits and vegetables he wants to educate them about bitgrange to spark their curiosity about agriculture engineering and science and inspire them to be urban farmers by inspiring children with science and agriculture we could very well be training the next generation of entrepreneurs and revolutionizing agriculture for all of us to benefit said costilla-reyes bitgranges impact on small-scale local farming is vital not only as a powerful educational tool but also as a way to solve sustainability issues surrounding modern agricultural practices my goal is to make indoor agriculture as easy as possible for parents and teachers with zero experience
2174,faculty members students and a former student of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university were among those awarded at the society of petroleum engineers (spe) annual reception and banquet in san antonio texas on oct 10 the reception held during the spe annual technical conference and exhibition was a time to recognize those who have made significant technical and professional contributions to the industry and those who have contributed exceptional service and leadership to the society dr akhil datta-gupta university distinguished professor was designated an spe honorary member this is spes highest international award for technical achievement and was given in recognition of datta-guptas seminal contribution in high resolution fluid flow simulation using streamlines and dynamic data integration leading to improved reservoir characterization reservoir management and field performance assessment it is an honor to recognize akhil for his commitment and dedication to the oil and gas industry with the spe honorary membership said janeen judah 2017 spe president spe international award winners were nominated by their colleagues and selected by their peers for their achievement and contributions and its my pleasure to congratulate him on receiving this prestigious international award from spe judah and datta-gupta dr nobuo morita and dr ruud weijermars were named spe distinguished members morita was recognized for his pioneering efforts in improving sand production borehole stability and reservoir compaction problems weijermars was recognized for his innovative and ground-breaking work in geomechanics and economics they were two of only 20 recipients selected in 2017 out of spes professional membership of about 80 000 worldwide judah and morita spe distinguished members represent less than 1 percent of the current spe professional membership said department head dr dan hill we now have 20 distinguished members on our faculty the most in any petroleum engineering program in the world judah and weijermars former student lu chi now with irock technologies was awarded the cedric k ferguson medal recognizing her professional achievement of the most outstanding paper published in an spe journal for the year by an author or co-author under the age of 35 the texas a&m spe student chapter won the outstanding student chapter award this prestigious award recognizes spe student chapters with exceptional programs in industry engagement operations and planning community involvement professional development and innovation in particular the texas a&m chapter was recognized for the creation of the student mentorship program which significantly increased the number of students receiving industry internship offers the texas a&m chapter has achieved this award three times in a row and seven times total in the last 11 years the organization the second largest spe student chapter in the world hones member skills and talents improves communication and learning opportunities between students and industry and encourages member outreach to programs and communities both local and abroad day in and day out our members continue to inspire and propel our industry forward said judah its an honor to recognize their successes and contributions within spe and the industry
2175,heavy rainfall during hurricane harvey flushed most of the salt water out of galveston bay making the bay extremely fresh now researchers from texas a&m university are working to collect vital information on how the storm impacted the waterways of coastal texas dr scott socolofsky professor in the zachry department of civil engineering joined principal investigator dr kristen thyng and other researchers from texas a&ms department of oceanography to study how galveston bay and the coastal gulf of mexico responded to the extreme amount of freshwater that poured into the gulf from rainfall and runoff from the houston area normally tidal exchange between the bay and the gulf of mexico keep the bay fairly salty socolofsky said by studying the rates that salt water re-enters the bay and the exchange processes of salty and fresh water at the bay inlet we can better understand the normal mixing patterns between galveston bay and the gulf of mexico by recording these salt water rates scientists can better understand the water exchange rate between the bay and open coast and supply the measurements for use in future models to help study harvey and similar events the project is funded through a rapid response research (rapid) grant from the national science foundation (nsf) rapid grants focus on projects with severe urgency with regard to availability of or access to data facilities or specialized equipment including quick-response research on natural disasters the researchers are expected to turn in their results to the nsf within the first year of being awarded the grant with eyes on galveston bay the team conducted its first cruise offshore from sept 27-29 using the point sur a research vessel from the division of marine science at the university of southern mississippi the research team mapped the freshwater flowing out of galveston bay in the immediate vicinity of the galveston bay inlet on the gulf of mexico side of galveston and boliver island this cruise was the second leg of a three-leg cruise in which three different rapid grants to oceanography faculty collaborated to form a complete cruise plan socolofsky was co-pi and his team included civil engineering graduate kerri whilden who works for the texas a&m geochemical & environmental research group another cruise conducted on oct 8 mapped the salinity distribution in the bay and socolofsky said results found the water to be much fresher compared to normal conditions two more offshore cruises are scheduled in november and february with two more bay-wide surveys
2176,engineering students were honored and donors recognized at the texas a&m university college of engineering student awards banquet oct 26 the craig c brown outstanding senior engineer award is the most prestigious honor bestowed on a graduating senior in the college of engineering the award is based on outstanding scholastic achievement leadership and character established in 2012 the outstanding graduate student award recognizes one masters student and one doctoral student who have demonstrated excellence above and beyond usual levels of achievement the craig c brown outstanding senior engineer award winners willie d caraway huntsville alabama mechanical engineering caraway has a strong love of learning and loves synergizing disparate knowledge to create new solutions being named a university scholar provided him with the opportunity to regularly interact with other highly motivated individuals to sharpen their skills in analytical thinking and synthesizing knowledge he also had the opportunity to perform research with dr henry everitt at the army material research development and engineering center and dr patrick shamberger in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m caraway also participated in the zachry leadership program which helped him improve his leadership skills and business knowledge he is also involved in many student organizations including the jordan institute pi tau sigma phi kappa phi and the american society of engineers kendal ezell tomball texas biomedical engineering with the passion to help people with neurological diseases ezell has shown great promise to accomplish the goals she has set for herself through her undergraduate research in biomedical engineering and neuropsychology involvement in extracurricular activities and coursework she has excelled maintaining a 40 gpa while in the engineering honors program not only has she represented texas a&m in the prestigious barry goldwater scholarship and excellence in education program but she has also received phi kappa phis outstanding junior award and the peter chaplinsky memorial scholarship most recently ezell participated in the national institute of healths 2017 national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering biomedical engineering summer internship through her research she hopes to serve as an example to women in science technology engineering and math (stem) and encourage them to break barriers kanika gakhar katy texas aerospace engineering gakhars passion for science and engineering have defined her outstanding academic career at texas a&m she regularly searches for opportunities in which she can build upon and strengthen her leadership and creativity with these skills she has helped design autonomous vehicles and build radio controlled aircrafts with heavy lifting capabilities gakhar aspires to create the next generation of bioinspired flying vehicles she has presented conference papers at the 2017 american helicopter society forum and the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics student conference in various leadership roles she advocates for undergraduate research by helping her fellow aggies find research opportunities that interest them as a university fellow she has launched a workshop-based project aimed to empower the underprivileged and hub an initiative to reform entrepreneurship on the texas a&m campus jonah haefner roswell new mexico nuclear engineering haefner is a dedicated and passionate leader in all aspects of his life he is a member of the corps of cadets and has spent the past year serving as first sergeant where he oversaw the day-to-day operations of 50 other cadets he actively engages with faculty members and has worked in a thermal hydraulics laboratory for the past two years through the or simpson honor society he helped freshman engineering students succeed in their first semesters at texas a&m through mentorship and tutoring to prepare them for continued success over the last two summers he split his time between shadowing naval officers on active duty warships and working at los alamos national laboratory on projects for the national nuclear security administration carson muscat seabrook texas petroleum engineering muscat has a passion for engineering and a great enthusiasm for making a lasting impression on the local community and texas a&m he has revamped programs to help more than 3 500 engineering freshmen make informed decisions for their academic futures and aided in extending the reach to the engineering academies he has served as an engineering student ambassador for three years and has talked to hundreds of prospective students about texas a&m most recently muscat was the student leader for the engineering career fair the largest student-run fair in the nation he has been awarded many academic honors including the dr dan turner engineering leadership award the academic excellence award and being named a presidents endowed scholar and bp student scholar dakota plesa arlington texas electrical & computer engineering plesa is a first-generation college student who has made the most of his time at texas a&m by not only focusing on academics but also by forging lasting relationships with his fellow aggies he applied the skills he learned in the classroom to solving problems on campus such as implementing a new organizational structure for the memorial student center (msc) and in international case competitions such as at mcgill university plesa was among the first non-business students to participate in the mays business fellows program where he proved himself to be a highly effective member of his fellows team and invested considerable time in developing relationships with his peers he participated in the jordan institute and served as vice president of programs and executive vice president of programs in the msc melissa potts austin texas chemical engineering potts attributes her success at texas a&m to hard work she balances membership in numerous activities and organizations with her studies that dedication and persistence led her to success in dr mark holtzapples class which at the time she was the only freshman in the class through her determination and hard work potts was one of the few students who continued to work on a paper that would later be submitted to the odebrecht award for sustainability she continued working with holtzapple the next year spending about nine hours a week in the research lab on the mixalco process a technology that transforms waste biomass into fuels and industrial chemicals potts also shared her knowledge with her fellow aggies serving as a teaching assistant kyle wiggs weatherford texas mechanical engineering for wiggs engagement has been the key to his experience at texas a&m during his first year at texas a&m he was an active member in the aggie band as well as the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) he has spent the last two years of his college career in leadership as first sergeant of the 0r simpson honor society he created new events such as dinner with your major where cadets were instructed to eat dinner with other cadets within their major to encourage engagement between students of the same departments within asme and his corps unit he has served as a mentor to other students helping them find leadership opportunities and experiences 2017 college of engineering outstanding graduate student award joshua harris ms candidate aerospace engineering harris has proven himself to be an outstanding scholar and researcher he is a masters student in aerospace engineering and works in the vehicle systems & control laboratory at texas a&m his masters research investigates a new theory and approach for intelligent control and integrated health management of complex systems both manned and unmanned harris was awarded the 2017 federal aviation administration pegasas general aviation center of excellence outstanding student researcher he was also one of only 10 recipients of the national defense science engineering graduate fellowships in 2014 in addition to the 2013 nasa aeronautics scholarship only 20 students nationally from all majors receive this nasa honor harris has authored or co-authored two conference papers and two journal papers jonathan gigax phd candidate nuclear engineering gigax is a well-rounded scholar: intellectually curious hardworking and supportive of his colleagues and fellow aggies over the past five years gigax has published 26 journal papers while maintaining a perfect 40 grade point average he has made significant contributions in radiation materials science toward materials development for high-performance nuclear reactors he established standard procedures in accelerator testing which significantly influenced other labs due to his findings other labs (including university of michigan university of tennessee and university of wisconsin in madison) have changed their testing procedures to follow the texas a&m method gigax has also made significant contributions in developing radiation tolerant materials having nanoscale features and inclusions including nanograined materials multilayered composite materials and nanoprecipitate alloys the college of engineering also recognized the following newly endowed scholarships: angela and james hambrick 78 endowed scholarship in the college of engineering carolyn and a damon gowan ‘58 endowed scholarship dana and james r heinze ‘83 scholarship elsie and vance fairchild 89 endowed scholarship exxonmobil aggies engineering endowed scholarship jimmie and geoffrey pope endowed scholarship jo and mike hunn 59 scholarship marilyn 99 and stewart 99 robinson scholarship michelle 88 and todd steudtner 87 scholarship richard w burr 62 and charity b burr scholarship shah smith & associates scholarship sue nobles and elmer eldridge goins engineering scholarship terri and keith hawkins 79 scholarship
2177,in nature networks have evolved where animals and plants interact and use efficient methods to best utilize resources dr astrid layton assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is researching whether companies can apply a similar concept of how this natural network looks and behaves in an effort to create more sustainable networks of industries laytons work focuses around the idea of bio-inspired design based on networks that exist in the natural environment instead of discarding resources such as food and water after their initial use systems in nature are set up to extract every bit a usefulness from a resource making the overall system stronger and more efficient layton thinks that industries could use comparable methods to establish and increase byproduct and resource exchanges such as water steam and more the ideal solution is to create a more sustainable arrangement that is beneficial for the environment while also offering favorable economic solutions i dont think they have to be mutually exclusive layton said i really believe that theres no reason why we cant find ways to do things that are good for the environment and good economic decisions and i have found support for that so far while the idea of mimicking nature has been used in industry when designing products the practice is not common at the broader network level all these different industries affect each other and they affect the environment around them layton said by zooming out you see all of these different effects and by looking at them in terms of ecosystems you can start thinking about them the way ecologists think about ecosystems layton said one example of industries working toward a bio-inspired design is the kalundborg eco-industrial park in denmark the complex which includes a variety of industries such as power stations oil companies and refineries began to create resource and byproduct exchanges approximately 50 years ago to address groundwater limitations the companies started looking at [the problem] as a community the industrial community and started forming relationships and started exchanging wastewater streams greywater streams steam and more layton said there are now more than 30 material and energy exchanges documented in this ecosystem-like structure which has led to annual carbon dioxide emissions decreasing by 240 kilotonnes and a reduction of 264 million gallons of scarce ground water among the questions laytons research in the bio-inspired sustainable systems design lab brings up is how to present the benefits of the types of networks in quantitative rather than qualitative terms layton said sustainability discussions tend to depend on qualitative information which may be brushed off by scientists and engineers instead layton is working to calculate clear and numerical limits and goals for design to better analyze these networks layton uses available information from networks of industries both in the united states and overseas from the information she has designed a model of an industry network inspired by a real network the computer model is given a set of collective quantifiable goalsreduce cost reduce emissions mimic natural models etc and runs through all possible variables to reach the solution researchers can add and remove connections between companies to see if it is possible to create the ideal sustainable environment layton said the different models allow for the team to learn more about what aspects of nature can be adapted for industry networks and which do not make sense in that environment ideally we would like to show that there are beneficial properties that come about from forming these relationships in a certain way so were learning how to design these relationships how to expand on the design of these relationships to make them better to make them behave more like nature she said the hypothesis really started out that if we can make these networks look like nature theyll act more like nature this information can be used to develop an economically competitive industrial complex while also minimizing any negative impact on the environment layton said the research has yielded some interesting results in one simulation the computer model aimed at mimicking a natural design was able to meet the traditional industrial goals of decreasing costs and reducing emissions the results indicate that there are many aspects of the natural networks that need further research the research is understanding what else there is that we can get from the design of natural systems that we dont understand yet what else should we be looking at she said
2178,its no secret to anyone that texas is hot and that with heat comes drought across the more than 269 000 square miles that make up the state many texans constantly fight cycles of drought or flooding season after season in these places good water management is essential and thanks to new research by dr gretchen miller in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university getting clean water to communities that need it most may now be easier and more cost-effective than ever miller works on what is known as managed aquifer recharge or aquifer storage and recovery these methods are used to intentionally refill aquifers or water sources that live in permeable rock from which many communities draw groundwater using these techniques municipalities and utility districts can draw water from the aquifers during times of drought but also put water back in them during rainier seasons we are hoping to advance the science on aquifer storage and recovery in order to help local entities better implement these techniques as water conservation strategies miller said we want to determine how well current techniques are working and how they can be improved millers research focuses on the feasibility of these water extraction and recharge methods and seeks to improve not only the efficiency of how water is removed or stored in the aquifer but the quality of water that is used in working with these systems miller is looking for the best places to implement them across the state and has worked with water management agencies in san antonio el paso and harris county texas how the aquifers are used and managed changes depending on the geology miller said we can use models to represent a typical managed aquifer recharge system and then test different methods of running it when and how we extract or inject water and how we can best use the wells according to miller it takes a lot of energy to pump water either in or out of a system so in using these modeling techniques researchers can now give water municipalities the power to understand when they decide to inject or extract water in a well and how it will affect other wells in the system it will also give them a better understanding of how to best pump wells efficiently to conserve energy and achieve the highest quality of water available miller hopes a better understanding of these processes will benefit communities around the state we see this as a mechanism for helping communities be more resilient against environmental changes miller said some of the cities in texas are so water stressed that they need a whole arsenal of ways to adapt and we think this can be one of many tools they can use to help communities bounce back faster hopefully we can help prevent them from needing to impose tight drought restrictions in her work with municipalities in harris county miller has also looked at reducing the impacts of flooding by storing excess storm water in managed aquifers while miller explains that such measures will not prevent flooding on a large scale it still has the opportunity to reduce some flood impacts miller also sees potential in using aquifer storage and recovery to allow the continued use of groundwater in areas of houston where prolonged groundwater extraction has caused portions of the city to sink as the water that fills the porous sediments is drained away if we pump water into the areas that are experiencing high usage then we can stop the subsidence [the sinking of land] and those people can still use groundwater in those areas without restriction said miller we are keeping up with the demand in these areas so that more water isn't taken out of these already taxed areas miller is also optimistic about the impacts of her research and how it could help communities outside of texas and even abroad the ideas we are developing on how to operate these facilities and how to make them more efficient can definitely be applied elsewhere miller said looking forward we want to be able to determine how much water needs to be stored in order to provide an adequate buffer given that there are factors that we cant fully take into account we hope this can best help communities in a variety of conditions *this research is conducted in collaboration with dr zhuping sheng of the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m as well as the contributions of doctoral students saheli majumdar ben smith and liting tao this research is also a result of collaborations with the clearwater underground water conservation district the el paso water utility the harris county flood control district and the san antonio water system
2179,"drs yu ding mike and sugar barnes professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university; peng li professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university; and bani mallick distinguished professor in the department of statistics at texas a&m university were recently awarded a national science foundation (nsf) big data project that aims to develop data science solutions to address the reliability and operational performance issues in wind energy applications the nsf big data project is a three-year project it is called the ""bigdata: from bytes to watts – a data science solution to improve wind energy reliability and operation "" and it has a budget of $13 million the project involves two other partner universities the university of michigan and the university of connecticut texas a&m engineering experiment station is the lead institute in this effort the team also partners with the national renewable energy laboratory (nrel) and a number of renewable energy companies that will provide the crucial access to the operational data of their commercial wind farms despite the remarkable progress that the wind industry has made in the past decade wind energy is still not market competitive without the substantial federal production tax credit in order for wind energy to be competitive on its own its operational performance and reliability needs a significant uplifting through relentless technical innovation although a large amount of data is continually being accumulated in the wind industry making effective use of these heterogeneous wind engineering data is challenging the primary objective of this nsf big data project is to address this critical need the energy assessment director of a major wind company once told me: 'the potential benefit of data science increases with the amount of available data and the complexity of the system being analyzed wind energy has both: huge amount of data and non-linear and complex characteristics' i agree with him wholeheartedly said ding with the talents in this multidisciplinary team i am excited about the potential impact of our data science solutions which could enable wind energy to stand on its own feet"" working closely with domain experts in the wind industry ding's team plans to develop data science solutions that evaluate and improve a wind turbines design and operation enhance the understanding of local wind field dynamics and the short-term wind forecasting optimize for maintenance policies under weather uncertainty and disruption as well as integrate these data science solutions into a reliable and efficient computational platform ding is jointly appointed with the department of electrical and computer engineering his research specializations include system informatics data and quality science and their applications in wind energy and manufacturing li specializes in integrated circuits and systems machine learning and its hardware realization in very-large-scale integration he specializes in integrated circuits and systems brain-inspired computing machine learning and its hardware realization in very-large-scale integration mallick holds the susan m arseven'75 chair in data science and computational statistics he is an internationally renowned expert in the field of bayesian predictive modeling and uncertainty quantification"
2180,the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university announced recipients for the fall 2017 faculty and staff awards at the departments annual holiday celebration on dec 8 2017 the recipients are as follows: zachry excellence in teaching – alireza talebpour birdwell excellence in teaching – kelly brumbelow truman jones excellence in graduate teaching – zachary grasley research impactshankar chellamzenon medina-cetina leadership impactjames kaihatuivan damnjanovic service impactmara londonpeter keatingnasir gharaibeh outstanding staff awards charlie droddypam stracenerkirk martintheresa taeger outstanding new staff awardslatrista funchesmelanie rodriguez-harry
2181,"dr moble benedict's cyclocopter research was featured in ""the economist"" you can read the entire story here"
2182,"texas a&m university continues to highlight student project work accomplishments through the inaugural virtual project showcase this fall with the showcase winners recently being announced the virtual project showcase provided engineering undergraduate students a platform to share their innovative projects with industry members nationwide industry professionals were invited to participate and judge remotely which magda lagoudas executive director of industry and nonprofit partnerships and instructional associate professor said gave them an opportunity to see the exciting projects students are involved with and the quality of work they can deliver to sponsors industries sponsoring a student project gained great value while supporting the universitys goals to develop the engineers of tomorrow we opened this up to noncapstone students too because its so important for all engineering students to be able to showcase their projects and ideas by making a video presentation theyre also gaining valuable experience pitching innovative solutionssomething that will help them when they leave texas a&m and enter the workforce or become entrepreneurs lagoudas said undergraduate students submitted a two to four-minute video describing their project and were encouraged to include images of prototypes or engineering analysis as support materials in total 85 teams representing more than 300 students from across the college submitted videos a majority of the entries represented senior capstone design projects while the remaining represented noncapstone projects such as aggie-challenge design competitions and other projects winning teams in the capstone category were: 1 meen 402 pressure vessel design project from the department of mechanical engineering 2 halliburton heat treatment from the department of industrial and systems engineering 3 mixed reality guitar learning system from the department of computer science and engineering 4 st genetics automated tube decanter from the mechanical engineering department 5 3-d - printed antenna from the industrial and systems engineering department christian alejandro member of the first-place team said the pressure vessel project was a stimulating and challenging endeavor the projects goal was to improve and present a pressure vessel design after a previous pressure vessel had failed after 30 years of use we had the unique opportunity to have our senior design project make a difference on campus and help a fellow department the geology department alejandro said originally we thought we would have to do the regular showcase but then were told to create and submit a video instead this would allow the project to be shown multiple times to different people alejandro said while explaining a two-semester project in under five minutes was a challenge the team took away valuable lessons from the experience we believe that continuing this type of showcase could be beneficial to both the university and its students alejandro said the top three videos in the noncapstone category were: 1 women in engineerings autonomous underwater vehicle (we auv) for design competition 2sandcrete from the aggie-challenge 3 superhydrophobic sponges loaded with functional gqds for oil-water separation applications from the aggie-challenge the we auv team built a vehicle from scratch that could compete at the annual association for unmanned vehicle systems international robosub challenge in california where auvs must navigate a rigorous obstacle course team member and engineering honors student abishalini sivaraman said the showcase provided the team an opportunity to explain what they had learned and perfect their video making and editing skills for competition along with constructing the vehicle the team also aimed to prepare women engineers to solve problems in industry and to further the field of underwater autonomy ""the showcase has given us the platform to reach out to many students about the existence of the team "" sivaraman said women in engineering director shawna fletcher said the we auv team was established in the fall of 2015 to offer opportunities for women to participate in technical challenges in partnership with the (engineering innovation center) these students have worked on this project outside of the classroom on their own time she said its terrific to see how these students are dedicated and enthusiastic about technical projectsthey are on their way to becoming accomplished engineers about 60 judges representing 28 industries participated in the judging each video was judged by three different judges who were assigned to videos randomly teams were judged on their ability to define the problem discuss their design methodology present and support technical project outcomes and their overall video presentation the top videos in the senior capstone and noncapstone categories received a monetary prize"
2183,as an undergraduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university kanika gakhar has immersed herself in research and engineering design projects due in part to her scholastic achievements and leadership roles she received the craig c brown outstanding engineering student award the most prestigious honor bestowed upon a graduating senior in the college of engineering i am very grateful for being selected as a recipient of such a prestigious award said gakhar mr craig c brown is a truly inspiring role-model for young aspiring engineers like me having served on the college of engineering advisory council and honors board and provided scholarships for numerous dedicated aggies he has made several contributions to the growth and success of texas a&m i was absolutely thrilled to hear about mr brown's involvement in numerous student organizations like ross volunteers and student engineers council during his time on campus i thoroughly enjoyed sharing my bizarre ideas with him and learning more about how he gives back and works towards ‘leaving something behind said gakhar mr brown's inclination towards leadership in service and passion for excellence inspires me to continue his legacy by expanding my horizons and working on pioneering projects that can have a significant impact on the world while in high school gakhar chose to study on a full scholarship in singapore a country far away from her home in india as a creative passionate and hard-working aerospace engineering senior she has not only maintained her excellent grades but also participated in various extra-curricular activities thanks to the remarkable opportunities available at texas a&m i was able to immerse myself in research and engage in numerous engineering design projects said gakhar she wrote an undergraduate research thesis and submitted and presented a conference paper for her research on a flapping-wing hover-capable robotic hummingbird working alongside dr moble benedict associate professor in the department she was also on the sae aero design team that won second place overall at the international radio-controlled aircraft design-build-fly competition this year gakhar worked as a boeing flight sciences and product development intern this past summer while at boeing she designed acoustic linings to attenuate engine noise and submitted a patent for one of her designs she served on the boeing intern leadership team and launched new programs to encourage professional development and community involvement among boeing employees i am very passionate about using engineering as a tool to bring about societal change thanks to mr brown's scholarship i am one step closer to achieving this goal said gakhar aside from aerospace engineering-related activities gakhar is highly involved in several leadership initiatives on campus as president of the lambda sigma sophomore honor society she worked on developing innovative projects to help underprivileged children she used her international experience to formulate a curriculum based on global perspectives and inclusive leadership as director for the msc fall leadership conference as an undergraduate research ambassador and executive leader for the council of undergraduate research in engineering she is working on providing students with guidance and access to opportunities in order to have rewarding undergraduate research experiences currently she is working on launching an international online tutoring program as vice president of sigma gama tau by granting me the outstanding senior engineer award mr brown has not only lightened the financial burden on my family but also given me a helping hand to lay the foundation of my career gakhar said more importantly mr brown's support and kind words of encouragement have given me strength to believe in myself and pursue my innovative ideas his generosity inspires me to help others and support fellow engineers in whichever way possible in the future i hope that i too can give back to my community and help students accomplish their dreams gakhar plans to intern at spacex over the summer as well as apply to graduate school to further her career the craig c brown outstanding engineering student award was first presented in 1947 as the engineering faculty senior award in 1996 the award was renamed to recognize craig c brown for his vision to expand and enhance the program through a permanent endowment eligible students for the award are required to be engineering students of good standing and maintain an overall grade point ratio of 35 winners are selected by engineering academic and student affairs after a nomination is confirmed by the students engineering department where they are then evaluated on scholastic achievement leadership and character the award also comes with a $5 000 scholarship
2184,dr jeff spath chief executive officer of the texas oil and gas institute (togi) has been appointed department head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university and will take up his duties on may 1 2018 spath is well-suited for both his new position with the department and working for texas a&m a dedicated aggie he has built his professional life with texas a&ms core values in mind my philosophy in leadership and in achieving business and academic success throughout my career is to set clearly defined goals develop a motivated staff and push teamwork and collaboration said spath my initial focus will be to inspire the students and to put their interests first in every decision to develop a culture of transparency ethics and integrity and finally to grow and maintain extremely close ties to industry for purposes of building our resources defining our research efforts and providing jobs to our graduates in his capacity overseeing togi spath has initiated staffed and directed its research in engineering and education endeavors which benefit both the university of texas and the texas a&m university systems the institute performs upstream exploration and production research and engineering projects utilizing graduate-level interns from both universities with a focus on optimizing production and maximizing reserves from approximately 9 600 producing oil and gas wells on university land prior to togi spath had a 32-year career with schlumberger limited where he worked in all regions of the world and under many titles before his retirement in 2015 he was part of the global executive management team responsible for 26 000 employees and a $145 billion annual revenue while vice president of industry affairs for schlumberger he held the full-time position of president of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) from sept 2013–oct 2014 spe is the oil and gas industrys largest professional society consisting of over 140 000 members in 180 countries his presidential accomplishments included the implementation of a fundamentally new strategic plan for the society he also strengthened petroleum engineering education and professional ties globally and increased collaboration with related professional societies spath received his undergraduate and master's degrees in petroleum engineering from texas a&m and a phd in reservoir engineering from the mining university of leoben austria he is a distinguished member of the spe an active member of the national petroleum council and a distinguished graduate of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering as he transitions into his role as department head spath is committed to keeping the department at the forefront of the field of petroleum engineering with both academics and industry relations in mind my overall vision is to ensure that the texas a&m petroleum engineering department is clearly recognized as the best department globally at both the undergraduate and graduate levels said spath we need to develop and improve our department in several ways to ensure we are consistently number one nationally and internationally not simply for the sake of rankings but for attracting and retaining the worlds best students faculty and staff and conducting relevant research to improve the finding development and environmentally responsible production of oil gas and water dr dan hill will step down as head in january to pursue academic and research interests within the department and dr duane mcvay professor and assistant department head in academics will serve as interim until the end of april
2185,in november the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering was well represented at the annual american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) conference in total the department faculty presented more than 50 papers and led or chaired more than 15 sessions in addition a total of 33 students presented 45 papers two students took home awards for their work ravi chawla a phd candidate in dr pushkar leles research group won the aiche division 15 (food pharmaceutical & bioengineering division) poster award chawlas poster mechanical force-based regulation of protein assemblies was selected as the best among the 54 entries in the competition chawlas poster (pictured below) showcased his recent work in the lele lab studying the mechanisms by which mechanical forces modulate the self-assembly of protein complexes in bacteria in the study which was published in scientific reports chawla proposed and successfully tested a mathematical model that explained the remodeling of biomolecular motors in e coli following the detection of surfaces by individual cells how bacteria detect surfaces remains a mystery and is of great interest since this ability promotes the formation of bacterial biofilms biofilms not only cause chronic infections but also promote biofouling of industrial membranes and pipelines chawlas work represents the first step in establishing plausible models to explain surface detection in bacteria moonjoo lee a phd candidate in dr hae-kwon jeongs research group won second place in the ted-sep (separations division) competition the competition is modeled after both ted talks and the shark tank television program essentially presenters have five minutes to pitch their ideas to a non-expert audience lees presentation preparation of zif-8 membranes supported on polymer hollow fibers using microwave-assisted seeding and secondary growth method can be seen below
2186,dr mladen kezunovic regents professor and the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to serve on the department of energys (doe) electricity advisory committee (eac) the electricity advisory committee is critically important to ensuring our nations energy infrastructure and delivery system is secure resilient and reliable said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) dr kezunovics expertise in the modernization and resiliency of the smart grid will be a strong contribution to this high-level group of energy experts kezunovic director of the tees smart grid center also currently serves as the site director of the power engineering research center a consortium of 40 industry and 13 university members as an eac advisory board committee member he will help the doe define a strategy on long-range planning and priorities for the nations electricity system he joins 23 other members including state government officials industry executives consumer advocates and environmentalists charged with providing advice on implementing the energy policy act of 2005 executing the energy independence and security act of 2007 and modernizing the nations electricity delivery infrastructure i am quite honored and privileged to serve on this committee as it will give me a chance to learn about the nations energy priorities and provide advice based on over 40 years of my experience in conducting focused research and consulting on innovative applications in the electricity grids aimed at more reliable grid operation kezunovic said kezunovics expertise is in protective relaying automated power system disturbance analysis computational intelligence and data analytics and smart grids before joining texas a&m in 1986 kezunovic worked for westinghouse electric corp and energoinvest in europe among his many honors kezunovic has been named an institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) life fellow and a council on large electric systems (cigre) fellow and honorary member he has published more than 550 papers in journals and conference proceedings and was invited to give more than 120 lectures worldwide he is also listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee power engineering society while at texas a&m he has been the principal investigator on more than 100 research projects and supervised more than 50 graduate students the eac was established in 2008 to enhance leadership in the electricity delivery modernization and provide senior-level counsel to the doe on ways in which the nation can meet the many challenges to moving forward including the deployment of smart grid technologies research and development of energy storage technologies renewable energy resource system integration and new transmission infrastructure
2187,mycobacterium tuberculosis (mtb) is the causative agent of the serious lung disease tuberculosis that is widespread throughout the world about one-third of the human population is infected with tuberculosis which takes at least six months of daily drug treatment to cure unfortunately there is an increasing prevalence of drug resistant strains of the disease dr thomas ioerger associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is working on a highly impactful interdisciplinary project to better understand the biology and genetic makeup of mtb his research has the potential to prevent a significant amount of deaths per year from tb and by analyzing the genetic makeup of tb ioerger and this research community is one step closer to managing this threatening disease he is working to uncover the interaction with the host for example the avoidance of immune defenses during infection to develop new and more effective drugs to fight against the disease a key technological advance over the last decade has been using high-throughput dna sequencing as part of these evaluation protocols which is a way to sequence and analyze large dna sequences or genomes texas a&m is home to several dna sequencers which are operated by the genomics and bioinformatics center at the texas a&m agrilife extension service the genomics and bioinformatics center is directed by dr charlie johnson who is also executive director of the center for bioinformatics and genomics systems engineering a joint agrilife and texas a&m engineering experiment (tees) center ioerger is the principal investigator for the bioinformatics and data dissemination core for a national institutes of health (nih) program project called flute which stands for functionalizing lists of unknown tuberculosis entities he is collaborating with research scientists at harvard medical school massachusetts medical school and weill cornell medical college ioerger's colleagues in flute use genetic techniques such as making mutants of a laboratory strain of mtb with specific genes knocked-out and then running experiments to try to evaluate the effect of the knock-out on growth in various conditions his collaborators send dna samples from various experiments the samples are prepared in the lab of his local collaborator dr james c sacchettini in the texas a&m department of biochemistry and biophysics and then they are sequenced ioerger's group focuses on the analysis of this genomic data and algorithms for inferring the functions of the target proteins nearly half of the protein coding genes of tb have functions that are unknown one of the main sequencing methods flute relies on is a method called transposon sequencing (tn-seq) or the sequencing of transposon mutant libraries a transposon is a dna sequence that can remove its own gene and change its position within a chromosome tn-seq uses transposons to insert these into random locations in the genome mutant libraries contain a collection of mutants in which a large number of the genes have been disrupted – a different one in each mutant these mutant libraries have been a great resource for investigators to understand the various biological functions of individual genes including those involved in metabolism antibiotic susceptibility and pathogenesis the development of the disease by sequencing these tn insertion libraries profiles of the areas of the genome that receive transposons insertions are obtained the premise of tn-seq is that essential areas of the genome cannot tolerate being disrupted by a transposon tn-seq has become widely used in microbiology labs around the world for studying the functions of proteins in many different bacterial organisms it was largely developed in the laboratories of ioergers collaborators dr eric j rubin professor of immunology and infectious diseases at harvard university th chan school of public health; and dr christopher m sassetti professor at the university of massachusetts medical school both are involved in flute and have published many joint papers with ioerger ioerger and his colleagues are developing computational tools for the statistical analysis of tn-seq data propelled by the desire for a statistically rigorous way to tell which genes are essential based on tn-seq data ioerger and his former doctoral student and current postdoctoral researcher michael dejesus initially developed a bayesian statistical inference method that utilizes the extreme value distribution to assess the significance of gaps in the genome or regions that did not receive transposon insertions they have also developed statistical algorithms for comparative analysis of tn-seq datasets and identification of genetic interactions several years ago ioerger and his students packaged these algorithms together in a software called transit which is now distributed to the public and is used by many labs around the world for tn-seq analysis more recently they have used these tools to identify proteins involved in pathways like cell-wall biosynthesis cholesterol metabolism trehalose biosynthesis biotin biosynthesis and iron acquisition ioerger also has funding from the bill and melinda gates foundation which philanthropically supports research on tb through the gates foundation ioerger's group uses dna sequencing to help identify the protein targets of inhibitory compounds from high-throughput screens which is part of large drug-discovery pipeline involving many universities and industry partners (pharmaceutical companies) while this work has more applied goals of developing new drugs it builds on all the basic science learned about the physiology of mycobacterium tuberculosis including knowledge of the functions of genes and essentiality in different conditions through tn-seq and other methods
2188,dr raymundo arróyave presidential impact fellow professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university is chairing the organizing committee of the 2018 international conference on computer coupling of phase diagrams and thermochemistry (calphad) since 1973 calphad has provided scientists and students interested in thermodynamics of materials with an opportunity to meet present and discuss their work in a friendly atmosphere phase diagrams are the maps that help materials scientists navigate the materials space arróyave said for over 50 years the calphad community has been hard at work developing the models and tools to predict phase diagrams in complex materials these tools lie at the heart of virtually all initiatives and research programs (worldwide) that are focused on the accelerated development of alloys the calphad meeting will once again bring the top experts in the field for a week of intense and rewarding exchange of ideas on the state-of-the-art of computational thermodynamics of alloys the six-day event will feature a technical program poster contest and short courses along with ample social and sightseeing opportunities for conference goers the calphad meetings are integral parts of thermodynamics and alloy design committees to get together and push the boundaries of materials design in the framework of materials genome initiative said dr ibrahim karaman department head in the materials science and engineering department dr arroyaves leadership to organize this conference is a testament to success of texas a&ms facility and infrastructure investment in computational materials design the conference will be held may 27 – june 1 2017 in querètaro mexico and sponsored by factsage gbc scientific equipment mexico gtt-technologies horiba scientific jeol solutions for innovation matcalc engineering micress pandat software scientific group thermodata europe the spencer group thermfact thermo-calc software thermo fisher scientific for more information about the conference and the latest announcements please visit http://cidesicom/calphad/indexhtml
2189,in search of ways to make life a little easier for a college station resident six mechanical engineering seniors at texas a&m university devoted their senior capstone design project to improving and upgrading a wheelchair the teams goal was to develop a fully functioning mechanical chair mostly from scratch while applying lessons they learned in the classroom to a real-world scenario over the course of the year students were expected to learn synthesize and develop skills of the engineering practice while also working as a team at the end of the day our team knew we were helping someone create a better quality of life and that is always the driving factor behind our decisions said team member clare mcdougall we are all touched and proud to have the opportunity to give back to a fellow community member in such a significant way the wheelchair design team consisted of all senior mechanical engineering majors mcdougall andres alvarado lane garner jacob garner miguel hoffmann and tristen tinar all of the students expect to graduate in december the team first met with their sponsor who requested to remain anonymous in the spring to review the specific needs for the team to address in the redesign the students then broke the chair down into four areas: leg supports arm supports base and the seat/backrest system the chair had to perform basic functions like recline/incline adjust in various ways to accommodate for their measurements and fit under tables and in doorframes some requirements were more specific relating to how he/she opens doors and how he/she will enter/leave the chair mcdougall said in the initial brainstorming for a basic design team members researched design ergonomics existing patents and alternative designs for the chair mcdougall said the team based their idea for their reclining mechanism from a la-z boy chair after brainstorming the team began modeling the design team members had to learn how to budget their time for the process of planning designing receiving feedback and redesigning until they created a satisfactory model this process requires an immense amount of planning and time management which isnt necessarily whats on the forefront of peoples minds when they enter their senior year mcdougall said prototyping was never meant to easy; it is meant to be a tedious iterative and often frustrating process said alvarado but in the end it is extremely rewarding to see the final working product alvarado said the students were challenged with balancing course expectations with the reality of the project which did not always align ultimately our teams goal is not attempting to apply all concepts learned in the classroom to our project but rather delivering a finished operational and safe wheelchair to our client alvarado said along the way we do our best to match the criteria of the course with the nature of our project mcdougall said she has taken away lessons in how to take and respond to constructive criticism as well as how to work as a team over the last two semesters alvarado said there has been a transformation of sorts after the students met in the spring each with their respective critical thinking mindsets problem solving skills and mass of engineering knowledge by working in the machine lab building the pieces of the chair from scratch alvarado said the team also honed skills that could not be learned in the classroom but in the context of tackling our first full-blown engineering project we had little experience in effectively communicating practicing integrity and dealing with conflict fast-forwarding to now each one of us has seen immense growth in those areas these are the types characteristics that matter at the end of the day in the professional engineering world rather than just the pure technical expertise gained from our project alvarado said for more information about the senior capstone design program or to sponsor a future capstone project email dr joanna tsenn
2190,the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university will host its annual showcase on feb 12 2018 the all-day event includes a career fair student/company luncheon and other engagement opportunities among students faculty and industry representatives biomedical engineering students will have the opportunity to meet with participating companies about openings for co-ops internships and full-time positions ultimately the showcase allows students to network with industry to obtain information about career paths and the transition into a job after graduating from texas a&m companies involved in the showcase have the opportunity to build lasting relationships with biomedical engineering students at a typical career fair companies may only spend 30 to 60 seconds interacting with each student; in comparison the biomedical engineering showcase allows for longer conversations with multiple students interactions are an important aspect for companies as well as students to learn about the different aspects each party has to offer students learn valuable skills that cannot be taught within a classroom leading texas a&m biomedical engineering students to stand apart from their competition as one of the founders of this event i had first-hand experience on collaborating with the department and the departments student organizations without everyone working together the first showcase would not have been a success said ashley tucker former president of alpha eta mu beta the biomedical engineering honors society this event has shown me how much the department and student organizations really care about their students and how they want to see them succeed after graduating this years showcase will be comprised of four components: a career fair a student/company luncheon a senior design poster session and tours of the departments research facilities these activities are designed to show companies that students in biomedical engineering at texas a&m are excelling and effectively conveying information both in and out of the classroom setting more than 20 company participants are anticipated for the 2018 showcase which is double what the 2017 showcase hosted in addition the luncheon is being expanded to include any biomedical engineering senior interested in a full-time position for more targeted networking between students and industry the new atmosphere will hopefully lead to more engaging conversations and a better return on investment for everyone involved
2191,olga eliseeva a graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university is serving as one of three student voices on the board of trustees for asm international (asmi) the mission of asmi is to connect material engineers from research industry and government as well as provide access to reference materials data and educational content eliseeva said she hopes to one day become a member of the board of directors for a company or larger international organization and credits this experience with providing exclusive opportunities to learn more about large organizations and how they function i also enjoy meeting individuals leading the cutting-edge companies in the field of materials science and engineering eliseeva said this opportunity excites me because i love learning of peoples stories and how their careers have unfolded this also gives me a better understanding of what to expect in the future satisfying her desire to give back this position sparked eliseevas interest with its ability to leave a lasting impact on the organization that has benefitted her so greatly eliseevas duties include ensuring the future of asmi advising and serving as a voice of the student members to the members of the board my favorite part about serving asmi in this capacity is that i get to meet interesting people every day eliseeva said its not common to have lunch with delegates from india one day and the president of a major company the next previously eliseeva served as an officer of material advantage an asm student chapter for four years at case western reserve university while completing her undergraduate degree at texas a&m she currently serves as the chair of material advantage
2192,vijay rajanna a doctoral student in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university recently participated in and received several awards for his presentation during the three minute thesis (3mt) competition held on campus in november rajanna received the first place and peoples choice award in the doctoral category; he was also selected as the texas a&m representative at the 3mt regional competition to be held in fayetteville arkansas in february 2018 at the conference of southern graduate schools during the competition graduate students have three minutes to present their thesis and its significance this challenges students to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries to present concisely to an audience with no prior expertise at texas a&m 3mt provides a high-impact learning experience for graduate students and is part of the graduate and resource development (grad) for aggies program at the competition rajanna presented the primary contributions of his doctoral research which focuses on developing eye movement-based multi-modal interactions for working on computers these interactions are crucial in two scenarios – situational impairments and impairments and disabilities by birth or due to an injury he explained that in these two scenarios a user wants to be able to perform at least a few basic operations conveniently on a computer in this regard we have developed a gaze and foot-based interaction framework to achieve accurate ‘point and click interactions on a computer rajanna said using this system the user points the cursor at the desired target – a button – with their eye movements and selects it by pressing a tiny sensor that is placed inside the shoe of the user if the user does not have control over the foot other methods like focusing on the target for 200 milliseconds or eye gestures can be used with practice users can point and click much faster than they do with the mouse in addition the same framework along with an enhanced virtual keyboard allows the user to enter text on a computer rajanna said that the 3mt competition is challenging but is also highly rewarding he currently works in the sketch recognition lab under director dr tracy hammond who is a professor in the department i would like to thank my advisor dr tracy hammond and the members of the sketch recognition lab who provided feedback on my written drafts and practice talks rajanna said also i served as a graduate teaching fellow for two semesters where i was mentored by dr john keyser dr dilma da silva dr joseph hurley dr aakash tyagi and dr vikram kinra who offered a significant learning experience rajannas ongoing research is centered on developing eye-movement based authentication methods to prevent shoulder surfing attacks which occur in crowded places where it is easy to peer over anothers shoulder and steal potentially sensitive information and achieving faster text entry in virtual reality using eye movements
2193,four students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university participated in the texas space grant consortium (tsgc) nasa design challenge showcase held nov14 in houston the aurora aggies consisted of computer science seniors walter pospick alyssa valdez natalie criscione and kevin lewis out of 14 teams across texas they placed fourth overall fourth in poster presentation and first in oral presentation for their project intelligent lighting control systems the objective of their project was to design an intelligent lighting control system that supports biological circadian rhythms and adapts over time providing a healthy living environment for astronauts that is easy to control i had fun working with my group and nasa on this project it was a great opportunity to work on a solution to a real-world problem that nasa is trying explore valdez said the tsgc design challenge which is sponsored by nasa and administered by the texas space grant consortium is a unique academic experience offering undergraduate students an opportunity to propose design and generate a solution toward solving research objectives of importance to nasa and its mission the aurora aggies are enrolled in a capstone course taught by dr bruce gooch an associate professor in the department we were told that the program was closed gooch said i told the students we could do the work anyway nasa ended up opening a competition for inclusion in the program based on a preliminary plan and this group won they have been fighting from the beginning the overall experience provides student team members with an opportunity to engage in scientific research hands-on design space-related career opportunities communication skills and educational outreach
2194,dr atlas wang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently selected as a university challenge winner for the lenovo ai innovation challenge and was invited to give a presentation at the supercomputing conference (sc) held nov 12-17 in denver colorado the lenovo ai innovation challenge was created to recognize the great and groundbreaking research in the fields of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing winners were selected from global top universities such as yale university oxford and the university of washington during the lenovo innovation challenge each university challenge winner gave a 45-minute presentation on their research related to artificial intelligence and high performance computing wang presented his research on exploiting low-quality visual data using deep networks while many sophisticated models are developed for visual information processing very few pay attention to their usability in the presence of low-quality data most successful models are trained and evaluated on high-quality visual datasets on the other hand the data source often cannot be assured of sufficiently high quality in practical scenarios with degradation factors abundant outside of the controlled research environment wangs research focuses on the robust sensing processing and understanding of low-quality visual data using deep learning methods his works are expected to generate broad impacts on real-world computer vision applications such as traffic monitoring security surveillance and video communication wang was also selected to present at the computing community consortium (ccc) oct 23-24 in washington dc the mission of ccc is to propel the computing research community and enable the pursuit of innovative high-impact research this year 47 early-career faculty members and researchers across the united states from most fields of computer science are invited to present their research and wang is one of them wang introduced his robust computer vision works
2195,texas a&m engineering experiment station and marathon oil corporation have initiated an impressive research program to study advanced petroleum fluid flow processes and recovery techniques from unconventional resource plays in the us the new research venture utilizes the work of professors from petroleum engineering mechanical engineering and chemical engineering as well as a team of marathon oil engineers geologists and geophysicists information gained from the research will aid education for students and industry practices for recovering energy dr ding zhu (right) and masters student ryan winner running a fracture conductivity experiment dr dan hill current head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university is the principal investigator of the program dr marcelo laprea-bigott a professor of engineering practice in the department will work with hill as project manager one thing that makes this a very unique research program is we are working very closely with marathon oil said hill they will share current practices seismic information microseismic monitoring of fracturing rock samples and well data the benefits to the department are many the more we learn the more we can pass on to our students graduates as well as undergraduates randy johnson marathon oils vice president of integrated performance helped define the program and is on the programs steering committee jude nwaozo a senior reservoir engineer at marathon oil serves as program manager at marathon oil were actively pursuing advanced research and state-of-the-art techniques that will enhance well performance across our resource plays and improve the understanding of fluid flow and geologic influences particularly in emerging basins that are early in the development cycle said johnson texas a&m was selected because of their exemplary vision and capability to partner with us on this advanced technical research marathon oil will provide subject matter experts from several disciplines to create a mutually beneficial knowledge sharing experience this partnership will combine our practical work in the field with the talent and capabilities of this team from texas a&m to study fluid flow and geologic influences in complex unconventional reservoirs total project funding includes $13 million per year from sources within tees texas a&m and the petroleum engineering department a significant portion of the funding will support 15 graduate students other research staff will also be needed including two or three post-docs one lab technician and a part-time administrative assistant the programs scope is heavily tied to the research strengths of the engineering faculty at texas a&m the endeavor has been divided into a handful of main areas within each area are different projects headed by one or more faculty members who will guide graduate student researchers each of these projects will have a marathon oil representative assigned as the main liaison or mentor to ensure research focus and provide needed resources laprea-bigott will coordinate meetings and foster communication among the project teams i see this as a terrific model for future research direction said hill who will step down as department head in january we are excited and enthusiastic about getting started were hitting the ground running
2196,an aircrafts impact on the runway is likely the last thing to cross anyones mind when boarding a flight the constant taking off and landing of aircraft throughout the day places stress on runway pavement which needs to be in good condition to ensure the safety of the aircraft and its passengers thanks to a predictive model developed by a collaborative research team led by the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m understanding how to build improve and maintain these runways is now easier than ever we are applying a very sophisticated model called pavement analysis using nonlinear damage approach or panda said dr dallas little the projects principal investigator and a professor of civil engineering we are using this model to predict damage that is being measured and recorded under the repeated loading of heavy aircraft such as the 14 million-pound airbus 380 and other next-generation heavy aircraft panda is the product of almost seven years of development by the research team under a contract with the us department of transportation the federal highway administration (fhwa) and the federal aviation administration (faa) the team includes collaborators dr mashoud darabi at the university of kansas dr eyad masad of texas a&m university at qatar dr amit bhasin at the university of texas at austin dr rashid abu al-rub and dr maryam sakafier at virginia tech as well as more than a dozen student researchers the idea behind panda is straightforward but not simple: create a computational model that takes into account variables such as time under pressure temperature dependency of the asphalt different types of stress and other environmental factors that impact the usage of runways by aircraft including diffusion of moisture and oxygen into the asphalt layer this model would give the user an accurate prediction of the damage the pavement would take over repeated usage and allow designers of airfield and major highway pavement to create or maintain a product that would react optimally to a variety of conditions the team is using panda in conjunction with test data to develop a platform that can become a user-friendly software package for industry and commercial usage this package will provide the level of reliability required by design and contract agencies as well as the driving public reduction in pavement downtime and safety that the infrastructure of today and tomorrow requires little said
2197,panda is not the first model of its kind but is unique in that it has the ability to specifically account for mechanical damage caused by airplane traffic and model this data in conjunction with environmental effects and damages such as moisture oxidation processes temperature and other factors as the team has developed panda what has been made clearer is the effect of all the differing variables that have impacted the pavement in ways that are not necessarily intuitive for example the coupling of moisture diffusion with mechanical damage may substantially alter the life prediction of the pavement as well as change the location of damage location of damage is of great importance in todays move toward the design of perpetual pavements that do not require replacement from the subgrade up but only periodic replacement of the upper surface so the goal is to make sure localization of damage does not occur in the lower part of the asphalt layer as we continue to develop the panda model and use it to evaluate more and more cases of complex loading coupled with environmental effects we more clearly understand the synergy of all of these effects little said while the project will still need additional computational development and testing time the end goal is to produce a modeling system that can be used without other pre- or post-processing software by the faa for design and analysis known as panda-airports that acts as a stand-alone system for aviation installations we hope that this will be of such great utility for the faa that they can use it for both commercial and general aviation pavement design and analysis little said * the scientific research and fundamental variable models for this project were developed in partnership with the asphalt research consortium over a seven-year period for the fhwa panda is being developed under a grant from the faa
2198,denso one of the worlds largest automotive technology systems and components suppliers recently donated 30 dedicated short-range communication (dsrc) devices worth approximately $30 000 to the texas a&m university college of engineering to assist their study of the interaction of autonomous vehicles with the supporting roadway infrastructure dsrc devices which enable v2x or vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications are critical to connected and autonomous drive vehicles a significant amount of the publics focus on autonomous vehicles has been dedicated to the vehicles themselves but college of engineering researchers are also studying ways that infrastructure will help enable an autonomous vehicle ecosystem for example densos dsrc devices are installed at intersections so traffic signals can communicate with autonomous vehicles to optimize traffic flow the connected autonomous safe transportation (cast) program a part of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m has been developing autonomous vehicles and performing research on the safety of the individual and entire ecosystem of autonomous and conventional vehicles pedestrians and the environment in an effort to accelerate the safe deployment of autonomous vehicles cast is advancing novel deployment paradigms and infrastructure-enabled autonomy (iea) initiatives where they leverage connectedness to off-load and dramatically redistribute autonomous-intelligence between the vehicles and the infrastructure according to dr swaminathan gopalswamy director of the cast program and senior research scientist at the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) this partnership is invaluable our ability to advance the development of these iea initiatives will be significantly enhanced by densos generous donation of 30 dsrc units to texas a&m engineering he said these devices will be a critical part of the smart proving grounds we are developing at the texas a&m university systems rellis campus students and faculty in the cast program along with researchers from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and tti will all benefit from the relationship with denso this growing relationship is also an early example of the value and potential for industry research partnerships at the rellis campus we are pleased denso has made such a generous donation to the rellis campus said john barton associate vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and executive director of the rellis campus their support through this gift of 30 dsrc units is important as we continue to develop the rellis campus into a premier high-tech research and education campus focused on developing solutions to the challenges we face in the 21st century denso is a leading global automotive supplier of advanced technology systems and components in the areas of thermal powertrain control electronics and information and safety with its north american headquarters located in southfield michigan denso employs more than 23 000 people at 28 consolidated subsidiaries and four affiliates across the north american region denso corp headquartered in kariya aichi prefecture japan has more than 200 subsidiaries and affiliates in 38 countries and regions and employs more than 150 000 people worldwide consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ending march 31 2017 totaled us $404 billion
2199,"there is more to engineering than working in a lab and solving equations and jim donnell professor of practice in the texas a&m university department of mechanical engineering is working to educate and broaden the horizons of engineering students through entrepreneurship i am so driven to unlock the mysteries that engineering students have around business theres a different (vocabulary) but it really isnt as difficult as they fear it to be donnell said this [course] can help break through that barrier and help them better understand the concepts which may escape them currently donnell said entrepreneurship is a broad and vague term that many narrowly define as applying only to those who are interested in starting their own company for him the term encompasses much more than that i want you to learn the basic concepts of business because those along with an entrepreneurial spirit can differentiate you from your peers the engineers that come out of this placewhether theyre mechanical industrial chemical petroleum or otherthey are tremendous engineers donnell said everybody knows they can do the work if we can supplement their incredible engineering education with a little coloration around the entrepreneurial experience that will benefit them during their careers"" donnell was asked in 2014 to develop and introduce curriculum on entrepreneurship with a plan to start the program in mechanical engineering and if the program was well-received it could be moved up to the college level but there was some hesitancy at first [the thought was] ‘were mechanical engineering we teach thermo we teach fluids we teach statics we teach heat transfer… and what are you talking about entrepreneurship donnell said it was a foreign matter so dr (andreas) polycarpou and i developed the course at a technical level injecting content so that it would qualify as a technical elective seen as being of more interest to the students since then donnell said he has heard many students comment that the course has been among the most important they have taken at texas a&m he attributes that less to the course content and more to the students being asked to challenge themselves with uncomfortable material which they then can master and feel a sense of accomplishment donnell seeks to use the course to revise students current skills to use talents they didnt realize they had a major part of the program is a team project where students generate their own product idea and develop a detailed business plan including five-year financial projections the proposals are then presented to a panel of industry judges at the end of the semester in the setting of a private equity pitch it develops and refines skills for them that they didnt know they had presentation skills donnell said theres not a student that starts this class who thinks theyve got a prayer of being successful and the most important thing about the class is everyone walks away with an air of confidence because theyve worked extremely hard on something which is substantially outside their comfort zone and then they accomplish something they didnt think they could do donnell graduated in 1982 from texas a&m with his bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering and later from harvard business schools advanced management program he started his career with texaco and natural gas clearinghouse the predecessor to dynegy and went on to be the president and ceo of duke energy north america synenco energy inc poseidon water llc and rsh energy llc most of what i know about business was learned on the job ive always had this sort of insatiable curiosity about how things work not just technically but how a company makes money donnell said ive been blessed with a pretty eclectic professional experience but with a heavy concentration in energy i started out technical but pretty quickly began the transition to a purer business leadership role donnell also serves on a number of nonprofit boards and has served on the advisory boards of the mays business school and the texas a&m college of engineering in 2014 donnell was appointed professor of engineering practice and named a william e dark 54 faculty fellow starting in the spring of 2018 dr cynthia hipwell who joined the mechanical engineering department in the fall of 2017 will join donnell to teach meen 489 – entrepreneurship in nano and energy systems learn more about engineering entrepreneurship and professor of practice at texas a&m"
2200,dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university was named the recipient of 2017 outstanding young manufacturing engineer award by the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) this award is given to engineers age 35 or younger who have made exceptional contributions and accomplishments in the manufacturing industry dr elwany is a key player in our additive manufacturing research efforts said dr mark lawley department head of the industrial and systems engineering department in the coming years his research will establish our department as the leading center for advanced manufacturing research he is richly deserving of this highly competitive award from sme elwany received his bachelors and masters degrees in production engineering from alexandria university egypt in 2002 and 2004 respectively and a doctoral degree in industrial and systems engineering from the georgia institute of technology in 2009 prior to joining texas a&m elwany worked as a research scientist at the manufacturing systems research laboratory (general motors r&d) and was a faculty member at the eindhoven university of technology the netherlands he studies the modeling analysis and control of advanced manufacturing processes and manufacturing systems with particular emphasis on additive manufacturing and reliability engineering
2201,the national association of corrosion engineers (nace) has selected dr homero castaneda-lopez an associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university to receive the 2018 herbert h uhlig award the award recognizes outstanding young educators in postsecondary corrosion education who have effectively excited their students through outstanding and innovative teaching in corrosion engineering castaneda-lopez is also director of the national corrosion and materials reliability center at texas a&m where the focus is to develop the next-generation leaders in corrosion science and technology to work in various industries including energy national defense auto healthcare infrastructure and multiple government agencies we work to bridge the gap between fundamental research (science) and technology (engineering) castaneda-lopez said we serve as a world-class corrosion education and research center creating tomorrow's leaders in corrosion science and engineering castaneda-lopez will receive the award in april at corrosion 2018 the worlds largest corrosion conference and exposition
2202,dr shankar bhattacharyya has been invited to teach a course on engineering controls at the 2017 global initiative for academic networks (gian) in new delhi india gian is a government of india initiative that was developed to tap into the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs internationally and encourage them to engage with higher education institutions in india bhattacharyya is the robert m kennedy '26 professor ii in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university he studies automatic control systems and theory and applications of robust stability his lecture titled robustness fragility optimality and modern pid control will consist of a modern approach and recent results on multi-objective classical control design methods developed at texas a&m and historical reasons for the recent upsurge of interest in classical controllers the course will be a set of 15 two-hour lectures to be given from dec 11-21 at the national institute of technology silchar and will be attended by engineers graduate students and faculty from across india through live web broadcasts bhattacharyyas awards and honors include national academy of sciences- nasa research associate (1974-75) ieee fellow (1989) international federation of automatic control fellow (2011) boeing-welliver faculty fellow (1999) foreign member of brazilian academy of sciences (2011) foreign member of brazilian academy of engineering (2016) and professor visitante especial by the brazilian research council (2014-17) his research has been funded by the national science foundation for 34 years and also through the qatar national research fund national instruments and the brazilian research council
2203,the student organization professional association for industrial distribution (paid) recently hosted its annual career fair at texas a&m university's hall of champions a record-breaking 80 companies from all over the world came to recruit students for those majoring in the industrial distribution program within the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution created and ran for students the event is one of only two career-specific career fairs at texas a&m the career fair is able to provide hundreds of opportunities for students seeking careers in the distribution world paid is one of the largest student-run organizations at texas a&m with more than 700 members it was formed in 1983 to serve as a link between industrial distribution students and industry for more than 30 years paid has played a key role in providing internships and job opportunities for industrial distribution students cole willbanks senior industrial distribution major and paid president says that this years career fair was a success thanks to the hard work of everyone involved putting this event on with a team of 12 student officers is all about being proactive planning really starts years in advance for instance we already have our dates set and venues booked through 2019 recruiting starts six months in advance for companies and we are continually finding ways to add value and make this the best overall experience for our students and industry partners alike it's basically a full-time job without a paycheck just as much work that goes into the event itself goes into the building of our team willbanks said we wouldn't be able to do this without a truly cohesive team so we spend a lot of time working together and building that bond paid is advised by industrial distribution lecturer evan vestal and instructional associate professor dr norm clark congratulations to paid officers committee members volunteers faculty and staff for making todays career fair an incredibly successful and valuable event said vestal we appreciate your commitment and drive thank you to our students for engaging and interacting with our industry partners in a professional manner you all represented the industrial distribution program well
2204,dr ankit srivastava an assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university was selected as one of the four haythornthwaite research initiation grant recipients by the executive committee of the applied mechanics division (amd) of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) srivastava received his award during the amd honors and award banquet at the 2017 asme international mechanical engineering congress and exposition (imece) in tampa florida this award will provide $20 000 to support srivastavas work on investigating microstructure-fracture correlations in multi-phase materials using in-situ scanning electron microscope experiments and microstructure-based modeling the technological need of lightweight structures for weight-critical products such as aircrafts and long-haul trucks and to decrease emissions from automobiles calls for materials with high density-normalized strength srivastava said the current materials with high density-normalized strength suffer from poor fracture resistance which limits the performance reliability and manufacturability of their components as a result the overarching goal of srivastavas project is to enable the design and discovery of more fracture resistant high strength structural materials the outcome of srivastava's project will be presented at the 2018 asme imece
2205,our genes contain recipes to make proteins that build and regulate our bodies our genetic information is stored in our dna genetic mutations occur when there is a permanent alteration inherited or acquired in the dna sequence the mutations may lead to protein malfunction often causing diseases or counteracting medicines in contrast to big data on disease-related mutations very limited knowledge exists about how genetic mutations may affect our health a researcher in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and the tees-agrilife center for bioinformatics and genomic systems engineering is developing computational frameworks to study the mechanisms by which disease-related genetic mutations can cause health problems assistant professor dr yang shen has received the maximizing investigators' research award (mira) for early stage investigators (esi) for his research project titled unraveling molecular and systems-level mechanisms of human disease-associated protein mutations from the national institutes of health the $167 million project will span over five years high-throughput technologies have endowed us with a wealth of data about genetic mutations and resulting health problems said shen however there is a great need for effective and efficient methods to discover knowledge that is to determine why the mutations cause such problems and how they can be addressed therapeutically the interdisciplinary project aims to develop novel multiscale computational frameworks that are rigorous and generalizable to help close the ever-increasing gap between observable data and mechanistic knowledge and to help develop effective therapeutic strategies specifically a computational framework will predict and explain mechanistically how the consequence of a protein mutation ripples through an individuals 1d sequence and 3d shape its interactions with other proteins and the emergent behaviors of many said shen and an inverse computational framework will design mutagenesis experiments and drug candidates for desired health effects following the mechanisms discovered the interplay of these computational frameworks will enable computations and experiments to feed each other iteratively in the pursuit of knowledge discovery shen says the successful completion of the project will make algorithmic contributions to mathematical optimization machine learning and graph theory the project is expected to provide new insights into the pathobiology of diseases and facilitate a systems-based approach to the design of therapeutic strategies shens mira for esi is the first award of its kind to the college of engineering at texas a&m it is also the first similar award to the texas a&m system together with another award this year to dr jonathan t sczepanski an assistant professor in the department of chemistry shen joined texas a&m in 2015 his research interests in bioinformatics include topics such as optimization and learning algorithms for modeling biological molecules systems and data the applications of his research include protein docking protein and drug design systems and synthetic biology and omics his research projects have also been funded by the national science foundation and other federal agencies learn more about shens research here
2206,the transportation research board (trb) of the national academies of science engineering and medicine held its annual meeting jan 7 – 11 in washington dc and faculty from texas a&m university were recognized for their contributions to the civil engineering discipline dr stuart anderson the zachry chair in construction integration and assistant vice chancellor for facilities planning and management has been recognized as an emeritus member of the trb committee on construction management dr amy epps martin professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m received the 2017 practice – ready paper award from the trb design and construction group for a paper titled evolution of the surface performance-graded specification for chip seal binders with co-authors shi chang swathi mayi theeda and edith arambula-mercado epps martin is a member of the trb committees on asphalt binder and structural requirements of asphalt mixtures
2207,the department of ocean engineerings center for dredging studies (cds) at texas a&m university recently hosted the 47th annual dredging engineering short course (dsc) with a record-setting number of participants from the united states canada colombia egypt indonesia and peru the cds collaborates with esteemed lecturers from the dredging industry government and academia to present the latest science and advances as part of the dsc which continues to create a world-class continuing education environment for participants dr ram k mohan pe fasce an adjunct professor in the department led the course in coordination with the texas a&m engineering experiment stations continuing education office participants learned from a wide range of dredging and dredged material placement topics that included dredge pump and slurry pipe flow principles dredge project cost estimating dredge laws cutter suction and hopper dredges modeling large and small hydraulic dredges mechanical and environmental dredging advances in surveying and positioning wetland creation and beach nourishment among others this course included a mixture of lectures laboratories and a panel participants represented the us army corps of engineers ports and dredging companies from five countries the short course has turned into a highly sought out engineering and project management training for entry and mid-level project managers in the dredging industry mohan said the dsc continues to attract some of the industrys top managers to texas a&m many of the prior years graduates are now occupying key management positions throughout north america and the world the cds was established in 1968 by dr john herbich and currently under the direction of dr robert randall in addition to research and industrial testing the center's activities include teaching university courses and providing annual seminars and short courses concerning advances in dredging engineering technology more than 2 000 dredge professionals have participated in the dredging short courses over the years the 48th dredging engineering short course is scheduled for january 7-11 2019 at texas a&m university in college station texas the course fee is $1500 and applications are available here
2208,dr huajian gao is seeking to initiate collaborations with the department of mechanical engineering as a faculty fellow in the 2017 class of the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m university im hoping i can gain a foothold here to have some collaborations long term gao said the people here are very nice and the university is growing fast i came from brown university and we are a smaller engineering school here i think texas a&m can offer a much wider spectrum of people and talents gao the walter h annenberg professor of engineering at brown joined the institute in 2017 for a three-year appointment which is a mechanism for attracting world-class talent to the university and is driven by nominations of national academy and nobel-prize caliber researchers each year the hagler institute invites a number of nationally and internationally prominent faculty fellows to pursue advanced study in collaboration with faculty and student scholars at texas a&m the goal is to provide an environment for research and scholarship with the faculty fellows having freedom to pursue their own research interests as well as collaborate in disciplinary and multidisciplinary research i think the institute is very unique it allows you to get in touch with top-notch scientists from all over the world gao said these are top-notch scientists in their fields so (texas a&m) is able to recruit these scientists at least on a visiting instance im very impressed with the university before i came here i didnt know much about texas a&m but now through the hagler institute i am very impressed gaos field of study is nanomechanics where he looks at the mechanical properties and behavior of materials on a small scale he has a number of projects ranging from high-strength high-ductility and high-toughness materials to biological systems including how nanoscale materials interact with human and animal cells gao earned his bachelors degree in solid mechanics from chinas xian jiaotong university in 1982 followed by a masters degree in 1984 and a doctorate in 1988 both in engineering science from harvard university he has been interested in pursuing engineering since he was a child hearing about his fathers work as an electrical engineer he is a member of the national academy of engineering as well as a member of the german national academy of sciences and a foreign member of the chinese academy of sciences he is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineering and the institute of physics in great britain among his honors gao has received the american society of mechanical engineers george wallace melville medal robert henry thurston lecture award charles russ richards memorial award and the nadai medal; the american society of civil engineers theodor von karman medal; the max planck societys research innovation award; the alexander von humboldt research award; the international union of theoretical and applied mechanics rodney hill prize in solid mechanics; and the society of engineering sciences william prager medal
2209,dr h gene hawkins a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was elected chair of the national committee on uniform traffic control devices (ncutd) at the organizations annual january 2018 meeting for a two-year appointment hawkins formerly served as the ncutds vice chair for programs the ncutcd assists in the development of criteria for the use of traffic control devices and traffic engineering practices the ncutcd develops debates and suggests changes to the manual on uniform traffic control devices a guiding federal document that establishes national standards for traffic control devices hawkins is a fellow of the institute of transportation engineers which is a sponsoring organization of the ncutcd
2210,christine greve a masters student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as a recipient of the 2018 tomorrows technology leaders: the 20 twenties awards by aviation week network greve works in the plasma dynamics modeling laboratory directed by dr ken hara assistant professor in aerospace engineering on developing full particle simulations of the discharge plasmas in hall effect thrusters a type of space propulsion device developed by nasa the us air force and industry the 20 twenties awards recognize the next generation of talent within the aerospace community during her undergraduate study at the university of oklahoma greve performed an internship at nasa marshall space flight center with research engineer dr kurt polzin and was selected as an astronaut scholar by the astronaut scholarship foundation in 2016 greve will be honored during aviation weeks 61st annual laureates awards on march 1 in washington dc
2211,david coleman a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won first place in the annual international student paper competition at the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics science and technology forum (scitech) held jan 7 he won the graduate category for his paper titled understanding unsteady aerodynamics of cycloidal rotors in hover at ultra-low reynolds numbers at scitech 2018 coleman and other regional winners from around the world presented in a final head-to-head competition which was judged on research content and presentation quality by senior professionals coleman conducts research in the advanced vertical flight laboratory under the guidance of assistant professor dr moble benedict the focus of the labs work is on the development of new and novel unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced flight capabilities colemans dissertation research is focused on the design development and modeling of a two-winged hover-capable robotic hummingbird a video of his robotic hummingbird in flight can be seen here he is currently working on a novel control strategy for the robot that mimics hummingbird flight much more closely which could potentially result in maneuverability and performance comparable to real hummingbirds
2212,the upcoming aggie boss talk is considered an incredible opportunity for students to learn from a panel of highly successful texas a&m university graduates and discover ways to find success after graduation ceos and executives from an array of industries have been invited to this event former student of the department of computer science and engineering tammira philippe ‘95 a chief financial analysis will be participating in the panel she is president and director of bridgeway capital management inc and is a member of the firms portfolio review and risk committee she began her career at bridgeway in 2005 as president philippes responsibilities include development and execution of the firms strategy oversight of all operations and contributing to the marketing and client service efforts prior to becoming president philippe led strategy and operations projects at bridgeway from 2005 to 2010 and was head of marketing and client service from 2010 to 2016 philippe earned a master of business administration from stanfords graduate school of business and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelors degree in computer science from texas a&m her experience prior to bridgeway includes strategy consulting with mckinsey & company and business development and marketing for a global satellite communications startup she is passionate about promoting education and social justice and volunteers with organizations focused on those missions philippe serves on the texas a&m department of computer science and engineering advisory council she previously served as a board member for the education foundation of harris county and as a member of the advisory board of the terry foundation a scholarship provider that supported philippes education the upcoming aggie boss talk will be held feb 1 in rudder auditorium
2213,the senior capstone design experience in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university aims to bridge the gap between classroom and industry students are required to use their knowledge and skills acquired during their undergraduate studies to complete an engineering design project equivalent to the assignments they would receive as aspiring professional engineers this semester senior ocean engineering students on the college station campus will have the opportunity to work on projects with anadarko the army corps of engineers dnv gl hdr intermoor and stress engineering services the department is indebted to these sponsors for defining the challenging projects and guiding the students through the projects execution said dr robert gordon associate professor of practice in the department at the college station campus according to dr matthew greer senior lecturer in the department at the galveston campus students there will work with industry and academic advisors on projects addressing a self-powered floating water purification system an alternative offshore oil import and export terminal a replacement bridge for pelican island a novel platform design and a sand management system for the galveston coastline the student teams will be competing for the ottinger award for excellence in design engineering and will also participate in the texas a&m engineering project showcase on april 27 as well as the offshore technology conference in may as part of the university research and development showcase
2214,dr swaroop darbha professor in texas a&m universitys department of mechanical engineering has been elevated to the status of institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) fellow darbha was recognized for his contributions to intelligent transportation systems (its) and autonomous vehicles he has worked on various aspects of its and is widely recognized for his pioneering contributions to vehicle platooning in automated highway systems traffic flow and safety modeling with autonomous vehicles and for truck brake diagnostics one focus of his work is on string stability of vehicle platoons string instabilities lead to pileupsa commonly occurring incident and a result of how much preview information each vehicle has darbha said i have introduced singular and regular perturbation methods to analyze and design automatic vehicle following controllers and derive results which are intuitive and of practical significance his work on stochastic control of unmanned vehicle systems has also been implemented successfully on flight tests by the air force research laboratory in dayton ohio the motion planning work that ive done in 2000 was instrumental in getting them started on unmanned vehicle systems simulations darbha said at texas a&m darbhas research interests include advanced vehicular control and diagnostic systems motion planning and control of unmanned vehicles decision making under uncertainty and fixed structure controller synthesis its has had a positive impact on society; for example consider driver assist systems and variable message signs darbha said even if autonomous driving may not be a reality the focus on enabling communication between vehicles and infrastructure is expected to enhance mobility and safety each year the ieee fellow committee reviews the work of its members for elevation to ieee fellow less than 01 percent of voting members are selected annually for this member grade elevation which is the highest grade of membership within the institute you bring honor to yourself and to ieee by your achievements said karen bartleson 2017 ieee president and ceo in the announcement of darbhas elevation looking to the future darbha said he would next like to develop methodologies for assessing safety and addressing communication between vehicles to improve mobility and safety i am working on developing techniques for quantifying the benefits of traffic safety due to vehicle-to-vehicle communication understanding how imperfect communication affects mobility and safety and resuming my work on diagnostic systems for air brakes in trucks
2215,researchers in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university led by doctoral student victor selin and dr svetlana sukhishvili are making headway in understanding fundamental principles that will help to create the next generation of biomedical coatings medical devices such as orthopedic implants often need their surfaces modified with protective coatings these devices have random shapes which requires the use of a simple method to controllably coat the surface these coatings can provide the surface of the objects with antireflection properties or make them able to release therapeutic compounds that kill bacteria and/or control the growth of mammalian cells the group is working to gain a fundamental understanding of the growth and behavior of multilayer polymer films to create functional films on the surface of different materials and aims to be able to control their properties and structures these properties are important because they dictate how such films interact with aqueous and salinated solutions their work has revealed that by simple manipulations during film buildup these properties can be easily controlled by demonstrating how one can control the mobility of individual polymer chains layer-by-layer we hope to facilitate practical applications of these films as a platform for functionalization of surfaces of biomedical devices selin said using several techniques the group established a quantitative picture of the internal structure and polymer chain dynamics of these films these experiments allowed the group to correlate the film properties with the behavior of individual polymer chains the knowledge we are developing is needed to learn how to design surface coatings that will be able to controllably release multiple therapeutic agents selin said our research provides a better understanding of the relationship between assembly conditions and the internal structure of resulting films and therefore significantly contributes to the existing fundamental knowledge in polymer physics and materials science this research is part of a national science foundation research project focusing on the studies of layer-by-layer coatings led by dr svetlana sukhishvili a professor in the materials science and engineering department at texas a&m in close collaboration with dr john akner a lead instrument scientist at oak ridge national laboratory who is an expert in neutron scattering techniques
2216,"dr phanourios tamamis assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a grant from the national institute on aging of the national institutes of health (nih) for his research on potential therapeutics for alzheimers disease parkinsons disease and type 2 diabetes amyloid-ß a-synuclein and islet amyloid polypeptide (iapp) self-assemble into amyloids – abnormal intracellular or extracellular deposition of proteins as fibrils – associated with alzheimers parkinsons and type 2 diabetes respectively as increasing evidence supports an amyloid formation molecular link between the three molecules in the diseases therapeutic approaches that focus on blocking single amyloidogenic proteins may not be sufficient rather than fighting any one particular protein an approach that fights the formation of amyloids formed by the three proteins independently or together (in the case that combinations of two or three of these amyloid proteins cross-seed) will be more beneficial and for example it can be considered a most promising and efficient direction for the future effective treatment of alzheimers disease in place of molecules binding to ß only one of the proposed approaches to inhibit amyloid formation formed by the three proteins is through ß-wrapin dimeric proteins which bind sequester and ultimately inhibit amyloid formation eliminating the threat posed by the three proteins - this is pictured above: a ß-wrapin dimeric protein (red and black) ""wrapping"" and sequestering the amyloidogenic monomer iapp (blue) involved diabetes type 2 two recently discovered ß-wrapin protein variants as10 and zsym73 may pave the way for future therapeutic approaches as10 is a ß-wrapin variant that targets all three amyloidogenic proteins; zsym73 targets the amyloid-ß protein with a very high affinity tamamis funded project computational design of novel ß-wrapins targeting and sequestering amyloid a-synuclein and iapp will use computational methods to understand the function of the ß-wrapins binding to the amyloidogenic proteins tamamis will then use this knowledge to design single- and multi-targeted ß-wrapins with the highest recorded affinity and optimized specificity for amyloid-ß a-synuclein and iapp as potential novel therapeutics the design of highly potent ß-wrapins multi-targeting all proteins ß a-syn and iapp can be considered a promising and efficient direction for the future effective treatment of alzheimers and parkinsons disease in place of molecules binding to ß only to accomplish this tamamis lab will use molecular dynamics simulations and free energy calculations and develop novel transformative computational design tools for the design of multi-targeted therapeutics in this study researchers from tamamis lab will collaborate with dr wolfgang hoyer at the heinrich-heine-university düsseldorf a world-leading authority in sequestering amyloid proteins using ß-wrapins the successfully designed ß-wrapins will be experimentally validated by hoyers lab for their capacity to constitute seeds of potential therapeutics for alzheimers diseases parkinsons disease and type 2 diabetes they published a paper with hoyer on uncovering the binding and specificity of ß-wrapins for amyloid-ß and a-synuclein (j phys chem b 2016 120 (50) pp 12781–12794) which paves the ground for the funded project by the nih"
2217,dr jun kyun oh was highlighted in the materials today journal for his work which was funded by the national science foundation that aims to understand how forces at the molecular level determine adhesion kinetics and dynamics oh a former student in the department of materials science and engineering and postdoctoral researcher in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university investigated the structural properties of the hind leg femur-tibia joint in adult katydids or bush crickets we showed that the katydid hind leg femur-tibia joint had unique surfaces and nanoscale textures oh said importantly the sheared surfaces at this joint showed no sign of wear or damage even though it had undergone thousands of external shearing cycles the potential of their bioinspired research is leading to further studies to develop more effective coatings and lubrication systems the research will seek to determine the main features of surface morphology of different characteristics of insect joints and how these features influence the adhesion between insect joints oh said it will also establish the role of their internal nanostructure on their mechanical properties such as stiffness and hardness oh is collaborating with dr spencer behmer professor in the department of entomology and richelle marquess a student of behmers
2218,dr merrideth holub senior academic advisor for the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution (etid) knows that motivating kids to pursue stem careers has to begin early in their education based on this understanding she recently hosted a campus visit for 120 fourth grade students from forest ridge elementary school to etid at texas a&m university the fourth graders spent two hours learning about what being an engineer is all about and taking part in a number of different experiential learning activities all four of the etid academic programs took part in the visit to help inspire students to think seriously about stem education and careers because all of our undergraduate programs are hands-on etid is a great place for elementary school students to really get to see what being an engineer is all about said holub the students were subdivided into four groups with each group spending 30 minutes with each of our programs charlene bandfield liz adams lauren given andrea prcin martha snider and sara swetish were the teachers who arranged and conducted the visit for the students who are part of the falcon leaders inspire program (flip) at forest ridge dr behbood zoghi represented the electronic systems program and provided insight into the importance of engineers developing leadership skills and team dynamics teams were given 10 minutes to brainstorm and then provided characteristics of a great team these included: leadership teamwork communications ( especially listening) trust perseverance fun following this activity the students validated these characteristics by participating in a team exercise to lower a helium (lightweight) rod as shown in the figure students lined up in two rows and had to keep the stick horizontal as they lowered it to the ground while making sure that everyones fingers remained in contact with the rod awards were given to the best team in each group bob borsh from industrial distribution took each group of fourth graders through the supply chain necessary to transition a toy from its raw materials to a finished product delivered to the end user all of the students were intrigued with how this happens and asked a number of questions to learn more about the processes and how engineers played important roles in the creation of the toys adam farmer from the manufacturing and mechanical program toured each group of students through the programs advanced machining labs he also demonstrated how additive manufacturing and product design are used in prototyping and product development the students learned about 3-d printing making and using molds and other manufacturing processes necessary to move an idea to finished product the newest etid program is multidisciplinary engineering technology with a focus in mechatronics robots are used in a number of the new programs courses so that was what the four groups of fourth graders were introduced to during their visit undergraduate students austin carter mitch martinez and matt seago demonstrated some of the robotic technology being developed by the program and then invited the students to compete in five-person teams in a mobile robotics race of champions using the articulated suspension digital systems teaching and research (dstr – pronounced disaster) on the race course set up in front of fermier hall all in all the fourth graders had a great time and saw multiple aspects of what engineers learn and do organizers are hoping some of these fourth graders are now thinking that they may want to join the class of 2030 engineers by coming to texas a&m for their undergraduate education holub is already thinking about repeating the experience for other groups of elementary school students in the future
2219,dr pr kumar was elected fellow of the indian national academy of engineering (inae) he is among five foreign fellows elected this year inae is an autonomous institution with a membership comprising of the most distinguished engineers engineer-scientists and technologists from all branches of engineering technology and related sciences up to 50 fellows from academia industry and government are elected every year election to inae is by nomination only kumar is a college of engineering chair in computer engineering and a distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university he obtained his bachelor of technology degree in electrical engineering (electronics) from indian institute of technology madras in 1973 and the master of science and doctor of science degrees in systems science and mathematics from washington university st louis in 1975 and 1977 respectively kumar studies problems in game theory adaptive control stochastic systems simulated annealing neural networks machine learning queueing networks manufacturing systems scheduling wafer fabrication plants and information theory his research focus currently includes cybersecurity privacy cyberphysical systems wireless networks smart grid autonomous vehicles and unmanned air vehicle systems kumar is a member of the national academy of engineering in the us and a fellow of the world academy of sciences
2220,aircraft with shapeshifting wings may seem like the stuff of movies but with the use of shape memory alloys (smas) it may be a reality in the near future dr darren hartl associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university whose research is featured in wired magazine is part of a team working on using smas to shift parts of an aircraft in mid-flight shape memory alloys would allow engineers to design an aircraft that could change in response to variables such as temperature humidity and barometric pressure because shockwaves behave differently in these variables this would in effect help minimize the sonic boom that is created when these shockwaves come off an aircraft and combine together as they head toward the ground reduce the sonic boom and you just might see supersonic flight over land in the near future read the entire wired article here
2221,dr anthony guiseppi-elie texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) research professor and professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university was selected to deliver the inaugural lecture of the newly convened interdisciplinary science seminar series at wroclaw university of science and technology (wust) wroclaw poland the wust interdisciplinary scientific seminar series are open technical meetings with world-famous speakers delivered to all academic staff and students at all levels but also all those interested in deepening their knowledge of exact sciences dr andrzej trochimczuk vice rector for scientific research and international affairs of wust is the originator of the seminars the development of international cooperation is one of key priorities for wroclaw university of science and technology said trochimczuk such cooperation encompasses many areas covered by the programme of tertiary education internationalisation announced by the polish ministry of science and higher education on june 18 2015 this includes participation by international visitors in the academic life of the university guiseppi-elie is a well-travelled and highly sought after international reviewer and speaker with broad scientific engineering and translational interests reflective of the many disciplines embraced here at wust it is fitting that he should open our seminar series guiseppi-elie spoke on engineering the future of medicine and provided a survey of his ongoing work on minimally invasive biochips for guided resuscitation during hemorrhage biologically responsive drug delivery systems to address chronic wounds and academic programs that blend preparation in medicine and engineering founded in 1945 wust is one of polands top technical universities with several academic programs offered in english wust has established inter-university and inter-departmental cooperation agreements with over 120 tertiary institutes from 36 countries and has exchange agreements and dual degree agreements with several institutions
2222,jin li a graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the american vacuum society (avs) – applied surface science division 1st place student award this honor is in recognition of his work focusing on the understanding of irradiation damage as well as design irradiation-resistant materials nuclear energy as a clean power source provides about 13 percent of electricity generated worldwide (about 20 percent in the us in 2016) li said the development of clean and renewable energy is of great importance for next-generation nuclear reactors however there are not any materials immune to irradiation damage to date therefore the understanding of the irradiation damage is the key to the design of advanced materials for advanced nuclear reactors li the lead researcher behind the project works with experiment design sample fabrication in situ irradiation and data analysis among other things the impact of this work is apparent to the nuclear materials community regarding the potential discovery of radiation tolerant nanomaterials which are designed for advanced nuclear reactors li said li studied under dr xinghang zhang a former professor in the department of mechanical engineering his phd thesis focused on radiation damage and mechanical behavior of nanostructured metals he published six first-author articles in premier materials science journals such as nano letters and acta materialia he also has two papers that are under review and more than 15 other co-author papers including four in acta materialia two in nano letters and one in progress in materials science li is now a postdoctoral fellow at purdue university li received the award during the avs 64th international symposium in october
2223,dr kelvin xie has joined the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university as an assistant professor xie comes to texas a&m from johns hopkins university where he received his postdoctoral training he earned his phd from the university of sydney australia in mechanical engineering and his bachelor degrees in biomedical engineering and finance from the university of sydney australia xies research focuses on understanding and designing lighter and stronger structural materials such as magnesium alloys boron carbide and 3-d printed ceramics assisted by advanced nano-scale and atomic-level characterization techniques in the area of ceramic engineering we revealed the twinning mechanisms in boron carbide a light-weight body armor material as a function of chemistry and local bonding xie said this ability to control twinning is expected to help design the next generation of lightweight body armor where twin interfaces provide additional strength and toughness in the area of metallurgy xie and his colleagues systematically investigated the dislocation and twin structures in deformed bulk magnesium single crystals which substantially contributed to the understanding that explains why magnesium and magnesium alloys generally exhibit poor ductility and formability xie will begin teaching fundamentals of materials science and engineering classes this spring
2224,"s shariq yosufzai a former student in the texas a&m university artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has been named the chair of the american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) foundation yosufzai class of 74 and vice president of global diversity at chevron corporation will lead strategic development for the foundation's initiatives including the doing a world of good campaign which funds projects that chemical engineers have identified as crucial to advancing the good work of the profession some of these projects include work in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) education programs yosufzai said the foundation has the convening power to bring the best and brightest minds from academia nongovernmental organizations and companies together to help create innovative solutions to address our worlds biggest problems by doing so the aiche aims to develop sustainable solutions to problems the world faces including the need for cleaner drinking water nonproliferation of diseases and infrastructure development one project yosufzai would like to work on is expanding chemical engineers knowledge of process safety according to him more than 70 percent of chemical engineering graduates enter the workforce with minimal process safety education the foundation works to bring together companies and hundreds of universities across the globe to promote expanding education in this area yosufzai said texas a&m is one of few universities who has an advantage in this area with the mary kay oconnor process safety center our biggest priorities are to serve as a catalyst for collaboration in educating the next generation of chemical engineers furthering diversity and inclusion in the chemical engineering profession and of course deepening our core commitment to process safety yosufzai said most faculty members do not have any process safety experience and/or background we host boot camps where companies like chevron train faculty members on the challenges of process another initiative through the aiche foundation is diversity and inclusion which is also yosufzais focus in his role at chevron he said it is imperative to attract and retain more underrepresented minorities and women into stem fields like chemical engineering chevron has worked with texas a&m to increase diversity and inclusion through programs such as the texas a&m-chevron engineering academies which allows students to complete the first two years of their course work at a two-year college that can be closer to home yosufzai said since the program was established in 2015 the percentage of female students has increased to about 50 percent the number of african american students has reached 12 percent and the number of hispanic students sits at 29 percent we found direct correlation between diversity of the leadership team and performance yosufzai said bringing the engineering approach and using data to articulate a winning value proposition is something that chevron has done we treasure what we measure we create an ecosystem that basically attacks diversity and inclusion as a target just as we would safety or excellence aiche is a professional society of 53 000 chemical engineers in 110 countries through its programs aiche works to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontiers of chemical engineering research in such areas as energy sustainability biological and environmental engineering nanotechnology and chemical plant safety and security yosufzai is a fellow of aiche and received aiche's industry leadership award among numerous honors there he has been recognized by texas a&m as a distinguished alumnus outstanding international alumnus and outstanding engineering alumnus in 2016 he was recognized as among the ""top executives in corporate diversity"" by black enterprise magazine and one of the ""top 25 champions of diversity in stem"" by diversity global magazine he has also served as chairman of the board of the association of former students while at texas a&m yosufzai held leadership roles within the corps of cadets and served as student body vice president and delegate for the scona program he serves on the texas a&m chancellors century council the engineering advisory council of the college of engineering and served as the 2010 chair of the board of the association of former students the biggest impact on my life is the notion of selfless service and excellence instilled in me while i was a student yosufzai said the aggie core values continue to be the guiding light in everything i do he offered some advice for students as they complete their degree at texas a&m and move on to their career embrace each opportunity with enthusiasm be respectful of your colleagues and always try to work out of your comfort zone both professionally and geographically yosufzai said always try to leave your last position a bit better than when you found it for more information about the aiche foundation visit wwwaicheorg/giving"
2225,"dr matt pharr assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has received grant funds to benefit his research of lithium metal anodes in batteries pharr was one of four researchers awarded a $20 000 gift award by the applied mechanics division of the american society of mechanical engineers the program is funded by the haythornthwaite foundation and targets new university faculty engaged in research involving theoretical and applied mechanics the objective of pharrs project ""electro-chemo-mechanics of lithium metal anodes for high-capacity batteries "" is to construct a stable metallic lithium anode which pharr said will enable higher energy and power capabilities in batteries while reducing weight and volume from a scientific perspective despite being the third element on the periodic table little is known regarding the mechanical behavior of lithium pharr said from an engineering perspective lithium metal is known as the ‘holy grail of anode materials as it has the highest theoretical capacity lowest density and most negative electrochemical potential pharrs research interests include materials for energy storage and conversion mechanics of flexible/wearable electronic devices and deformation and fracture of soft materials"
2226,researchers from texas a&m university report significant advances in their understanding and control of a chameleon-like material that could be key to next-generation computers that are even more powerful than todays silicon-based machines the existing paradigm of silicon-based computing has given us a range of amazing technologies but engineers are starting to discover silicons limits as a result for computer science to keep advancing it is important to explore alternative materials that could enable different ways to do computation according to dr patrick j shamberger assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering vanadium dioxide is one example its a very interesting chameleon-like material that can easily switch between two different phases from being an insulator to being a conductor as you heat and cool it or apply a voltage said dr sarbajit banerjee professor with joint appointments in the departments of chemistry and materials science and engineering and if you think about those two phases as being analogous to a zero and a one you can come up with some interesting new ways of information processing banerjee and shamberger are corresponding authors of a paper describing their work which was published in the january 2018 issue of chemistry of materials before vanadium dioxide can be used in computing we need to better control its transition from insulator to conductor and back again shamberger said in the paper the team describes doing just that by adding tungsten to the material among other things the researchers showed that tungsten allows the transition to occur over two very different pathways the result is that the transition from insulator to conductor happens easily and quickly while the transition from conductor back to insulator is more difficult think of it as driving from point a to point b and back again going there you take a superhighway but coming back youre on back roads banerjee said essentially the addition of tungsten allows the vanadium oxide to switch quickly in one direction and much more slowly in the other phenomena that could be exploited in future computers it provides an additional ‘knob to tune how you go back and forth between the two states said erick j braham a graduate student at texas a&m who was the first author on the paper the team has also found that the addition of tungsten allows them to better control or tune the different temperatures where the transitions occur banerjee notes the interdisciplinary nature of the work which involved four groups with expertise ranging from computational materials science to electron microscopy has been key weve really looked at this puzzle from different ends to try to make sense of exactly whats going on he said its been very exciting additional authors from texas a&m are dr raymundo arroyave from materials science and engineering; nathan a fleer graduate student in chemistry and materials science and engineering; dr diane sellers assistant research scientist in chemistry and materials science and engineering; ruben villarreal graduate student in materials science and engineering; and katie e farley and emily emmons both former graduate students authors from the university of illinois at chicago are dr reza shahbazian-yassar professor and hasti asayesh-ardakani a visiting researcher their work was supported by the national science foundation and the air force office of scientific research
2227,dr akhilesh k gaharwar was selected to receive the 2018 biomedical engineering society (bmes) cellular and molecular bioengineering (cmbe) rising star award at the 2018 cmbe annual conference--discovering the keys: transformative and translational mechanobiology which was held jan 2-6 2018 in key largo florida the bmes-cmbe special interest group brings together researchers with diverse scientific and clinical interests with a common goal of understanding and engineering molecules cells their interactions and microenvironments in the pursuit of controlling biological processes and improving the practice of medicine in 2018 the conference theme focused on addressing key challenges in mechanobiology and how to advance the study of pathophysiology and improve human health gaharwar is one of eight awardees selected internationally for the rising star award which is given to exceptional junior principal investigators the awardees are invited to give a podium presentation at the conference gaharwars talk titled widespread changes in transcriptome profile of human mesenchymal stem cells by two-dimensional (2-d) nanosilicates focused on understanding how nanomaterials interact with human stem cells for additional information visit the bmes-cmbe conference website or gaharwars lab website
2228,dr robert s balog associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was selected as a 2018 distinguished lecturer of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) power electronics society (pels) for his contributions to the field of power engineering each year the ieee pels selects prominent members in power engineering as distinguished lecturers in appreciation of their high achievements and support of pels chapter activities by providing them opportunities to be invited as high-profile speakers for local chapter events balog is affiliated with the electric power and power electronics group in the electrical and computer engineering department he is the director of the renewable energy and advanced power electronics research laboratory (reaper lab) and co-director of the national science foundation industry/university cooperative research center on next generation photovoltaics balog received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from rutgers university in 1996 and his phd from the university of illinois urbana-champaign in 2006 he has more than seven years of industry experience including launching a technology startup company and commercializing his work in residential scale solar inverters balog holds 17 issued us patents with additional pending and is a licensed professional engineer in 2016 he published a book through cambridge university press titled local area power and energy system and other microgrids since fall 2015 he has been teaching and conducting research at the texas a&m university at qatar campus balog credits his students and research staff at both the college station and qatar campuses with his achievements
2229,texas a&m universitys online graduate engineering program was ranked first in the state of texas according to the 2018 rankings released jan 9 by us news & world report best online graduate engineering programs the program was ranked no 8 in the us overall and no 6 among public institutions the high ranking of our online engineering graduate degree program by us news & world report reflects our dedication to providing high-quality programs across the texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp said this latest announcement underscores dean (m katherine) banks incredible leadership and confirms that the ongoing investment in faculty and facilities being made by the college of engineering is positively affecting not only our traditional on-campus rankings but online degree programs as well this year's rankings include nearly 1 500 distance education programs across eight degree options for adults looking to further their education and improve career-related skills the rankings include public and private colleges and universities with degree-granting programs offering online classes needed to complete the degree programs are rated on graduate indebtedness course delivery and academic and career support made available to students remotely in addition to its overall ranking texas a&m was also ranked no 1 in student engagement among texas schools the college of engineerings online graduate program offers online engineering courses and provides professional support for departments and faculty engaged in distance education
2230,a team of mechanical engineering seniors at texas a&m university has risen to the challenge and has been selected as one of five finalists in the 2018 nasa breakthrough innovative and game-changing (big) idea challenge the big idea challenge supports development of innovative and high-impact technologies for use in a broad array of future nasa missions the challenge allows students to incorporate their coursework into real aerospace design concepts and work together in a team environment this years challenge is to develop solar panels for a future mars mission where supplying reliable electric power for humans on the martian surface is a critical technology need the texas a&m teamcomprised of seniors gabrielle adams joshua banks bryan calleros cole frazier and uday toodimust design model and test a series of solar panels that can be autonomously deployed on mars the panels would generate power before the astronauts arrived and would be used as a power generation system throughout the duration of the mission as part of the challenge the team developed a video simulating their solar panel design their design will be tested against four other universities during the 2018 big idea forum on march 6 hosted at nasas glenn research center in cleveland ohio to present their concepts in an evaluative design review
2231,jose cazares a doctoral student with the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university was selected as a recipient of the 2018 dwight david eisenhower transportation fellowship the fellowship includes a $5 000 award and was presented to cazares at the annual transportation research board (trb) meeting in january cazares plans to use the fellowship to continue his research interests and partially fund his doctoral program my interest right now is to do something that is related to autonomous vehicles cazares said there are so many things that we still need to learn in regards to how they are going to affect traffic what their behavior will mean for travel on our roads and i am fascinated to see what is waiting on the other side of this technology cazares was excited to attend the annual trb meeting not only for the presentation of the award but also for the networking the event provides cazares previously attended the annual meeting to present on some of his research during his masters program which involved research on connected vehicles connected vehicles are essentially vehicles that are driven by humans but are able to receive information from other vehicles or roadside devices cazares said my research looked into the impact of these vehicles on a corridor in plano texas and how different amounts of connected vehicles present during the morning rush hour may affect travel times even during an accident this work helps traffic management centers who monitor traffic networks of specific areas data on how certain vehicles impact roadways gives officials the information necessary to see how they can install specific roadway devices to deal with expected traffic issues as cazares looks forward to beginning his doctoral education this spring he is grateful for the opportunities that his fellowship will provide him im really grateful for this fellowship because its helping me at least fund the beginning of my time studying for my phd cazares said any help i can get with that is really great and i appreciate that its helping me remain stable and pay off my education
2232,how do we know if a new battery is good batteries that perform well are invaluable to a number of resources that we use daily such as cell phones and laptops but also those that we are utilizing more frequently than ever before such as drones and electric vehicles researchers in the texas a&m university college of engineering have identified two factors that can be used to measure the performance of batteries yuan yue lead author of the published manuscript and a graduate student in the department of materials science and engineering and dr hong liang the oscar s wyatt jr professor in the department of mechanical engineering and affiliated faculty member in materials science and engineering collected and analyzed experimental data from over 250 scholarly articles published in the last decade the duo began analyzing the structures and performance of the v2o5 electrode to derive key characteristics that could be used to optimize batteries to be used as an electrode v2o5 has three modes of lithium ion intercalation liang said we know from using the fundamentals of electrochemistry that the electrochemical performance of a battery is dominated by how lithium ions move in and out of structures through a process called intercalation liang and yue found that the two concepts of high capacity band and total capacity retention were the key to evaluating the electrochemical performance of v2o5 electrodes the most significant and exciting part of this research is finding the right path to optimize the design of batteries yue said construction of the new concept about the maximum ability of the specific capacity of a v2o5 electrode shines enormous light to the field the conclusions of their work allow for further development of finding the optimal way to design a lithium-ion battery electrode the hints are for example using hierarchical-structures to increase power level adding carbon materials or ions to increase energy density and using porous current collectors to increase capacity liang said those general strategies will bring broad impacts to the significant efforts in developing better electrode materials from both academic and industrial researchers the development of improved lithium-ion battery cells could be used for power sources of cell phones drones electric vehicles laptops and smart grids in the future in recognition of his work yue was awarded the 2017-2018 texas a&m energy institute fellowship the criteria identified can be illustrated in the figure shown above its like the peak of a mountain that gets struck by a light to make a high performance battery we need to identify the peak value such that the optimum performance is achieved
2233,the newly formed engineering studio for advanced instruction and learning (esail) at texas a&m university is offering a technology clinic for all faculty teaching distance courses in the spring of 2018 the clinic will be thursday jan 11 from 10 am until noon in room 910 of the richardson building it is a come-and-go event designed to provide answers for faculty in the texas a&m college of engineering who may have questions pertaining to distance education and instructional technology faculty are invited to come and meet the members of the esail team and learn about the services they offer faculty are also encouraged to bring their own laptops and and sit down one-on-one with the esail team members to get answers to technical and course design questions to prepare for the coming semester the engineering studio for advanced instruction & learning provides professional support for departments and faculty engaged in distance education led by assistant vice chancellor dr sunay palsolé the esail team has 12 professionals with a broad range of experience and skills in planning designing building promoting and supporting distance education courses graduate degrees and certificate programs to contact the esail team email engrlearntech@tamuedu or visit the esail website for online faculty training
2234,bob morgan a texas a&m university former student has been tapped to serve on the texas commission on fire protection (tcfp) morgan who graduated from texas a&m in 1994 with a degree in mechanical engineering was recently appointed by gov greg abbott to serve a six-year term on the tcfp which develops and enforces statewide fire service standards and provides education and assistance to the industry as commissioner morgan will work with fire departments throughout the state to assist with testing and certification for firefighters and fire inspectors commissioners also work to ensure that policy changes to state law are upheld i believe that my role on the tcfp is similar to my role as a (protection engineer) which is to always put the public welfare as my first priority and that includes firefighter safety morgan said i am very proud to have the opportunity to serve my state and its residents including our many firefighters morgan is the senior fire protection engineer for the fort worth fire department where he manages the fire protection plan review works with fire inspectors and evaluates the codes and hazardous material policy while morgan is dedicated to his job he said his goal upon graduation was not to be a firefighter he first went to work for an insurance company with texas a&m connections and then moved to an architectural engineering firm in his role there he met firefighters in fort worth which led him to join the fire department looking back at his time at texas a&m morgan said his mechanical engineering degree helped with technical aspects in his career such as thermodynamics and heat transfer his overall education from economics to specialized engineering studies also helped him approach any engineering discipline with greater ease a (bachelor of science in mechanical engineering) provides a good basis or foundation for moving into more specialized fields of engineering in my opinion he said but it isnt just his degree from texas a&m that has helped him in life morgan said he didnt know about many traditions at texas a&m before coming to college station and even viewed some of them such as having to learn the yells as a burden now he encourages students to find ways to socialize with peers which makes college easier i think i have a much greater appreciation for the camaraderie that comes from the traditions morgan said some of my best friends now were friends from a&m morgan offers several pieces of advice to students to maximize their time while at texas a&m including to not give up if they are struggling with their major and instead seek out help and advice lastly i would also always recommend serving your community ie volunteer in whatever capacity you can to help others morgan said i promise that you will find it immensely rewarding morgan is a member of the international building code fire safety committee six different technical committees with the national fire protection association and the north central texas council of governments and is chairman of its fire advisory board he is also a member and past president of the fire prevention association of north texas and dfw chapter of the society of fire protection engineers
2235,similar to roadways across the country every cell in our body has a network of paths and a professor at texas a&m university has zoomed in to the molecular level to research the proteins that travel along this transportation system dr wonmuk hwang associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering researches motor proteins which act as vehicles to carry cargo inside a cell in the body his latest research has been focused on kinesin the smallest protein in the human body that can walk with two legs and carry material throughout the body on intracellular filaments called microtubules his findings have been recently published in a paper in the journal elife the goal of the research was to study how kinesins process fuel to generate that walking motion if you compare this with the macroscopic gasoline engine you burn the gas you generate the heat and you power the car hwang said this is a molecular motor (in the human body) so the energy source is not just burning the fuel but actually when fuel binds to this kinesin motor there is binding energy associated and burning after burning you have to exhaust the product hwang said each step in the energy binding burning and exhausting processes plays a role in the movement of the kinesin in specific phases of its walking pattern the energy for the movement comes from adenosine triphosphate (atp) molecules which hwang said are the main fuel of the body when you eat something the end product of the energy you take in is converted into atp to be used in the cell he said according to hwang one surprise from his research findings was how the kinesins obtain the atp instead of the atp binding to the protein in random encounters hwang said the kinesins have loops on their surfaces that capture nearby fuel and then assist in the burning and discarding of the pieces kinesins play a vital role in many cellular processes and understanding how they function can have multiple biomedical applications hwang said his research served dual purposes laying the foundation for applications down the road and the advancement of knowledge hwang said one of the future applications of the research is in anti-cancer drugs a subset of kinesins are key players in cell division and knowledge about their movement can help scientists and engineers develop drugs that will inhibit the kinesins from walking and dividing cancer cells if you know where to target then people can start to screen for drugs that particularly bind to those domains to modify or control those motors hwang said while the protein and their distinct bipedal walking motion were discovered in the mid-1980s how the motor worked remained a mystery compared to the engine of a vehicle whose working principles are understood well enough to improve its design to fit its purpose the lack of knowledge about how kinesins walk makes it difficult to utilize these nanoscale machines for biotechnology applications hwang said hwang has worked since 2008 on the project and collaborated with researchers at harvard university and vanderbilt university to carry out computer simulations that were unprecedented in scale and discovered how the fuel processing steps are achieved looking forward hwang said he would like to further characterize properties of kinesins and find how the legs communicate with each other to facilitate the bipedal motion its not like our legs where theres a nervous system and so forth its just molecules hwang said people dont know how communication between the ‘feet happens because you have to make them coordinated how does the protein know when its making a step there must be some communication
2236,the state of texas has more bridges than any other state in the nation with over 50 000 total maintaining structurally sound shorter- and longer-span bridges was the driving force in two collaborative projects recently completed by dr mary beth hueste and the texas department of transportation (txdot) hueste a zachry department of civil engineering professor at texas a&m and texas a&m transportation institute (tti) research engineer is dedicated to furthering the understanding of the use of new materials and designs for bridge structures with a focus on prestressed concrete bridge systems prestressed members are put into a state of compression using high-strength steel tendons before external loads are applied the use of precast prestressed concrete bridge girders in texas and other parts of the us has proven to provide economical bridge systems that have a number of benefits hueste said producing the girders at the precast plant leads to enhanced quality because there is more control of the materials and the manufacturing process at the plant during fabrication by investigating new bridge systems that utilize precast girders txdot and other bridge owners have additional options for bridge designs that can be selected when the site conditions or other factors make precast concrete the optimal alternative continuous prestressed concrete girder bridges the first project centered on continuous prestressed concrete girder bridges most texas bridge structures are constructed with precast concrete girders with a cast-in-place concrete bridge deck the bridge girders are fabricated at a precast plant where they are prestressed to avoid cracking of the concrete and to achieve longer span lengths compared to conventional reinforced concrete bridges however the precast girder units are limited to 160 feet due to weight and length restrictions on transporting them from the plant to the bridge site this projects primary focus was to develop innovative and economical alternatives for longer-span bridges with main spans up to 300 feet hueste was the research supervisor on this project she worked alongside dr john mander zachry professor in design and construction integration and tti research engineer and reza baie anagha parkar akshay parchure jennifer prouty and tristan sarremejane civil engineering graduate students employed by tti hueste and her team of researchers found that with in-span spliced girder technology and continuous prestressing installed at the bridge site the span length of precast concrete girder bridges can be nearly doubled in-span splicing involves connecting the precast girder sections at optimal locations within the span such that the overall span length between bridge supports is greater than the length of the individual girder segments hueste and her team constructed a full-scale spliced girder specimen in the laboratory where they conducted extensive testing to confirm that the splice connections performed satisfactorily full-scale testing allowed us to verify that the splice-connection detail between precast girder segments is structurally sound under the design service loads hueste said in addition we applied even larger loadings to ensure that the connection details will provide sufficient strength up to ultimate load conditions the research study led to a comprehensive set of recommendations for the design of continuous spliced precast girders along with detailing guidelines for in-span spliced connections spread prestressed concrete slab beam bridges the central focus of this second project was to investigate a new bridge system for short-span bridges with spans up to about 50 feet conventional slab beam bridges have precast concrete slab beams placed immediately adjacent to one another with a cast-in-place topping slab while this bridge system is commonly used for short-span bridges due to its shallow profile it is more expensive than typical prestressed i-beam bridges this project examined the use of slab beams that are spread apart with less expensive precast concrete panels between beams and a cast-in-place concrete deck the goal was to investigate the design constructability and performance of this new bridge system and to provide guidance for future designs hueste was the research supervisor on this project she worked alongside mander; dr gary fry adjunct associate professor; and tevfik terzioglu dongqi jiang and joel petersen-gauthier civil engineering graduate research assistants employed by tti in addition a number of undergraduate students assisted during various stages of the project in order to better understand the spread slab beam bridge system the team built a full-scale prototype with widely spaced beams at the texas a&m rellis campus there they were able to assess constructability and in-service performance additionally they tested a second spread slab beam bridge with closely spaced beams recently constructed on us highway 69 in denison texas both bridges were instrumented and field testing was conducted using heavily loaded vehicles to evaluate load distribution behavior the measured data from field testing along with comprehensive modeling and analysis were used to develop design expressions to determine the distribution of load for this bridge system the researchers found that the spread slab beam bridge system provides another viable design option for short-span bridges that may be more cost-effective than traditional slab beam bridges our research with txdot has helped to further the potential for precast prestressed concrete bridge systems hueste said both projects used full-scale testing to evaluate the performance of new short- and longer-span bridge systems these investigations are crucial for providing guidance to bridge engineers to ensure that these new bridge types will perform as expected
2237,"industrial distribution students recently took a trip to austin to visit a food pantry and the central texas food bank in order to explore solutions to fight hunger in texas the students are part of the hunger free project an intercollegiate effort to facilitate meaningful sustainable interactions between texas a&m university students and organizations representing core values of leadership and selfless service in the community this initiative was spearheaded by dr malini natarajarathinam an assistant professor in the department of engineering technology & industrial distribution in fall 2016 ""since i started this effort every person that i have solicited help from has gone above and beyond to propel this idea forward "" says natarajarathinam ""that just speaks volumes about our commitment as a society and institution to providing aggies with a meaningful learning experience grounded in selfless service it is very humbling to see the support from all possible avenues"" last spring a learning community of approximately 120 undergraduate students in the disciplines of industrial distribution sociology and computer technology management worked together in multidisciplinary teams to boost the ability of texas food banks to better understand their clients and their needs reduce costs and enhance efficiency the project is currently in its second year with a new class of students ready to get to work in april the students will present their solutions at the inaugural community engagement & impact summit held at texas a&m attendees will include stakeholders in the leadership and service center as well as the hunger free project service learning classes provide opportunities for students to learn through practice by making a difference in their communities student teams were each assigned to a texas food agency or pantry that has a preidentified problem in areas including distributing supply chain management and other organizational issues in austin students also visited the food pantry micah 6 where they got to experience firsthand the problems that these groups faced a dialogue was formed and students were able to ask questions to pantry workers in order to spark ideas to find solutions after the pantry visit students traveled to the central texas food bank which was responsible for providing over 45 million meals to its community last year alone students went on in-depth tours of the facility and were able to meet with food bank employees afterwards and engage in meaningful discussion the central texas food bank is a strategic partner in the project and will provide the winning teams at the community engagement & impact summit with a total of $15 000 to implement their proposed solutions"
2238,"dr kristen maitland associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering and director of the microscopy and imaging center at texas a&m university has been promoted to fellow of spie maitland was recognized for ""achievements in confocal microendoscopy"" during a ceremony at the spie photonics west conference in san francisco california on jan 29fellows of spie are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics photonics and imaging they are honored for their technical achievement for their service to the general optics community and to spie in particularmaitland's research focuses on the development of optical imaging and sensing technologies for the detection diagnosis and treatment of disease she is recognized as a leader in multimodal optical imaging and an expert in endoscopic microscopy maitland is in her second term on the spie board of directors she serves on the editorial board of the spie journal of biomedical optics and on the editorial advisory board for spie professional she has served on program committees for conferences in spie photonics west and spie/osa european conference on biomedical opticsmaitland received her bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from cal poly san luis obispo and her doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from the university of texas at austin as an nsf igert research fellow maitland joined the faculty at texas a&m in 2008spie is an international society advancing an interdisciplinary approach to the science and application of light more than 1 300 spie members have become fellows since the society's inception in 1955"
2239,"according to an article in mashable nasa's 2019 budget proposal includes funding for a new x-plane specifically a supersonic aircraft designed to travel faster than the speed of sound without generating a loud sonic boom dr dimitris lagoudas associate vice chancellor for engineering research at texas a&m university and principal investigator for the project leads a team of researchers that includes dr rodney bowersox and dr darren hartl from the department of aerospace engineering they are making recommendations to nasa on ways to reduce the massive shockwaves produced during supersonic flight the article ""nasa believes its supersonic x-plane will slice our cross-country flight times in half"" describes their research that subtly changes the shape of the aircraft in midflight depending on various weather conditions if nasa has its way the first x-plane prototype of this kind will take flight in 2021"
2240,with 48 hours on the clock students from 14 universities set out to make an impact on the world this past weekend in the end more than 400 students in 10 different countries came up with solutions to problems facing the globe spearheaded by texas a&m universitys engineering entrepreneurship program invent for the planet followed the format of aggies invent an intensive design challenge that gives students hands-on experience with solving problems in 48 hours the event kicked off at 4 pm local time friday feb 16 in cambodia (3 am cdt) as the earth continued to rotate more universities joined the challenge from myanmar to idaho collaboration was key as students raced to develop solutions to 15 need statements sourced by some of the participating universities as well as usaid each student had access to microsoft teams software which allowed students to easily communicate with one another via messages video chat or audio calls the winners each university named a first second and third place winning team at texas a&m the first place team illuminate designed a lighting solution for children in developing countries without access to electricity to be able to study after dark the second place team erase the waste created an affordable bag that could be used to keep grains such as rice from going bad or being exposed to insects the third place team samara developed a device that could safely transport medication to rural areas the first-place winners from each team will compete against each other to be named the overall invent for the planet winner on monday feb 26 the grand prize includes an invitation for up to six members of the winning team to come to texas a&m in march to continue their work with experts the winning team will also present their project at the venturewell open minds showcase and reception march 24 at the bullock texas state history museum in austin texas and will have a chance to win up to $3 000 a global collaborative experience it was incredible watching all 14 universities around the world working on solutions to some of the planets biggest challenges said rodney boehm director of engineering entrepreneurship at texas a&m from food security and waste management to the environment and education the ideas these students came up with were innovative and groundbreaking i cant wait to see some of these ideas come to fruition one such idea is already being implemented at state university of pernambuco in recife brazil the school of engineering is taking their winning teams design a system that keeps track of energy consumption in a household or business and will be using this system in all 10 engineering buildings on campus in an effort to reduce their expensive energy bill in the end boehm said thats what its all about turning ideas into reality and making a difference in the world for some of my students this opportunity was the first time they have been exposed to other universities abroad so i was more than happy dr fernando buarque in brazil said it was the first time his university has ever hosted an intensive design experience challenge it was a first for mahidol university in thailand too our team and mentors felt really happy to see our students eagerness and willingness to solve global problems so we see that this event can really help our students develop an entrepreneurial mindset and skills dr phattananrd phattanasri said texas a&m student reflections adriana hernandez a landscape architecture student at texas a&m was on team illuminate we already have very diverse backgrounds she said of her team but i talked to someone from mexico and someone from another school they tried to explain what they were doing and it was interesting to see what their approach was mechanical engineering masters student sarojeet deb said it was exciting to take his classroom education and apply it in a practical way teammate adam curtis agreed we were in the shop and technicians would say ‘this looks great on paper but we either cant machine this or its not going to make sense he said actually getting their input when we were trying to design was really useful senior aerospace engineering student makiah eustice said her favorite part of invent for the planet was being able to collaborate on her project with a multidisciplinary team of all ages and backgrounds i got to hang out with freshmen who are really innovative who bring a lot of different perspectives that you wouldnt expect she said a lot of people were better at things than me and then i can bring some things to the table too so its been a really neat experience to see a list of all participating universities and need statements click here the overall winner will be announced next week to see photos from around the world check out #iftp2018 on social media
2241,"dr sam mannan executive director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) mary kay o'connor process safety center and regents professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to serve on the department of energy's (doe) hydrogen and fuel cell technical advisory committee (htac)""the hydrogen and fuel cell technical advisory committee is important to ensuring our nation's advances in hydrogen and fuel cell commercialization policy regulations standardization financial climate and research and development "" said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of tees ""dr mannan's expertise in hazard assessment and risk analysis vulnerability assessment process safety management and risk management as related to hydrogen and fuel cell deployment will be a strong contribution to this high-level group of experts""as an htac advisory board member mannan a tees distinguished research professor will provide technical and programmatic advice to the doe on its hydrogen research development and demonstration efforts he joins 18 other members including representatives from industry academia professional societies government agencies financial organizations and environmental groups""it is a great honor to serve on such an important doe committee particularly at a time when our nation is faced with many choices and challenges in energy resources both in supply chain development and sustainability ""said mannanmannan's research interests include abnormal situation management aerosol research inherently safer design quantitative risk assessment reactive chemicals modeling of silane releases liquid-to-natural-gas safety and design and flammability research a professional engineer and certified safety professional mannan is a fellow of the american institute of chemical engineers fellow of the uk institution of chemical engineers and a member of the american society of safety engineers international institute of ammonia refrigeration and national fire protection association in addition to his many honors and achievements mannan was named the first holder of the ma naser chair at bangladesh university of engineering and technology and has served as a consultant to numerous entities in both the academic and private sectors including the columbia accident investigation board"
2242,riser gas behavior was a major factor in the deepwater horizon disaster in april 2010 where an uncontrolled blowout on the macondo well caused explosions that killed 11 people sank the offshore rig and led to a hydrocarbon release in the gulf of mexico damaging the environment to address the risks of riser gas in offshore drilling dr wesley williams a professional in residence at the craft & hawkins department of petroleum engineering at louisiana state university (lsu) and dr jerome schubert an associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university are heading a joint project focusing on gaps in the understanding of riser gas behavior their project is funded with a $49 million award from the gulf research program of the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine
2243,"with the use of a modified land well and several labs at both universities williams and schubert will gather data to understand and model some of the harsh conditions of offshore drilling their models and predictions mean better sensors advisory systems and equipment can be manufactured to warn about and prevent uncontrolled hydrocarbon releases or catastrophic blowout disasters in the future the project will begin by using the lsu petroleum engineering research and technology transfer laboratory and a modified 5 800-foot deep test well on the lsu campus called the gulf research well to perform simulations of kicks and gas-bubble migrations in offshore drilling muds drilling muds are the heavy synthetic or oil-based muds circulated down the drill string behind the bit and back up the borehole to counter the pressures in a reservoir keeping liquids and gasses deep in the earth from forcing their way up the well while drilling is in progress a kick is the term for pressurized gas from a reservoir entering the borehole and mixing with the drilling mud if the kick is not stopped gas will migrate up and into the riser where it is called riser gas a riser is the conduit between a drilling rig and a well on the seafloor below weatherford deepwater well control will provide offshore muds needed for the gulf research well phase of the project with representative robert ziegler consulting on fluids and deep-water conditions the simulations will generate mud and gas datasets in controlled temperature and pressure environments the mud and gas datasets will be verified in lab-scale test environments at texas a&m using the tower lab under the direction of dr rashid hasan and the dual gradient drilling lab under the direction of schubert both labs will use scaled simulations to replicate and confirm the data and understand the physics behind riser gas behavior once this is done researchers will create computer models in the new high pressure and high temperature fluids laboratory at lsu to better predict the behavior of riser gas the properties of mud and gas mixtures will also be measured under extreme conditions at schubert's high temperature/high pressure laboratory at texas a&m schubert will use this new data to develop a high temperature/high pressure kick-and-well-control model for gas kicks in oil-based and synthetic drilling fluids which will be superior to the water-based mud assumptions or black-oil models currently used although newer risers are designed with gas handling equipment installed in the top of the riser operations can only improve if more is known about the behavior of gas entering the synthetic drilling muds and what happens when gas reaches the riser that is why williams and schubert's research is so critical ""standard operation is not to let any gas get in the riser but when you're in ultradeep water things are different "" said schubert who has specialized in deepwater well-control research for many years ""if we understand the process we can design a system to prevent it we can develop procedures where gas in the riser is not a problem i want incidents like the macondo (well disaster) to never happen again"""
2244,texas a&m engineering is poised to become a national leader in advanced manufacturing helping cement that growing reputation the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) has joined america makes the countrys leading collaborative partner in additive manufacturing and 3-d printing technology research commercialization and education the two will collaborate on ways to advance the additive manufacturing and 3-d printing industries across the country while also sharing their knowledge with texas a&m university students interested in manufacturing additive manufacturing and 3-d printing will transform the manufacturing industry said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and director of tees we look forward to partnering with america makes to strengthen our position in this important area texas a&m has one of the largest concentrations of core manufacturing subject matter experts in the country the knowledge base is multidisciplinary with approximately 10 percent coming from the college of engineering and the other 90 percent comprised of representatives from various colleges within the university and the texas a&m university system as a public-private partnership the brand equity that texas a&m brings to america makes is world class said rob gorham america makes executive director what we've decided to do with texas a&m is really leverage world-class researchers and big initiatives that (texas) a&m can bring to the table to bring 3-d printing and additive manufacturing in to the state of texas in a very focused and deliberate way tees currently has significant involvement in several national manufacturing usa institutes including: leader of the gulf coast regional manufacturing center one of five regional centers located across the country as part of the clean energy smart manufacturing innovation institute (cesmii) in partnership with the department of energy cesmiis goal is to spur advances in smart sensors and digital process controls that can radically improve the efficiency of advanced manufacturing in the united states leader of the south central regional robotics innovation collaborative part of the department of defenses advanced robotics manufacturing (arm) innovation hub arms mission is to create and deploy robotic technology by integrating the diverse collection of industry practices and institutional knowledge across many disciplines to create a robust manufacturing innovation ecosystem co-leading the modeling and simulation focus area within the rapid advancement in process intensification deployment (rapid) manufacturing institute in partnership with the department of energy rapid is working to enable the development of breakthrough technologies in modular chemical process intensification that will boost energy productivity and energy efficiency cut operating costs and reduce waste in industries such oil and gas pulp and paper and various domestic chemical manufacturers thematic lead and regional hub of the advanced regenerative manufacturing institute (armi) a consortium of nearly 100 partner organizations to develop next-generation manufacturing processes and technologies for cells tissues and organs tier i partner in the national institute for innovation in manufacturing biopharmacuticals (niimbl) supporting the standards for more efficient and rapid manufacturing capabilities in biopharmacuticals
2245,the scent of flowers that we breathe the water in the sea that we play with the colorful world around us that we explore have you ever wondered what they are made of the answer is atoms and molecules teeny-tiny particles that we cannot see with our eyes but scientists have developed many different ways to distinguish dr vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has recently had a breakthrough with one of these ways raman scattering when it comes to viewing these building blocks of life this new technique attains low-background coherent raman scattering that is controlled by a tunable infrared laser raman scattering is the inelastic scattering of a photon by molecules the technique developed by yakovlev is called mid-infrared assisted coherent anti-stokes raman scattering/spectroscopy (mira cars) and is an entirely new technique this approach offers a new advantage including a potential for higher emission intensity a reduction of nonresonant four-wave mixing background preferential excitation of the anti-stokes field and simplified phasing matching conditions currently there are many different raman techniques that are widely used and range from microscopic imaging high-resolution spectroscopy and even the detection of fatality inducing spores such as anthrax yakovlev noted that the current challenge at hand is the availability of mid-ir sources researchers and companies alike are steadily pushing the boundaries of what mid-ir tools are capable of in addition infrared light is absorbed by water and carbon dioxide this in turn could limit the available wavelength if the beam is formed within open air or within biological samples however as demonstrated by andrew traverso and brett hokr two former students in yakovlev's group two-photon excitation lifts most of such restrictions and benefits a background free and highly efficient cars technique that will greatly enhance the sensitivity of current methods the theory for the new raman scattering method was developed by dr marlan scully zhenhuan yi and luqi yuan of the institute of quantum science and engineering and department of physics and astronomy at texas a&m their experimental research eventually became the groundwork for yakovlev the research conducted at texas a&m was funded by the air force office of scientific research office of naval research and the national science foundation
2246,"the future needs more scientists and engineers - how do we inspire kids today to become them the idea in september 2016 four researchers at texas a&m university were awarded a $1 million national science foundation grant to promote interest in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) careers in partnership with blinn college the funded project ""connected stem - promoting stem education through connected devices and building automation"" is a three-year innovative technology experiences for students and teachers (itest) grant focused on encouraging middle and high school students to learn about stem and the types of careers paths those fields offer the innovative technology experiences for students and teachers program is part of the nsfs directorate for education & human resources whose goal is to achieve excellence in us stem education at all levels in order to support the development of a diverse and well-prepared workforce itest grants specifically support research on the design development implementation and selective spread of innovative strategies for engaging students in technology-rich experiences for the promotion and increased awareness of stem and stem occupations grant recipients dr michael johnson dr joseph morgan dr jay porter and dr matthew kuttolamadom are all professors in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution dr jennifer whitfield and dr bugrahan yalvac are in the department of mathematics and department of teaching learning and culture respectively the project is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the texas a&m college of engineering college of science and college of education to promote stem in classrooms researchers knew that they had to start with the biggest influence on students' lives every day - teachers teaching the teachers last summer 12 teachers from across texas were invited to take part in an all-expenses-paid two-week stem training workshop where they would learn concepts that could be easily relayed to their students dr jennifer whitfield director of aggieteach from the college of science helped engineering technology and industrial distribution department researchers reach and recruit teachers through a highly competitive process ""we had 100 applicants but only 12 were selected for the workshop "" said whitfield ""these teachers wanted to be here and were really committed and engaged"" each teacher received free equipment for his or her classroom including stem software a new 3-d printer and even internet of things measurement devices how did the workshop go in short phenomenal teachers participated in a range of lectures and hands-on learning activities centered on building automation the internet of things the engineering design process and additive manufacturing ""dr johnson's team has taken these four areas and put them together in such a way that secondary educators have the ability to create curriculum from it "" said morgan dr cynthia maye a sixth-grade science teacher at burbank middle school from houston said the experience was truly eye-opening ""i could not fathom that i was going to learn this much in this amount of time "" maye said ""to know that we took stuff back with us that the kids can touch and learn from is really exciting"" once the workshop was over teachers returned to their schools and began developing their newly-learned stem curriculum which they are now teaching this spring this may sound like the end of the project but in fact is just the beginning one year down two to go johnson engineering technology and industrial distribution department associate professor and the grant's principal investigator shared his thoughts on the progress of the three-year-long project ""i think we had a lot of success over the summer we're at the point now where the teachers are implementing their curriculum into their classrooms and we are collecting preliminary data "" said johnson going forward all teachers will be getting visits from industry leaders who will speak to students facilitate building automation activities as well as come together for a family stem night where students can share what they have learned johnson wanted to express his gratitude to industries such as texas instruments who donated over 200 launchpads to the teachers from the workshop so that more students could get involved with internet of things activities other companies that supported the project include schneider electric and national instruments after teachers finish the program this spring johnson and his research team will welcome a brand-new set of teachers in the summer to repeat the entire process once that is completed there are plans for a stem camp in south texas for a large number of students and researchers who will be able to facilitate a variety of hands-on activities the future one of the most exciting aspects of this project is the potential for it to become a new standard of teaching stem in classrooms not only in texas but potentially the rest of the nation and even the world ""now that the teachers have this capability and understanding they can incorporate it into their classrooms for a long time "" said johnson ""this self-sustaining aspect is something that we want to build off of by expanding the scale to more teachers in the future"" engineers and stem professionals are in high demand now and this need will only increase johnson stressed just how important it is that we spark an interest in young people today so they can be the scientific leaders of the future ""everything is an engineered product so whether that is doing healthcare technology water resource management or even creating drugs to combat illnesses all of these things are in the purview of stem "" said johnson ""you can impact people's lives and make the world a better place"""
2247,"students from all walks of life enter texas a&m university in pursuit of degree for some they don't even step into a classroom douglas compton graduated last fall as the department of mechanical engineering's first graduate in the distance learning graduate program compton graduated with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from west texas a&m university and went into the workforce as an engineer for seven years working as a mechanical engineer for companies in the houston area and las vegas in 2015 while living in houston compton said he decided to go back to school for his master's degree to potentially expand future employment opportunities in project management ""i wanted to complete that degree online while working because i didn't want to be out of work-i have a wife and a 5-year-old "" compton said ""i wanted to pursue a degree and earn money at the same time"" he said he always wanted to get master's degree at texas a&m and began researching distance learning programs he started his master's degree in fall 2015 the first semester the university began offering the distance learning master's program he graduated in december 2017 with a master's of engineering degree having taken two classes every semester though technology helped him communicate with professors and fellow students while working compton said the distance still presented challenges ""you don't get the face-to-face time through email or phone and you have to coordinate with students' schedules for group projects "" compton said ""working full-time time was extremely thin but i was able to still do it some people say it's hard for professionals to have interaction with students but the way that this program was done it is very possible"" compton now works in dallas and offered some advice to students who may be considering or are already part of the distance learning program ""see it through keep working and keep in contact with professors "" compton said ""while i did not see (my professors) i made sure they knew who i was"""
2248,dr helen reed regents professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2018 american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) fluid dynamics award this award is presented for outstanding contributions to the understanding of the behavior of liquids and gases in motion as related to need in aeronautics and astronautics reed will receive an engraved medal and certificate of citation during the recognition luncheon at the 2018 aiaa aviation forum and exposition in june in atlanta georgia the citation for her award will read for lifetime achievements in the fundamental understanding modeling and control of boundary-layer laminar-to-turbulent transition for aerospace vehicles from subsonic to hypersonic reed has been with the department for 13 years serving as department head for four years before returning to teaching and research on a full-time basis widely regarded as an expert in hypersonics boundary-layer stability and transition energy efficient aircraft and small satellite design she has led research projects totaling millions of dollars among those projects she is presently a member of two of the five nasa university leadership initiatives (one led by texas a&m and one by university of tennessee knoxville) she is a principal investigator on a major air force office of scientific research program to model the transition process on a next-generation hypersonic flight-test article in addition reed has a phase ii small business innovation research program through arnold engineering development center and cfd research corporation to disseminate her analysis tools she directs the computational stability and transition lab as well as the aggiesat lab satellite program a design-build-fly student satellite program housed within the department reed is a consultant to the institute for defense analysis a member of the national academies air force studies board intelligence science and technology experts group chair of the aiaa transition discussion group and a member of the nato avt et 136 technical team: hypersonic boundary layer transition prediction she is also co-founder and chief technology officer for chandah space technologies a startup company specializing in small satellite systems she is a licensed professional engineer in the state of texas she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being named a fellow of the aiaa the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) she received the kate gleason award from asme the atwood award from the american society for engineering education and aiaa and the minnie stevens piper professor award from the state of texas she was inducted into the academy of engineering excellence and the committee of 100 in the college of engineering and the inaugural class of the academy of aerospace and ocean engineering excellence all at virginia tech in 2013 she was named a presidential professor for teaching excellence (in perpetuity) as well as a regents professor (in perpetuity) and in 2014 she was awarded the texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching at the university level and was named holder of the edward pete aldridge 60 professorship reed earned a bachelors degree in mathematics from goucher college and masters and doctoral degrees in engineering mechanics from virginia tech
2249,"news about cybersecurity is rarely good whether it's individuals hacker groups or even foreign adversaries attempting to interfere with the democratic process it can feel like the united states is struggling to keep up on the cybersecurity front but the news isn't all bad instead of standing idly by texas a&m has been quickly responding to the call with the recently awarded $44 million grant from the national science foundation cybercorps scholarships for service (sfs) program the texas a&m cybersecurity center will administer the cyber leader-scholars program in partnership with houston community college the program will combine the academic expertise at both institutions to develop and mentor a group of students over a five-year period in return for their scholarships which include generous stipends the students agree to work for a government agency for a period equal to the length of the scholarship dr daniel ""rags"" ragsdale director of the texas a&m cybersecurity center said ""our cyber leader-scholars program which includes the sfs program leverages the strong and longstanding commitment of a&m leaders faculty and students to addressing threats to the safety and security of texans us residents and other members of the global community it also takes advantage of the decades-long focus the university has directed at the ever-evolving challenges of cybersecurity ""we are fortunate to have highly motivated partners from houston community college (hcc) who will administer the program on their campus "" ragsdale added hcc is one of the six two-year institutions participating in the texas a&m-chevron engineering academies program the first-ever engineering transition program of its kind in the united states this program is the most recent development in texas a&m's ongoing effort to provide both groundbreaking research and a skilled workforce in cybersecurity last year following former us undersecretary of defense for intelligence dr stephen cambone's appointment to lead the texas a&m university system's cybersecurity initiatives the chronicle for higher education profiled texas a&m's efforts to develop a robust cybersecurity curriculum recently militarytimescom ranked texas a&m as one of the top 10 schools in the country for cybersecurity the work being done by the texas a&m cybersecurity center and a&m faculty to meet the growing demand for cybersecurity expertise is extraordinary "" cambone said ""the increasing number of students enrolling in an increasing number of cybersecurity classes is a testament to their commitment addressing a set of issues that are both complex and in urgent need of resolution"" in terms of impact texas a&m faculty have been awarded more than $18 million in grants for cybersecurity research and education in the past three years and that figure continues to grow for example texas a&m scholars with support from the national science foundation the department of energy and the defense advanced projects agency are engaged in several high-impact research projects that address cyber vulnerabilities in a wide array of critical infrastructure sectors according to ragsdale the vision for the cybersecurity center is to ensure that texas a&m in partnership with other forward-looking institutions would move to the forefront of cybersecurity research and education ""with the progress we have seen in just the past two years and with the addition to our faculty and staff of dr cambone and a number of distinguished cybersecurity faculty it is safe to say that a&m is well on its ways to realizing this auspicious vision "" ragsdale said co-principal investigators for the national science foundation grant include texas a&m cybersecurity center assistant directors paula dewitte and dr robert jones and department of computer science professors dr dilma da silva and dr guofei gu"
2250,if you had a chance to make a difference in the world would you create an environment for children in developing countries to continue learning once the sun has gone down design a tool to decrease the massive amount of food that is wasted or develop an identification system for migrant workers to help them access jobs and secure finances those questions and others may be answered as the engineering entrepreneurship program at texas a&m university is hosting the first invent for the planet a 48-hour global design challenge that aims to solve some of the worlds most pressing problems from cambodia to new mexico 14 universities around the world are joining the challenge to invent for our planetthe event kicks off in cambodia at 4 pm local time (3 am central time) feb 16 as the earth continues to rotate other universities will join the challengeinvent for the planet will give engineering students around the world the ability to collaborate together to solve problems and experience what its like to be an engineer in our global society said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship programadds m katherine banks texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean texas a&m is addressing the most challenging problems facing our world by encouraging the brightest young minds to develop innovative solutions from flood water management for rebuild texas to biomedical devices that help children in cambodia access health care the sun never sets on innovation and this is a wonderful example of engineers changing the worldmicrosoft is providing a collaborative platform for teams to communicate with each other for example if a team in boise idaho is working on a challenge that might affect citizens of thailand team members can ask specific questions of mahidol university students in bangkok by video chatting or messaging venturewell and autodesk also have joined invent for the planet to provide supportat each location teams are formed based on a shared interest in one of the available need statements over the following two days the teams research the topic come up with a plan and build a simple prototype at the end of the final day each team presents its prototype to a panel of judges presentations include a video about the teams innovation at each site three teams are selected for first second and third-place prizes the first-place teams from each university will have about a week to perfect their pitches before submitting new videos that will be judged remotely for a chance to be named the overall winnerparticipating universities include the institute of technology of cambodia phnom penh cambodia; mahidol university bangkok thailand; the university of technology at yadanabon cyber city myanmar; texas a&m university at qatar doha qatar; technical university of cluj-napoca cluj-napoca romania; arab academy for science technology and maritime transport alexandria egypt; universidad politecnica de yucatan merida yucatan mexico; swansea university swansea wales; state university of pernambuco recife pernambuco brazil; wichita state wichita university kansas; arizona state university phoenix arizona; boise state university boise idaho; new mexico state university las cruces new mexico
2251,or engineering project management teams time is money with this in mind civil engineering masters student morgan boudier and four other aggies developed a novel solution: save teams time and money with the use of specialized augmented reality software that can tell them if a project is on track boudier and four other students developed this software through the november 2017 aggies invent challenge sponsored by dell students were challenged to develop the next generation in augmented reality or virtual reality software wearable devices and other platforms before the event i already had an interest in the area of virtual reality boudier said i think it is a good way to cut cost in the industry so what we had done is develop a software on unix that will let a project manager track costs and losses due to project delays on construction management projects the software boudier and his colleagues developed in 48 hours was specifically designed to assess walls the software enabled a user through a virtual reality headset to survey a wall in front of them then looking at the wall the user can directly compare the architectural model developed for the structure on the headset to the wall in front of them to see if it is completed yet if there are complications and what cost there would be due to the lost time with the headset the engineer can directly see what is going on onsite and this visual can be sent [directly] to the project manager boudier said the idea was that you lose a lot of time with meetings and reporting so the headset can be used to speed up this reporting by allowing you to be on site also with the headset you can video stream with an expert and ask them questions in the field instead of having to gather people together for a meeting so you're saving both time and money the software that the team developed was designed to be applied to walls but has the potential for other future applications the team that developed the software consisted of boudier two mechanical engineering students a computer science engineering student and a student from the mays business school it was a pretty diverse group which was a good thing to see boudier said i think working with these people from different backgrounds gave me some self-confidence about working as a part of a team and helped me see that i could contribute good ideas for the betterment of the group a french native boudier said part of what drew him to pursue his masters education at texas a&m university was the hands-on engineering experiences like aggies invent that focus on real world challenges the upcoming aggies invent experience invent for the planet will take place this month as a part of a worldwide event that challenges students to tackle global issues such as human rights and resource conservation through product innovation reflecting on his time as a previous participant boudier said the experience was well worth it and encourages others to be a part of the competition i think the winners of the aggies invent are always the people with the best ideas boudier said i think it shows that those with the best ideas succeed and that you have to spend some time letting it develop in your mind it doesnt just happen if i could do this again i would it's a great experience
2252,"rachal thomassie a former advisor in the texas a&m university department of mechanical engineering is pursuing her master's degree in interdisciplinary engineering at texas a&m with the hope that she will be able to continue to help students in a whole new way ""i've always had a desire to help people and to devote my work efforts toward that value in some way "" thomassie said ""working with students these past years i have seen my direct and immediate impact on their lives it is a very gratuitous and humbling feeling"" thomassie received her undergraduate degree from texas a&m in mechanical engineering then moved to florida to work for the department of defense she worked for a year in mission and ministry work then changed her career path to education when she accepted a position as an academic advisor for the college of architecture at texas a&m she later moved to the college of engineering in the mechanical engineering department where she was an advisor for four years realizing the impact her work and compassion had on students' lives thomassie decided to make a change and further her education so she could eventually help more students ""i'd like to make a broader impact by developing programs that support engineering students and aid in their development as people and as future engineers "" thomassie said ""i also want to guide students academically through teaching and connecting the classroom learning experience to the 'real world'"" the master of science in interdisciplinary engineering (itde) has been the perfect fit for thomassie the flexible program accommodates accomplished engineering students whose research interests cross engineering disciplines and colleges interested in systems engineering and engineering student learning thomassie found itde to be ideal because the major allowed her to get an education in a custom degree plan tailored toward her needs ""the flexibility of itde has allowed me to create my own degree plan around my interest and research in engineering education and systems engineering "" thomassie said ""since a&m doesn't currently have a specific program in this area i choose itde""this in turn will help thomassie reach her career goals and stay true to her passion for helping students at texas a&m ""my goal is to create and direct programs that enhance engineering student development and engagement and to teach engineering students "" thomassie said thomassie was additionally assisted in reaching her goals when she received the bk krezner memorial reentry scholarship through the society of women engineers which is awarded to a nontraditional reentry student who wishes to enter the workforce as an engineer"
2253,"dr xingyong song assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution with a joint appointment in the department of mechanical engineering was recently presented the prestigious doctoral new investigator award from the american chemical society (acs) for his research on autonomous shale oil drilling each year the acs holds a highly selective competition through peer review to award funding to top young researchers with a track record of producing innovative fundamental research established in 1954 the goal of the competition has been to support ""advanced scientific education and the careers of scientists to aid in significantly increasing the world's energy options"" the award provides funding of $110 000 for two years and will support song on some fundamental studies in his proposed research ""dynamics modeling and process control of drilling system for unconventional oil and gas production"" shale oil is a ""tight oil"" trapped in hard rocks that in the past has been very difficult to extract since the united states has large reserves of shale oil it has become a priority to engineers to figure out how to ease the process of extraction in addition to the possible transition from the us being an oil and gas importer to a producer shale oil and gas can potentially be cleaner than its crude counterpart however extraction is highly difficult due to the depth of shale oil and the requirement of new types of drills that must operate in a 3-d space ""there are three major challenges to shale oil extraction "" says song ""cost environmental impact and safety"" song's research focuses on drilling automation - transitioning from a human drilling operator to a drill that can operate itself similar to a self-driving car or spacecraft ""machine learning can optimize the drilling path using analysis and data in ways that a human operator cannot "" says song ""you can potentially remove human error and effectively drill in a three-dimensional path"" song is focused on building the algorithm that autonomous drills would use to make intelligent decisions on their own resulting in cost-effective environmentally friendly and safe shale oil drilling autonomous drilling could also save companies crucial time in locating and extracting the oil allowing them to utilize their drillers in other areas that require human control"
2254,"a passenger airliner full of people lines up on the runway preparing for takeoff as the engines rev up the sound is a dull roar to the passengers inside the craft however this sound is an indication of a process that could impact the safety and reliability of the plane a system that researchers at texas a&m university are seeking to improve dr luis san andrés mast-childs chair in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m works on multiple projects in the turbomachinery laboratory his work in rotordynamics includes novel squeeze film dampers which help reduce vibrations within a jet engine creating more reliable equipment that is safer and more comfortable to the ears of passengers the long-term project has been funded by pratt & whitney engines since 2008 ""you turn on an airplane engine and don't turn it off for three years; it's not like your car which you turn on and off every day "" san andrés said ""you can't do that with aircraft because it takes a lot of warm up to come up to speed the moment you turn them off they cool off and parts contract and don't work as well"
2255,"inside the jet engine there is a space smaller than a human hair between the frame of the engine and the turbines the space is filled with lubricant that prevents the equipment from wearing down during the warmup period the lubricated squeeze film dampers are vital to help decrease vibration from the rotating gas turbine engine that makes the overall plane safer by reducing wear on the airplane the goal of san andrés' research is to reduce the time it takes to warm up the engine as well as to continue to increase the safety and efficiency of aircraft jet engines san andrés said the concept is similar to the fluids inside the human body between the knee bones for example there is a packet of synovial fluid that cushions impact ""when you jump or run there is impact the fluid prevents the bones from hitting each other and wearing down these dampers only work under compression they cannot work under tension "" san andrés said ""inside the jet engine there is squeeze lubricant around the surface of the rotor that helps to keep it going and operating smoothly"" since aircrafts carry little lubricant to reduce weight and volume squeeze film dampers during operation are prone to draw air in the film this dynamic process causes the oil and air to mix and the air bubbles reduce the damping ability san andrés' students are testing dampers with controlled bubbly oil mixtures to quantify damper degradation in realistic testing conditionsalong with the physical research san andrés' lab has developed computational programs that are used by the industry today but whether it's the physical research or computational research one of the goals of san andrés is to teach engineering staff and students the importance of predictive maintenance a common theme across his varied projects in the turbomachinery lab""in engineering the last thing that you want is to solve a problem you solve problems before they occur during the design stage "" san andrés said ""you have to figure out there will be a crazy professor who's going to test how to break it and it has to survive ""the best engineers aren't the ones who solve problems they're the ones who anticipate the problems and needs in a product "" san andrés said ""the best engineers create a need and change the world""san andrés said his work falls in line with the mission statement of the turbomachinery lab which is to educate students perform research that is state-of-the-art as a tier one university should have and provide continuing education his work has a direct impact on industry as 95 percent of his projects are industry funded san andrés also works to promote engineering education giving students the skills necessary to survive in a modern fast-paced world his projects typically support a dozen graduate students and professional research staff each year"
2256,"three from texas a&m engineering were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the texas a&m university system and their respective fields of expertise by the board of regents dr pr kumar was named a regents professor and marilyn martell and dr dean schneider were recipients of the regents fellow service award kumar is the college of engineering chair in computer engineering and a distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m he has been awarded numerous academic titles and awards he was awarded an honorary doctorate from eth zurich and has received the outstanding contribution award from the association for computing machinery (acm) sigmobile the infocom achievement award the sigmobile test-of-time paper award the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) field award for control systems the donald p eckman award of the american automatic control council and the fred w ellersick prize of the ieee communications society kumar is a member of the us and indian national academies of engineering and a fellow of the world academy of sciences he also is an acm fellow and a fellow of ieee ""dr kumar is a true scholar a leader in many research fields a passionate teacher and mentor "" said dr miroslav begovic head of the electrical and computer engineering department in his nomination letter ""he embodies academic excellence with achievements that have an impact on texas a&m university the state of texas our nation and internationally"" martell has served as the senior assistant vice chancellor for marketing and communications for texas a&m engineering more than 16 years she is directly responsible for marketing communications and public relations for the college of engineering and tees as well as providing strategic brand development and guidance to maximize the strengths of the texas a&m system engineering program during her tenure martell has elevated and maximized the texas a&m engineering and texas a&m system brands some of her greatest accomplishments include the crisis communications she led during the deployment of texas task force 1 to the world trade center and coordinating the spacex hyperloop pod competition design weekend held at texas a&m in 2016 which had such an impact on the community that martell received the hometown hero award from the convention sales department at the bryan/college station convention and visitors bureau ""ms martell is a person of integrity who embraces our core values and encourages others to do the same "" said dr diane hurtado associate vice president for federal relations in the nomination letter ""she has demonstrated a long history of professional service to the a&m system which i have had the privilege of witnessing as i chart her future trajectory based on her historical performance i am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that we can only expect extraordinary and spectacular things from her in the future"" schneider is the co-director of the gulf coast regional manufacturing center of the texas a&m energy institute and a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center fellow he is a retired us air force research and development engineer with over 30 years of experience in technology program management and development after joining tees schneider helped provide organization and vision to tees researchers in responding to federal manufacturing initiatives leading to significant involvement in five national manufacturing usa institutes including regional leadership in three of them he has received many awards during his career including an air force commendation medal an air force logistic command outstanding company grade military engineer of the year award and numerous air force meritorious service medals ""dr schneider is a model of servant leadership and consistently demonstrates his commitment to serving others "" said dr dimitris lagoudas tees deputy director and associate vice chancellor for engineering research in his nomination letter ""his sustained contributions to the mission of tees makes him an exemplary asset to our agency providing extension in research to the residents both private and corporate of the state of texas"" the board of regents established the regents professor awards program in 1996 and the regents fellow service awards program in 1998 to recognize employees who have made exemplary contributions to their university or agency and to the people of texas the regents professor award honors individuals at the rank of professor or equivalent whose distinguished performance in teaching research and service have been exemplary the award is the highest honor bestowed by the a&m system on faculty members the regents fellow service award honors and recognizes extension research and service professionals within the agricultural and engineering agencies health science center and veterinary medical diagnostic laboratory these professionals must have demonstrated a significant commitment and contributions to their respective agency by providing exceptional leadership in educational or program delivery/scholarship research or service that have resulted in significant impact and lasting benefits to the state of texas and beyond ""these professors and professionals make the texas a&m university system extraordinary "" said board of regents chairman charles schwartz in a statement ""because of them the universities and agencies within the texas a&m university system will continue to thrive"""
2257,the national academy of engineering (nae) elected dr chanan singh regents professor and irma runyon chair professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university honoring his contributions to the advancement of theory practice and education in electric power system reliability election to the national academy of engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer as an administrator and former department head dr singh has demonstrated great leadership in securing resources for major expansion of the faculty in our department dr miroslav begovic department head and carolyn s & tommie e lohman ‘59 professor said yesterday i can hardly imagine a more deserving recipient of the high recognition that was bestowed upon him the prestigious membership in the us national academy of engineering singh is former department head and an institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) fellow internationally recognized as an expert on the reliability and security of power systems he joined the texas a&m faculty in 1978 other honors singh has received include the merit award by the probabilistic methods applied to power systems (pmaps) international society the ieee outstanding power engineering educator award and the texas a&m university association of former students' university-level distinguished achievement award for research he has previously held the jw runyon jr professorship ii the halliburton professorship and the dresser professorship and the university of saskatchewan awarded him a dsc in 1998 for his research contributions in 2010 he was the inaugural recipient of the ieee-pes roy billinton power system reliability award singh will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the nae's annual meeting in washington dc on sept 30 2018
2258,in todays world of interconnected devices and technology hackers usually have a bad reputation for doing serious damage through their computers however students at texas a&m university are proving that skills in hacking can be used for good hosting a collaborative annual hackathon through the on-campus organization tamuhack the hackathon a two-day event held jan 27-28 is a way for students and companies from around the nation to network in a central location while also completing unique challenges aimed at solving real-world trials faced in the industry today the students had the opportunity to work with several companies including american airlines who presented a challenge for the students to build something to enhance the customer experience or help airline employees this was focused on the travel industry and was judged by its technical difficulty and problem addressed the winning teams for this challenge won international and domestic flight tickets students also worked with global professional services company accenture who presented a challenge for the students to find the best hack for secure data this challenge focused on cybersecurity and was judged by its technical difficulty and the problem addressed several other prizes were presented at the end of the hackathon including best first-time hackers best hardware hack and first second and third place overall the event which had humble beginnings in 2014 now hosts hundreds of students and industry representatives annually the hackathon is sponsored by several companies including google facebook and capital one in conjunction with the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m in addition to being a sponsor several faculty members from the department were involved in the event himank yadav tamuhack director and computer science senior said i think the transition between college and industry is sort of steep for people who do not typically have a lot of industry experience one of the goals is to help bridge that gap by encouraging students to build projects while still in school so that when you step outside either for an internship or full time you are on a more level plain in addition to hosting the annual event the tamuhack leadership also plans other events to get students involved outside of the classroom yadav believes that tamuhack is more than just one event however at its core tamuhack is about building a community around people who love what they do
2259,with only 24 hours on the clock students came together to design and develop ideas to help make the texas a&m university campus more inclusive the 2018 diversity hackathon brought students from many disciplines at texas a&m to the langford architecture center on feb 2-3 where they worked overnight to help turn spaces on campus into more welcoming environments for all people
2260,cecilia giusti associate dean for outreach and diversity in the college of architecture and head of the diversity council launched the diversity hackathon four years ago the inaugural hackathon featured a partnership with the department of computer science and engineering and the college of engineering continues to play an important role in the event with a majority of the participants being engineering students for 24 hours they talk about what it means to be diverse what is an inclusive approach and how to talk better about inclusion and diversity giusti said [and] they actually create or produce something even if they dont win anything the whole exercise is fantasticits magic one team of general engineering freshmen worked to develop a tool to help the visually impaired better navigate campus team members prototyped a device that could slip onto the back of a pair of glasses and connect to a phone which could then use the campus wi-fi to pinpoint the wearers location the device would then communicate information through vibrations against the bone in the back of the ear it would notify you of different obstacles around campus and different buildings or streets so that a person who was visually impaired would be aware of their surroundings and know which way to go without needing to look at a map said jaxon tucker there were six challenges teams could choose from provided by different programs across campus the college of engineering asked students to focus on the zachry engineering education complex and how to make it more accessible for students with hearing visual or physical impairments its going to be a world-class state-of-the-art building and i was hoping that students might come up with some concepts to ensure that all of our students are welcome and can participate at the same level said debra dandridge texas a&m engineering experiment station and engineering accessibility coordinator to help with the creation process students had access to several resources including 3-d printers and other tools provided by the college of architecture one team took up the challenge to create an open space for communication by developing an interactive screen to help people share concerns and ideas in a more accessible way were going to have an interface for people to share their ideas through texts said junior computer science engineering student muin momin we have a phone number set up and people can text complaints or something they like about the space that theyre in and that will display as a word cloud on the screen so everyone can see whats going on and the owners of that space can get ideas on how to improve it being a part of the hackathon may also help students after graduation dr j michael moore an instructional assistant professor in the computer science and engineering department said industry is showing more interest in accessibility and expects graduates to be prepared to create these universally designed accessible products this hackathon is a fantastic opportunity for our students in engineering to not only try and do inventive ideas in a short period of time but also to be creative and innovative and be ready and thinking that way before they go out in industry moore said
2261,the harold vance department of petroleum engineering hosted its annual student paper contest this year at the texas a&m university campus in college station texas the objective of the contest is to assist students in developing proficiency in presenting technical papers or research projects both orally and visually before a panel of experts over 400 students ranging from juniors to doctoral level in petroleum engineering competed this year the students gave 10 to 15 minute technical presentations throughout the day on jan 27 before judges from industry the run-off competition on feb 3 brought the contest to completion by naming the top three winners in each of the four divisionsjunior senior masters and doctoral junior winners (left to right in photo): joshua becan in first place magy avedissian in second place and megan croy in third place senior winners (left to right in photo): miranda jones in first place claire fiorenzi in second place and madison jackson in third place masters winners (left to right in photo): tian liu in first place romain lemoine in second place and austin lim in third place doctoral winners (left to right in photo): sheng luo in first place rongqiang chen in second place and mehrdad alfi in third place this time-honored event over four decades old has grown significantly in both the number of students participating as well as industry support and sponsorship former students and personnel from companies that hire aggie petroleum engineers volunteer their time and funding saying they consider this contest to be one of the most important professional development opportunities the department provides its students first and second-place winners from the senior masters and doctoral divisions will advance to the society of petroleum engineers (spe) gulf coast north america regional competition in houston on march 31 there are 14 regional student paper contests held globally and coordinated by spe at the contests undergraduate masters and doctoral-level students compete against other students from their region for the opportunity to move on to the 2018 international student paper contest which is scheduled to take place during the spe annual technical conference and exhibition this fall texas a&m petroleum engineering students have an outstanding record of winning in both the regional and international contests since 1993 texas a&m students have placed first at the regional contest 14 times in the undergraduate level 14 times in the masters level and 15 times in the doctoral level since 1999 texas a&m students have placed first at the international contest three times in the undergraduate level three times in the masters level and three times in the doctoral level
2262,texas a&m university researchers are studying seal leaks in subsea and aging oil well production facilities with the potential to greatly increase the efficiency of multiple-phase pumping and compressors turbomachinery dr luis san andrés mast-childs chair professor in the turbomachinery laboratory along with graduate assistant researcher xueliang lu a phd candidate in mechanical engineering conducted a series of measurements on the leakage and dynamic forced performance of wet seals such as pump liquid seals mixed with increasing contents of gas the test results show the gas or liquid content affects the system pumping efficiency and reliability with a dramatic impact on efficiency recorded with only a few droplets of liquid the experimental results validate mixture model predictions produced by san andrés in the early 2010s by better understanding the role seals have in the machinery researchers can help industry officials continue to enhance pumping efficiency increase reliability by reducing vibrations and ensure availability for extended operation times the researchers said an electric submersible pump (esp) manufacturer gave them positive comments on their work and said their data may help them design novel seal types toward improving the life of seals in their esps the current design can only survive 350 hours of operation about 1/100 of the desired reliability the team wrote a paper recording their results which was recently recognized with the best paper award at the american society of mechanical engineers turbo-expo 2017 selected from 133 papers accepted in the structure & dynamics division their papers title is leakage drag power and rotordynamic force coefficients of an air in oil (wet) annular seal the turbomachinery research consortium (trc) has sponsored the research for the past three years trc members original equipment manufacturers and end users envision more and more applications of multiple phase pumps for the subsea oil and gas industry san andrés and lu said wet seals must retain their leakage restriction ability without impairing the dynamic performance of the machinery follow up lectures are scheduled for presentation at the asia turbomachinery symposium and the turbomachinery symposium later this year more research developments will be published at the gas turbine conference with another journal paper already accepted the research opens a door for the future research career of lu as it verifies the likelihood of using air/gas injection to actively control leakage and force coefficient in pump seals and hydraulic turbomachinery in general san andrés said
2263,some of the most difficult challenges facing professional engineers arent technical; theyre personal according to jay graham 92 ceo of wildhorse resource development corporation graham along with four other former students all successful ceos and presidents spoke to a crowded rudder auditorium audience about the importance of hard work and integrity boss talk hosted by the engineering entrepreneurship program drew more than 1 000 students thursday evening dr mark weichold associate dean of academic affairs for the texas a&m university college of engineering moderated the event joining him on stage was graham tammira philippe 95 president of bridgeway capital; stephanie murphy 01 president of alpha space and executive chairman of the board for mei technologies; kenn hall 90 president and ceo of anadarko industries; and derek southard 94 vice president of cryolife inc as questions poured in on twitter there were emerging themes and concerns namely what more can i do to be prepared for a career outside of engineering courses we really enjoy bringing opportunities like boss talk to our engineering students said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program creating interaction between former and current students inspires our students to accelerate their pathways to future successful careers he said as more questions came in about academic success and how that impacts ultimate success in the workplace the bosses touched on similar advice each time the experiences you gain outside of the classroom can ultimately shape your success in industry leadership relationships and extracurricular experiences all enhance the education you get there could be no success without a well-rounded experience some of the advice extended into the first years of a career emphasizing relationships and continued learning particularly in the world of entrepreneurship i came to boss talk because i wanted to learn from execs who were in industry said asa graham a computer science major i looked them up beforehand and knew that they took some of the paths that im considering for myself: entrepreneurship and going to business graduate school asa graham said his favorite piece of advice was to find someone who can serve as a mentor let them be a mentor and do everything you can to form a relationship with that person and gain as much knowledge as you can he said being an entrepreneur you need to have that experience on your side so you dont make mistakes that lead to failure later on
2264,time is money and traffic earns nothing but road rage lost productivity and an increased gas bill dr mark burris the herbert d kelleher professor at texas a&m university seeks to save travelers time money and frustration with his travel behavior research the more accurately researchers can predict future travel the better they can plan and build the necessary infrastructure quickly and affordably in doing so burris and his team at texas a&m strive to reduce travelers time and frustration in traffic while also saving tax dollars my focus is to improve our understanding of how cost impacts someones travel said burris how it impacts the route they take the mode they use the time of day they choose and more traditionally much of this information was based on surveys completed by travelers about past trips and potential future travel more recently the technological advances that monitor new travel choices like high occupancy toll lanes and managed lanes provide real data that reveals more detailed information about travel behavior this kind of information is very useful in understanding how travelers regard their travel times and how much they would be willing to pay to reduce those travel times the harris county toll road authority texas department of transportation and houston transtar supplied data from the katy freeway in houston that burris and his team used for this research the katy freeway includes four managed lanes two in each direction in the middle of the freeway during most of the day carpools and buses can use these lanes for free while single occupant vehicles have to pay a toll the toll varies based on the time of the day and the correlating traffic congestion peaks this freeway is one of only a few worldwide that had the ability to identify travelers in both the managed lanes and the regular lanes note the data were anonymized so it was impossible to know who used the roadway just that a specific vehicle had used the roadway when analyzing the data collected from the katy freeway burris and his team found surprising results about 11 percent of travelers were paying to use the managed lanes at times when the regular freeway lanes were traveling at the same speed or faster than the managed lanes – a behavior that no models ever predicted also based on these data little evidence was found supporting the notion that travelers would be willing to pay for more reliable travel times in the managed lanes farinoush sharifi a masters student in transportation engineering is studying this anomaly in her masters thesis to make it clear many people believe that paying a toll to use a lane will bring them shorter travel time said sharifi however by looking into the katy managed lanes study we have found that there are times users pay to travel on the toll lane but go slower than the toll-free lanes sharifi and burris are working to understand the reasons for these uneconomical travel decisions using pattern recognition methods burris also found that the vast majority (84 percent) of freeway travelers with transponders only used the regular lanes a small percentage of people (3 percent) only used the managed lanes and 13 percent utilized both thus most travelers are not choosing between these lanes every day (as models assume) but rather have chosen the lanes they will travel well in advance and do not alter that choice regardless of travel conditions after collecting and analyzing this data burris and his team have begun exploring travel behavior in new and innovative ways partnering with a psychologist and a behavioral economist burris is now working to find ways to model travel behavior decisions in laboratory studies this real-world data has led to some very surprising findings that put my research at the forefront of this field said burris this improves our understanding of how travelers value different travel options and should dramatically change how we model travel behavior combined this allows transportation agencies to better predict and prepare for future travel demand these advances in understanding traveler behavior come at the same time great advances in automobile technology are occurring automated and connected vehicles will also greatly impact travel behavior burris has teamed up with texas a&m hagler institute for advanced study fellow dr kumares sinha and doctoral student arezoo samimi to examine some of these potential impacts they are developing a traffic simulation model of el paso to determine the travel time and emissions impacts of having connected vehicles in the traffic stream these vehicles will have information on travel times to their destination and can help the traveler choose the best route – or reroute when an incident occurs in theory this should reduce travel times and emissions however if too many vehicles reroute at once it could have negative overall impacts on travel their research will examine these potential impacts and strategies that combine data from connected vehicles and travel behavior to maximize potential benefits of connected vehicles
2265,"texas a&m university chevron and alamo colleges district will enroll the first cohort of students for the texas a&m-chevron engineering academy at alamo colleges district in fall 2018 this innovative co-enrollment partnership was developed to address the states growing need for engineers qualified students will be admitted to the texas a&m college of engineering complete the first two years of coursework at an alamo colleges district college and finish their engineering degrees in college station texas the program will begin accepting student applications march 1 the texas a&m-chevron engineering academy at alamo colleges district allows students to remain close to home for their first two years while pursuing one of 19 majors within the college of engineering at texas a&m this program is generously supported by chevron we are pleased to offer students in the alamo colleges district a unique pathway toward a first-rate degree from an engineering college ranked among the top 10 in the world said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp our goal is to attract the very best students to texas a&m engineering even if circumstances require them to stay close to home for the first two years of college these students will be aggies in san antonio from day one we are always eager to offer our students new opportunities for continuing their education once they graduate from one of the colleges of the alamo colleges district said alamo colleges district chancellor dr bruce leslie our latest partnership with texas a&m university and chevron will offer our students a pathway to a bachelors degree in a field with excellent job growth and high salaries benefiting not only the students but the states economy as well he added in texas the projected need for engineers in the workforce is 53 000 by 2024 to meet this need universities and two-year colleges will need to work together to bridge the gap and attract and retain students who are interested in stem fields engineering students in the engineering academy program enroll in math science and core curriculum courses through alamo colleges district and have the unique opportunity to enroll in texas a&m engineering courses taught by texas a&m faculty at northeast lakeview college part of alamo colleges district northeast lakeview college is proud to be home for this program said dr veronica garcia northeast lakeview college president this new program will help address the need for more programming in high-demand stem fields and provide an opportunity for more students in san antonio and surrounding areas to pursue engineering coursework chevron has donated $5 million to support texas a&m-chevron engineering academies across the state at austin community college; houston community college spring branch in houston; texas southmost college in brownsville; el centro and richland colleges in dallas; and alamo colleges district in san antonio chevron is committed to increasing access to and the quality of education around the world we are proud to partner with texas a&m on this important initiative to help ensure an educated and skilled workforce said shariq yosufzai chevron vice president of ombuds diversity and inclusion and university and association relations our longstanding relationship with texas a&m through support of the engineering academy initiative will help provide opportunities in the field of engineering for many underrepresented and first-generation college students yosufzai said partnering with texas a&m a top source of engineering hires for chevron to help provide opportunities in the field of engineering will support our efforts to help build the diverse workforce of tomorrow that will be required to meet the energy needs of the future"" texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean dr m katherine banks said the academies have the potential to reach beyond the typical pathways for access to a top-ranked engineering program the academies through our partnership with chevron and the two-year colleges provide new pathways to a first-rate engineering education banks said through this co-enrollment program students can live at home for the first two years of college without postponing their participation in an engineering program that is highly regarded by employers across the country for more information about how to apply and other details visit /academies or email engineeringacademies@tamuedu"
2266,"during the recent science technology engineering and math (stem) 4 innovation conference spark! texas a&m engineering's education outreach program launched their new mobile trailer designed to help texas children get excited about stem fields nearly 200 educators from across texas attended the conference and had the opportunity to see the 24-foot trailer in which students and teachers will be able to do anything from 3-d printing and welding to learning about robotics and cybersecurity ""we want to get students excited about engineering and we have to start with young ones "" said shelly tornquist director of spark! and pk-12 engineering education outreach ""we want them to know what a screwdriver is and how to solve problems by making things"" the stem 4 innovation conference for k-12 education is an interactive experiential event for k-12 stem educators administrators and counselors from across the state of texas the texas a&m college of engineering and the texas a&m engineering experiment station in partnership with the college of education and human development and the college of science hosts the conference which provides workshops tours speakers and hands-on activities"
2267,dr james cross professor at auburn university and former doctoral student from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was named a 2017 distinguished member of the association for computing machinerycross is receiving this distinction for his educational contributions to the field of computing his recent research efforts include jgrasp a software development environment with integrated software visualization tools for computer science education he has authored or co‑authored over 100 technical papers in the areas of software methodology testing reverse engineering program visualization environments and software engineering educationhe received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the university of houston in 1971 his master's degree in mathematics from sam houston state university in 1976 and his phd in computer science from texas a&m in 1986
2268,a penetrating injury from shrapnel is a serious obstacle in overcoming battlefield wounds that can ultimately lead to death given the high mortality rates due to hemorrhaging there is an unmet need to quickly self-administer materials that prevent fatality due to excessive blood loss with a gelling agent commonly used in preparing pastries researchers from the inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering laboratory have successfully fabricated an injectable bandage to stop bleeding and promote wound healing in a recent article nanoengineered injectable hydrogels for wound healing application published in acta biomaterialia dr akhilesh k gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university uses kappa-carrageenan and nanosilicates to form injectable hydrogels to promote hemostasis (the process to stop bleeding) and facilitate wound healing via a controlled release of therapeutics injectable hydrogels are promising materials for achieving hemostasis in case of internal injuries and bleeding as these biomaterials can be introduced into a wound site using minimally invasive approaches said gaharwar an ideal injectable bandage should solidify after injection in the wound area and promote a natural clotting cascade in addition the injectable bandage should initiate wound healing response after achieving hemostasis the study uses a commonly used thickening agent known as kappa-carrageenan obtained from seaweed to design injectable hydrogels hydrogels are a 3-d water swollen polymer network similar to jell-o simulating the structure of human tissues when kappa-carrageenan is mixed with clay-based nanoparticles injectable gelatin is obtained the charged characteristics of clay-based nanoparticles provide hemostatic ability to the hydrogels specifically plasma protein and platelets form blood adsorption on the gel surface and trigger a blood clotting cascade interestingly we also found that these injectable bandages can show a prolonged release of therapeutics that can be used to heal the wound said giriraj lokhande a graduate student in gaharwars lab and first author of the paper the negative surface charge of nanoparticles enabled electrostatic interactions with therapeutics thus resulting in the slow release of therapeutics this research is funded by the national science foundations chemical bioengineering environmental and transport systems division and the national institutes of healths national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering see more details about the inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering laboratory here
2269,dr james e hubbard jr has joined the faculty of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university as a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) research distinguished professor before joining texas a&m hubbard served as the samuel p langley distinguished professor at the university of maryland college park and director of the morpheus laboratory and the center for adaptive aerospace vehicle technology through the national institute of aerospace hubbard received his bachelors masters and doctoral degrees all in mechanical engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology he is known internationally for his work in aeroacoustics for noise control adaptive structures spatially distributed transducers and the extension of modem time domain control methodologies into the spatial domain for the real-time control of distributed systems hubbard is a member of the national academy of engineering a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and a senior member of the international society for optical engineering his research interests include: smart structure design and control; morphing aircraft technology; control of distributed parameter systems; smart skin sensing technology; ultra-low power energy management and storage; self-powered wireless sensor networks; energy harvesting; and internet of things
2270,the manner in which students learn and retain content from higher education courses is constantly evolving because of this progression faculty members need to find innovative ways to teach courses that have been taught the same way for years this opens new doors for creativity and change four faculty members in the texas a&m university college of engineering were awarded a grant from the instructional technology services (its) innovative pedagogy grant program this program offers texas a&m faculty and staff the opportunity to learn how to skillfully interlace technology into an online or hybrid course out of 16 awards three faculty members from the department of computer science and engineering and one professor from the department of aerospace engineering were presented an award to transform engineering education in their respective courses dr aakash tyagi professor of practice is focused on rebuilding the computer organization course content in a pseudo-flipped format where classroom activities include elements of traditional homework and classwork weaved together with real-time feedback on conceptual learning through this grant its will help with audio video and graphic content creation to realize the concept his ongoing vision for this course is to modernize content to include real-world computing devices and applications and their engineering tradeoffs and to increase student motivation and retention of the foundational principles of computer organization shawn lupoli instructional assistant professor is focusing on creating advancements in the data structures and algorithms course offered to students in computer science and engineering and other engineering majors lupoli plans to convert the traditional class to a hybrid course with mentoring and faster feedback that would utilize several technologies to enhance the overall learning process one technology lupoli would like to implement is a course management system that would contain the content order of the course and provide simulated exercises to enforce student learning with this process in place class time can be better utilized this can eliminate lecture time in material that does not need to be covered enabling deeper discussion and understanding of the already difficult topics in data structures dr paula dewitte associate professor of practice is focused on developing an online course on cybersecurity risk the risk assessment and management course provides students with the knowledge and skills to assess analyze and manage risk to make good business and technical decisions as stated in her proposal the initial goal is to have this course available for a minor in cybersecurity as well as for graduate and certificate programs throughout the colleges to meet the demand for myriad types of cybersecurity workers projected to be two million by 2020 the ultimate goal is to build a library of case studies for students from various disciplines and interests to make the course more worthwhile in building the knowledge and skills required by industry dr john whitcomb aerospace engineering professor hopes to create a much more active learning environment in the aero structural analysis course that introduces students to the theory and use of finite element analysis whitcomb believes that there is a difference between providing students with numerous learning resources and having the students take advantage of those resources utilizing digital technology to motivate students to take ownership of the concepts learned in class is an essential component of whitcombs teaching philosophy the redesigned course will be rooted in student-curated digital notes that will allow for the integration of static content such as that provided by a standard textbook with resources ranging from videos that introduce key concepts to engaging computational tools that encourage exploration students will also have the opportunity to revisit a lecture via a recorded video with whitcomb a teaching assistant or a classmate and discuss questions that they did not realize they needed to ask at the time of the lecture or were too shy to ask as stated in his proposal the onenote class notebook app will be used as the framework for gluing together an accessible interactive electronic textbook that is tailored for each student
2271,assistant professor dr justin wilkerson and his team are working to advance the state-of-the-art capabilities of new protection materials for defense wilkerson the james j cain '51 faculty fellow ii in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university recently received a two-year award to continue his work with the materials in extreme dynamic environments (mede) collaborative research alliance (cra) for his proposal titled novel void nucleation models enabling higher fidelity magnesium spall strength predictions this research is sponsored by the united states army research laboratory traditionally new protection materials have been developed through an edisonian trial-and-error process which typically requires decades of laborious experimentation paid for by millions of taxpayer dollars wilkerson said our goal here is to demonstrate the utility of computational modeling in accelerating and reducing the costs of the development of the next-generation of lightweight protection materials for the soldier this most recent award comes in a series of related mede cra projects wilkerson has successfully led for the past few years the objective of the mede cra is to bring academia government and industry together to establish the capability to design materials for use in specific dynamic environments especially high strain-rate applications in this particular project we aim to improve the damage nucleation criterion in our crystal plasticity framework for dynamic failure of light-weight magnesium alloys wilkerson said this new capability will enhance our likelihood of computationally discovering a new magnesium alloy with the desired ballistic performance wilkersons research interests include deformation and failure dynamic behavior of materials impact mechanics shock physics materials in extreme environments and planetary science click here for more information about the mede collaborative research alliance and its research
2272,an interdisciplinary team of researchers at texas a&m university has been awarded a division of computing and communication foundations grant by the national science foundation to develop a gut-microbial investigation model that can identify critical dietary risk factors that cause colorectal cancer the three-year $350 000 project is a direct outcome of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations interdisciplinary seed grants for strategic initiatives which provided initial funding to establish the collaborative research effort the project titled minimum mean square error estimation and control of partially observed boolean dynamical systems with applications in metagenomics aims to develop and apply innovative signal processing techniques to uncover the complex interactions among microbes human cells and their metabolic products in the gut the project will produce innovative methods for estimation and control of processes that consist of the complex interactions of many switching elements such as presence and absence of a particular microbial species in the gut which are only indirectly observed through noisy biomedical assays our goal is to develop a signal processing framework that formalizes the interactions of the complex ecosystem observed in the human gut such as the microbial communities and their interactions with the gut epithelial cells said dr ulisses m braga-neto associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m and the principal investigator of the project this framework will allow us to study the effects of nutritional supplementation on this complex ecosystem in terms of changes in the microbial diversity and human gut gene expression in cell-signaling pathways the project will provide life scientists with computational tools for biochemical pathway discovery as well as rational intervention design as in optimal drug scheduling and diet modifications to treat human disease the project will also provide training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students preparing them for highly interdisciplinary biomedical research braga-neto is assisted by an interdisciplinary collaborative team that includes dr robert s chapkin distinguished professor in the department of nutrition and food science at texas a&m agrilife; dr arul jayaraman ray b nesbitt endowed chair professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering; dr xiaoning qian assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department; and dr ivan ivanov clinical associate professor of bioinformatics in the department of veterinary physiology and pharmacology dr johanna w lampe associate division director of the cancer prevention program in the division of public health sciences at the fred hutchinson cancer research center is an external collaborator
2273,the energy was high saturday night when a team of students learned they had taken the top prize at the open minds showcase during the venturewell open 2018 conference in austin texas for their creation of a device that could bring light and electricity to millions of children around the world currently unable to study at night for the 10 students the aftermath of the 48-hour design challenge hosted by texas a&m universitys engineering entrepreneurship program last month culminated in their winning first place and being awarded $3 000 for the continuation of their product
2274,it was very hard she said we used candles to study since this is a problem i faced in my village i wanted to solve this edu-lite is a collaborative team comprised of five texas a&m students and five students from the university of technology in yatanarpon cyber city myanmar the teams were named first and second place winners respectively during invent for the planet a 48-hour design challenge hosted by texas a&m universitys engineering entrepreneurship program last month after invent for the planet winners were announced rodney boehm director of engineering entrepreneurship at texas a&m invited the team from myanmar to college station so the two teams could collaborate it was the first time any of the students from myanmar had ever left their country or flown in an airplane the team spent the past week collaborating on their designs when combined the two devices create an overall solution to the problem of extending education into the evening in areas without electricity the texas a&m students focused on creating an inexpensive and lightweight lighting platform while the university of technology in myanmar students focused on creating a source of electricity modeled after a sewing machine treadle for both teams being able to work together all week and then win first place was unforgettable i could not be more proud of these students they bridged cultures to work extremely hard together to come up with an overall solution to this problem that affects millions of children around the world boehm said to see their hard work and dedication pay off at the open minds showcase was amazing it was especially remarkable because edu-lite had some steep competition at the showcase there were 13 teams in the competition boehm said each had tables that showed their products and prototypes most teams had been working on their solutions for nine to 12 months some teams already had products on the market or were very close to launching their product the reason i believe they won is because this combined team demonstrated a very unique solution to a real need and the story behind the team and the development was just so darn compelling boehm said almost every team member from texas a&m and the university of technology in myanmar has personally experienced not having reliable access to electricity in fact about 55 percent of the entire population in myanmar is without electricity this drove each team even harder to find a solution to this problem van lar ruat a computer engineering student from kale myanmar said she grew up without electricity freshman texas a&m engineering student an nguyen said this problem hit close to home for her as her father grew up in vietnam and had limited access to electricity to study she said he would place fireflies in an egg shell to create a small glow lamp other teammates shared similar stories of hardship which ultimately inspired them to solve this problem boehm said he hopes to see the teams continue to work together to bring this product to market now that both teams have met in person and have formed a bond of friendship they are even more dedicated to taking their idea and setting it into motion with a business plan and strategy boehm said for the millions of children without electricity in the world this could have a huge impact for their education
2275,ask many aerospace engineering students what their lifelong dreams are and one common answer is to fly for nine undergraduate students in the department of aerospace engineering that dream will come true in the united states air force these students are members of air force rotc detachment 805 at texas a&m university and were selected for rated (flying related) positions for the air force brandon wingfield was selected for a position for remotely piloted aircraft and richard hobson nathan agner matthew bierwagen chris marcario shelton stephens jake wilcox brian simpson and michael brockey were selected for manned aircraft and undergraduate pilot training joining the air force was a dream of bierwagens since eighth grade guided by his mother to pick a major that complimented what he loved he was immediately drawn to aerospace engineering for me getting the pilot slot acts as a culmination of all my work since middle school bierwagen said all of the studying throughout high school so that i could obtain a contract with the air force and get in to texas a&m then to push my way through engineering to be competitive on a national scale this selection marks the end of eight years of work since committing myself to this dream but it also marks the start of another decade serving in the armed forces i could not be more excited to have this opportunity to be paid to do something id happily do for free we are all truly honored and blessed to have this opportunity to serve our country in the capacity stephens said getting to strap into the seat of such an awesome piece of aerospace technology really puts all of those late nights spent studying for the various aerospace classes into perspective the aerospace students were nine of 35 detachment 805 cadets selected by the us air force rated board based on rankings by both peers and afrotc instructors standardized test scores gpa physical fitness scores and performance at afrotc field training i have wanted to become a pilot for the air force since i was 5 years old agner said i have always enjoyed the thought of flight and building things for the betterment of the aviation industry which is why i chose to become an aerospace engineer receiving this pilot slot has been the culmination of 165 years of work for me and it's only just the beginning later in my pilot career i hope to apply for usaf test pilot school i would say it feels really good putting in three years of hard work and coming out with an amazing career wingfield said when the students graduate in 2019 they will commission as second lieutenants in the air force and go to initial training for their career fields at various pilot training bases they will go through a year of training before being assigned to a specific airframe this is a great opportunity to serve my country and do what i love at the same time marcario said currently i am half way through (getting) my private pilot license and it's just awesome to think that i can fly multiple times a week while being a part of something special i've always wanted to be an astronaut originally i wanted to be a developmental engineer in the air force but after coming to texas a&m opportunities presented themselves which made flying both inspiring and realistic having a tech degree opens a lot more scholarship opportunities in the air force and during my sophomore year in college i had the privilege of being awarded scholarships from air force rotc and the society of american military engineers (san antonio post) this degree also allows me to have different career options once i am a pilot; a test pilot is an example which requires a tech background the air force rotc is a four-year training program that prepares college students to become officers in the air force detachment 805 is one of the nations oldest afrotc programs established in the early 1920s and with over 700 air force cadets it is the largest unit in the nation in the past 50 years texas a&m has produced more officers for the air force than any other university
2276,the national science foundation recently awarded a grant through the engineering education and centers (eec) unit for a new reu site on cybermanufacturing the site will engage participants in the research experience for undergraduates (reu) program in high-quality research enrichment and development experiences through a 10-week long summer research program dr bimal nepal associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university will serve as the principal investigator of the group to increase enthusiasm and research skills in advanced manufacturing among early stage undergraduates dr satish bukkapatnam rockwell international professor in the industrial engineering department and dr prabhakar pagilla james j cain professor in mechanical engineering will serve as co-principal investigators the reu projects will leverage the diverse cybermanufacturing efforts and testbeds of the institute of material science faculty members to provide the students with a broad perspective of cybermanufacturing with a specific on three critical areas said dr nepal holleran-bowman faculty fellow these are design and planning in situ prognostics and process control and enterprise-wide optimization and coordination ten students from across the nation will be accepted each summer to participate in the program which will equip them with professional skills to enter the science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) workforce or to pursue a graduate degree the grant will begin may 2018 and end in april 2021 totaling $358 850
2277,yong-yu jhan a student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a fellowship to the taiwan ministry of education jhan is currently in the second year of her doctoral program students are selected for the fellowship based on academic achievement research experience research proposals and letters of recommendation the fellowship supports a variety of majors including: business history politics arts education and science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) fields and are awarded to 125 graduate students every year jhan plans to use the funding to provide financial support for her studies and further her doctoral research project i felt like i met the requirement for the fellowship and i felt it is a good opportunity for me to practice my research proposal writing said jhan i am blessed that i have been given the opportunity to be awarded a fellowship that encourages me to work harder on my current research jhan has been working in dr corey bishops pharmacoengineering laboratory since last september focusing her research on developing a stable and convenient drug delivery platform for pulmonary delivery the labs goal is to explore combinational therapeutic formulations for cancer and infection diseases including small molecules and gene therapy this year 17 engineering students received the fellowship and each recipient was awarded $16 000 per year for two years
2278,texas a&m university graduate student sarojeet deb put his mechanical engineering knowledge to the test to seek new ways to illuminate education for children in poverty deb joined a team of four other students under the name team illumi-nite to compete in the invent for the planet challenge in february which included more than 400 students from 14 universities across the globe during the 48-hour global design challenge teams selected a project from a list of needs that aimed at making the planet better debs team chose a challenge focused around light and education the need statement tasked students with designing a creative inexpensive environment for multiple children to study in the evenings after the sun has gone down deb said he had a personal connection to the assignment from his time living in a suburb of mumbai india in the early 2000s once a week we would lose electricity and it used to annoy me a lot because if there was a test the next day i couldnt study for it deb said illumi-nite members developed a platform that can hold light-emitting diode (led) lights for children in developing countries without access to electricity the design allows children to create their platform using items that are easily found around the world such as plastic bottles along with the platform deb said the team worked on a cost analysis and a pamphlet of assembly instructions that came in six languages which was an intentional decision everyone in the group is of a different ethnicity so we have a lot of diversity in the group deb said theres also diversity in majors the team consists of students in mechanical general industrial and electrical engineering as well as a landscape architecture student reflecting on the event deb said he took away several lessons from the challenge each team member had expertise in a different area so we learned how to distribute tasks between people deb said i also learned that what looks good on paper does not mean it will be easy to manufacture or physically possible debs team won the grand prize which was an opportunity to present at the venturewell open minds conference in austin at the end of march the prize also included a trip to texas a&m and the engineering entrepreneurship program who organized the event decided to extend the invitation to the second-place team team edu-lighter from the university of technology in yadanabon cyber city myanmar who was working on the same need statement the goal is to have the two teams collaborate we have a light delivery system they have an electricity producing system deb said so we have both ends covered and when we put them together we have a complete solution to the problem deb said he thinks there is a high potential that the finished product will be manufactured one day if we can convince investors that this invention is feasible and can actually be implemented i dont see any reason why they will not want to invest deb said in general deb said his interest in mechanical engineering has developed over time it started as a child watching his dad work as a mechanic i had a lot of exposure to that from my childhood deb said as i reached high school i liked physics so taking mechanical engineering seemed like a natural choice deb received his bachelors degree in india and then traveled to the united states for his graduate program after graduating he is interested in pursuing work in the thermal engineering industry i want to learn for a couple of years and then take that expertise back to india and maybe have a company of my own in a few years deb said
2279,the average distribution firm carries between 10 and 30 percent more inventory than needed the result millions of dollars are wasted that could be reinvested in competitive processes like new services or new product offerings distributors are facing forces of change that range from nontraditional competitors like amazon who have superior technology human capital and customer experience changing the way one goes to market requires new ways of thinking innovative business models and creative leadership the challenges are clear dr senthil gunasekaran said the solutions are waiting to be explored it is critical for distributors to master inventory management in order to take advantage of the advanced analytics opportunities in todays digital transformation landscape gunasekaran and dr pradip krishnadevarajan researchers in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university are offering a solution for business owners to efficiently organize their inventory which is led by three major forces first is the impact of information management krishnadevarajan said higher efficiency is opening the door to disruptors like online distributors second is a large generation millennials who will use these technologies to restructure supply chains third is an explosion of services in response to product and supply chain services commoditization the heart of distribution is driven by optimizing working capital while maximizing profitability this is known as the service versus cost trade-off managing working capital effectively decides the financial viability of your firm gunasekaran said its very important to understand the role of working capital not only for your existing business model but also for the evolving new models of e-commerce and other digital platforms until now distributors lacked a proven and tested strategy to perform the advanced must-do inventory analytics on this trade-off typically companies rank products based on a single metric or dimension such as sales or profit gunasekaran and krishnadevarajans approach presents a multicriteria approach that incorporates three metrics – stratification forecasting and replenishment the three-step inventory management model has been in existence for a long time krishnadevarajan said our approach presents a more practical applied and holistic approach backed by 33 real-world applications that companies can implement within a few months with minimal investment of both time and money companies also benefit from learning 24 best practices on growth from actual wholesaler distributors and 43 action steps to implement immediately brent burns retired ceo of isc building materials experienced firsthand the benefits of gunasekaran and krishnadevarajans solution through knowledge learned from the inventory management program attended by all our management and key salespersons we have reduced our total inventory levels by over 20 percent burns said their research was funded by several distributors for more than 15 years through their research engagements business initiatives and executive education sessions with the thomas and joan read center for distribution research and education as a result of gunasekaran and krishnadevarajans program companies will have the ability to better determine what product to stock when identify pricing opportunities at the product level reduce stock-outs and increase product availability and improve customer service
2280,the rules of the road are changing algorithms that are used to help predict driver behavior in years past are facing a changing landscape as more and more automated vehicles are on roadways the emergence of these automated vehicles is just one aspect of roadway safety that is covered by dr dominique lords new book safe mobility: challenges methodology and solutions lord a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university along with co-author dr simon washington a professor of civil engineering at the university of queensland wrote the book which represents a compilation of research from specialists across the world it serves as a guidebook for roadway safety practitioners and researchers in topics ranging from driver behavior transportation networks urban and suburban transportation and safe road design for vulnerable road users such as bike users and pedestrians in addition to being an educational resource the book has other practical implications for researchers and roadway safety practitioners someone in the us or abroad could look at the theories and concepts laid out in this book to help design something within their own country lord said it is not a design manual but it is based on the latest research from a variety of top authors in this field lords personal contribution to the book includes his years of research on highway safety and design specializing in large data sets lord analyzes these large crash data sets with many zero responses or observations where no crash occurred in my portion i provide information on when we should use traditional models as opposed to when we should use new multiparameter models which is something that has not been done before in my area of work this will be very useful when automated vehicles become prevalent on our roadways lord said we're working on a proposal that is beyond this book that deals with how to match drivers with the correct models along with automated vehicles the book as a whole hopes to address a variety of safety concerns in road planning guiding practitioners to design roadways for the future that implement the best practices in transportation safety we want to bring people up to date with what the near future will look like in [in transportation safety] and i feel like this work does a good job of giving a strong look at designing safe and sustainable roadways lord said
2281,it is estimated that this year alone nearly 10 000 people will die from oral cancer in the united states and around 50 000 new oral cancer patients will be diagnosed in the fight against this disease early detection is one of the most crucial components if oral cancer is diagnosed before it spreads the five-year survival rate is higher than 80 percent unfortunately only 30 percent of patients are diagnosed during the early stages that is because diagnosing oral cancer is not always easy in spite of the fact that oral lesions are fairly accessible for clinical evaluations dentists and physicians typically rely on the naked eye to look for problematic areas in a patients mouth that warrant a biopsy but identifying these areas can be difficult because a patients mouth can manifest lesions that may be benign precancerous or cancerous as a result many early stage cancerous oral lesions are missed while many unnecessary and painful biopsies of benign lesions are prescribed diagnosing oral cancer is somewhat of an educated guessing game that dr javier jo associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is hoping to improve upon through the use of advanced endoscopes that he and his team are developing these potentially lifesaving endoscopes make use of a technology known as fluorescence lifetime imaging (flim) to detect subtle metabolic changes that occur in the epithelial tissue covering the oral cavity as it turns cancerous preliminary results from more than 80 patients already suggest the potential of flim imaging for distinguishing noninvasively and in real time a variety of benign lesions from precancerous and cancerous lesions in the human oral cavity recognizing the potential of this technology for significantly facilitating the early detection of oral cancer the national cancer institute (nci) part of the national institutes of health (nih) awarded jo and his team a $25 million grant that will help support research focused on further developing their flim endoscopy technologies for noninvasive and accurate detection of oral dysplasia and early stage cancer this grant will also help support clinical studies at different medical centers in houston and dallas before moving to in-depth clinical trials and licensing of the technology we are extremely excited that nci recognized the potential of our technology for enabling early detection of oral cancer and decided to award our research proposal especially considering that only around 10 percent of these major grant proposals are recommended for funding jo said we strongly believe that our technology could potentially be used to assist at every stage of the clinical management of oral cancer patients not only for screening and early diagnosis but also for guiding treatment and monitoring for cancer recurrence which happens in 30 percent of patients who survive a first incidencethis five-year nci/nih grant was awarded in february to jo and his colleagues dr brian applegate associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m; dr yi-shing lisa cheng and dr john wright professors in the college of dentistry at texas a&m; dr maryellen giger faculty fellow from the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m; dr carlos busso associate professor in the department of electrical engineering at the university of texas at dallas; dr nadarajah vigneswarab professor in the school of dentistry at the university of texas health science center in houston; and dr thomas schlieve assistant professor in the department of surgery at the university of texas southwestern medical center
2282,young and driven both are words that could describe dr cortlan wickliff at 26 years old wickliff is an engineer licensed attorney business owner motivational speaker and author perhaps more important however is his desire to help others and inspire the next generation of thinkers and doers
2283,making history when wickliff was in third grade he wrote a paper about dr martin luther king jr that motivated him and propelled the trajectory of his life i found out that he got his phd when he was 26 years old and from that moment on i was inspired he said competitive in nature wickliff set out to earn his phd by 25 a feat he accomplished last summer when he received his doctoral degree in interdisciplinary engineering at texas a&m university four days before his 26th birthday to get there wickliff skipped a grade in elementary school and at 15 was admitted into a program at the university of north texas that allowed bright high school students to gain early entrance into the university he eventually transferred to rice university where he earned a degree in bioengineering graduating at 19 as the youngest engineer in the nation from there wickliff went to harvard law school becoming one of the youngest african-american graduates in the history of the school at age 22 the following year he made history again by becoming the youngest barred attorney in the state of texas these days he travels the country speaking to young people about his tools for success all while starting his own business doing legal work and consulting for other business owners he also wrote a book young and driven where it began while wickliffs mother dr tanya dugat-wickliff is an engineering professor of practice at texas a&m wickliff said his earliest scientific inspiration began in his fathers auto body shop he was a mechanic and would let me play with power tools and take things apart he said later during wickliffs elementary years he would go with his mother to her master of business administration courses wickliff was bright even as a young child and his mothers classmates would allow him to participate in class projects when she began working on her phd at texas a&m wickliff again came to many of her classes and conferences he said he was able to communicate effectively at a very young age partly because the people who surrounded him did not water things down its something we often overlook and dont think is important but when dealing with kids even as early as elementary all the way through high school if you talk to them with a certain level of maturity and expect a lot out of them they tend to rise to your expectations he said wickliff certainly rose to his parents expectations last summer when he graduated from texas a&m with a phd it was his mother who waited at the end of the stage to hood him it had all come full circle making a difference when wickliff was a child his father died of a heart condition at the age of 40 this tragedy inspired wickliff to study bioengineering in the hopes that he could help prevent others from dying of preventable causes at rice wickliff was able to help develop cardiorespiratory monitors for doctors in developing countries there are a lot of people who die every day from easily treatable easily preventable problems he said its just that doctors are overwhelmed trying to manage patient loads in the end his goal is to make health care more accessible and more affordable for people around the world as an attorney he hopes to make it easier for new technology to be available on the market be the trailblazer wickliff said its important to be a trailblazer especially as an african-american engineer people have looked at my skin color and made snap judgments about my intelligence or capabilities he said thats always a challenge to overcome but wickliff said its important to never be afraid of being the first person of color to work at a company dont be afraid to be that trailblazing person he said and make sure that when you do you reach back and you dont be the only person you bring more people with you wickliff said more and more companies recognize the importance of having different cultures represented in their companies and that its important for african-american latinx and other minority groups to be interested in science technology engineering and mathematics its a field where you have a lot of job security and a lot of opportunities to provide for yourself and your family and in the end thats what its all about he said i define success as being able to positively impact those around you the most lasting memories are always of those people who made your life better
2284,texas a&m engineerings graduate program was ranked 12th overall nationally and remained seventh among public institutions in the latest us news & world report survey americas best graduate schools 2019 eight departments in the college of engineering were also ranked in the top 10 public universities: aerospace engineering (4) biological and agricultural engineering (3) civil engineering (8) computer engineering (10) industrial and systems engineering (9) mechanical engineering (8) nuclear engineering (2) and petroleum engineering (2) the complete list of individual programs ranked were: aerospace engineering 7 (4 public); biological and agricultural engineering 3 (3); biomedical engineering 38 (19); chemical engineering 21 (12); civil engineering 15 (8); computer engineering 17 (10); computer science 43 (23); electrical engineering 21 (12); industrial and systems engineering 13 (9); materials science and engineering 37 (23); mechanical engineering 16 (8); nuclear engineering 3 (2); and petroleum engineering 2 (2)
2285,in addition to 38 active learning studios for class instruction the zachry engineering education complex (zach) will offer students 30 000 square feet of multidisciplinary hands-on learning laboratory space these learning laboratories will be common lab spaces which are flexible shared spaces that ensure the facility can be utilized efficiently; equipment duplication is minimized; and practice lab space is available more often and to more students these multidisciplinary labs will accommodate more than 50 courses each semester the labs span three floors in zachry and are grouped into nine focus areas encompassing the shared vision of all 14 departments within the college of engineering the focus areas include: materials fluids high bay large-scale processes controls cyber-physical and transport phenomena on the first floor located at the base of the staircase in the atrium are the materials laboratory the fluids laboratory and the high bay and large-scale processes laboratory directly above on the second floor are the controls laboratory the cyber-physical laboratory and the transport phenomena laboratory the electrical measurements laboratory the electrical sciences laboratory and the instrumentation laboratory are above the other labs and overlook the central atrium from the third floor all labs will offer a modern laboratory infrastructure including overhead service carriers (120-volt and 240-volt power data compressed air water and specialty gases) distributed throughout the space movable workbenches and seating allowing easy reconfiguration of the space augmenting such flexible infrastructure are specialty laboratory systems including ro-water sinks chemical vent hoods an rf shielded room a 45-foot tall high bay and a crane each of the nine focus area laboratories will have a set of equipment shared and selected by various engineering departments to accommodate multiple courses in the lab the shared environment is enabled by equipment-specific software scheduling and hardware interlocks engineering students from various disciplines will work side by side within these labs fostering collaboration architecturally the space is designed to be an open environment with glass walls and windows emphasizing the communal nature of the labs the multidisciplinary and shared nature of these labs represent a paradigm shift from the previous laboratory structure at texas a&m and used by other universities in addition to efficient use of space and equipment common labs also provide greater instructor and student access to a larger variety of laboratory equipment increasing experiential learning opportunities the consolidation of undergraduate labs into the zachary building also allows for the repurposing of departmental lab space for department growth and research
2286,most people might think of computer storage like an external hard drive or flash drive as something static that you can leave sitting somewhere indefinitely without issue in reality thats not the case for instance data is stored in flash drives by capturing electrons in cells and over time those electrons can escape for a variety of reasons creating errors in the data or corrupting the data altogether dr anxiao (andrew) jiang associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university said even the ambient room temperature can affect data storage
2287,"for example for flash memory every read or write of data will disturb many memory cells changing the amount of electrons in them jiang said even if we do nothing and just leave the flash memory alone as time goes on the electrons in memory cells will still leak away which is a big problem for long-term storage of data if the temperature becomes high such as under sunshine in the summer the electrons will leak even faster so errors are very common in stored data; and the longer data are stored the more errors there will be this problem makes reliable and secure long-term storage of data a problem especially in an era where individuals and institutions are creating massive amounts of data all the time to solve this problem jiang is combining coding theory with advances in deep learning a fast-developing area in artificial intelligence to unveil a new way of securely storing datathis is possible because text images video and audio files found in data are related to each other in complex ways such complex relations also mean the data has a lot of structures which is mathematically equivalent to redundancy and can be used to correct errors jiang saidin coding theory redundant or identical bits are added to the original data these bits are not fully independent of one another for example if someone repeats the same message three times those three copies are identical if any one of those three copies has errors the remaining two copies will show what the correct message should bein real data the redundancy can take on more complex forms such as a text that talks about ""raining"" may also talk about ""umbrella"" or other related things or the bits in data may satisfy some mathematical equation but the principle is the same – once we know the bits in data are dependent on each other in some way we can use that knowledge to correct errors jiang saidjiang believes integrating coding theory with artificial intelligence can lead to the development of new error correction algorithms which can be implemented in storage systemspreviously researchers believed the key to safely storing data was to add redundancy to the data using a mathematical tool called error correcting codes that can correct a certain number of errors that appear unfortunately this solution had limitationsa problem arises when errors accumulate in the long term and the number of errors in a file exceeds what the error correcting code can correct at that point the loss of the file becomes inevitablealthough adding more redundancy and attempting to remove errors from files periodically is still an option it is challenging and costlyjiang and his collaborators dr krishna narayanan eric d rubin 06 professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m and dr jehoshua bruck gordon and betty moore professor at the california institute of technology have found a new source of redundancy in the stored files themselves that can be used to correct errors and store data soundlywhy its importantensuring that all data is stored reliably in computer systems impacts everyone this study aims at creating a new tool for that grand goal with new advances in artificial intelligence especially deep learning jiang believes they may have the right tools to take on this challengethe primary goal of this project is to reveal how much redundancy exists in every type of data and how much of it is usable for error correctionthe second goal is to use the natural redundancy found in the data itself to realize highly reliable long-term data storage storage systems can be made more reliable by building them with the ability to understand the data they storethe results of their work titled error correction with natural redundancy can be used by various storage systems such as cloud storage built with nonvolatile memories these memories work very fast but suffer from various types of errorsthe research team was recently awarded a grant from the national science foundation for this project on natural redundancy"
2288,"whether your full-time job is pursuing an education or career it is rewarding to push yourself and seek opportunities for growth outside of your daily routinehimank yadav a senior in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has gone above and beyond to gain a well-rounded education in computing which included engaging in extracurricular activities outside of the classroomin addition to being the director of tamuhack for the past two years yadav has held several internships at companies such as ck-12 apple nextdoor and facebook each of these not only brought invaluable growth for yadav but also presented unique experiencesfor instance holding internships at two smaller startup companies allowed yadav to work on multiple teams and projects within the organizations at nextdoor yadav was able to interact directly with users across the world hearing their unique use cases and understanding their varying needs he learned user empathy and used this to inform his engineering decisions that followed yadav explained that it was very eye opening to see whether people liked or did not like something that he helped buildwhile at apple yadav worked as part of the apple maps team where he learned how to navigate a complex product firsthand""mapping is a hard technical problem because it holds an enormous amount of data "" yadav said ""you are trying to basically fit the whole earth into a phone it was a phenomenal initiative to be a part of""during his internship at facebook yadav knew he wanted to be a part of a very technical aspect of the organization so he chose to work on the infrastructure team while completing his internship he decided to participate in an internal company hackathon as wellfor the hackathon he worked alongside his team of fellow interns on a project to integrate political media into facebook's existing structure this side project resulted in yadav and his peers presenting it to mark zuckerberg and the rest of facebook's leadership team who were impressed with their idea to increase civic engagement on the platform""watching people around you use something that you built from scratch is a great feeling "" yadav saidyadav who will be graduating this may said that faculty interaction outside of classes was definitely a highlight of his time as a student he has worked alongside several faculty members in the department including dr james caverlee associate professor; dr aakash tyagi professor of practice; and mostly with dr jennifer welch chevron professor ii and regents professor""getting to understand their research and their angle on how they are contributing to this whole body of computing knowledge has been fantastic "" he said ""the reason i am working with dr welch now is because i had a fair idea of what she is working on and i could see myself contributing in the same field""yadav believes it is important to get to know people with expertise in a multitude of areas because computing is not just one sphere but rather multiple parts that come together from artificial intelligence to robotics data mining and systems they are all interconnectedhe also credits attending computing conferences sponsored by the department as opportunities to meet even more computing professionals and peers in the field that he would not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise"
2289,"the wind and water have subsided after hurricane harvey swept through texas in august but the road to recovery is long to help the process move along engineering students from texas a&m university spent their winter break assisting the federal emergency management agency (fema) where they could ""i wanted to contribute to assisting my hometown (houston) while also working with fellow engineers and engineering students "" said irfan beg a senior mechanical engineering student ""my father's car was damaged severely one of my best friends from high school had water damage in the carpets and tiles on the floors of his house"""
2290,"thirty students from different engineering majors volunteered for a 10-day internship with fema all interns first went through five days of training with site inspectors and then spent 10 days in the field ""we were very happy that these students chose to invest time on this and take part in this program and provide some service for the state "" said magda lagoudas executive director for industry and nonprofit partnerships traci brasher recovery division director for region 6 of fema said the federal agency viewed this first of its kind internship as a chance for students to gain knowledge about emergency management as well as open up future opportunities""i don't know that we've done anything like this any faster with any university ever "" brasher said ""i can't say enough about the partnership that we have gained between fema and texas and the university in order to do this"" freshman engineering major and engineering honors student lorenzo martinez said the program sounded like a prime opportunity to help his hometown of houston and gain internship experience early in his college career ""i felt that i could give back and do my part to help out in any way i could "" martinez said ""also my parents both of whom are first responders had to help and be out during the storm so i figured i would pay their hard work forward myself"" james stone site inspector for the fema disaster team said he had the opportunity to work with some of the students during the december training and the students jumped right in and were not afraid to tackle anything ""i think they have experienced a little reality check in their life and they will go forward with a different attitude on what it takes to go out there and do the work "" stone said the student-inspector teams were sent into the field to assess public infrastructure as part of fema's public assistance program assignments included meeting with applicants to identify measure and quantify structure damage in public areas ""when we did go out to a site in houston affected by hurricane harvey i got to shadow a site investigator on a community park that had been under five feet of water or more during the flooding "" said civil engineering junior anh duong ""it was a very unique experience"" during site visits students were expected to talk with the public to record damage then report and file all the information ""the biggest thing i learned was how meticulous everything at fema is "" said ocean engineering junior david nelle ""every detail of every damage is documented and everything has to be denoted a certain way there are specific ways to denote everything"" douglas edge biomedical engineering senior said he gained knowledge from the different individuals from fema he worked with ""i learned about construction and civil engineering principles "" edge said ""i learned about the various locales that those folks came from-many of fema's employees are not originally from texas i also learned about leadership and management in an office setting"" although many students completed their work over the winter break they have until april to complete their internships some students such as general engineering freshman isabel londrigan are planning to complete their work over spring break in march ""these site inspections will lead to fema granting the state the funding they need to get houston's facilities back on its feet and in full recovery "" londrigan said for many students the internship opened their eyes to the enormous role site inspectors play in the aftermath of disasters ""the site inspectors are the eyes and ears for everyone else "" said mechanical engineering sophomore volunteer and engineering honors student rebekah legband ""they are the ones who actually see the damage in person which makes the information they bring back with them vital"" ""site inspections mark the beginning of (the residents') road to recovery "" said jason nguyen industrial engineering senior audree co manufacturing and mechanical engineering tech senior said the experience gave her a new vantage point on the recovery process a sentiment shared by many of her fellow students ""with fema i'm able to help as a financial liaison instead of a disaster relief volunteer "" co said ""this allows me to get a better understanding of the recovery process"""
2291,"on march 5 the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university hosted kristina swallow president of the american society of civil engineers (asce) during her visit swallow had the opportunity to tour the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) and rellis campus with dr zachary grasley cir director professor and presidential impact fellow; dr stuart anderson assistant vice chancellor for facilities planning and management and zachry chair in construction integration; dr peter keating director of operations; and dr robin autenrieth department head and ap and florence wiley professor ii the cir is a state-of-the-art research center that will house researchers who are developing advanced and sustainable materials and structural systems that will reduce cost and extend infrastructure life safety resiliency and durability the rellis campus fosters collaboration of advanced research technology development testing and evaluation higher education and hands-on career training later in the day autenrieth and stephen franklin executive director for facilities and planning and management gave swallow a tour of the newly redesigned zachry engineering education complex set to open fall 2018""it was a pleasure to host ms swallow and show her our new research and education facilities at texas a&m "" autenrieth said ""for our students it was also a wonderful opportunity for them to engage with an engineer who is an inspiring role model in the field and promotes the exciting future of civil engineering""that evening swallow gave a presentation at a well-attended meeting with the asce student chapter at texas a&m her presentation addressed how relevant civil engineering is to society and our world she also offered students practical advice on how to achieve great things in their career and make a difference in the field""i think the presentation showed the abundant amount of resources and networking opportunities that asce has to offer "" said alyssa ornelas civil engineering senior and president of the texas a&m chapter of asce ""this was a great opportunity for our students to get to see what kind of role they can have in the future""swallow is a professional engineer envision sustainability professional and an asce fellow in addition to her role as asce president swallow serves as program manager for the city of las vegas where she oversees a team of engineers responsible for public works projects prior to her current appointment she worked alongside senator tom udall as the lead on transportation policy since 1995 she has been an active member of asce and has served on several committees within the organizationhonors include receiving the alumna of the year award from the university of nevada las vegas in 2013; the asce resident engineer award and edmund friedman young engineer award for professional achievement in 2008; the outstanding young alumni award from the university of arizona department of civil engineering and engineering mechanics in 2005; and the asce young engineer of the year in 2000 and 1998 for the western region and southern nevada"
2292,texas a&m is headed to austin texas to the south by southwest (sxsw) conference to bring our outstanding thought leadership research and innovations during innovation week as a worldwide leader in research discovery and innovation this will showcase the superb work happening at our university to a global audience in particular dr gerard coté director of the center of remote health technologies and systems will represent the department of biomedical engineering at the sxsw conference in a panel titled disrupting traditional healthcare with innovation and technology the purpose of this panel is to bring into light some of the current issues that traditional healthcare is facing and how innovations and technology are a driving force to help revolutionize the industry due to the rising costs of healthcare and the large demand for professionals within the medical field traditional healthcare is in need of innovative research in affordable point-of-care health technologies and engineered systems that can enhance the health and quality of life for individuals while reducing the cost burden of the healthcare system coté was awarded the prestigious national science foundation (nsf) engineering research center (erc) on precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) the paths-up vision is to change the paradigm for the health of underserved populations by developing revolutionary and cost-effective technologies and systems at the point-of-care in the early 19th century most patients stayed at home and doctors went to the patient in order to provide health care eventually public hospitals emerged originally to care for the poor but expanded and improved to attract upper middle class said coté by developing innovative health technologies to collect data model that data and send it to the health care provider at the right time they may be able to again visit the patient in their home virtually in addition dr carrie l byington who serves as dean of the texas a&m college of medicine senior vice president of the texas a&m university health science center and vice chancellor for health services of the texas a&m university system will join coté on the panel also on the panel dr roderic i pettigrew a physician-scientist and internationally recognized leader in biomedical imaging and bioengineering has a senior leadership role at both texas a&m and methodist hospital and is the ceo of the new program known as enhealth that will integrate engineering into all of the texas a&m colleges within the universitys system that are part of the healthcare enterprise dr joseph frassica is head of philips research americas and chief medical officer royal philips north america and will moderate the panel frassica is focused on leading a broad-based medical science and technology team to bring clinically meaningful innovation to the bedside the 2018 sxsw conference is friday march 9 through tuesday march 13 and this panel will be on tuesday march 13th at 3:30 pm at the courtyard marriott 300 east 4th street austin tx
2293,"what initially appeared to be the underdog student team has proven they have what it takes to compete with the help of industry leadersaggie ocean discovery a team of students from the college of engineering at texas a&m university entered the shell ocean discovery xprize competition a mere three years ago they have now been named a finalist in the global competition challenging teams to push the boundaries of ocean technologiesthe xprize® has a reputation of presenting impossible challenges that inspire new industries and new ideas the finalists will take 3-d scans of a 500-kilometer patch of ocean floor at a depth of 4 000 meters (almost 25 miles)""as a society we are entering a technological revolution to be successful and keep ahead of the constantly changing climate it requires a collaborative effort from the most innovative partners in their respective industries "" said dylan blakeslee a senior in the department of ocean engineering ""the shell xprize pushes the students and their partners to look ahead and develop next generation technology having partners as passionate and innovative as deep down inc has allowed us to create technology incomparable with anything on the market today without the industry support that we have been afforded this wouldn't be possible"""
2294,"the final part of the competition will take place at an undisclosed location to protect the integrity of the judging area the aggie team will be competing against nine other teams as finalists toward the end of 2018 ""when i first looked into the competition i was specifically interested in the fact that it was a challenge to map the ocean floor "" blakeslee said ""only five percent of the ocean has been mapped yet it feeds a billion people and provides 50 percent of our oxygen we have mapped land mass via satellite but have yet to come up with a viable solution to map the ocean floor and find what lays at the deepest depths of our oceans""after deciding to accept the competition's challenge blakeslee turned to dr sharath girimaji department head in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m""the first meeting ended with dr girimaji expressing concerns over the entry fee and an endless list of questions "" blakeslee said ""the following day i returned with a pamphlet and 100 pages of documents i made to address his questions and dr girimaji said 'okay you have me convinced'""the next step of the process was to motivate peers in all disciplines to join the effort and take time out of their already busy schedules to dedicate themselves completely to this projectthe texas a&m team has a torpedo-like autonomous underwater vehicle (auv) called marlin that will endure crushing pressure utter darkness and will navigate autonomously without human intervention marlin will send data to its counterpart a remote surface vessel (rsv) called wahoo that in turn will send the data back to the control center on land where the data will be received and analyzed marlin carries an on-board intelligence system a long-range optical and acoustic communication and reference system an ultra-high resolution 3-d scanner inertial navigation system doppler velocity tracking chemical sensors to monitor the environment a pump jet propulsion for high speed operation forward dive plane for quick descents and a wave energy conversion system to operate all of this technology marlin is also equipped with a 48 kilowatt-per-hour battery system which is more than the average household uses per day""many students have a full workload with their current degree requirements and also family commitments "" blakeslee said ""we have been extremely fortunate to have many students involved in this project some who have only been able to commit for a semester and some that have been in for the long haul; all have been important on this amazing journey""the team has an application process for new members to complete and specifically looks for a certain grade point average and the amount of time one can commit to the project""we are focused on a goal which is to benefit mankind and everyone has contributed in whatever way possible whether it be short term or long term "" blakeslee said ""many students joined our team and focused on our goals straight out of high school we have had the help from middle school students in this process so creativity doesn't have an age limit to participate""manpower is only one end of the spectrum in terms of the help the team would need in order to build an adequate machine to answer the competition's quest ""joining such an exclusive competition we knew that we would be going up against the most talented and best-funded groups around the world "" blakeslee said ""we also knew that billion-dollar companies have tried and failed to solve exactly what the xprize requires""one of the greatest obstacles the team faced was sharing their vision with companies to take a risk with them and help finance their endeavor financially and through equipment donations""our team has always had a unique advantage as students we have been able to develop our innovative ideas with the years of experience and funding of our partners to support "" blakeslee said ""we have been extremely fortunate and honored to have our platinum sponsor deep down inc look beyond the age of the students they have invested in and see that we are a competent group that has come up with ideas that seem so impossible and believe in the fact that we can make it possible this collaboration and the passion of all those involved has allowed us to remain ahead of the curve""the texas a&m team has secured other valuable gold partners including oceaneering subctech ses networks and ix blue all of whom the team are grateful to for their participation""this is a multidisciplinary project "" blakeslee said ""we have excellent students from ocean engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering chemical engineering computer science and engineering biomedical engineering and even geology we have a team that works well together and have consistently solved problems that we did not anticipate""members have partnered with deep down inc which has financed the project to utilize their facilities to build marlin while learning from their engineers through internships the students have become very close to all of the industry partners that have made marlin become a reality and contender in the competition ""without the valuable mentoring of ronald smith ceo of deep down inc and his staff we would not be where we are today "" blakeslee said ""ron believed in us he put his money behind us every step of the way along this journey we have had successes we have had failures and we have also learned that nothing worth having is going to come easy but with sheer hard work determination and will power the impossible becomes the possible""for blakeslee the goal has shifted away from winning the competition and transitioned to a lifetime passion developing a suitable and cost-effective fleet of auvs to deploy around the world for research and accessible education""i believe that our technology will have lasting effects on our planet uncovering artifacts unknown species and even new cures for disease "" blakeslee said ""there's a lot of incentive to monetize what we have built but most importantly for me it's about securing our planet for future generations"" marlin is currently on display on the college station campus in the department of ocean engineering"
2295,dr jay porter was recently appointed associate dean for engineering at texas a&m university at galveston and will assume his new role on june 1 2018 porter has been a faculty member in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university for 20 years he is currently a professor in the electronic systems engineering technology program as well as the associated department head for undergraduate studies porters research interests include analog and rf electronics instrumentation and measurement virtual instrumentation development mixed signal integrated circuit test and characterization and magnetic resonance imaging he is passionate about stem education and promotion and has been involved in numerous projects including a $1 million itest grant to educate teachers about stem principles and careers
2296,"second place team from myanmar to travel to texas a&m and collaborate on solution more than 400 students participated in invent for the planet the 48-hour global design challenge hosted by texas a&m university in february but in the end it was a team right here in college station who took home the grand prize - an opportunity to present at the venturewell open minds conference since the grand prize also included a trip to texas a&m the engineering entrepreneurship program decided to open that opportunity up to the second-place team - a team from the university of technology in yadanabon cyber city myanmar so they could collaborate with the texas a&m team the texas a&m team -illumi-nite - developed a platform that can be used to hold led (light-emitting diode) lights for children in developing countries without access to electricity team edu-lighter from myanmar developed a power source for the same need statement by combining both innovative ideas the teams will be able to collaboratively produce a complete solution ""we're very proud of team illumi-nite for coming up with such an innovative idea in just 48 hours and i'm thrilled that we were able to invite team edu-lighter from myanmar to come to texas a&m "" said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program at texas a&m ""this was a global competition and i can't wait to see these two teams collaborating together in person on a solution to a real problem"" the need statement sourced by associate professor dr fernando buarque at the university of pernambuco in brazil indicates that education is a key component to ending poverty it tasked students with designing a creative inexpensive environment for multiple children to study in the evenings when the sun has gone down adam curtis illumi-nite team member and junior electrical engineering major said he is excited to see this project become a real product that can be used by children ""limited access to electricity will continue to be a problem in these developing countries and access to an education will remain the best option most children have to escape poverty "" he said for team member an nguyen a freshman engineering student this need statement hit close to home ""i chose this need statement because of my father's story back when he was a little kid "" she said ""he told me about his life living in poverty not having enough electricity to power through the night"" nguyen said her father would catch fireflies around his village in vietnam and put them in eggshells as a glow lamp to study other times he would use a kerosene lamp but this became a fire hazard when he would fall asleep while studying ""these stories stirred something inside me to help children who have gone through the difficulties like my father "" she said ""i know that people like my father if provided with the opportunity to learn and grow their determination will excel beyond their peers"" the team's design allows children to create their platform using items that are easily found around the world such as plastic bottles teammate adrianna hernandez aguirre a sophomore landscape architecture student said illumi-nite could easily be used by children in her home country of mexico and all over ""when i was in high school i did social work in rural communities as a tutor and i can say that many children in the world could benefit from illumi-nite "" she said ""i would be very proud of my teammates and myself if we could impact a child's future by allowing him or her to study at night"" sarojeet deb a graduate student in mechanical engineering also drew from his own personal experiences when he selected this need statement from a list of 15 needs as a child growing up near mumbai india he frequently experienced power outages at night he said he's also excited to collaborate with the team from myanmar to help make sure they finish their project ""with their help we'll be able to eliminate the biggest shortcoming of our design - absence of a power source "" he said ""we plan on integrating our designs and coming up with a comprehensive solution to tackle the problem"" boehm said he's excited that illumi-nite wants to see this product through to market ""in the end that's what it's all about "" boehm said ""we want these students to be inspired to make a difference in the world through entrepreneurship"" in addition to the texas a&m and myanmar teams boehm has been hearing positive feedback from the 13 other universities who joined the challenge ""by giving these students a platform for collaboration and communication we were able to bridge cultural gaps and open each student up to a world of possibilities "" he said ""it was amazing to see"" team illumi-nite and edu-lighter will work together later this month on their solution and will present at venturewell's open minds conference in austin on march 24"
2297,"dr reza sadr is seeking to bring his research success from his time at the texas a&m university at qatar across the ocean to the texas a&m university campus in college station by collaborating with researchers within the department of mechanical engineering and beyond sadr began his tenured faculty track with texas a&m at qatar in 2008 he now holds a joint associate professor position at texas a&m ""the reason i went [to qatar] was because i felt there were more research opportunities in terms of funding at the time "" sadr said in less than 10 years sadr has managed more than $11 million in research even with challenges in qatar including a lack of personnel and equipment resources sadr managed to build the state-of-the-art micro scale-thermo fluids (mstf) laboratory with about $1 million in assets and equipment ""the idea is for those assets to help us have research collaborations and productivity i work with a couple of faculty in the university and i enjoy multidisciplinary research "" sadr said ""i've been collaborating with faculty at texas a&m in civil engineering mechanical electrical along with faculty from other universities both domestic and overseas""sadr is an experimentalist interested in thermo-fluid sciences with a focus in fluid mechanics his research projects have ranged from nano- and micro-fluidics all the way to atmospheric turbulence with a focus on energy efficient systems his nano- micro-fluidic research is rooted in his past research work at the georgia institute of technology in development of novel nano particle image velocimetry (npiv) his last major project looked into alternative fuels such as gas to liquid (gtl) technology specifically spray research as part of the qatar aviation fuel consortium working with other researchers in qatar united kingdom and germany the team was tasked with looking beyond the current capacity of gtl fuels for jet planes to fully quantify its impact on local air quality and fuel burn sadr worked on the combustion team""our work will be used for the development of numerical models which will be extremely helpful for engineer designers "" sadr said ""we wanted to understand how the fuel behaved so that it could be used by an aviation combustion system designer in the future"" sadr's latest project is looking into alternative refrigerants he said these alternative refrigerants would be more environmentally friendly than freons which are used to cool most refrigerators and heating ventilation and air conditioning systemsshell inc is funding sadr's work to investigate the possibility of developing an alternative refrigerant that not only eliminates or reduces the role of freons but also utilizes carbon dioxide to help reduce greenhouse gases along with potentially offering an alternative to freons sadr said he will explore other ways to use his product""when you buy or build something you like to have it be multiuse you don't buy something for one specific action you want to have it for many different purposes if possible "" sadr said ""when i design my experimental set up i usually try to envision a little bit beyond that particular application"" sadr has been in college station since august and said the distance between universities will be a challenge he and other faculty collaborators will have to manage his goal is to travel to qatar at least once a semester to work on his research there ""i think it would be a great help if people could visit across the campuses more frequently "" sadr said sadr is looking to establish relationships with even more researchers at texas a&m in college station and would like to work with others inside and outside of the mechanical engineering department ""i think there's a lot to be done-i think there's a lot that could be done i'm trying to use my previous experience to come up with new proposals that matches [college station] researchers' expertise "" sadr said for more information on sadr's research visit his research website"
2298,in the last five years more than 150 000 people have been injured and more than 3 600 killed due to drowsy drivers in the united states a large percentage of those involve shift workers like nurses to tackle this problem texas a&m university college of engineering researchers dr tony mcdonald and dr farzan sasangohar in the department of industrial and systems engineering are conducting a first-of-its-kind study on intervention techniques agencies are starting to step in and say that this is a solvable problem; all of these crashes are preventable and we need to take action mcdonald said one group dedicated to doing something is the national safety council which began its road to zero initiative in 2016 with the goal of eliminating roadway deaths within 30 years the us department of transportation committed $1 million a year for three years to help kick-start the program mcdonald and sasangohar received one of these grants in collaboration with dr nena bonuel this year to begin a study on nurses at houston methodist hospital their approach focuses on two methods of intervention the first is education and training to try and prevent the situation from happening at all and the second is using available technology to detect when a nurse may be driving drowsy the cars are going to be one of our primary ways of collecting data from the nurses mcdonald said we are going to install data recorders similar to what you see from insurance companies that plug into the on-board diagnostic port and collect continuous speed acceleration and in some cases gps data according to mcdonald there have been several broad driving studies that have shown changes in speed braking patterns and steering correlate with drowsy driving but they need more robust data of these events their collaboration with houston methodist hospital enables a large-scale study involving a representative sample of 300 nurses a 2016 study found that one in five sleep-related fatalities in the us happened in texas and its an issue that isnt going away any time soon houston specifically is a good test bed for this research because it not only has the worlds largest medical center but also a large number of nightshift workers in other domains such as oil and gas the issues with nightshift-related incidents are not new about one-fourth of all jobs in the united states are considered shift work type of jobs sasangohar said you cant shut down hospitals and police stations while the problem has been recognized there are very few interventional studies on this scale investigating applied solutions it is our expectation that this study will build a strong foundation for a large nationwide study the reason they believe this study can be impactful where others have fallen short is the caliber of partners they have both texas a&m and houston methodist are world-class research institutions sasangohar said we expect to collect strong preliminary findings to build a solid foundation for future university-hospital collaborations to reduce fatigue-related fatalities among nurses bonuel a nurse scientist at houston methodist is helping sasangohar and mcdonald carry out the study she has more than 25 years of experience working in nursing and her expertise not only lends credibility to the project but also has been critical in designing the education part of the program she said the study was especially personal for her since she worked 12-hour overnight shifts for many years working in the intensive care unit often times i had to pull myself off the road and rest at a nearby mall parking lot just to take a nap before i could continue driving home she said there was one time a police officer knocked on my windshield to check if i was ok i think this study where we will offer road safety education as well as a technology intervention will keep not only the nurses safe but at the same time help lessen accidents in the road that could involve other people if the program goes as planned they hope to expand it to other hospitals as well as other industries that have a significant number of shift workers once we complete development of this program we are hoping to distribute it to a much broader audience mcdonald said certainly to other hospitals in the area and across the country but also in the long term to other industries with a predominant population of shift workers like oil and gas
2299,a group of juniors from the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university had the opportunity to give back to their host community while studying abroad in egypt this winter dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department taught the 14 students during the faculty-led three-week program elwany who is originally from alexandria egypt reached out to the local rotary club to see how the students could give back to the community they would be visiting the students volunteered their time and money to help set up a special-purpose lab for elementary school students in a local underprivileged school the students who will use the lab have special needs and are part of the governments fusion program as part of the program students with special needs study one-third of the curriculum in the lab which is equipped with customized educational tools designed to address their needs one-third of their curriculum is taught to them in that lab which is set up for that particular purpose and then the rest of the curriculum is taught to them with the rest of the kids so that they fuse without being left out elwany said once onsite the aggie students worked with the local students to learn how to use the educational tools provided on computers and other custom-designed educational tools they worked with the local student chapter of the institute of industrial and systems engineers to communicate between arabic and english it is a very welcoming country elwany said in appreciation of what they did the kids made a little performance for them where they sang local welcoming songs and held heart-shaped flags of the us and egypt to demonstrate unity we got local egyptian school students who never got out of their cities to interact with our students along with volunteering the students completed a three-hour course and explored the city visiting about 19 tourist sites elwany said the overall experience can have a positive impact on students as they move forward in their careers theyre enhancing their skills and some of them may aspire to spend some time working outside the country so this experience was perfect for them to learn how to interact with a radically different culture elwany said this december will be the third year for the study abroad program to egypt
2300,imagine if all the roads and streets of a city were empty with no other cars and no variables like pedestrians it would be relatively easy to direct an autonomous car from one place to another but what about 20 000 autonomous cars all trying to get to and from different places each car has a different goal one car might be delivering a package another might be driving someone to work and still another could be an emergency vehicle taking a patient to a hospital how does each individual autonomous car account for their own particular goal and for these many variables according to dr pr kumar texas a&m university distinguished professor in electrical and computer engineering they cant yet autonomous cars presently are mostly like lone wolves kumar said they have all these sensors and capabilities to create a highly precise map of the environment and they can thread their way through the traffic but they dont collaborate with other vehicles theyre not a system that inability to collaborate is part of why even though we already have the technology for autonomous cars experts like kumar believe were still years away from truly autonomous transportation systems on the roads the sky is a different story i thought ‘why dont we try to develop a completely autonomous system of drones kumar said autonomy will be sooner realized in the sky than on the ground you cant automate pedestrians and cyclists and other interferences but in the air there are fewer of those using drones for agriculture and infrastructure surveillance is expected to have a significant economic impact the idea of short-range drone deliveries seems like more a question of when than if over the last year there have been news stories about companies ranging from amazon to dominoes testing the idea in a basic sense drone delivery is something were already technologically capable of but right now theres a huge catch: it only works because theres relatively no traffic in the air if the amazon and dominoes drones flight paths crossed there is no agreed upon framework for how they should interact with each other to prevent them from crashing into one another it gets even more complex if there are many drones in the sky what we need is a set of traffic rules for drones in the sky or what we researchers call a traffic protocol kumar said kumar and his team of student researchers have been working to solve this problem which doesnt even exist yet by designing the framework in which all these autonomous systems could safely operate think of all the things the highway system has roads signs signals driving laws and all of that were designing those things the rules of the road for the sky he said we wanted to build a system that was provably safe from the bottom up instead of trial and error we just wanted to design it so it would have the right architecture and the right algorithms from the get-go there is obviously some inherent risk in the very idea of drones flying overhead but its minimizing the risk to create a great benefit thats key if there are accidents as the technology becomes more widespread it could slow or even stop something that has the potential to be a tremendously beneficial to society so safety is exactly where kumar decided to begin rather than worry about efficiency first and then safety kumar and his team went the other direction but to create rules for a safe system requires overcoming a myriad of challenges what we decided was for a drone to never move forward unless it is guaranteed that that piece of airspace is ceded actively by everybody else he said so unless it proactively gets permission from everyone within a certain region it will not move into the region furthermore if there is nowhere to go then it has to land safely unlike cars a drone in the air cant just pull over and stop if things go wrong and the actual implementation of a safety-first system increases the risk of complications a lot of issues have to be solved you need to proactively communicate with everybody and get acknowledgements so theres a whole network broadcast with active replies said kumar and somehow we have to know that we heard from everybody so there has to be a database saying who are the vehicles in this neighborhood we have to know whenever anybody enters and leaves the system thats a lot of management to be done right there operation of that database could be done by a federal aviation administration or another ground server that monitors drones entering and leaving the system is designed so that at any time any drone can decide to change its path and its destination its completely up to the drone kumar said it can suddenly get a message to go somewhere else and our architecture is provably safe under those circumstances that permits drones from different enterprises to talk to each other and adjust lets say a drone delivering medical devices suddenly has a high priority because of an emergency or something the rest of the drones in the system will adjust to that priority drone the question that kumars group must ultimately answer is what exactly will happen when the system is turned on the answer might not be as straightforward as you think its one thing to create a set of rules its quite another to see how theyre actually followed we designed this from a safety first perspective but how much inefficiency does that result in kumar said will this system result in several drones aborting their missions or will it actually be pretty efficient if it is then by creating a provably safe system you open the doors for creative applications we cannot anticipate the uses he said we can develop technology but some kid somewhere could come up with an amazing use that weve never thought of in sweden theyre using drones to deliver emergency medical equipment we arent trying to develop the uses were just developing the systems protocols by designing its operational protocols kumar is bringing to the air something we already have on the roads competing companies can then share the airspace with others in the system by conforming to by the same rules kumar also anticipates that this system will create other less obvious business opportunities for example as part of a safe infrastructure there will need to be places for drones to safely exit the system in case of problems that creates a market for rooftops of high rises to be available as potential landing pads drones are complicated because they cant just stop they have to land kumar said for a completely safe architecture for example companies flying drones will have to contract rooftops in manhattan there will be an economy for this kind of rooftop or landing patch real estate kumars groups next step is a simulation of the system which will recreate the real world and its variables like wind faulty communications channels and malfunctioning drones to test the framework after that kumar hopes to test the system with drones at the texas a&m rellis campus possibly in collaboration with other researchers working with drones at a&m
2301,hannah stroud and samuel murley undergraduate students in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won the undergraduate student research poster portion of the university technical competition (utc) hosted by the south texas division of american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the pair undergraduate researchers in the multifunctional materials and aerospace structures optimization lab led by dr darren hartl presented their poster multiphysical characterization of avian inspired morphing wing section covering the design of the wing itself and an overview on the characterization techniques including 3-d digital image correlation (dic) which gives shape data for the wing the poster also covered infrared thermography (ir) which allows the researchers to map temperature data onto the shape as well as experimental setup and the dic/ir results and aerodynamic results from their test for their research the students have a wing that morphs using thermally activated shape memory alloy actuators on the lower surface and they wanted to know if they were achieving the shape they expected (to give them higher lift) when they morphed it under aero loads what they discovered was they were able to morph to the same shape consistently and affect the lift and pitching moment in repeatable methods utc is a research competition for graduate and undergraduate students at asme-partnered universities where students have the opportunity to present their mechanically-focused research or design projects to industry and university professionals the students were among 25 teams comprised of 70 students participating in three categories: undergraduate design/capstone poster undergraduate research poster and graduate research presentation teams competed from texas a&m the university of houston rice university texas a&m university–corpus christi and prairie view a&m university
2302,by jennifer reiley rachel rose and chris scoggins eight teams from universities across north america will gather april 30 to may 5 at yuma arizona for the society of automotive engineers (sae) autodrive challenge a three-year competition that allows university teams to develop and demonstrate their own autonomous vehicle the competition is broken down into segments of yearly benchmarks with the goal of having a vehicle that can navigate an urban driving course autonomously while adhering to specific conditions and requirements identified by the sae when general motors (gm) and sae international announced last year that texas a&m university was one of the eight north american universities selected to compete in the three-year challenge the team was supplied with a chevy bolt and has been working for the past year to prepare the vehicle and themselves for the upcoming benchmark showcase civil engineering doctoral students yang woo kim and gihyeob an computer science senior steven leal and mechanical engineering senior brianne murray have worked alongside more than 40 students from six departments within the texas a&m college of engineering to get the car ready for the spring 2018 competition ive always had an interest in autonomous vehicles kim said i have a background in image processing and computer coding and have worked in the electronics industry previously so i was excited to get the opportunity to work on this project the aggie team was split into 10 sub teams each assigned with a different task for the overall project kim and leal work with the lane detection team coding the car with the ability to detect lanes and other objects from its birds eye view camera ans work involves getting the car from one point to another creating a waypoint for the vehicle to follow as it moves from destination to destination while following a trajectory as theyve completed their tasks the team members have branched out to other groups within the overall team helping with heat exchange and design murray started as part of the longitudinal control team developing code and mechanics to help the car move forward and brake before assisting the lane detection team leal was assigned to the simulation team creating a simulated vehicle that the team could use to virtually test their ideas for the actual car we had a lot of people with the technical know-how to create control algorithms because they have taken these classes and they could whip them up in matlab and show a really nice graph but we needed to implement it into an environment that could work specifically on our server hardware that was running inside of the vehicle leal said that transition required someone with the technical know-how between different programming languages i think for any senior design project youre never really prepared and you learn most while youre in the project trying to collect data and scope murray said throughout the last two semesters murray said she has gained new skills in communication and project management and overall it has been a valuable experience were trying to figure out where we fit in on the scope of things how big is our project on the scale of things and how can we be leaders and encourage each other while also being present with the bigger group she said leal said that the project brought many challenges to the team its surprising at the end of this that each individual part of the project such as object detection seems simple enough however communicating each set of data to a waypoint planner and then having the waypoint planner correctly send data over to the control teams it starts to become a really complex problem leal said in arizona the car will be hooked up to gms testing hardware so they can record data as they perform goals within the test once the team gets on site there will be three tests performed first the car will have to pass a straight line test where it will go down a single lane and stop each time it approaches a stop sign the second test will be the lateral challenge where the car has to navigate through a curvy one lane road and stop at the end the final test is the object detection or lane change challenge the students look forward to the competition as not only a way to showcase their skills but as a way to identify areas for the vehicles improvement and development i think this competition is a good opportunity for students to run actual skills an said challenges like this are what help students apply their knowledge and gain practical understanding and i am glad to be a part of it all students have been led and supported by faculty members across the texas a&m college of engineering including: zachry department of civil engineering: dr alireza talebpour – associate professor and project leader department of computer science and engineering: dr dezhen song – professor department of electrical and computer engineering: dr peng li - professor department of mechanical engineering: dr debiyoti banerjee - professor dr swaroop darbha - professor dr swaminathan gopalswamy - professor of practice dr sivakumar rathinam - associate professor
2303,three students from the college of engineering have been named distinguished graduate students for 2018 they were among a group of 16 graduate students from texas a&m university who are pursuing their masters or doctoral degrees the students were recognized for their exemplary accomplishment during a ceremony on april 23 at the association of former students clayton w williams jr alumni center on the texas a&m campus the 2018 recipients from the college of engineering are: research- doctoral william hamilton department of computer science faculty advisor: dr andruid kerne charles brandon sweeney department of materials science and engineering faculty advisor: dr micah green research- masters joshua harris department of aerospace engineering faculty advisor: dr john valasek
2304,on april 16 dr james holste senior professor and professor emeritus in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was presented the prestigious donald l katz award by the gpa midstream association (formerly the gas processors association) the donald l katz award recognizes outstanding work in industry science and educational excellence in the classroom holste was presented the award during the gpa midstream associations 97th annual convention in austin texas holste who retired from full-time teaching in 2017 has more than 42 years of service at texas a&m he was the first associate department head in the chemical engineering department and the first associate director of the office of graduate studies at texas a&m he also served as assistant dean and assistant agency director for research in the engineering program and later as associate dean for graduate studies and international programs in the texas a&m college of science he spent seven years in doha qatar during the start-up of texas a&m university at qatar serving initially as the first associate dean for academic affairs and later as the first associate dean for research and graduate studies holste previously received the association of former students distinguished achievement award for research and he was a member of the inaugural group of tees senior fellows he also received an outstanding alumnus award from concordia university–nebraska he served for three decades on the american society of mechanical engineers/ american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) joint committee on thermophysical properties for nine years on the board of directors of the concordia university system and nine years as a member of the working group on thermophysical properties of refrigerants of the international energy agency
2305,while many texans were bracing for hurricane harveys landfall in late august 2017 a team of researchers set out to deploy instrument pods along the texas coast the information gathered from these rapid response units (rrus) could help develop more resilient coastal communities by improving predictive models and tools the texas coastal storm rapid response (coastrr) team is comprised of researchers from texas a&m university – college station and galveston and rice university dr jens figlus assistant professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m is the principal investigator on this project the team is specifically looking for information to help them understand if storm impacts will erode the beach; scarp overtop or completely wipe out sand dunes; or if sediment deposits could require expensive clean-up efforts when hurricane paths are forecast to hit a certain coastal area it is important to know ahead of time what the impact to the coastal morphology is figlus said our field measurements of hydrodynamics and sedimentation during and after hurricane impact allow us to improve those predictive models and tools so they can then be used by federal state and local agencies to issue notifications to the public allocate resources and plan for the appropriate response based on expected local conditions currently rapid response field measurements of impacts to coastal systems from extreme storms such as hurricane harvey are difficult to collect this is because of short notice preventing deployment of the instruments potential of instrument failure or loss and uncertainty of actual storm impact for specific locations the work provides further advances to our capabilities to measure detailed hydrodynamic processes such as currents and waves across the surface of barrier island systems impacted by extreme events figlus said this project is important to me because it combines fundamental work on better understanding our coastal systems with practical applications of rapid response to coastal hurricane impacts to address the dilemma coastrr is trying to link measurements of storm hydrodynamics across stretches of barrier island systems during storm impact with observations of coastal morphology change in the days and months following the storm the researchers are specifically interested in infragravity waves produced by hurricanes and how these low-frequency water surface motions affect coastal erosion and accretion patterns as well as associated damages of these massive storms infragravity waves are water waves within a specific frequency range between 004 and 0003 hertz (hz) figlus said this means they have wave periods the time between two consecutive wave crests passing the same location between 25 and 333 secondssimilar to how the different frequencies of light waves from the sun can create different colors in a rainbow water waves in specific frequency ranges hitting a coastline can have very specific effects on the coastlineinfragravity waves have much lower frequencies or longer wave periods than regular wind waves you can see on the beach with the naked eye every day figlus said this property makes them a primary suspect driving sediment erosion and deposition on beaches especially since they become more pronounced due to storm activityhurricane harvey presented a wide range of effects on the texas coast including complete devastation and major erosion near landfall as well as the deposition of sediment called accretion at other locationsthe observed effects of infragravity wave interactions with the coastal system has been exciting to explore figlus said being able to predict precisely which impact happens where and to what extent is the challenge that this research is helping to tackle as a result of the work the coastrr team conducts future coastal management decisions will be improved through a more detailed understanding of how storms reshape our coastal barrier island systems the information will also be incorporated into classroom teaching ongoing outreach activities and publications to the research community research on extreme event impacts to the nearshore environment is paramount to the creation of more resilient coastal communities figlus said the conducted field measurements provide a unique dataset of great societal importance as our coastlines will continue to face increased pressure from natural disasters and human development while the coastrr teams work is still ongoing it has the potential to help communities rebuild stronger than ever not only along the texas coast but coastal communities around the world by better predicting the potential damage of a storm before it makes landfall
2306,students in the zachry leadership program in the texas a&m university college of engineering engage with a wide variety of extraordinary leaders from industry academia and government who have made positive impacts on the world through these engagements the students learn more their own possibilities and opportunities to influence others for the better regardless of the career they pursue seniors in the program recently had the opportunity to have an extended conversation with texas railroad commissioner ryan sitton sitton class of 97 with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering at texas a&m started pinnacleart with his wife jennifer in 2006 the engineering and technology company focuses on reliability and integrity programs for the oil gas petrochemical mining pharmaceutical and wastewater industries as a project that sitton started from the ground up the company now employs more than 700 people across four continents he told the students his goal is to find ways to impact the world around him which can be difficult because making an impact involves taking risks and being creative outside of owning his own business sitton also serves as the texas railroad commissioner a position he has held since 2014 the railroad commission is the energy regulator for the state and sitton is the first engineer to serve as railroad commissioner in 50 years one element students asked him to discuss was communication as a society we are getting worse at communication sitton said people think it is about being a good speaker it is about articulating your ideas well that is not what communication is thats why we have the term public speaker communication is about connection connection is not about my ability to talk its about my ability to hear he encouraged students from the zachry leadership program to take the knowledge they acquire while at texas a&m and in the zachry leadership program with them and turn it into skills that will help them become leaders in whatever path they choose moving forward the zachry leadership program is currently accepting applications for its next cohort to qualify students must be enrolled in the college of engineering and not be planning to graduate before may 2021 accepted students will attend leadership retreats enroll in exclusive classes designed to expand their leadership capabilities earn a certificate in holistic leadership and receive a scholarship each semester
2307,two graduate students from the texas a&m university college of engineering received the us senator phil gramm doctoral fellowship award for scholarly excellence the awards each for $5 000 will support the research efforts of the students as they pursue their doctoral degrees madeleine s durkee from the department of biomedical engineering and nazanin afsar kazerooni from the department of mechanical engineering were among a group of eight students to receive the award during a ceremony in april that featured a three-minute presentation by the recipients highlighting their academic work durkee whose advisor is dr kristen c maitland associate professor in the biomedical engineering department presented her research on improving detection of pathogenic bacteria specifically mycobacterium tuberculosis in a living host she works with an optical method to detect viable bacteria in a small animal model of disease the bulk of her research has been developing a model of light transport within a host to determine what limits the number of bacteria that can be detected then attempting to improve the optical system to overcome these limitations this will eventually lead to more sensitive detection of bacteria and a better diagnostic she is also deeply involved in teaching undergraduate courses and research which has led her to pursue a career path in academia i am very honored to receive the phil gramm award durkee said i have dedicated the past five years to teaching and academic research and to be formally recognized for those efforts is very exciting kazerooni whose advisor is dr arun srinivasa the holdredge/paul professor in the mechanical engineering department presented her research on the inelastic behavior of soft tissues especially skin and damages that happen for a better understating of wearable electronics skin diseases aging and wrinkling etc she has designed and built an intricate biaxial tension setup and has been instrumental in repairing a precise laser cutter system she has also worked in a co-op program with st jude medical (aka abbott) for five months on developing antimicrobial meshes and material testing for the next generation of cardiac implantable electronic devices in addition to her contributions to research she has been the instructor of record twice teaching two courses in the department of mechanical engineering as the winner of the graduate teaching fellowship i am deeply grateful and honored to receive this award from senator phil gramm kazerooni said i feel thrilled and overjoyed that my work has been recognized as well as its potential to help people the fellowships are named for phil gramm who served as an economics professor at texas a&m for 12 years before embarking on a highly successful political career
2308,networks have been widely used to represent real-world information systems such as social media networks or a healthcare provider network traditional network data often operates without human input until now in a traditional data-driven network-embedding framework only network analytics algorithms are considered they are purely data driven meaning that the algorithms do not take into consideration any human prior knowledge that may be helpful in many situations human prior knowledge means that there are some pieces of information that we as humans might know and understand that a computer may not automatically determine dr xia (ben) hu assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the national science foundation (nsf) faculty early career development award (career) to build a human-centric network-embedding framework in which human prior knowledge would be properly modeled and integrated in the framework process in contrast to the traditional data-driven network-embedding framework prior to conducting network analysis hu operated on the assumption that some people are more influential than others on social networks individuals such as national leaders and movie stars are much more influential than many others on twitter because of their leadership popularity and activity without including that human prior knowledge into the network the computer might not pick up on that many types of human prior knowledge are dynamic and can change from day to day for example a current presidents influence on social media will be more important after he is elected versus before hu said that all of these factors should be considered and be tackled while modeling the network embedding problem and understanding the network hu proposes to systematically investigate three types of human knowledge from the node- edge- and community-level in a network and to integrate them into a combined framework an example of the edge-level human knowledge is the connections between contacts on a social network – where some connections between contacts are stronger than others on social networks while the traditional data driven framework may not accurately indicate ones connections with others hus project will integrate human prior knowledge that will accurately show those connections on social networks for example i may be closer with my students than another professional colleague from another university hu said however on social networks it appears that i may or may not have those connections with others in healthcare there are many types of human prior knowledge that can be beneficial to include in the framework so that diagnoses and medical history can be more accurate in patients seeking medical care in healthcare systems there are many other types of human knowledge hu said for example we know some people are (related) thats why we should take family disease history into consideration in disease prediction for ai driving healthcare analytics not only will this project impact social networks and healthcare but it will also impact the critical infrastructure by implementing human prior knowledge of the connections between power stations into the network embedding problem before hurricanes and natural disasters it is critical to understand which power stations are more important than others by conducting these network analytics hu said some power stations are more important because if they are ever damaged the whole area power systems will be down if researchers are able to analyze which power stations are the most critical to keep stable it can help prevent unnecessary outages during natural disasters this research enables data analysts and domain experts such as doctors to handle network data from real-world information systems with abundant human knowledge for scientific discovery which was extremely difficult if not impossible beforewhile existing studies focused on data-driven approaches this project is to investigate a novel direction to explore how human knowledge could enhance network embedding and how the results could be better understood by human beings hu said the successful outcome of this research will lead to advances in providing an effective embedding which is essential in analyzing real-world networks with human knowledge hu also plans to make sure that data science education can be received by a larger audience in order to make a broader impact his plan is to not only make an impact through classroom teaching but to make data science education publicly available and try to make sure more people receive an education in terms of data science and network analytics by posting them online in different formats
2309,how do you compete in supercomputing the students on the texas a&m university supercomputing team know thats going to be the first question before its even asked build run optimize said dr jian tao advisor for the team and texas a&m engineering experiment station researcher you build the computer you run programs on it and then you optimize the performance theyre simple words but the competition is anything but over 300 student teams from around the world entered the asia supercomputer communitys student supercomputer challenge (asc18) but only 20 made the cut to the finals to be held in may in china texas a&ms group is not only the lone team from the united states to make the finals its the only team from the entire western hemisphere and it almost didnt happen instead of just trying to form an extra-curricular team tao was encouraged by the engineering academic and student affairs office to create an aggie-challenge course for the competition aggie-challenge courses give students the opportunity to work on projects related to engineering challenges facing our society in this case the challenge is building efficient high-performance computers working against the clock tao was able to get the course approved during the middle of the last week where students can add and drop classes i wasnt sure we would even be able to get anyone but they were able to announce the class and some students were interested he said we didnt even have a room yet we had to figure out where the best time and place to meet would be after everyone had already signed up four students will travel to china but there are nine on the team theyre a mix of underclassmen and upperclassmen coming from multiple departments within the texas a&m college of engineering like any team figuring out each others strengths and weaknesses was one of the major challenges early on we have members with different engineering backgrounds and skill levels said freshman michael lau two of us are freshmen so were learning some things we wouldnt have learned for a couple of years otherwise so thats been cool also to see how everyone fits together on the team
2310,at the competition teams have to perform tasks and to do them they have to build a supercomputer (the team is quick to point out that when you say supercomputer it conjures up images in popular culture of a room of servers or ibms watson but these computers for the competition are just two nodes compared to large supercomputers that can have hundreds) to build that supercomputer the team will pick from a list of available hardware before the competition that hardware will be in boxes at the competition and they have to assemble the computer the key is that the power consumption cannot exceed 3 000 watts so teams have to select what combination of parts will best accomplish the tasks while staying below that threshold the tasks involve running several different programs that use significant computing resources some of the programs take more central processing unit (cpu) power and others more graphic processing unit (gpu) power then teams have to find ways to optimize the way those programs run on the systems should you put more cpus in there or gpus said tao thats what you have to decide they just give you boxes and you have to assemble it yourselves and install the software and optimize it yourself its a very cool challenge the wildcard round at the finals is a mystery challenge that teams have no way to prepare for they know that the other tasks will be using the same programs they used in the preliminary round but the mystery task will be what separates the teams at the finals everyone is going in blind said senior computer science major mohammad sagor it could be hit or miss we all have our various things that were working on and how to optimize that but thats going to be a game changer and on top of that its with hardware weve never used before so thats another layer adding yet another layer is the fact that the internet itself is more heavily censored in china than it is in the united states there are some restrictions on the internet in china so its not as simple as just looking something up here said sheldon wei another freshman on the team thats something were going to have to figure out on the fly because theres no way to prepare for that really being able to look things up is a crucial part of the challenge according to junior computer engineering major sean dormiani because the installing the software portion of the competition isnt like installing a new program on your regular desktop computer installing software sounds simple because youre used to clicking next but when youre compiling it from the source its not the same he said its a very minimal front end its all text there are no buttons its like building a tower and youre supposed to build the top but you need everything underneath it and sometimes its not documented what you need underneath it so youre like ‘im missing a floor here whats going on and sometimes you end up finding one guy on one forum somewhere that has the same problem and theyve found a solution theyre also just excited to be the first texas a&m team to ever compete at the event were going to introduce texas a&m to the competition and im excited about that said sophomore computer engineering major shaina le it's really inspiring to have a bunch of teams come together and even though we're competing against each other and against the clock we're all working toward the same end goal of sustainability efficiency and optimization it's all about the bigger picture and i think that's wonderful the team has been supported by texas a&m high performance research computing and members also include senior computer science major isaac decastro senior electrical engineering majors michael hagaman samra tariq and alexander ngo and freshman engineering student zengyu wei
2311,students in the aggie women in computer science (awics) organization at texas a&m university hosted the ninth annual awics leadership workshop on friday april 6 at the event sponsored by chevron female leaders from academia and industry participated in two panels as well as a lunch with activities and discussion the panels centered on leadership and how to make an impact in the workplace
2312,one of the most important components of a successful career is about interacting with colleagues said diane uwacu awics graduate president as women training for a career in tech it is important to hear from women in leadership we learned about how we can prepare for leadership roles while in college as well as the kind of impact that we can have my favorite part of the event was hearing guests answer questions with examples from their personal stories apart from the incredibly inspiring success stories they shared about the hard times in their journey which showed us that failures make for better success stories in the long run panelists included tammy mcneley ‘84 lockheed martin aeronautics fellow; dr theodora chaspari computer science and engineering assistant professor; and dr dilma da silva department head professor holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii and interim deputy director of the texas a&m institute of data science dr nancy m amato regents and unocal professor served as the moderator mcneley serves as chief engineer of the lockheed martin aeronautics' warfare integration laboratories including f-35 and advanced development program facilities and as the corporate modeling and simulation ead for next generation platform initiatives she has 35 years of experience in military operations analysis human-in- the-loop experimentation and modeling and simulation she is also certified as an expert systems engineering professional by the international council on systems engineering mcneley is one of three female fellows at lockheed martin aeronautics and is very involved in stem activities in schools and through girls inc she earned her bachelor of science degree in computer science from texas a&m in 1984 through mentoring workshops students have the opportunity to identify areas in which they can be leaders here and now da silva said as they continue to grow in technical knowledge through their courses they can also strive to make their workplace better by learning from those who can offer invaluable leadership experience
2313,dr juan garay professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was named a fellow of the international association for cryptologic research (iacr) for his fundamental contributions to the interface of cryptography and distributed computing and for service to the cryptographic research community garays research focus is cryptographic protocols and schemes which play a fundamental role in enabling new functionalities and privacy-preserving ways of interaction in todays digital world recently garay has greatly contributed to the continuous research on the subject of blockchain protocols and cryptocurrencies for this distinction technical contributions and distinguished service to the cryptologic community are considered iacr has established the fellows program to recognize outstanding iacr members for their technical and professional contributions that advance the science technology and practice of cryptology and related fields; promote the free exchange of ideas and information about cryptology and related fields; develop and maintain the professional skill and integrity of individuals in the cryptologic community; and advance the standing of the cryptologic community in the wider scientific and technical world and promote fruitful relationships between the iacr and other scientific and technical organizations the iacr fellows program was established in 2004 and as of today around 70 cryptographers world-wide have been elevated to fellows this is an awesome – and at the same time humbling – honor which i would like to share with my large number of amazingly talented collaborators garay said
2314,the texas a&m university college of engineering honored six alumni during the 2018 outstanding alumni awards banquet receiving the outstanding alumni honor award were quentin baker 78 peter c forster 63 jay graham 92 stephanie g hertzog 96 and carl f jaedicke 73 receiving the outstanding early professional achievement alumni award was lieutenant colonel aaron tucker 12 outstanding alumni honor awardsquentin baker 78mechanical engineeringpresident and chairman of the boardbaker engineering and risk consultants inc quentin baker is president and chairman of the board of baker engineering and risk consultants inc a company he founded in 2001 the company was recognized among the 2009 aggie 100 as one of the 100 fastest growing aggie-owned or aggie-led businesses in the world during his career baker has made significant contributions in the areas of explosion consequence assessments and the investigation of accidental explosions he has also designed and conducted tests for recreational purposes in accident investigations and to evaluate functionality or performance of equipment recovered from accident sites baker has authored more than 60 papers and is co-author of two books with a third currently being written his work on predicting the risk of fatalities to building occupants is still an industry standard he is the co-inventor of five patents and has participated in four standards writing committees he is a member of the american society of mechanical engineers american institute of chemical engineers national association of fire investigators national fire protection association and national society of professional engineers baker received a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university in 1978 and a master of business administration from the university of texas at san antonio in 1986 he and his wife jana have two children sean and evan 15 peter c forster 63civil engineeringdirectorclark construction group llc as chairman and ceo of clark construction until 2013 peter forster was responsible for the overall operation of the company through his strategic vision and leadership clark has grown to perform more than $42 billion per year in general building projects this work includes major convention centers stadiums and arenas high-rise buildings government facilities airport terminals and other projects throughout the united states prior to joining the organization forster was president and chief operating officer of the montgomery alabama-based blount international ltd which he joined in 1968 he was promoted to president and chief operating officer of blount brothers corporation the companys largest subsidiary in 1978 forster is a member of the knights of malta and serves on the board of the national capital area boy scouts and archbishop carroll high school forster earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering and a bachelor of business administration degree in 1964 from texas a&m and then pursued graduate study in civil engineering at northeastern university he began his career in 1964 as a civil engineering officer with the us air force where he worked on construction projects in the united states and thailand he and his wife betsy have been married 54 years and have two children catherine and john and six grandchildren jay graham 92petroleum engineeringchairman ceo and co-founderwildhorse resource development corporation jay graham is the chairman ceo and co-founder of wildhorse resource development corporation (wrd) which operates premier assets in the eagle ford shale and the over-pressured cotton valley in north louisiana over the past year wrd has consolidated several natural gas partners-backed companies and acquired approximately $1 billion of assets located in the eagle ford shale previously graham was the ceo and co-founder of wildhorse resources llc and wildhorse resources ii llc wildhorse resources was founded in 2007 and ultimately provided assets for three public companies: memorial production partners memorial resource development corp and penntex midstream partners he served as ceo and a member of the board of directors of memorial resource development corp from january 2016 until the merger with range resources in september 2016 graham has been in the oil and gas business since 1993 and serves on the petroleum industry advisory board college of engineering advisory council and 12th man foundation board of trustees at texas a&m he is also co-founder and advisor of the petroleum ventures program at texas a&m which is a collaboration between the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and the mays business school graham received his bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering from texas a&m in 1992 and is a member of the petroleum engineering academy of distinguished graduates at texas a&m he is a recipient of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) young member outstanding service award and is an inaugural member of the spe emerging leader program graham and his wife are the founders of the april and jay graham fellowship for military service initiatives at the george w bush institute the couple has three children: april jacob and jackson stephanie g hertzog 96chemical engineeringsenior vice presidenttally energy services stephanie goettle hertzog is senior vice president at tally energy services where she is responsible for strategy sales and marketing she started her career as a process engineer at celanese in clear lake texas she also spent several years as an engagement manager with mckinsey & co a global consulting firm and at psc an environmental services firm where she was senior vice president of strategy she later joined exterran a publicly held oilfield services company and held several roles there such as vice president of sales and marketing and vice president of strategy she has chaired the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering advisory council and served on the college of engineering advisory council and engineering honors steering committee at texas a&m she has been president and board member of the harvard business school (hbs) club of houston and vice president of the hbs alumni board she also chaired the education foundation of harris county board she received her bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering in 1996 from texas a&m and her master of business administration degree from harvard business school in 2001 hertzog and her husband ben have two children holden and hudson carl f jaedicke 73nuclear engineeringphilanthropic consultant carl jaedicke is a philanthropic consultant providing consulting services to nonprofits grant makers and individuals prior to this he worked for 32 years for the texas a&m foundation where he served several roles including chief development officer for the college of engineering vice president for college programs and vice president for principal gifts he was the first person to hold the position of vice president for principal gifts at the foundation and was also the first development officer in the college of engineering he served 19 years in this role for four deans and pioneered the college-based fundraising model now used by the texas a&m foundation jaedicke assisted in the establishment of the engineering advisory council which first met in fall 1988 and has become a primary source of major gifts for the college prior to entering the development field jaedicke was employed by stone & webster engineering corporation in boston massachusetts and consumers power in jackson michigan he is also a registered professional engineer as a student at texas a&m he gave tours of the original zachry engineering center on the day it was dedicated march 16 1972 he is a recipient of the distinguished former student award given by the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m he received his bachelor of science degree in nuclear engineering from texas a&m in 1973 and his master of business administration from indiana university in 1979 jaedicke and his wife shelby have two children elizabeth and joshua outstanding early professional achievement alumni awardlieutenant colonel aaron tucker '12 united states air forceaerospace engineeringprogram managerlive-virtual-constructive training networkair force life cycle management center lieutenant colonel aaron tucker united states air force is the program manager for the live-virtual-constructive (lvc) training network in the simulator program office of the air force life cycle management center wright-patterson air force base in ohio he is responsible for transitioning advanced technology and establishing the live-virtual-constructive training network program of record for the us air force lvc provides advanced training for the combat air forces in dense threat environments he is a member of the society of experimental test pilots associate fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) and a member of the aiaa flight test technical committee he has co-authored papers for many publications including the international journal of engineering modeling & simulation and the journal of systems engineering tucker is a member of tau beta pi and his awards include the bronze star the meritorious service medal air force commendation medal aerial achievement medal and the 2010 society of experimental test pilots herman r salmon technical publications award he received his bachelor of science and master of science degrees in aerospace engineering from the university of southern california in 1997 he earned his doctoral degree in aerospace engineering from texas a&m in 2012 tucker and his wife michelle have three children ashton alex and andrew photo (left to right): jaedicke hertzog forster tucker baker and graham
2315,dr nancy m amato unocal and regents professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been elected as a 2018 association for the advancement of artificial intelligence (aaai) fellow the aaai fellows program began in 1990 to recognize individuals who have achieved unusual distinction in the field of artificial intelligence the aaai fellows selection committee typically selects five to 10 new fellows each year with eight fellows being inducted in 2018 amato was selected for significant contributions to the algorithmic foundations of motion planning in robotics and computational biology and leadership in broadening participation in computing she was inducted during the thirty-second aaai conference on artificial intelligence which was held feb 2–7 in new orleans louisiana in addition to this she is also a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science the association for computing machinery the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and the world technology network (wtn) amatos research focuses on motion planning and its applications in robotics computational biology animation computer-aided design and virtual reality motion planning deals with finding paths to move an object (the robot) from an initial to a goal position she has developed novel algorithms that work by using probabilistic methods to strategically generate configurations of the robot she and her students have developed several important strategies that can be used for robots operating in very crowded environments or help them plan how to manipulate or grasp an object her group was also the first to apply these sampling-based planning methods to proteins and other biomolecules amato has been instrumental in setting up key national programs for women and minorities in computing she received the 2014 computing research association (cra) haberman award the inaugural national center for women and information technology (ncwit) harrold/notkin research and graduate mentoring award in 2014 the 2013 ieee hp/harriet rigas award and texas a&m association of former students university-level awards for teaching (2011) and research (2018) she has also received a national science foundation career award she has graduated 23 doctoral students with most going on to careers in academia government or industry research labs and the rest going to industry or postdoctoral studies she was program chair for the 2015 ieee international conference on robotics and automation and for robotics: science and systems in 2016 she is an elected member of the cra board of directors (2014-2020) currently serves as vice president for member activities for the ieee robotics and automation society (ras) was twice elected as a member of the ras adcom was co-chair of the committee on the status of women in computing research (cra-w) from 2014-2017 and was co-chair of the ncwit academic alliance from 2009-2011 the association for the advancement of artificial intelligence formerly the american association for artificial intelligence is a nonprofit scientific society devoted to advancing the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines aaai aims to promote artificial intelligence research the organization also aims increase the public understanding of artificial intelligence improve the teaching and training of artificial intelligence practitioners and provide guidance for research planners and funders in respect to the current developments and future directions of the area of study
2316,human stem cells have shown potential in medicine as they can transform into various specialized cell types such as bone and cartilage cells the current approach to obtain such specialized cells is to subject stem cells to specialized instructive protein molecules known as growth factors however use of growth factors in the human body can generate harmful effects including unwanted tissue growth such as a tumor researchers at texas a&m university have explored a new class of clay nanoparticles that can direct stem cells to become bone or cartilage cells dr akhilesh gaharwar an assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering and his students have demonstrated that a specific type of two-dimensional (2-d) nanoparticles also known as nanosilicates can grow bone and cartilage tissue from stem cells in the absence of growth factors these nanoparticles are similar to flaxseed in shape but 10 million times smaller in size their work widespread changes in transcriptome profile of human mesenchymal stem cells induced by two-dimensional nanosilicates has been published in proceedings of the national academy of sciences this week two-dimensional nanomaterials have gained increasing popularity over a variety of fields such as energy optics and regenerative engineering due to their extremely small size and unique shape these nanoparticles consist of highly organized atomic layers made from minerals the minerals are abundantly present within the human body and help in some vital functionsto understand how these nanoparticles interact with stem cells we utilized a next-generation sequencing technique called rna-seq said irtisha singh a computational biologist from weill cornell medicine at cornell university and the corresponding author rna-seq takes a snapshot of gene activity of the cell at any given moment this is similar to taking a high-resolution photo during the super bowl and identifying the reaction of every fan during the touchdown rna-seq uses next-generation sequencing (ngs) to reveal the presence and quantity of rna in a biological sample at a given moment for example cell-nanoparticle interactions can result in significant change in cellular behavior that can be observed by using this technique this technique is very sensitive to investigate the interaction of a wide variety of nanomaterials with cells said jake carrow a doctoral candidate in gaharwars lab and co-first author of the study with this combination of nanotechnology and computational biology we can better understand how a materials chemistry shape and size can contribute to cell functionsfrom this study nanosilicates demonstrated some very interesting capabilities when applied to adult human stem cells these cells presented signaling typically observed during regeneration of bone and cartilage this indicates a great deal of potential for these nanoparticles as a possible therapy against osteoarthritis among other orthopedic injuries this cellular response is believed to originate from the unique physical and chemical composition of the nanoparticles this premise of mineral-based particles affecting cell behavior has opened the doors to the development of new class of therapiesthe ability to customize a therapy to a specific tissue simply by changing the mineral content within the nanoparticle presents a great potential within the field of regenerative engineering said lauren cross also co-first author on the publication we believe this new field of ‘mineralomics can provide a viable alternative compared to the current treatments existing today another collaborator on this research was dr carl gregory an associate professor in the institute for regenerative medicine at the texas a&m college of medicine a component of the texas a&m university health science center who studies stem cells this work represents an excellent example of the long-standing interdisciplinary collaborations between the health science center and engineering he said one way to foster innovation is to bring together investigators with shared interests but substantially different research approaches life science-engineering collaborations are powerful in this respect because they encourage investigators to reassess dogmatic approaches that frequently slow progress this research is funded by the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering the gaharwar lab targets cell-biomaterial interactions across multiple biological scales his group is specifically interested in the repair and regeneration of biological tissues through the use of nanoengineered biomaterials see more details at inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering laboratory
2317,technology advancement is changing the disability landscape as demonstrated by the 10 student teams at aggies invent for assistive technology this past weekend the 58 participating students were challenged to improve the lives of the more than 57 million americans who have some form of disability by developing a technological solution to one of the 16 need statements of the competition this aggies invent had students from 18 different majors and ranged from freshmen to graduate students across campus with advancing technology comes new opportunities to address the needs of the larger population said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program advances like artificial intelligence and text to speech are evolving so rapidly we take these cutting-edge technologies and apply them to those who live every day with disabilities aggies invent an intensive design experience offered at the texas a&m engineering innovation center at texas a&m university provides an environment made to inspire and support entrepreneurship and innovative thinking students have 48 hours to generate a solution to need statements presented at each aggies invent competition each event has a completely different theme keeping the students ready for a challenge the solutions presented ranged from translating sign language to text increasing real-time captioning efficiency and lowering cost affordable hands-free technology to unlock and open residential doors and supportive technology for those on the autism spectrum team open sesame won first place in the overall competition they chose to create a solution to opening doors hands-free their functioning prototype used voice commands from a phone to unlatch open and close the door william smith a junior manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology major had heard that doors are the biggest problem for those with disabilities he had considered each need statement but made his decision when he discovered one about hands-free freshman robert myers who had recently injured his knee in a skiing accident was drawn to participate in the event because the theme of assistive technology was applicable to his current situation and gave him unique insight into what its like to live with a disability team capcha won second place for their fully functional real-time captioning system as an app their inspiration came from personal experience we often saw that when we attended different conferences and events that it is hard to listen to what is going on especially if you are sitting in the back said shubham sarwate a computer engineering graduate student we thought ‘what would happen if a person with a hearing impairment goes to this conference the team was very passionate about their work and saw a growing interest in mentors as they assisted throughout the weekend if we can bring this to the market this will not only benefit people with a hearing disability but every one of us said sarwate taking third place was team carlisle with yourday a task management system for users with cognitive disorders which integrated a wearable monitoring device with aws cloud software unusual for aggies invent an honorable mention award was given to team third eye for their wearable device that vibrates as a person gets closer to a pathway obstruction using camera recognition software mentors assisting throughout the weekend ranged from those with vision impairments to those who work to make accessibility a priority on a daily basis debra dandridge accessibility coordinator with texas a&m engineering information technology guided students using her work background as a resource technology lends to a more inclusive society said dandridge if i went by a group of people using sign language i cant understand or engage that group with some of the technology these groups are proposing we have overcome that barrier the participants from team open sesame all found value in the competition and said the prize of the weekend wasnt a winning idea but a winning team to call on during the rest of their education here at texas a&m they recommended every engineering student participate saying that this is what engineering is all about theory is a large part of instruction and coursework but aggies invent allows students to work with a team and see a project come together aggies invent is particularly special said michael bayern a senior electrical engineering student when i was a freshman i did not know what i wanted to do--i didn't really know who i was--and when i did [aggies invent] it just helped me go into the right direction i feel like experiences like these help you make up your mind and figure out what you're really passionate about the top three teams received $1 000 $750 and $500 respectively the engineering entrepreneurship program also offers support for students to continue working on their projects along with a wide range of programs and events that help promote students understanding of business principles from an engineering perspective sponsors of the event were amazon web services (aws) trane residential heating and air - an ingersoll rand company texas a&m disability services and it divisions and texas a&m engineering it and accessibility it was incredible to watch students incorporate aws products and services to build real-world solutions that help individuals with disabilities and address accessibility challenges said andrew ko director of global education of amazon web services congratulations to aggies invent participants for an extraordinary showcase of entrepreneurship and maker-skills
2318,credited with acquiring the legislative funding needed for the texas a&m university systems center for infrastructure renewal (cir) texas lieutenant governor dan patrick was the special guest for the centers ribbon-cutting ceremony held on the rellis campus april 11 the 138 000-square-foot multidisciplinary research center boasts state-of-the-art research facilities and laboratories aimed at making infrastructure smarter more resilient and longer lasting ground was broken for the $80 million project 17 months ago at this particular time in history infrastructure is a part of the national conversation greg winfree agency director of the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) told the crowd gathered for the ceremony its never been more important to our state and to our country
2319,the center is a joint facility operated by tti and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) that will leverage the strengths of numerous engineering professionals to develop research-based solutions to engineering and transportation challenges imagine roads being paved with new materials that instantly harden so roads reopen immediately afterward a&m system chancellor john sharp said highlighting some of the expected products of the center new ways to use asphalt that will pay for this place 50 times over bridges that have sensors that self-report when they weaken and need replacing and homes and businesses that are flood- and wind-proof just imagine what this facility is going to be prior to the ceremony sharp patrick vice chancellor and dean of engineering and tees director m katherine banks and several other elected officials who had critical roles in the conceptualization funding support and construction of the center toured its newly opened laboratories the cir is designed to renew every public-critical infrastructure systemfrom transportation to nuclear reactors to water systems this is a one-of-a-kind coordinated cross-disciplinary effort to focus on improving the nations infrastructure for the long term sharp introduced patrick telling the crowd that the cir absolutely would not have happened without him after walking through here i know this is an investment thats going to pay great dividends to the university other universities to the country to the state of texas patrick said from the podium its going to make infrastructure more efficient more affordable and safer for us texas governor greg abbott signed a proclamation that was presented to sharp by tommy williams senior advisor for fiscal affairs for the governor recognizing the cir ribbon cutting ceremony charles schwartz chairman of the a&m system board of regents gave attendees an overview of the new campus a few years ago rellis existed only as an idea in the mind of john sharp schwartz stated in a few short years weve seen an amazing development on these 2 000 acres cir will be a place where well deliver the kind of professional workforce development training that we need in this state well see big things from these laboratories and the people of the state of texas will benefit from them other members of the stage party included: texas senator paul bettencourt of houston; texas representative john raney of bryan/college station; texas representative paul workman of austin; texas a&m university president michael young; banks; and zachary grasley cir director top photo pictured left to right: greg winfree tti agency director; paul workman state representative district 47; paul bettencourt state senator district 7; john sharp texas a&m university system chancellor; dan patrick texas lieutenant governor; m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and tees agency director; charles schwartz chairman the texas a&m university system board of regents; john raney state representative district 14; zachary grasley cir director (photo: tti)video courtesy of the a&m system
2320,or every 100 000 people there are 536 speech-impaired individuals who can benefit from the use of augmentative and alternative communication (aac) devicessix students from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university were selected to participate in the eighth annual rice 360° global health technologies design competition held at rice university in march at the competition they presented their project commbo a web-based speech-generating picture communication board that alleviates the major pain points of aac users the students formed team commbo as a senior design capstone group advised by dr tracy hammond professor and director of the sketch recognition lab at texas a&m the team is comprised of computer science and engineering senior undergraduate students christopher wilcoxen christopher tsao cory avra kaveet laxmidas leon wallace and reed spivey in addition to hammond the team is mentored by graduate student and teaching assistant puneet kohli and seth polsley a doctoral student in the sketch recognition labcommbo offers customizability far beyond that of a physical picture board and leverages machine learning to provide intelligent suggestions enabling heightened communication that can be brought to any internet-connected devicethis application provides much greater flexibility than the picture board systems that you usually see and the fact that it can work on any device with a web browser allows for greater accessibility than similar systems tsao saidcommbo is designed for patients suffering from stroke-induced aphasia autistic spectrum disorder or any trauma that impacts a persons ability to communicate effectivelycurrently available aac devices are either difficult to adjust or excessively expensive to own commbo is an accessible modern and affordable application that improves common use cases of aac picture boards its versatility makes it easy to use in medical settings the home and almost anywhere throughout the world with its implementation potential users of traditional aac devices can experience a heightened quality of life and unprecedented access to effective communicationwe believe our application has the potential to change the medical community avra said our motivation comes from our drive to improve the lives of our friends family members and humanity in general the rice 360° competition featured 21 student teams from national and international universities who presented their low-cost global health technologies presenting at such a prestigious competition is something i didnt think i would be able to take part in during my undergraduate career wallace said i am so happy that texas a&m university provided me with this opportunityentries were judged on the quality of the problem definition the effectiveness and potential impact of the design solution and the likelihood that the solution can be successful in improving healthcare delivery in low-resource settings by faculty clinicians and private and public-sector partners from around the countryi am incredibly proud of what the students have accomplished hammond said even more so i am excited about the educational enrichment opportunities the students had from participation in the design competition
2321,"the american institute for medical and biological engineering (aimbe) has announced the induction of dr duncan maitland holder of the stewart and stevenson professorship i and associate department head and dr melissa a grunlan holder of the charles h and bettye barclay professor in engineering both in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university to its college of fellows they were nominated reviewed and elected by peers and members of the college of fellows for outstanding contributions their fields election to the aimbe college of fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer the college of fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers college membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to ""engineering and medicine research practice or education and to ""the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education"" a formal induction ceremony was held during the aimbe annual meeting at the national academy of sciences in washington dc on april 9 maitland and grunlan were inducted along with 156 colleagues who make up the aimbe college of fellows class of 2018"
2322,education has the potential to impact lives an impact that is usually made by a good teacher few teachers however have impacted their students like dr jean-louis briaud distinguished professor spencer j buchanan chair professor and regents fellow in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and the director of the national geotechnical experimentation site in honor of briauds 40 years of teaching and research he was recognized at the geo-institute of the american society of civil engineers (asce) annual congress in early march 2018 at a special symposium held in his honor briaud has also been named a geo-legend by geo-strata magazine a series honoring professionals who have left a significant impact on the field of geotechnical engineering more than 20 speakers presented at the asce symposium on work they have done in the field of geotechnical engineering based on briauds work it didnt really dawn on me until i had two students that got up there and said that i had changed their [lives] because of my teaching briaud said it raises this concept that professors have the potential to change young peoples lives but it is a big responsibility that i did not see the full weight of until now the symposium included researchers from korea brazil egypt and russia who each gave presentations on their work based on foundations laid by briauds work and influence more than 180 colleagues attended the symposium to have a special limited copy of a book reflecting briauds lifes work all of which began at texas a&m in 1978 born and educated in france briaud received his masters and doctoral degrees in canada and eventually came to the united states to pursue a teaching career briaud fondly remembers getting off the plane at easterwood airport in a suit and tie to interview for a teaching position only to be greeted by a professor in a ten-gallon cowboy hat driving a pickup truck the environment at texas a&m was not at all what he had expected i remember thinking to myself: ‘what kind of place is this briaud said then i met the people kind interested and ready to help with a can-do attitude i had six job offers but i chose texas a&m because of the environment and the people here reflecting on the highlights of his career one contribution served to preserve a piece of aggie history: the cliffs at pointe du hoc made famous by the assault of james earl rudder and his men during the normandy invasion we worked on a fantastic project to save the cliffs from collapse because there was erosion at the bottom of the cliffs and we were about to lose the bunker that was overtaken by rudder and his men briaud said it was one of the most interesting and significant projects i ever worked on briaud remembers a long list of similar projects and research contributions over his lifetime but maintains that his greatest contribution has been the relationships he has built over the years with his students as briaud plans to continue teaching and serving as a mentor and guide to students he finds that educating others has given him a career of immense purpose and satisfaction i have always looked at my graduate students as my professional children briaud said you have discussions that are technical sure but you talk about family philosophy and all sorts of things it really hit me during these presentations that as a professor you really have an impact on young peoples lives and it is beyond what you can measure
2323,when browsing the web it is vital to have peace of mind that your data has not been stolen or corrupted by a virus or a malicious site researchers understand the severity of situations where data is compromised and have worked for many years to come up with a way to block impending attacks dr jeff huang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has proposed a new technique that can detect use-after-free (uaf) bugs in web browsers with a higher detection ability than the state-of-the-art techniques currently being used uaf is a class of memory errors in computer programs written in unsafe languages such as c/c++ uaf errors occur when a program continues to use a pointer after it has been freed depending on the timing of the vulnerability or flaw the use of previously freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code which is when the attacker can execute any command of choice on a target machine uafs have been one of most exploited memory errors in web browsers such as chrome many zero-day cyberattacks which occur when a flaw is exploited and attackers release malware before a developer has an opportunity to create a patch to fix the vulnerability have also been launched through uafs huang was awarded the prestigious google faculty research award for this work the google faculty research awards program supports academic research in computer science engineering and related fields through the program google funds world-class research at top universities facilitates interaction between google and academia and supports projects whose output will be made openly available to the research community this project is one of the 152 considered by google during its 2017 call for research project proposals chosen from a total of 1033 covering 46 countries and over 360 universities what excites me most about this project is its practical impact huang said web browsers such as chrome are used by billions of people this project will make browsers more secure by killing more uafs huang is working on this project with his students in the automated software engineering research (aser) group in the parasol laboratory at texas a&m this is the second google faculty research award he has received among huangs many honors are a 2016 national science foundation career award a 2015 google faculty research award the 2013 assocation for computing machinery sigsoft outstanding dissertation award and a 2013 acm sigplan pldi distinguished paper award which was also recognized as acm sigplan research highlights
2324,lisa bratton has always loved being outdoors and jumping in the water marrying these two passions in college has proven to be the ultimate success story i was an extremely active child so my favorite childhood memory would have to be any time spent playing outdoors bratton said whether that was with friends playing catch with my dad playing with sandy our dog or simply entertaining myself
2325,bratton a senior in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university is also the captain and a member of the womens swim team all the males in my family are civil engineers--my dad his dad my moms dad--so ive always been drawn to engineering but i wanted to do something a little different bratton said when i learned about ocean engineering it sounded like the perfect way to apply civil engineering in a different environment and to top it off i truly do love the water pursuing a degree in engineering while juggling the demands of being a student athlete may be daunting enough but tack on training for the olympic trials and holding the school records for the 200 backstroke 400 medley relay and being the 2016 sec champion and the questions arise of how she handles the demands of each however the most recent honor came in 2018 when she was named the sec female scholar athlete of the year this award keeps me focused and reminds me of the balance needed to succeed bratton said sometimes you have to be a student-athlete and sometimes you have to be an athlete-student in the end it all works out if you just keep your head down do the work and trust the process the journey hasnt always been easy bratton is most proud of the way she has learned to balance school and swimming i set high standards for myself and my first semester was rough bratton said ive come a long way im proud of all the hard work i have put in to be where i am today bratton acknowledges that she could not have achieved these accomplishments without support from her family and team but most importantly her dad he has helped me work out many homework problems showed me the value of hard work and what it means to do what you love and love what you do bratton said my dad after taking many years off continues to swim simply because he enjoys it he worked hard at his job because he knew thats what it takes and he always found time for family time i learned the value of balance hard work and finding the fun in what you do by watching my dad the greatest honor she has received to date was being named captain of the swim team this team works extremely hard day in and day out in the pool and in the classroom it is an honor that they see me in a position to lead them and im proud to compete side-by-side with them bratton said while she is still searching for her dream job bratton knows she was meant to be around the water im still trying to figure out what i want to do but ideally i would like to work with renewable energy resources or coastal environments bratton said in a perfect world if i could make a living swimming that may take the cake bratton encourages those looking to journey upon similar paths to go for whatever it is no matter how difficult it may seem going into college everyone asked ‘how are you going to do it engineering and swimming bratton said i knew it wasnt going to be easy but i knew i wanted to do it if it was easy it wouldnt be any fun! so enjoy the process dont get too bogged down with school and take some time for yourself – i promise there is time
2326,dr jean-briac le graverend assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering has been awarded the von humboldt research fellowship one of the most prestigious awards in germany from the alexander von humboldt foundation le graverend joined the department in 2014 after receiving a doctoral degree in materials science and engineering/aerospace from the national school of mechanics and aeronautics (poitiers france)/national office for studies and aerospace research (chatillon france) in 2013 and working as a postdoctoral scholar at caltech in the aerospace department le graverend whose research goals are to predict the mechanical behavior and lifetime of materials at high temperature by means of a multi-scale approach combining experimental theoretical and computational tools will spend the next three summers in bochum germany working with dr gunther eggeler and studying microstructure degradation and damage in high-temperature materials the ultimate goal of this project combining experimental theoretical and computational mechanics is to initiate a new approach in the field of viscoplastic damage in metals in particular superalloys and precipitation-hardening metals he will do this by gaining knowledge in how microstructural degradation affects the kinetics of damage and therefore the mechanical response and lifetime to do so the proposed research will examine the thermo-mechanical response of a ni-based alloy at multiple length scales the humboldt foundation was established in 1953 to foster an international network of scientific cooperation and trust the fellowship enables highly-qualified postdoctoral scientists and scholars from around the world to carry out research projects of their own choice in germany
2327,dr helen reed regents professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and aiaa fellow is the recipient of the third yvonne c brill lectureship in aerospace engineering from the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) reed will present her lecture student design-build-fly micro- and nano satellites on october 2 in conjunction with the national academy of engineerings annual meeting in washington dc reed has contributed to the discipline through her satellite design programs: first at arizona state university (asusat lab) and then when her lab moved with her to texas a&m and became aggiesat lab she found effective ways to create interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate and graduate students with industry and government affiliates to engage in design-build-fly of operational small satellites while advancing new technologies that feed into national initiatives and learning industry practices within the university environment involving more than 1 000 students over the years her team has launched four small satellites with the us air force and nasa and partnered on other projects her students have joined space-oriented businesses and the national laboratories aiaa with the participation and support of nae created the yvonne c brill lectureship in aerospace engineering to honor the memory of the late pioneering rocket scientist aiaa honorary fellow and nae member yvonne c brill brill was best known for developing a revolutionary propulsion system that remains the industry standard for geostationary satellite station-keeping the lecture emphasizes research or engineering issues for space travel and exploration aerospace education of students and the public and other aerospace issues such as ensuring a diverse and robust engineering community reed has been with the department for 13 years serving as department head for four years before returning to teaching and research on a full-time basis in addition to small satellite design she is also widely regarded as an expert in hypersonics boundary-layer stability and transition and energy efficient aircraft and she has led research projects totaling millions of dollars among those projects she is presently a member of two of the five nasa university leadership initiatives (one led by texas a&m and one by university of tennessee knoxville) she is a principal investigator on a major air force office of scientific research program to model the transition process on a next-generation hypersonic flight-test article in addition reed has a phase ii small business innovation research program through the arnold engineering development center and cfd research corporation to disseminate her analysis tools she directs the computational stability and transition lab as well as the aggiesat lab satellite program reed is a consultant to the institute for defense analysis a member of the national academies air force studies board intelligence science and technology experts group a member of the national research councils air force development planning roundtable chair of the aiaa transition discussion group and a member of the nato avt et 136 technical team: hypersonic boundary layer transition prediction she is also co-founder and chief technology officer for chandah space technologies a start-up company specializing in small satellite systems she is a licensed professional engineer in the state of texas she has received numerous professional awards and honors including being named a fellow of the aiaa the american physical society and the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) she is the recipient of the 2018 aiaa fluid dynamics award the 2016 kate gleason award from asme the 2007 atwood award from the american society for engineering education and aiaa and the 2014 minnie stevens piper professor award from the state of texas she was inducted into the academy of engineering excellence and the committee of 100 in the college of engineering and the inaugural class of the academy of aerospace and ocean engineering excellence all at virginia tech in 2013 she was named a presidential professor for teaching excellence (in perpetuity) as well as a regents professor (in perpetuity) and in 2014 she was awarded the texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award in teaching at the university level and was named holder of the edward pete aldridge 60 professorship reed earned an ab degree in mathematics from goucher college and a master of science and phd in engineering mechanics from virginia tech
2328,dr jaime grunlan the linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the department of mechanical engineering has been named a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) an asme fellow grade is conferred upon worthy candidates to recognize their outstanding engineering achievements fewer than 3 percent of all asme members are fellows i'm very honored to be named an asme fellow grunlan said achieving the fellow grade in any major professional society is a significant accomplishment it serves to legitimize my professional efforts as a professor and scientist grunlans polymer nanocomposites laboratory is focused on the development and understanding of multifunctional thin films grunlan recently completed pilot coating trials of food packaging film with one of the worlds largest film converters additionally he has filed a patent in relation to his work with an aircraft materials manufacturer who is interested in using a novel coating developed this past year in grunlans research group grunlan said the lab is working on developing environmentally benign flame-retardant treatments for plastic items such as foam seat cushions furniture upholstery clothing fabric etc while becoming a fellow does not alter grunlans research he said it could open doors in the future we are also interested in gas barrier layers for food and electronics packaging and thermoelectric energy generation such as converting body heat into electricity using thermoelectric fabric we are developing grunlan said someday i hope a jogger can power their phone from their own body heat grunlan received his bachelors degree in chemistry from north dakota state university and his phd in materials science and engineering from the university of minnesota he joined the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m in 2004 the department of mechanical engineering has been very good to me over the years so i'm basically an adopted mechanical engineer grunlan said
2329,highways serve as a critical asset for our economy: underpinning our national infrastructure while providing avenues of travel for people and essential goods across a complicated yet convenient network of roads as our highways continue to be physically taxed the demand for maintenance projects and construction continues to grow and is estimated to cost taxpayers $21 billion each year to maintain our current highways additional projects will only add to taxpayer costs but researchers at texas a&m university are finding new ways to make highways more sustainable and cost-effective supporting both our economy and the everyday consumer
2330,"dr amy epps martin a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m and her fellow researchers are developing laboratory tools for the departments of transportation (dots) in each state to increase the amount of reclaimed asphalt pavement (rap) and reclaimed asphalt shingles (ras) that can be reused in new asphalt pavements to reduce the demand for new highway materials according to the national asphalt paving association (napa) asphalt pavement is used on 94 percent of the more than 27 million miles of paved highways in the us and is the most recycled material in the us at more than 99 percent in 2016 more than 769 million tons of rap and nearly 19 million tons of ras were reused to save taxpayers $21 billion compared to the use of new materials currently only about 20 to 25 percent of new asphalt pavement contains recycled asphalt materials to ensure resistance to cracking epps martins research is hoping to double that amount to increase sustainability and taxpayer savings were striving to increase the amount of rap and ras we can put in new asphalt pavements by using a small amount of specialized chemical recycling agents to partially restore some of the aged binder in the recycled materials epps martin said these chemicals work in the same way an anti-aging lotion might work on human skin rejuvenating skin cells and extending their lifespan with asphalt pavements its the aged binder or black sticky material that holds the rock pieces together that gets rejuvenated this binder and the rock pieces also known as aggregate are mixed and compacted together to make the asphalt pavements we drive on however while the chemicals have the potential to rejuvenate old material and allow the use of more recycled materials epps martins team is also concerned about longer-term performance in 15 to 20 years which ultimately impacts cost-effectiveness at the end of the day we care about how the asphalt pavement performs in the field epps martin said we have to build pavements for many climates and traffic conditions so we start in the laboratory with tests and tools to figure out recipes for the binder-aggregate mixture we want to use for a given location then the ultimate test is field performance which we are monitoring for multiple mixtures in field projects in delaware indiana nevada texas and wisconsin [the goal is] to create comprehensive tools and guidelines that agencies can use in creating sustainable cost-effective asphalt pavements with recycled materials for their state epps martin and her team aspire for the tools they are developing to be adopted by the american association of state highway transportation officials (aashto) which provides national standards for the use of highways materials the research teams results will be combined in a draft aashto standard practice to be completed by the end of 2018 will provide guidance for dots in each state on material selection for virgin asphalt binder rap ras and recycling agents the document will also include guidance on recycling agent dosage selection binder and mixture evaluation tests and performance thresholds the team endeavors to work with aashto to help implement the standard practice nationwide and allow for individual state dots to have the flexibility to best construct recycled asphalt pavements for their unique conditions we are providing these tools so that the states can have [these] guidelines for what they need to do to build sustainable cost-effective asphalt pavements "" epps martin said this project is part of a collaborative effort between researchers at the texas a&m transportation institute the texas a&m college of engineering the university of nevada – reno and the university of new hampshire this is a five-year project that was funded by the national cooperative highway research program of the national academies of science engineering and medicine"
2331,engineering medicine (enmed) texas a&m universitys innovative engineering medicine track at houston methodist hospital in houston is now included in the liaison committee on medical education (lcme) accreditation of the texas a&m college of medicines doctor of medicine (md) program this approval allows the program to begin recruiting the inaugural class of students set to matriculate in july 2019 a partnership between the texas a&m college of engineering college of medicine and houston methodist hospital enmed is the nations first four-year fully integrated engineering and medical education curriculum leading to both a md and masters degree in engineering accredited by lcme this news represents a major accomplishment reflective of the extensive efforts between the texas a&m college of engineering college of medicine and houston methodist hospital said dr amy waer vice dean of education and academic programs at the college of medicine the successful development of this program is directly attributed to our facultys collaborative nature and adherence to the aggie core values of leadership and excellence enmed will train a new type of physician engineer the ‘physicianeer who will be a practicing physician and a trained engineer it is expected to be the largest engineering-based medical degree program in the nation it is also the only program that allows graduates to receive both a doctorate of medicine and masters in engineering in four years enmed will be a signature program for the texas a&m college of medicine and will serve the state by offering unique training that will advance health care technologies and ultimately the health of texans said dr carrie l byington dean of the texas a&m college of medicine senior vice president of the texas a&m health science center and vice chancellor for health services at the texas a&m university system the proposed curriculum is a case-based format with integration of both medicine and engineering content to develop and improve students clinical reasoning and problem-solving skills through real-world examples students admitted into enmed will have a bachelors degree in engineering computer science or in selected instances a closely related field to effectively develop the technologies required to advance health care engineering and medicine education should be integrated from the startcreating a mindset that sees medical needs analyzes them and then creates the desired solutions said dr roderic i pettigrew ceo of enhealth and executive dean for enmed through enmed we will generate a new class of clinicians who can actively participate in and lead research invention and entrepreneurial endeavors to improve health care one of the tenets of enmed is for students to design something transformational and take their invention to the marketplace prior to graduation utilizing the unparalleled world-class facilities at the states top-ranked houston methodist hospital and houston methodist research institute students will have access to those on the leading edge of engineering medicine this program will educate future physicians on how to effectively use their engineering skills to translate medical research into promising solutions for patients in a timely fashion said dr tim boone co-director of the institute for academic medicine at houston methodist and associate dean of the houston campus for texas a&m health science center several students with engineering backgrounds are piloting the new curriculum in preparation for the inaugural class set to begin in 2019 technology integration is the future of medicine and we anticipate that our graduates will be on the forefront of new developments in the field of medicine and engineering said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering our students will be immersed in one of the greatest medical centers in the world and encouraged to revolutionize health care technology as it is known today enmed will initially hire 25 faculty members and utilize instructional and research space in the texas medical center including space in houston methodist hospital the texas a&m health science centers institute of biosciences and technology and the adjacent 1020 holcombe building in the texas medical center that will be renovated to serve as the education and training campus for enmed and enhealth students the program will be reviewed for ongoing accreditation during the next lcme meeting in february 2020 applications for the specialized program are expected to open this spring
2332,in the latest us news & world report survey americas best graduate schools 2019 the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineerings ranking rose by six places the survey ranked the department as the 21st best graduate chemical engineering program in the country overall and the 12th best among public institutions according to dr m nazmul karim head of the department and holder of the t michael o'connor chair ii the rise in rankings reflects a long-term vision and a commitment to excellence we have dedicated ourselves to recruiting and retaining the highest quality faculty members providing all of our students with a world-class education and maintaining state-of-the-art facilities said karim this jump in rankings is a testament to our success in each of these areas since 2015 the department has risen by 10 places in the us news & world report best graduate chemical engineering programs
2333,eighteen outstanding faculty members from the texas a&m university college of engineering received one of the highest honors in academia at the investiture ceremony held tuesday march 27 the faculty members who were awarded the designation of a chair or professorship were invested during the ceremony and presented with bronze medallions the medallions are engraved with the name of their chair or professorship and symbolize the honorees commitment to teaching research and service the 2018 recipients include: mark a barteau halliburton chair in engineering chemical engineering gerard l cotéjames j cain professor i in biomedical engineering biomedical engineering yossef elabdjoe m nesbitt professor in chemical engineering chemical engineering melissa a grunlancharles h and bettye barclay professor in engineering biomedical engineering m cynthia hipwelltees distinguished research professor mechanical engineering james e hubbardtees distinguished research professor mechanical engineering moo-hyun kimtees research professor ocean engineering mark a lawleysugar and mike barnes department head chair in industrial and systems engineering industrial and systems engineering w john leekelly l ‘87 and william d ‘87 von gonten jr dvg chair in petroleum engineering petroleum engineering hong helen liangoscar s wyatt jr professor mechanical engineering m sam mannantees distinguished research professor chemical engineering daniel a mcadamsrobert h fletcher professor in mechanical engineering mechanical engineering michael mcshanejames j cain professor ii in biomedical engineering biomedical engineering george j moridisgeorge and joan voneiff professor in unconventional resources petroleum engineering nobuo moritamichael and heidi gatens professor in unconventional resources petroleum engineering anastasia h mulianag paul pepper 54 professor in mechanical engineering mechanical engineering marc perlinwh bauer professor in dredging engineering ocean engineering j alex thomassonendowed chair in cotton engineering ginning and mechanization biological and agricultural engineering
2334,whitney souery a student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been accepted into harvards neonatology summer student research program at boston children's hospital and beth israel deaconess medical center students are selected by the directors of the program based on an assessment of each applicants application the objective of the summer student research program is to provide motivated students with an intensive laboratory and clinical research experience under the guidance of faculty and fellow mentors from their academic program souery is an engineering honors student and a member of the grand challenge scholars program she is also actively involved in the engineering department and several campus-wide organizations including texas runners against cancer the university disciplinary appeals panel the society of women engineers and serves as a leader in the engineering honors executive committee souery has been working in dr corey bishops pharmacoengineering laboratory since the fall of 2016 and is currently endeavoring to automate an injection system for microbubbles used for drug delivery applications
2335,dr mark a barteau the recently appointed vice president for research at texas a&m university and the halliburton chair in engineering will serve as professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and the department of chemistry barteaus research focuses on chemical reactions at solid surfaces and their applications in heterogeneous catalysis and energy processes he has received numerous grants throughout his career from such prestigious institutions as the national science foundation (nsf) the us department of energy the us air force office of scientific research and nasa prior to joining texas a&m barteau served as the dte energy professor of advanced energy research professor of chemical engineering professor of chemistry and a dow distinguished fellow in sustainability at the university of michigan under his leadership the university of michigan energy institute launched several major initiatives including the formation of a comprehensive battery fabrication and characterization user facility the university of michigan energy survey and beyond carbon neutral a university-wide program integrating technological biological and policy solutions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas concentrations he is a frequent contributor of perspectives on energy and the environment to the conversation fortune and npr among other media outlets prior to joining the university of michigan in 2012 barteau served as the senior vice provost for research and strategic initiatives at the university of delaware where he held the robert l pigford endowed chair of chemical engineering and was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry in his leadership role he was actively engaged in the development of funding and new facilities for several university-wide institutes including biotechnology rehabilitation and environmental institutes and served as founding director of the university of delaware energy institute he chaired the governors energy advisory councils environmental footprint task force which prepared a five-year energy plan for the state of delaware in 2009 barteau received a bachelors degree in chemical engineering from washington university in st louis and a masters and doctorate from stanford university he was an nsf post-doctoral fellow in physics at the technische universität münchen in germany and has held visiting appointments at the university of pennsylvania (chemical engineering) and the university of auckland new zealand (chemistry) barteau has been widely recognized for his scientific and professional leadership in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering he was elected to the national academy of engineering in 2006 and was named in 2008 as one of the 100 engineers of the modern era by the american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) he is the recipient of numerous awards including the alpha chi sigma and allan p colburn awards from aiche the international catalysis award from the international association of catalysis societies the ipatieff prize and the victor k lamer award from the american chemical society the paul h emmett award in fundamental catalysis from the north american catalysis society and the canadian catalysis lecture tour award of the catalysis division of the chemical institute of canada he is a fellow of both the american institute of chemical engineers and the american association for the advancement of science barteaus national and international leadership roles have included chairmanship of the national research council (nrc) committee that produced the 2013 report effects of diluted bitumen on crude oil transmission pipelines he was one of 17 members of the nrc committee that authored the report beyond the molecular frontier: challenges for chemistry and chemical engineering he currently serves on two national academies studies developing research agendas for carbon dioxide removal and the utilization of carbon waste streams he was co-chair of the chemical sciences roundtable and chair of the council of chemical sciences for the department of energys office of science he currently serves on the national academy of sciences board on chemical sciences and technology and on the science advisory board for the national institute of clean and low-carbon energy in china
2336,joshua harris a december 2017 graduate from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been recognized with two prestigious research awards harris is the 2018 us department of transportation/federal aviation administration research student of the year master of science level this award was created to recognize outstanding students from the university transportation centers for their achievements and accomplishments in the transportation field during the year awardees are selected based upon technical merit and research capability academic performance and leadership harris was recognized for significant contributions and leadership on two projects funded by the federal aviation administration: weather technology in the cockpit (wtic): general aviation weather alerting and characterization of derived angle-of-attack and flight path angle algorithms for general aviation platforms both projects seek to improve general aviation flight safety by utilizing advanced technologies that assist pilots in critical decision making and improve their piloting skills harris received the award at the annual transportation review board meeting and council of university transportation centers banquet in washington dc on january 6 harris is also recipient of the 2018 association of former students distinguished graduate student award for excellence in research – masters he defended his masters thesis titled nonlinear adaptive inversion control for variable stability small unmanned aircraft systems in october 2017 and he is being recognized for his outstanding academic record and contributions in aerospace engineering by a distinguished committee of reviewers recipients will be honored at a ceremony at the clayton williams jr alumni center on april 23 harris was a graduate research assistant in the vehicle systems & control laboratory working with his advisor dr john valasek for six years he earned his bachelors degree in aerospace engineering summa cum laude in 2014 and his masters degree in aerospace engineering in 2017 both from texas a&m he is a recipient of the national defense science engineering graduate fellowship the nasa aeronautics scholarship the federal aviation administrations pegasas center of excellence outstanding student researcher award the texas a&m college of engineering outstanding engineering master of science graduate student award and the sigma gamma tau outstanding texas a&m university aerospace engineering senior for 2014 harris is currently a member of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics intelligent systems technical committee and is a software engineer with lockheed martin aeronautics in fort worth texas
2337,"water is in danger according to a 2014 report by the us government accountability office 40 out of 50 state water managers expect water shortages in some portion of their states over the next decade such concerns do not even address the water situation in developing countries where if trends continue figures from the united nations population fund suggest that by 2050 as many as 42 billion people will be living in countries that cannot meet the daily minimum living requirement of 50 liters of water per person this escalating demand amidst a growing need for limited water resources is exactly what drove civil engineering graduate student bansi rajesh khajuria and her fellow invent for the planet teammates to come up with a simple solution: an app that helps families reduce water consumption and waste by keeping the faucet running for 30 seconds more [than necessary] you can waste 20 gallons of water keeping in mind that the average person in africa uses just 22 gallons of water for the whole day khajuria said so we thought to develop an app that can be accessible all around the world which actually tracks your water wastage and makes people aware of how they can save more gallons a day the app the team developed is able to track water wastage through the sound of water that is going through the faucet or the showers it begins automatically working when the faucet comes on and it will alert the user of excessive use keeping users aware of how they can conserve water and how many gallons they can save a day the app was developed in 48 hours as part of invent for the planet a global design challenge hosted by texas a&m university where students from 13 different universities across 10 countries participated to solve the worlds engineering challenges with each team addressing a specific need statement ""the best ideas come when we are under intense pressure "" khajuria said the thing i learned the most was how to hone your soft skills and how to get along with people in such a short amount of time that can be very challenging and i've learned how to work together with people of different backgrounds and cultures which is so vital in the workforce the team consisted of a physics student two mechanical engineering students a business student a general engineering student and khajuria each of which provided a unique perspective in completing the project khajuria who worked in industry before pursuing graduate school used her understanding of internal residential piping to play a crucial role in the development of the app each student was responsible for a specific aspect of the project and they were able to come together despite having different backgrounds to complete the challenge the spirit of collaboration especially in the light of addressing global challenges across continental lines is what khajuria enjoyed most about the event this [project] provided us with a very global perspective in regards to these challenges because we have to come up with solutions that are feasible for the whole world khajuria said looking forward khajuria and her teammates would like to continue to pursue developing the app further or other solutions like it given the right resources and opportunities for growth it's unfathomable frankly that these things we work on can impact all these people khajuria said this problem doesn't seem grave to people here because water is so abundant but there are actually a lot of water shortage problems cropping up in the rest of the world i want to do my best to help prevent this in the future"
2338,after finals the first thing many students think about is a relaxing break at the end of a long semester however 30 aggie engineering students took that time as an opportunity to give back through a 15-day volunteer internship with the federal emergency management agency (fema) among those students was civil engineering junior anh duong who participated in the internship by assessing damages to public infrastructure sites impacted by hurricane harvey when we went to a site in houston affected by hurricane harvey i was able to shadow a site investigator at a community park that had been under about five feet of water during the flooding duong said it was a very unique experience before going out on a 10-day field exercise as a part of the internship duong and the other engineering students attended a 40-hour certification course put on by fema at texas a&m universitys main campus they learned site inspection practices and culminated in a two-day exercise at the texas a&m engineering extension services disaster city® training facility in college station during the last two days they would run us through scenarios where we would look at damaged sites take pictures and record everything duong said we had a week of training before we went to houston and i felt like the actual practice was much more beneficial to our learning experience rather than just sitting in a classroom duong was paired with another student and they were assigned to a site inspector who guided them in assessing damages within the park he was also able to interact with other fema engineers and drew some connections to his civil engineering education getting to see different people come in during the process was cool duong said we were able to see mitigation practices applied at the site and learn how they might reduce the damage with future structures they build there i learned a lot; it was a really good experience according to duong the experience ultimately framed his career in a new perspective and made him think about various career paths now that i have this experience i know that it is always something i can pursue he said i know that if i ever wanted to do something technical with fema i could do the mitigation work and working this internship has allowed me to see opportunities in areas i wouldnt have been aware of duong was also able to make connections during the internship both with fellow aggies and industry professionals such as the site inspector he was teamed with providing the students with this fema public assistance program is the result of a unique partnership created as a part of the governors commission to rebuild texas (gcrt) which texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp is the gcrt commissioner by appointment from governor abbott for students like duong the experience has proved valuable and a true example of the texas a&m selfless service core value im glad i had the opportunity to do this because i got so much out of it during the short time i spent duong said i had never planned on making these connections but it taught me that you never know what an opportunity will bring
2339,dr dennis assanis continues to find ways to take engineering impacts to new heights through collaboration with experts in fields ranging from healthcare to art you really need to consider all aspects especially if you want a bigger impact assanis said a lot of our education in the future needs to be more creative and more interdisciplinary if the intent is to make a greater contribution to society assanis president of the university of delaware met with graduate students on march 21 as part of the department of mechanical engineerings fowler distinguished lecture series at texas a&m university before becoming university president in 2016 assanis served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at stony brook university and as vice president for brookhaven national laboratory affairs he previously taught and conducted research at the university of michigan and the university of illinois at urbana-champaign growing up in athens greece assanis said he remembers how education in his formative years took a holistic approach and included topics ranging from the sciences to liberal arts he said taking a similar mindset with an engineering education is beneficial to engineers who tend to be more analytical and systems-oriented what is nice in general about engineers is that their training prepares them well to think analytically to think about every problem as a big system that has some input some output and some constraints assanis said with that kind of analytical thinking you can approach problems at least to a degree but thats not enough because of all these other factors; the people factors the emotional factors the constraints that you have around the world assanis said it is important to place engineering within the context of the broader environment that encompasses society economic and political aspects if it is engineering for engineers it wont quite have the same impact assanis said it needs to be engineering for the world assanis received his bachelors degree in marine engineering from newcastle university in england at the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) he earned masters degrees in naval architecture and marine engineering mechanical engineering and management he also earned a doctoral degree in power and propulsion while at mit i went into engineering because it felt to me more analytical and more systems-oriented than some of the other fields assanis said but i didnt lose sight of the fact that you need to continue to have your grounding in the social and environmental aspects that are happening around you communication collaboration and social skills are important he emphasized the role and contributions of his wife eleni and their two sons in expanding his interdisciplinary perspective on a wide range of topics throughout his life assanis said there are some challenges to developing a more interdisciplinary approach to an engineering career one example is that the awards system in academia especially in the early years of a career are based on individual contributions and research he feels that researchers can benefit from having a mixture of independent work to build credentials and collaborative work with others with an engineering degree assanis said the sky is the limit even if graduates use their knowledge and skills in unconventional ways he has known engineering majors who have become doctors lawyers and even priests its such excellent preparation he said some of the best doctors i have encountered were the ones who actually had an undergraduate degree in engineering preferably mechanical engineering because they knew how to analyze what is going on with your condition with logic assanis visit for his seminar was his first time at texas a&m he said he enjoyed meeting aggies and touring different parts of campus ive always heard great things about texas a&m and especially about the engineering program he said it is really one of the power houses in engineering so anybody in the field of engineering aspires at some point in their life to pay a visit and see what the campus has to offer assanis is a distinguished educator with a wide range of academic leadership experience and a worldwide reputation as a scholar and expert in both fundamental and applied studies of internal combustion engines and energy systems he was elected as a member of the national academy of engineering in 2008 his advice to future engineers was to embrace the other disciplines ranging from public policy and social studies to the business world and health sciences youre going to have an even stronger impact assanis said even though youre very good in engineering i think its important that you collaborate with all the other sciences to make a bigger impact the fowler distinguished lecture series invites nationally recognized engineers and scientists to lecture as part of the graduate department seminar class
2340,innovation and advancements in biomedical and engineering research was the theme of this years lasker lecture and spring biomedical imaging symposium hosted by texas a&m university and the houston methodist hospitals enmed program event attendees came together april 25-26 to share best practices and attend sessions led by some of the nations most renowned experts in the fields of medicine and engineering dr roderic i pettigrew ceo of enhealth and executive dean of enmed gave the 2018 lasker lecture the prestigious lasker lecture is an honor bestowed upon a distinguished individual serves to advance public understanding and discourse about the ways in which we collectively pursue answers to questions posed by science and are intended to boost public understanding of the importance of biomedical research to society in conjunction with the lecture was the daylong spring biomedical imaging symposium which brought together interested parties for discussions concerning education ways to spur innovation and the future of the biomedical and engineering fields speakers included researchers and faculty members from md anderson ucla the mayo clinic harvard medical school houston methodist research institute rice university texas a&m the center for airborne pathogen research and tuberculosis imaging and the texas a&m institute for preclinical studies we are bringing together experts who share our vision to elevate discussion and inspire new ideas at the intersection of engineering and medicine said dr m katherine banks dean of texas a&m engineering in an opening address to attendees in the not-so-distant future we could engage robo-diagnosticians who prescribe custom 3-d printed pills conveniently delivered by drones to the patients location i am confident texas a&m and houston methodist will be well-regarded as pioneers in this new age dr carrie byington dean of the college of medicine at the texas a&m health science center echoed banks sentiment we will all benefit as the domains of scientific discovery technological innovation and health care converge the enmed program and the symposium embrace this future enmed is recognized as a first of its type innovative inter-institutional and intercollegiate academic and scholarly program launched as a venture among the college of engineering led by banks; the college of medicine led by byington; and the houston methodist research institute led by president and ceo dr mauro ferrari enmed has emerged as a national model for convergence at the level of the practice – the unified practice of engineering and medicine enmeds curriculum was recently approved by liaison committee on medical education (lcme) accreditation and the program is currently recruiting the inaugural class which will enter in 2019 each student enrolled in enmed will have an undergraduate degree in engineering or computing science then in four years they will earn their medical degree and a master of science in engineering enmed graduates will be both practicing physicians and trained engineers poised to tackle some of health cares greatest challenges through the invention of novel technologies
2341,the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was well-represented at the annual physics and engineering festival hosted by the department of physics and astronomy at texas a&m on saturday april 7 the event boasted over 200 interactive demonstrations and lectures and over 5 000 visitors attended dr krishna narayanan the eric d rubin 06 professor and david gent a former student represented the electrical and computer engineering department during the festival and their presentations resonated with the community and drew interest in the field of electrical engineering and all the department is doing narayanans presentation centered on the voyager spacecraft which launched in 1977 there were two space probes in the original launch – one devoted to studying jupiter and saturn and the other to study uranus neptune and pluto voyager sent back pictures of jupiter saturn and the moons of jupiter then it continued on its way now billions of kilometers away we are still receiving signals from the spacecraft the question is ‘how are we still getting signals from there narayanan said you have to keep in mind that voyager was launched in 1977 in 1977 there wasnt a lot of technology the cell phone today is a more powerful computer than the computer that is on the voyager and we are still getting signals from there we talked about how electrical engineering and communications technologies make this possible gent showcased several demonstrations including telegraphs a replica titanic transmitter an orange powered digital clock a morse code keyboard and more the hit of the show was my morse code keyboard gent said i let visitors type in their name so i would decode their name by ear as they typed many people thought i was a mind reader or at least had a hidden camera watching them type both narayanan and gent said that there was no shortage of interest in their demonstrations and that parents and children alike were excited and engaged the physics and engineering festival provides a venue for the department to highlight and share the exciting work that is being done with the public
2342,nine sophomore and junior mechatronics engineering technology (mxet) students from texas a&m university took their first industry field trip to fort worth texas to visit and tour bell helicopter glenn isbell 96 vice president of rapid prototyping and manufacturing innovation and glenn rodriguez quality operations manager hosted the students visiting from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution isbell provided an introduction to bell helicopter including an update on their newest aircraft the v-22 (vertical take off and landing) osprey and the bell air taxi a joint project with uber through this overview and discussions it became very clear that the mxet curriculum which integrates mechanics electronics embedded computers control and communications is a perfect fit for entry level positions and rewarding careers at bell students then toured the bell manufacturing facilities of particular interest was the production and testing of composite helicopter blades and other major components used to manufacture advanced military and commercial aircraft the group then visited the bell training center here students had the opportunity to learn about the different levels of simulators that bell has to train and certify helicopter pilots afterwards students visited the aircraft maintenance training facility where bell provides hands-on training for maintenance personnel from around the world the trip allowed the first cadre of mxet students to see the types of entry-level positions that will be available in the aerospace industry segment when they graduate having the opportunity to interact with these bright and inquisitive young men and women also generated interest in bell engineers and managers to engage in the new undergraduate program in mechatronics established by dr reza langari department head of the engineering technology and industrial distribution department mxet faculty and students are hopeful that bell will be ready to sponsor the first mxet capstone project in fall 2018 and take a leadership role in the development of the mxet industry advisory committee the mxet program will continue to visit and interact with the private and public sectors so students get a better idea about opportunities in other industry segments such as oil and gas and automotive to learn more about the mechatronics program contact dr joseph morgan
2343,seven faculty members from the college of engineering were selected to receive a 2018 distinguished achievement award from texas a&m university and the association of former students they were among a group of 24 outstanding members of texas a&m faculty and staff who were honored first presented in 1955 the university-level distinguished achievement awards have been awarded to more than 1 000 professionals who have exhibited the highest standards of excellence at texas a&m the 2018 distinguished achievement awards were formally presented to the recipients on april 27 during ceremonies in rudder theatre on the texas a&m campus the 2018 recipients from the college of engineering were: for teaching: mark t holtzapple artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering krishna r narayanan department of electrical and computer engineering for research: nancy amato department of computer science and engineering perla b balbuena artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering mladen kezunovic department of electrical and computer engineering for individual student relations: daniel a mcadams department of mechanical engineering for administration: nk anand executive associate dean
2344,"water is a resource that is not only in constant demand but also has the power to cause catastrophic damage to urban communities these communities need a resilient infrastructure as a resource in order to be adaptable and effective stewards of the resources texas a&m university zachry department of civil engineering doctoral student kambiz rasoulkhani has dedicated himself to studying the long-term resilience of water infrastructure systems in urban communities he evaluated these communities using simulations based on current day data creating projections on how resilient a communitys infrastructure might be over a period of 50 to 100 years in the future the goal of his work is to see the effects of natural disasters on a citys long-term infrastructure sustainability work for which he was recognized at the 2018 american society of civil engineers construction research congress im interested in applying technical and infrastructure solutions that can enhance the urban water infrastructure resilience on both the demand and supply side of water utilities said rasoulkhani on the demand side i attempted to identify pathways leading toward [increased] adoption of conservation technologies for water users like you and i and on the supply side i examined the effectiveness of physical infrastructure solutions for the water utilities professionals who are making decisions on how the water infrastructure system is managed in his research rasoulkhani used a simulation research approach applying multi-agent based modeling to look at the long-term effects of the mechanisms underlying a water distribution infrastructures behavior he has developed simulation models to capture long-term performance metrics based on data collected in cities across the country such as fort collins colorado im not looking at just a single pipeline rasoulkhani said im looking at the whole system in this which is what is called a complex system approach in looking at the data from fort collins we can capture the dynamics of singular and dual water distribution systems and compare them over an extended 50-year horizon through simulation to understand all the dynamics and life cycle costs rasoulkhani believes these models can be used by the city decision makers to implement strategies that can improve or enhance the resilience of urban infrastructure systems and help short- and long-term recovery from disasters like droughts and floods moving forward the next step in his research is to validate the findings of his study he looks to expand his study to include costal water infrastructure resilience by evaluating areas like miami florida that are more exposed to extreme weather events my ultimate goal in all of this is to help in the creation of sustainable cities rasoulkhani said for our future we have to make sure that we will have access to more water we have to make sure we have infrastructure that is resilient in order to be sustainable and thrive and this is part of that answer"""
2345,team gleans new insights on key material engineers from texas a&m university and virginia tech report important new insights into nanoporous gold--a material with growing applications in several areas including energy storage and biomedical devices--all without stepping into a lab instead of conducting any additional experiments the team used image-analysis software developed in-house to mine the existing literature on nanoporous gold (npg) specifically the software analyzed photographs of npg from some 150 peer-reviewed papers quickly measuring key features of the material that the researchers then correlated with written descriptions of how the samples were prepared one of the results a recipe of sorts for how to make npg with specific characteristics we were able to back out a quantitative law that explains how you can change npg features by changing the processing times and temperatures said ian mccue a postdoctoral researcher in the texas a&m department of materials science and engineering mccue is lead author of a paper on the work published online in the april 30 issue of scientific reports the team also identified a new parameter related to npg that could be used to better tune the material for specific applications before our work engineers knew of one tunable ‘knob for npg now we have a second one that could give us even more control over the materials properties said josh stuckner a graduate student at virginia tech and co-author of the paper stuckner developed the software that allowed the new insights other authors are dr michael j demkowicz associate professor in the materials science and engineering department at texas a&m and dr mitsu murayama associate professor at virginia tech nanoporous gold has been studied for some 15 years but little is actually known about its physical characteristics and the limits of its tunability for specific applications the team writes in scientific reports the material is a three-dimensional porous network of interweaving strands or ligaments multiple ligaments in turn connect at points called nodes all of these features are almost unimaginably small stuckner notes for example that some of the smaller pores would fit about three strands of dna side by side as a result mccue said the overall structure is very complex and its been extremely difficult and time-consuming to measure features like the lengths between nodes and the diameters of ligaments but stuckners software has changed that manually it might take 20 minutes to over an hour to measure the features associated with one image stuckner said we can do it in a minute or even just tell the computer to measure a whole slew of images while we walk away earlier attempts to measure npg features led to very small data sets of five or six data points the texas a&m/virginia tech team has looked at around 80 data points that in turn allowed the team to create the new quantitative description of npg features associated with different processing techniques all that without doing any actual experiments just clever data-mining and analysis said mccue the work has also led to new publication guidelines for future researchers of the 2 000 papers the team originally analyzed only 150 had useful information we had to throw out a lot of data due to poor image quality or a lack of written information on how a given npg was processed mccue said the new guidelines could prevent that ultimately allowing better data mining not only for npg but for other materials their work was supported by the national science foundation (nsf) through a program called designing materials to revolutionize and engineer our future (dmref) the dmref is the nsfs response to the materials genome initiative a multi-agency federal program that aims to discover manufacture and deploy advanced materials twice as fast at a fraction of the cost middle picture: these images show some of the physical characteristics for nonporous gold at different magnifications the second image illustrates nodes (shown as circles) ligaments (shown as lines) ligament diameter (white arrows) and pore diameter (black arrows) images courtesy of johns hopkins university and arizona state university respectively
2346,a senior design course capstone team in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university won first place in the texas space grant consortium (tsgc) design challenge for their presentation on 3d printed antennas the tsgc design challenge is a unique academic experience offering undergraduate students an opportunity to propose design and fabricate a solution to a toward solving research objectives of importance to nasa and its mission the team isen team 10 nasa won first place in top design second in best poster and best model and third in best oral presentation at the event team members included undergraduate students gregory bair cindy zuniga stephanie urrutia and cameron wagner dr nancy currie-gregg professor of practice in the department of industrial and systems engineering and former astronaut was the teams faculty advisor as space exploration deepens resupply missions are become more and more complex making 3d printing a preferred solution said urrutia if a part breaks or is missing a 3d printer could print a part in a matter of hours rather than having to wait weeks or months for a resupply mission the challenge tasked competitors with evaluating the performance of commercially available 3d conductive filaments in antenna applications with recent advances in 3d printing methods a wide variety of new filaments have been developed including conductive filaments said urrutia we selected two pla filaments; graphite pla by proto-pasta and f-electric by functionalize we then made a model of a horn antenna using solidworks and printed it at the engineering innovation center with the help of the department of electrical and computer engineering the team conducted an impedance and radiation pattern test while the antennas were not conductive enough to perform as antennas the team learned valuable information from the experience as an industrial engineer i only had a basic understanding of electrical engineering concepts and 3d printing said urrutia i spoke to subject matter experts and brought their knowledge together to complete the project this was the first time i had the opportunity to work with a multidisciplinary team and i thoroughly enjoyed it currie-gregg enjoyed mentoring the students and was proud of the manner in which they represented the department college and university the students were extremely enthusiastic and learned a tremendous amount throughout the semester including technical skills such as cad design and additive manufacturing project management skills and the importance of collaboration with other engineering disciplines said currie-gregg
2347,kyle fields hall of champions was packed for the sixth annual engineering project showcase the annual celebration of the technical accomplishments of texas a&m universitys engineering undergraduate students more than 200 teams with freshmen to seniors across all engineering departments participated and presented their team projects through posters and prototypes to industry judges in competition for top awards while not mandatory a great deal of the projects at showcase this year relied on functioning prototypes to demonstrate their progress and mastery of the need statement they chose to answer the student team behind the low-cost field-use nystagmus (fun) recorder demonstrated their goggles much to the delight of showcase attendees while the ultimate purpose of the goggles is to assist law enforcement in the conviction of duis by recording rapid eye movement the demonstrator entertained the crowd with over-enlarged eyes from magnifying glasses people will be charged but not convicted because a lot of evidence is thrown out said christopher vega biomedical engineering senior these will record the eyes illuminate them and make it a lot more constant so that in a court of law the evidence is fully admissible and it can actually assist in getting a drunk driver off the streets and keeping the streets a lot safer the students worked with the local sheriffs department as well as a local ear nose and throat physician when the biomedical engineering department was presented with the conviction challenge as well as the overall hopes for an end result the student team came up with the fun goggles the mechanical engineering student team that took second place in their category with a document preservation tool had a very positive experience with their sponsor the texas a&m university libraries the team worked to help the library staff preserve historical document integrity from oils environmental influences and moisture they created a welding encapsulator that uses ultrasonic energy to create a seam or spot weld around a document or item showcase has been awesome in that ive never seen so many engineering students work so hard on a project said sheila khodadad mechanical engineering senior a lot of us didnt have any experience coming into this then you get this new idea and youre trying to figure out how to solve this problem its just really worthwhile learning how to problem solve in real life seeing a design all the way to development is just a really good feeling you work so hard with your teammates and its been amazing industry judges were impressed with this years projects many found themselves interacting with the teams beyond those they were asked to judge simply because the projects were so impactful many of the industry judges had participated in the past citing the interesting and unique projects as a main cause for returning originally from mexico jose quintana 86 president of advent gx came to study computer science at texas a&m and ended up staying in the area for work this was his second year to judge for the showcase these are technologies that contribute to the betterment of our community said jose quintana ‘86 president of advent gx even judging the freshman students with their marble-sorting technology is great to see [showcase] gives us the opportunity to see the kids at work have them go through a process where they have to manage their teams and the design process itself judges and visitors arent the only ones to benefit from the team project experience as roger kittrell 86 sector leader in transportation with the wood group pointed out the students gain skills outside of the classroom that polish them as a potential hire my son is a sophomore electrical engineer said kittrell i told him that once he graduates all you are going to have is one sheet of white paper that represents all youve done they arent going to know anything about you except whats on that one sheet of paper and by talking to you youve got to get as much experience as possible the projects allow students to interact as a group just like a work environment where they would have a problem that needed to be solved and collaborate on solving it together the interaction and communication skills gained through team interaction is a large part of why showcase participants enjoyed it because few engineering industries have individual work scenarios students learning to collaborate and communicate in a real-world environment helps round them out ensuring the showcase happens annually is very important to me said magda lagoudas executive director of industry and nonprofit partnerships for the college of engineering i know these students benefit immensely from the experience of interacting with industry and the journey to getting their projects and themselves ready for the judges we are extremely grateful for industry involvement each year especially as our showcase grows larger to accommodate more majors and more diversity in projects this event was made possible by the 2018 engineering project showcase sponsors and supporters: kubota texas a&m engineering experiment station baker hughes boeing elbit systems of america emerson houston airports peak nano student project sponsors industry judges and support staff and faculty winners of of the 2018 engineering project showcase: biological and agricultural engineering capstone design winners: kubota tractor corporation award: sasle nicaragua water conveyance and distribution system second place: controlled atmosphere storage biomedical engineering capstone design winner: development of a non-blood contacting pediatric heart augmentation device various department capstone design winner: commbo: modernizing augmentative and alternative communication electrical & computer engineering capstone design winner: elbit systems of america award: east texas climate tracking engineering technology & industrial distribution capstone design winners: emerson award: nasa class-1e facility monitoring and control system second place: mobility worldwide industrial & systems engineering capstone design winners: houston airport system award: autonomy as a service: the optimal experience second place: revitalizing american manufacturing with lean practices mechanical engineering capstone design winners: kubota tractor corporation award: shredder for recycling plastics second place: texas a&m university libraries document encapsulator project aggie_challenge winners: the boeing company award: ecomold second place: advanced vapor compressor desalination (desalination & power team) design competition winners: baker hughes a ge company award: marlin auv tees commercialization award: smart harness system: the future of fall protection | mechanical engineering capstone design team non-capstone other course project winner: lazarus specialty ammunition engr 112 winners: team 9 team 5
2348,following a dream to build and install underwater habitats ron smith found the key to his dream in by earning a degree in ocean engineering from texas a&m university i told my mom that i wanted to be an oceanographer that knew how to build structures underwater said smith founder of deep down inc and advisory board member in the department of ocean engineering this was in 1975 when i was a junior in high school she presented texas a&ms ocean engineering program to me and i knew instantly this is what i wanted to do but i didnt want my parents to have to pay for my education when i had that covered from the naval academy upon graduation smith began working as a drilling engineer trainee at odeco in new orleans he was one of the first to have the unlimited master modular offshore drilling units (modu) marine license so he managed the semi-submersible modus while there he learned from a mentor lee trahan that work success is based on 20 percent ability and 80 percent working well with others i worked seven or 14 days offshore and in my off-time i either worked in the office five days a week or went to training schools that a few of us in the same program set up smith said it was a self-training program i learned to balance my ocean engineering education with real field experience and found that spot right in the middle which shaped my career trahan was just one of many mentors smith learned from in his life that deeply influenced who he has become and what he is committed to in his work and personal life my dad was a retired marine corps major and highly-decorated f4u corsair fighter pilot smith said he was also my baseball coach scout master hunting and fishing teacher anything i wanted to do he was grown up doing everything with me and teaching me lessons without me knowing i was being taught when i got to high school and he asked about my day i told him what all we did not have he got himself on the school board and organized a bond election as he was a stock broker as a school board member smiths dad cleaned up the school and obtained all the chemistry physics athletic and art equipment students could possibly need he followed me every step of the way and made sure i had all the support i needed no matter what the topic smith said then smith went to texas a&m and met another key mentor dr robert randall made me feel important no matter what my grades were and found the spot for each person teaching us to be all we could be from a fun educational and career-building way smith said in 1997 he decided to embark on a journey of his own to provide save-the-day products and services to oil companies deep down inc was founded and has since supported companies on some of the most important field developments in the world and some of the most critical catastrophes it was mine and patrice chemins president of stolt comex seaway effort to talk our respective bosses into forming an alliance between kvaerner and stolt comex seaway to provide turnkey supply and installation of our steel tube umbilicals smith said shell decided to form a frame agreement on who would supply all their complete subsea systems and fmc technologies was awarded the contract shortly afterwards shell consolidated the controls into fmc and agreed to start using kongsberg controls an fmc owned company with fmc and shift to an all-inclusive frame agreement of fmc supply shell could no longer support smiths company from kvaerner fssl as they were competitors to fmc while discussing my predicament with patrice he told me ‘ron deep down youll never be truly happy until you have your own company hey you should call it deep down smith said so i took his advice and formed deep down inc in the following days what was once one person and then one specialized team on the deck of the vessel is now a team of about 100 people with a concentrated effort to keep it lean and mean in order to maintain all the expectations set out our client at bp once said ‘ddi is a small company that does big things which is something close to my heart smith said we now have all the systems in place to either maintain this 100-person level with all the safety and quality that goes with it or increase to two or three times the size providing exponentially more to our clients and still maintain our core values and skill sets today his job description goes beyond ocean engineering and includes words such as influencer professional mentor and role model smith is a platinum level sponsor of the aggie ocean discovery xprize student team that has now reached the finalist level of the international shell ocean discovery xprize competition it meant a lot to be there for the faculty and the students to share how their education and my experience has been a good blend to help both the professors in their teaching and the students in their learning smith said my niche is promoting that balance i keep talking about also by opening my shop and team to the students in an internship makes me proud to see our influence start to take roots and see the students grow in front of our very eyes i want to continue to do this smith was named the inaugural department of ocean engineering outstanding alumni last fall in recognition of his work and support of the department smith credits his teaching and mentoring style to another mentor of his own captain peter bamber a marine superintendent from his days at odeco he was a british sea captain in the british and cajun navys in which education was focused on academic growth and internships as they did in the united kingdom smith said he pushed me to develop the skillsets to solve the offshore problems and find the best balance of education and experience i think this is where i get much of my training aptitude and desire to have interns like the xprize team in my company i want to give back smith encourages new graduates to take the time to learn from those who have been in the industry for a while as he did respect those old guys in the field and learn from them by listening and working with them smith said get as much offshore experience as possible and blend it with the education and find your own balance whether it is most education with a little experience or most experience with a little education or smack down the middle
2349,james mcelreath an undergraduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was named the international runner-up of the american helicopter societys (ahs) prestigious 2018 robert l lichten award competition mcelreath works with assistant professor dr moble benedict in the advanced vertical flight laboratory and his project involves force and flowfield measurements to understand the 3d unsteady aerodynamics on a cycloidal rotor blade operating at ultralow reynolds numbers mcelreath won the award for his paper tip vortex measurements on a cycloidal rotor blade at ultralow reynolds numbers he will be honored at the annual grand awards banquet at the 74th ahs forum in phoenix ariz in may previously he was the first prize winner from the southwest region and at the international level he competed with six other regional winners including graduate students and employees from sikorsky and the army aviation directorate to win the second place the robert l lichten award was established in 1975 to honor the memory of robert l lichten an outstanding rotary-wing engineer and the societys 22nd president it recognizes new and innovative research in the area of vertical flight and encourages ahs members who have not previously presented to begin making public the results of their work through presentations at the local level each of the ahs regions around the world is eligible to select a regional winner from which an overall international winner and runner-up are selected
2350,a research group in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university led by dr shiren wang is working to find efficient solutions to reusing and repurposing wasted heat energy industrial processes consume fuel to implement the desired operations unfortunately more than half of the energy produced is lost through waste heat thermoelectric technologies recycle waste heat by using it to create electricity for example thermoelectric products can be integrated into cellphones for increasing battery life or vehicle engines for improving fuel efficiency (see figure 1) thermoelectric products are made from special materials that absorb heat and create electricity these products often need to have complex geometries that fit in tightly constrained spaces which makes 3d printing the ideal manufacturing technique unfortunately printable materials that demonstrate flexibility and high thermoelectric performance are in short supply wangs research group has invented a new hybrid nanostructure that can serve as ink for scalable printing with good mechanical flexibility and outstanding thermoelectric properties the efficiency of recycling water heat is around 12 percent for a thermal gradient of 60 oc and 6 percent for a thermal gradient of 260 oc for example in an iphone x printing of wangs thermoelectric materials onto the battery could extend the battery lifetime 5-10 minutes if integrated within vehicle engines the fuel efficiency can be improved by 6 percent in freeway driving that means every gallon of fuel can run one-two more miles dr mark lawley head of the industrial and systems engineering department said wangs remarkable achievement is the culmination of years of difficult research his work has the potential to save our economy billions of dollars in energy consumption while reducing societys impact on the global environment lawley said congratulations to dr wang for this outstanding work wangs research has been selected for publication in the prestigious journal energy & environmental science of the royal society of chemistry energy & environmental science is an international journal that publishes important high-quality and agenda-setting research relating to energy conversion and storage alternative fuel technologies and environmental science with an impact factor of 295
2351,texas a&m university students were recently recognized for their efforts to end hunger in texas as part of the hunger free project a texas a&m tier one-funded grant this intercollegiate effort facilitates meaningful sustainable interactions between texas a&m students and organizations representing core values of leadership and selfless service in the community after working all semester tackling problems facing local food banks and pantries 20 teams presented their solutions at the inaugural community engagement impact summit on the texas a&m campus industrial distribution students worked closely with peers from many other disciplines who were part of a class offered by the department of sociology to help local food agencies in need evaluators included directors of non-profit agencies from the local bryan-college station area champions of engaged scholarship on the texas a&m campus central texas food bank representatives as well as specially invited guests they did exceptionally well said dr malini natarajarathinam an assistant professor in the department of engineering technology & industrial distribution (who spearheaded the initiative all the feedback the presentation evaluators provided us about the student presentations was impressive the evaluators were clearly impressed with the students presentation skills and how they had structured their presentations to focus on solutions and impact evaluators were so impressed by the teams that deliberations took almost an hour and were unable to narrow down their top three choices instead a total of five teams were selected as winners central texas food bank a strategic partner in the hunger free project awarded nearly $20 000 to the teams so they could implement their proposed solutions the winners include: academic and community engagement award winner group 12 (caritas of waco agency mentor: buddy edwards) trevor bartz celine jacques emily kenny christine sanford community impact award winner ($10 000) group 16 (hutto community food pantry agency mentor: connie gooding) cody cooper patricia dossett mathew romanchuk rosario vega-tirado community impact award runner-up ($5 000) group 6 (helping hands ministry of belton agency mentor: tasha roberts) daniels mengual avero lauren powers shelby schlesselman carter shults community impact award runner-up ($3 500) group 20 (micah 6 agency mentor: barry smith) blake broussard mateo camacho ricardo duenez kyle gardner kelsie warren community impact award runner-up ($1 000) group 19 (covenant umc pantry agency mentor: dan schultz) allison reese peter muller lukas vogt patrick wylie this program gives our students the opportunity to work on a truly collaborative effort said department head dr reza langari they are learning skills and knowledge that they need to assume moral leadership and solve societal problems both locally and worldwide two other programs were recognized at the summit including the service-learning faculty fellows program as well as presentation of the 2018 margaret rudder community service awards this summit was a collaborative venture across the texas a&m campus community the department of student activities leadership and service center in the division of student affairs planned the event with assistance from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and the department of sociology public partnership and outreach in the office of the provost provided support for the luncheon
2352,dr zachary grasley presidential impact fellow director of the center for infrastructure renewal and professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m has been named a fellow of the american ceramic society (acers) grasley will be honored during the acers honors and awards banquet at their 120th annual meeting on oct 15 2018 in columbus ohio grasley was selected based on his scholarly contributions and leadership impact on the materials engineering industry grasley has spent his career making research contributions to the integration of analytical computational and experimental techniques across several length scales to fundamentally advance civil infrastructure materials grasley has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles has given more than 30 invited or keynote seminars and has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on grants totaling over $62 million
2353,harvey irma katrina the list of hurricanes and other natural disasters that have impacted the lives of millions of people continues to grow natural disasters disrupt communications restrict access to basic needs like electricity and water and can isolate entire communities forcing them to fend for themselves munich re a reinsurance company based in germany reported that natural disasters caused more damage in 2017 than in any of the five previous years events that some suggest are linked to our continually warming climate as a part of the aggie- challenge event students are working to change the way communities survive and thrive during natural disasters with a multifaceted program called disaster iq disaster iq has three primary components: tweetit seeit and mapit each component helps in providing disaster information through analytical data gathering resident self-reporting and disaster scenario education the approach we are using is based on data from a variety of sources to identify the effects different issues have on these communities said dr ali mostafavi the project faculty advisor and an assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m the goal with this is three-fold: educating people on how to be smarter residents during disasters using online data sources like social media for problem detection and cataloging and promoting resident self-reporting of issues like flooding or downed power lines in and around their communities the primary goal behind disaster iq is the dissemination of critical information organizations such as the us army national guard and other relief entities can use data gathered by disaster iq to triage and address challenges during and after national disasters this kind of community is what civil engineering student ehab abo deeb calls a smart city a city that can address challenges through data integration and community support the idea going forward is that well consolidate all of these practices into a single app said abo deeb ‘tweetit takes data from tweets and puts the incident maybe a power outage on a digital map to provide information to emergency responders we also have ‘mapit so that a user can manually put an incident on a map and report it and we have ‘seeit which [has] educational videos that teach people to be smarter residents how to see warning signs and how to use the software to help themselves the key idea in this project according to abo deeb is community each resident has to pitch in to provide the information either self-reported or via social media to give emergency services the information they need to succeed abo deeb and his team were in the process of developing tweetit when hurricane harvey struck which put a whole new perspective on their work we all sifted through tweets manually during harvey and irma abo deeb said my brother lives in houston and the community where he works was heavily flooded i was touched seeing this area in disarray and seeing people clean up their houses its a vibrant community out there and to me it just reinforced the idea that we all have to pitch in as a community the team presented their prototype at the texas a&m engineering project showcase on april 27 with the goal that interested parties will help continue the projects development in the future they hope to integrate other social media platforms and web assets to help report the best information possible to emergency services the next phase is scaling the technology mostafavi said this system is a prototype in terms of the amount of data were currently able to process which is a body of about 100 000 tweets during harvey we had 23 million tweets alone that conveyed some type of disaster information so we want to build a capacity in the system that hits millions and billions and is able to analyze that data senior computer science engineering student michael peterson is one of the students involved with tweetit focusing on data analytics and using the data in tweets to create a comprehensive map one of the challenges is how we collect information from these tweets peterson said im working on clustering tweets which involves taking tweets that are all happening in the same area to create reliable information on what is happening as peterson abo deeb and eight other team members involved keep working to expand disaster iq their hope is that one day city municipalities will be able to use disaster iq as a reliable tool to promote infrastructure resilience disaster response and better the lives of those in the affected communities our goal is to deliver a tool to improve the lives of people during these extreme events and to transform this into a product for users mostafavi said i think the students are making great strides in doing that and we are excited to see it go further
2354,dr andreas polycarpou head of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university co-chaired a successful 2018 international mechanical engineering education leadership summit as part of the american society of mechanical engineers in march the summit held in in san diego california focused on the themes of safety and security in mechanical engineering specifically how they both apply to protection advances in technology–the internet smart cars smart cities–that have improved the lives of the average person must now ensure both safety and security as operating principles bringing in the age of the digital mechanical engineer a summary of the summits theme stated dr nk anand the james m and ada sutton forsyth professor regents professor executive associate dean of engineering and associate director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station texas a&m university was a panelist for a discussion on various mechanical engineering partnerships ranging from government and industry to academia and nonprofits dr arun srinivasa holdredge/paul professor in the department also attended the summit as a panelist on a safety and security of autonomous systems discussion that was moderated by polycarpou who is also the james j cain chair in mechanical engineering and the meinhard h kotzebue '14 professor srinivasas presentation was pedagogy technology/flipped and educating future mechanical engineers since 1989 the asme international mechanical engineering education leadership summit has brought together university industry and government leaders to discuss issues in engineering education and research and to sharing latest business management and curricular practices dr andreas polycarpou head of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university co-chaired a successful 2018 international mechanical engineering education leadership summit as part of the american society of mechanical engineers in march dr nk anand was a panelist for a discussion on various mechanical engineering partnerships ranging from government and industry to academia and nonprofits dr arun srinivasa also attended the summit as a panelist on a safety and security of autonomous systems
2355,four students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded the 2018-2019 vertical flight foundation (vff) scholarships from the american helicopter society (ahs) this is a merit-based scholarship given by the ahs to students who conduct cutting-edge research related to vertical flight david coleman who is a recipient in the doctoral degree category conducts foundational research to understand the flight dynamics of a novel hummingbird-inspired robot atanu halder also a recipient in the doctoral degree category focuses his research on developing an aeroelastic model-based design framework for cyclocopters bochan lee who won the scholarship in the masters degree category is working on the development of a novel control system for vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicles to autonomously land on small surface vessels james mcelreath the top candidate in the bachelors degree category conducts experiments to understand the three-dimensional unsteady aerodynamics on a cycloidal rotor blade the students work in the advanced vertical flight laboratory under the guidance of dr moble benedict assistant professor in aerospace engineering a total of 25 vff scholarships were awarded internationally this year and texas a&m is second in number of scholarships per university the scholarship winners will be honored at the 74th american helicopter society annual forum in may in phoenix arizona in addition to receiving their scholarships coleman halder and mcelreath will be presenting technical papers during the conference
2356,concrete canoes bowling balls and frisbees while this mix of objects sounds odd these items are the namesakes of engineering competitions for civil engineering students who attended the american society of civil engineers (asce) 2018 asce texas-mexico student symposium held from april 11-14 the symposium hosted by the asce student chapter at texas a&m university invited students from 21 universities in both mexico and texas to participate in competitions professional networking opportunities and learning activities the asce holds 19 student symposiums a year that act as qualifying rounds for the national concrete canoe and steel bridge competitions but an additional component of this years symposium was having speakers and professionals give presentations on engineering soft skills the theme for the conference was serve: engineers serving the public and included seminars on sustainability skills to support students in their transition as learners to professionals in industry james gayle the student chapters committee head for the symposium is proud to be able to further the reach and impact of the symposium by allowing schools to come together and learn now that weve transitioned this into more of a symposium it allows all these students from different places to get to network with professionals gayle said we also hosted a career center and brought ten companies to talk about potential internships and full – time jobs to more than 400 students students got to test their mettle in a steel bridge competition where students from each school are required to design fabricate and construct a steel bridge and test it under various loads each university also fielded a concrete canoe team who had their constructed canoes on display but were not able to race them on saturday due to inclement weather the chapter also hosted a student paper competition which allowed students to discuss and share research and a social event so the students could relax during the symposium the symposium is a lot of fun but its also a lot of work for everyone involved gayle said the social and the fun competitions we hold like the concrete bowling and concrete frisbee stuff are the only times that everyone gets to relax the responsibility of hosting the symposium was decided two years ago when the members placed a bid to host the symposium and won while planning the event the current officers of the chapter knew they wanted it to be more than just a series of competitions which is something they felt they were able to achieve the student team that put this together worked really hard to make this an engaging and full event gayle said we wanted it to be something where people were able to compete but also have fun and learn and truly make it an event for the students
2357,two students have recently received awards for their research and co-curricular activities scott wilson a former student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university received the graduate student award for excellence in research-masters and dr charles w peak a doctoral student in biomedical engineering received the buck weirus spirit award both from the association of former students (afs) both work in a laboratory in the department under assistant professor dr akhilesh garharwar wilson graduated with a master of science in 2017 with a thesis title of designing advanced bioinks for 3d printing complex tissue structures each year the afs graduate student award for excellence in research-masters is given to researchers who are nominated by faculty advisors or departments an external panel of reviewers that includes faculty and administrators chooses the distinction of excellence winners the panel selects the recipients based on criteria including scholastic achievements publications academic awards and scholarships this award adds to the pride that i have in my individual academic work and research wilson said but more importantly it is a testament to the great team dynamic we have in the gaharwar lab i would not have been able to produce the level of research that i did without the encouragement and refinement given by my graduate student colleagues lauren cross cw peak jake carrow david chimene and advisor dr gaharwar the 2018 buck weirus spirit award honors up to 55 students each academic year and recognizes students with high involvement that create positive experiences that impact the texas a&m community peak was the founder and inaugural president of the biomedical engineering graduate student association he worked diligently to enhance the program through service to the department enhanced professional development opportunities and improved recruiting this award is a validation of the formation of the biomedical engineering graduate student association peak said it shows that we as students can identify our own areas for improvement and that we can work collectively to better our program i am honored to have my work in establishing this organization recognized by receiving the buck weirus spirit award wilson and peak join several of gaharwars students who have received university level awards in the past for additional information visit the afs distinguished graduate student award website or the buck weirus spirit award website
2358,the texas a&m energy institute is joining the massachusetts institute of technology energy initiative (mitei) and the stanford precourt institute for energy to support implementation of the department of energy-led us clean energy education & empowerment (c3e) program to advance womens participation and leadership in clean energy as a proud aggie i am thrilled to see my alma mater joining this important effort to encourage women to lead the way to our energy future said secretary rick perry with this type of collaborative effort by such distinguished institutions our energy workforce will continue to expand beyond measure the new collaboration with the texas a&m energy institute will broaden the geographic reach and diversity representation of the united states c3e program and help further promote womens leadership in the energy sector at the texas a&m energy institute we are dedicated to discovering energy solutions that improve the quality of life for all peoples said dr stratos pistikopoulos interim co-director and deputy director of the texas a&m energy institute through a partnership within the clean energy education & empowerment (c3e) initiative we believe that we can effect positive change that will bring awareness and recognition to the significant role that women play in conceiving designing and implementing a clean energy future for texas the united states and the world key elements of the us c3e program include the c3e ambassadors senior leaders who serve as role models and advocates for women in clean energy and the annual c3e women in clean energy symposium designed to help women in the clean energy sector build the skills and professional networks needed to succeed many participants say that the symposium inspired them to take the next step in their careers whether by taking on a new leadership role or starting a clean energy business each symposium honors winners of the c3e awards which recognize the outstanding leadership and achievements of mid-career women working to advance clean energy c3e awards are given in eight categories: advocacy business education entrepreneurship government international law and finance and research over the past six years doe and mitei have collaborated on the planning and implementation of the annual awards program and symposium with the stanford precourt institute for energy joining the collaboration in 2016 that responsibility will now be shared with the texas a&m energy institute which will host the event on a rotating basis and host this years ambassadors retreat the seventh annual symposium will be held at stanford university in december 2018 and the eighth symposium will be at texas a&m in 2019 mitei is thrilled for texas a&m energy institutes collaboration in the us clean energy education & empowerment program said mitei executive director martha broad their support will help even more women advance and achieve recognition for their clean energy careers while expanding the vibrant c3e network c3e recognizes that the ideas and talents of all members of society are essential to meeting our future energy challenges and that more womens participation and leadership is key to realizing that future said dr sally benson co-director of stanfords precourt institute for energy texas a&m energy institute joining in this work is a major advance and im delighted to have the aggies as partners
2359,texas a&m university department of mechanical engineering graduate student cole fincher has been selected for the prestigious national science foundation (nsf) graduate research fellowship program an honor bestowed upon only the most outstanding graduate students pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees fincher said he will remain at texas a&m as he pursues his graduate education in mechanical engineering he plans to continue researching small-scale mechanics and nanoindentation which he described as poking small objects with a small stick to investigate how materials behave at the nano and micro scale it's nice to be able to have some certainty of what's going to happen over the next few years fincher said every day is exciting here we have many interesting projects in the lab that i'm working on it's fun it's like a little puzzle you have to figure out each day he said the news of his selection brought with it a mixture of excitement and relief for the possibilities the programs funding would provide him over the next few years fincher and his peers will receive a three-year annual stipend and a cost of education allowance to help cover tuition and fees fellows also have additional opportunities for professional development and international research through the program fincher who graduated with an bachelors degree in december is co-advised by dr matt pharr assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department and dr george m pharr iv texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) distinguished research professor and professor in the department of materials science and engineering matt pharr said fincher is a great student who has made positive contributions not only in the lab but through entrepreneurial and outreach activities such as demonstrations for elementary school students as well he said finchers research interests have the potential for broad impacts in several areas including sustainable energy storage electric vehicles and more through the aid of the fellowship program matt pharr said fincher will be able to have the flexibility to pursue the research that most interests him rather than being tied only to the projects for which he can gain funding hes going to get to explore on his own matt pharr said hes enthusiastic and energetic and he loves doing academic and scientific work cole deserves this award and it is a great opportunity for him fincher said he believes his selection for the fellowship program is also a reflection of matt pharrs mentorship which he said has played an integral role in his development as a researcher and as a student established in 1952 the fellowship program was designed to recognize and provide support to students in nsf-supported engineering technology science and mathematics disciplines with the goal of helping to produce subject matter experts who can make significant contributions to teaching research and innovations it has funded more than 50 000 fellowships since its inception more than 450 of the programs fellows are members of the national academy of sciences and 42 have become nobel laureates previous fellows of the program include google founder sergey brin freakonomics co-author steven levitt and former us secretary of energy steven chu who is a distinguished lecturer with the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m as he moves forward as a fellow in the program pursuing his graduate education fincher said he hopes to publish as much as he can and take advantage of having the extra time to spend on research i think that's why the fellowship is so impactful -- it frees up a lot of time that you otherwise would have to spend acting as a teaching assistant or fulfilling other duties to fill that funding gap fincher said so now i'm freed up to focus more time on my research which i enjoy a lot
2360,to help better predict the spread of mosquito-borne diseases two researchers from the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university have joined a grant project to develop better monitoring tools in coastal areas dr madhav erraguntla and dr mark lawley are part of the gulf coast vector-borne disease regional center of excellence at the the university of texas medical branch which was recently funded by an award from the centers for disease control and prevention to develop low-cost integrated wireless solutions for real-time monitoring of changing environmental conditions in areas where mosquitoes are known to breed and rest mosquitoes are known for carrying a variety of diseases including west nile virus and the zika virus [we are seeking to] better [understand] how localized environmental conditions affect the breeding and resting sites of mosquitoes; the effect of local environmental conditions on the growth and infectivity of mosquito erraguntla said eventually this work will facilitate disease modeling and management to create the models researchers will record fluctuations in temperature ranges on prototypes and then replicate them in the lab mosquitoes raised under various environmental conditions will be assessed for immune status and susceptibility to zika virus the data generated from these experiments will be used to develop an analytical model by developing real-time analytical models of the microclimate weather in shaded areas where mosquitoes spend time research can help provide predictive capabilities for the spread of mosquito-borne diseases in temperate climates modeling and predicting changes in the transmission dynamics and epidemiology of mosquito-borne viral diseases is challenging due to the complex influence of environmental factors on etiological agents and vectors erraguntla said current models fail to incorporate the daily fluctuations in diurnal temperatures which are occurring in the shaded microenvironments where container-breeding mosquitoes are found the research includes two industrial systems and engineering students josef zapletal and himanshu gupta for more information about texas a&m universitys efforts to battle viruses such as zika read this 2017 article
2361,a new technology combining a laser beam and a particle beam for interstellar propulsion could pave the way for space exploration into the vast corners of our universe this is the focus of procsima a new research proposal by dr chris limbach and dr ken hara assistant professors in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university nasa has chosen the proposal procsima: diffractionless beam propulsion for breakthrough interstellar missions for the 2018 nasa innovative advanced concepts (niac) phase 1 study procsima stands for photon-particle optically coupled soliton interstellar mission accelerator and is meant to evoke the idea that interstellar travel is not so far away in this study limbach and hara propose a new and innovative beamed propulsion architecture that could enable an interstellar mission to proxima centauri with a 42-year cruise duration at 10 percent the speed of light proxima centauri is the nearest known star to the sun with proxima b a planet orbiting the star at a distance of 75 million km the mission of the research is to create an extraordinarily long-range beam of light and matter that can propel a one kilogram probe to complete a flyby around proxima b there is great interest in studying this planet as it is a prime candidate for visual observation because of its proximity to earth and because proxima b orbits in the habitable zone where liquid water may exist for half a century researchers around the globe have been studying laser-beamed propulsion technologies for interstellar travel in this concept thrust is generated by the reflection of light off the spacecraft unlike conventional rockets spacecraft accelerated by beams of light or matter do not require their own propellant or propulsion energy source enabling incredibly high final velocity the disadvantage of such concepts is that as the spacecraft gets farther away the beams spread out or diffracts into the vacuum of space this results in less thrust over time as the beam pushes less and less effectively limbach and hara are looking at a revolutionary way to overcome this fundamental problem by combining the light beam with a particle beam that simultaneously reduces the spreading effects are simultaneously reduced for both beams the primary value of the procsima system is the game-changing high-mass capability in the acceleration phase provided by the greatly extended distance over which a laser can provide photon thrust the procsima concept also maintains a tight 8-meter beam size over the entire acceleration phase reducing the required size of the laser transmitter an advantage of this research is that it brings together technologies developed by the fusion community as well as aspects of photonics and telecommunications one of the exciting parts of this project is that it brings together the forefront of so many different research areas which are under intense investigation said limbach my hope is to have an influence on all of the various topics even if the application which is interstellar travel is probably decades in the future this project is not only interesting because of the innovative propulsion concept but also from the perspective of fundamental physics related to particle-photon interaction hara adds collaboration between experiments theory and computer simulations is necessary to tackle this challenging problem the goal of niac phase 1 will be to determine the potential benefits and stumbling blocks of this new concept and to assess where relevant technologies are now while limbach will undertake experiments and modeling of the light beam propagation hara will contribute detailed calculations on the particle beam and combined beam concept initial modeling will be based on the state-of-the-art high energy laser technology at different wavelengths and the current capabilities of neutral particle beam sources the phase 1 study lasts for nine months with a grant of $125 000 after phase 1 they will apply for phase 2 which would fund a more detailed investigation of the mission architecture with a grant of up to $500 000 over a span of two years one aspect of this project is simply the excitement and potential to inspire others to take a serious look at this innovative concept limbach said interstellar travel is an exciting and difficult problem and if we can get this solution to work it opens up not just sending microscopic payloads to the stars but actually sending larger perhaps human-scale types of missions the nasa innovative advanced concepts program nurtures visionary ideas that could transform future nasa missions with the creation of breakthroughs radically better or entirely new aerospace concepts while engaging america's innovators and entrepreneurs as partners in the journey the program seeks innovations from diverse and nontraditional sources and niac projects study innovative technically credible advanced concepts that could one day change the possible in aerospace
2362,a senior design capstone team in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university evaluated ibm watson for use as the brain-system in an on-campus autonomous paratransit shuttle this was the first time ibm partnered with a major university to explore the use of watsons services in alternative transportation mobility solutions undergraduate students alejandra hernandez and alejandro cuellar were given the task to analyze what ibm watson an advance artificial intelligence (ai) technology is capable of they researched the transportation needs of the mobility challenged students at texas a&m and how ibm watson could fulfill these needs as the interface between the transportation vehicle an autonomous shuttle and the mobility-challenged passenger imagine you broke your leg and you had to go from west campus to the engineering technologies building said hernandez our research studied the feasibility of having an on-demand driverless vehicle that could pick you up and you could have a conversation with as if it were a human dr tom ferris associate professor in the department was the teams faculty advisor i am very excited to see our students applying their industrial engineering knowledge to the research and design of new technologies such as this said ferris alejandra and alejandro especially made me proud in the way they conducted analyses of potential user groups a skill that we teach in our courses related to human-systems interaction to determine key human factors that should be considered in the development of this vehicle hernandez enjoyed working with ibm watson and through the partnership was reminded that technology and humankind are meant to work together we can choose to focus on the negative sides of it or we can focus on the beautiful and useful way to extend the human capabilities to those who are in need said hernandez cuellar enjoyed working with ibm watson because use of artificial intelligence software was something new and he believes there will be an increase in the use of it in the coming years i feel honored to have the opportunity to represent texas a&m in a project that positively impacts the lives of others said cuellar their paper on the topic was accepted for presentation at the transportation research boards 2018 annual meeting in washington dc in january the meeting focused on transportation modes with more than 5 000 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops addressing topics of interest to policymakers administrators practitioners researchers and representatives of government industry and academic institutions bob brydia senior research scientist for the texas a&m transportation institute leads the campus transportation technology initiative which worked with ibm and the college of engineering to find ways to improve campus transportation
2363,texas a&m university at qatar graduated its 900th engineer on may 10 in a ceremony attended by her excellency sheikha hind bint hamad al thani vice chairperson and ceo of qatar foundation more than 100 students walked across the stage of the qatar national convention centre during texas a&m at qatars annual commencement ceremony including 89 students who earned their bachelors degrees in chemical engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering of those 49 degrees were awarded to qatari graduates in addition 14 graduate students earned their master of science and master of engineering degrees in chemical engineering
2364,dr dimitris lagoudas associate vice chancellor for engineering and deputy director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recognized faculty and staff award winners during the 2018 faculty and staff awards banquet lagoudas presented faculty awards staff excellence awards a new employee award a key contributor award and the engineering team award a new category was added this year the college of engineering research impact awards to highlight research that has had an impact beyond conventional boundaries such as opening a new line of research producing a tool widely adopted by industry or establishing a startup venture staff awards key contributor award damon slaydon (human resources) new employee award michael elverud (materials science and engineering) staff excellence award chris huff (information technology); murat kaynak (materials science and engineering); cheryl kocman (industrial and systems engineering); keisha lamb (engineering payroll); rebecca marianno (aerospace engineering); debbie oakes(offshore technology research center); and zahir odovicic (aerospace engineering) engineering team award engineering facilities (john clark andy deuel stephen franklin and david glockzin) faculty awards college of engineering excellence in teaching award mahmoud el-halwagi (chemical engineering); michael johnson (engineering technology and industrial distribution); and patrick shamberger (materials science and engineering) instructional faculty teaching award james donnell (mechanical engineering); kristi shryock (aerospace engineering); and doug white (chemical engineering) college of engineering outstanding contribution awards charles crawford distinguished award for contributions bryan rasmussen (mechanical engineering) george armistead jr ‘23 faculty excellence award for contributions mark holtzapple (chemical engineering) william o and montine p head memorial award for contributions raymundo arroyave (materials science and engineering) and melissa grunlan (biomedical engineering) williams brothers construction engineering award for contributions stefan hurlebaus (civil engineering) college of engineering service awards george armistead jr ‘23 faculty excellence award for service benjamin wilhite (chemical engineering) william keeler memorial award for service natarajan gautam (industrial and systems engineering); aydin karsilayan (electrical and computer engineering); and john keyser (computer science and engineering) william o and montine p head memorial award for service bryan maggard (petroleum engineering) and edward white (aerospace engineering) college of engineering faculty fellows george armistead jr ‘23 faculty fellow jodie lutkenhaus (chemical engineering) charles h barclay jr ‘45 faculty fellow john valasek (aerospace engineering) barbara and ralph cox '53 faculty fellow jim morel (nuclear engineering) holleran-bowman faculty fellow bimal nepal (engineering technology and industrial distribution) tees fellow awards tees young faculty fellows moble benedict (aerospace engineering); jens figlus (ocean engineering); huilin gao (civil engineering); xia (ben) hu (computer science and engineering); and bruce tai (mechanical engineering) tees faculty fellows tim davis (computer science and engineering); ricardo gutierrez-osuna (computer science and engineering); daniele mortari (aerospace engineering); xiaoning qian (electrical and computer engineering) and miladin radovic (materials science and engineering) dean of engineering excellence award assistant professor akhilesh gaharwar (biomedical engineering); darren hartl (aerospace engineering); yang shen (electrical and computer engineering) associate professor michael demkowicz (materials science and engineering); eduardo gildin (petroleum engineering); guofei gu (computer science and engineering) and gregory huff (electrical and computer engineering) professor debjyoti banerjee (mechanical engineering); zhengdong cheng (chemical engineering); frank shipman (computer science and engineering); alex sprintson (electrical and computer engineering); and vladislav yakovlev (biomedical engineering) college of engineering research impact awards new this year these awards recognize research that has had an impact broadly defined as leading to outcomes that extend beyond conventional boundaries including opening new lines of research solving a long existing problem or producing tools or products that have become widely adopted in practice by industry and/or government yu ding (industrial and systems engineering) for innovations in data and quality science impacting the wind energy industry dings efforts have significantly improved performance and reliability of wind turbines catalyzing multi-million dollar investments from industry guofei gu (computer science and engineering) for development of innovative software defined network security technology gus innovations have been widely adopted by major internet and telecommunications companies and are laying a foundation for secure communication in next-generation networks duncan maitland (biomedical engineering) for development of innovative shape memory polymers (smps) for biomedical applications maitlands efforts have led to commercialization of a peripheral vascular occlusion devicethe first biodegradable smp device approved for human use in the world scott socolofsky (civil engineering) for development of improved forecasting tools to model the dispersal of pollutants in offshore oil spills socolofskys tools have been widely adopted by industry and government bodies (including noaa) to develop strategies for optimal deployment of dispersants to contain the spread of oil spills
2365,dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr michael j mcshane head of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university the appointment will be effective june 1 mcshane joined the biomedical engineering department as an associate professor in 2006 and is currently the james j cain professor ii he served as the director of graduate programs for the department from 2015-17 and has served as interim department head since september 2017 biomedical engineering is a dynamic field that is rapidly growing in importance texas a&m is already making a strong impact with our translationally-focused faculty and students now the opportunities created by the paths-up national science foundation engineering research center will allow us to expand our influence into underserved populations mcshane said it is an honor to be selected by my colleagues and the administration to serve in this role my intention is to work with faculty student staff alumni and our clinical and industry partners to prioritize research and educational initiatives wherein texas a&m can truly lead and set the standard for medical device innovation in an academic setting in addition to biomedical engineering mcshane has an appointment in the department of materials science and engineering and is affiliated with the center for remote health technologies and systems prior to joining texas a&m he served as the doctoral program chair in biomedical engineering and interim director for the center for biomedical engineering and rehabilitation science at louisiana tech university mcshane's research program spans the nano­ to-macro in merging responsive materials and optical instrumentation to create biochemical monitoring tools for use in the body inside cells and in cell culture environments he has secured more than $20 million in federal funding from the national institutes of health national science foundation army research office state sources private companies and foundations and has received honors for excellence in research teaching and service he is a fellow of the american institute for medical and biological engineering senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers and member of the biomedical engineering society american chemical society and spie the international society for optics and photonics mcshane received his doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from texas a&m in 1999
2366,in the fall of 2015 two texas a&m university students worked alongside faculty and a local space commercialization company to develop equipment that would be used on the international space station (iss) for research by nasa over the course of four months department of engineering technology and industrial distribution students dakotah karrer and vincent rodriguez worked with faculty member dr joseph morgan and matt leonard president and ceo of texas space technology applications and research (t star) on a special tube-like experiment station known as strata-1 the integrated hardware and software system within strata-1 helps identify properties of regolith the material found on the surface of airless planetary bodies interacting with regolith becomes a challenge in a low-gravity environment as robotic and crewed missions visit small bodies such as asteroids it will be important to understand how to anchor to these surfaces in the spring of 2016 strata-1 was launched to study the evolution of asteroid regolith through long duration exposure of simulant materials to the microgravity environment on the international space station despite its short development and launch window the strata-1 experiment was a success the nasa scientists who originally conducted the experiment were granted funding for a new class 1e research facility named hermes which will reside on the iss for five-plus years to host monitor and control groups of up to four experiments when again contracted by nasa to develop hermes t star turned to a capstone team within the engineering technology and industrial distribution department to design and deliver the electronics package for the system the capstone team microgravity automated research systems (mars) consisting of five students from the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program in the department have been working on the hermes facility electronic equipment over the past academic year recently karrer and rodriguez (now engineers with texas instruments) came back to campus to meet with dr morgan leonard original strata-1 experiment scientists dr kristen john and lee graham and the mars capstone team to discuss the history and future of the project mars and t star are continuing the work of karrer and rodriguez via the hermes facility which will be capable of hosting up to four experiments at a time that can be changed out multiple times during the facilitys lifetime hermes is an experimental microgravity facility that enables science experiments microgravity exposure testing testing of engineering components concept trials and any payloads that fit within the hermes design and operations constraints it is open to any investigation that benefits from microgravity exposure said dr john principal investigator for hermes given the durability of hermes a multitude of experiments can be conducted over its five-year mission on the iss the four chambers inside the facility can be interchanged as needed giving nasa scientists the freedom and flexibility to conduct their research accordingly with minimum deployment costs and varying project timelines the facility includes lighting image recording capabilities and a robust electrical interface being developed by mars which will give scientists complete access to power computation and control mars is also developing software that will allow scientists to achieve desired lighting camera use and electrical components that are uplinked from the ground to hermes nasa has stated that possible experiments could include asteroid regolith investigations life cycle tests of engineering components and penetrometer and anchoring demonstrations any investigation that can benefit from exposure to microgravity can be incorporated into hermes as long as it meets the specified structural electrical and safety standards at this years engineering project showcase mars received the first place award for all projects in the department and was presented the emerson award for their efforts the partnership between eset students t star and nasa continues to grow with exciting opportunities such as strata-1 and the hermes facility other projects being developed by the partnership include tsat and the dstr robot during the presentation of the strata-1 flight unit to department head dr reza langari leonard summed up the strata-1/hermes meeting by stating the innovation and rapid prototyping capabilities available within the departments product innovation cellar and mobile integrated solutions laboratory have allowed t star to successfully design and develop solutions for nasa scientists in a timely and cost-effective manner while engaging students in a real-world project
2367,civil engineering sophomore nicholas rossi was recently named sergeant major in the fightin texas aggie band making him the highest ranking junior cadet in the band im able to be a second set of eyes and ears for the commander to help inform him about whats going on in the band rossi said its my job to take his mission and vision and own it – not just push it across the band without any reasoning behind it since joining the band his freshman year rossi has moved from drums to one of two of the bands cymbal players to one of three bass drum players he started playing drums in the sixth grade and continued playing in high school when two of his cousins joined the aggie band rossi came to campus to watch march-ins where he said he remembers thinking wow i want to be a part of that its something bigger than yourself and thats something ive really come to learn he said rossi said he did not know what a sergeant major was when he first joined the band but has learned more about the position and its role in behind the scenes operations to ensure the band is functioning properly you dont want recognition for yourself rossi said just to have the thrill of waking up in the morning and saying ‘wow im in the fightin texas aggie band and i get to have a hand in it and be a part of taking care of everyone and making sure theyre where theyre supposed to be and doing what theyre supposed to be doing its very humbling rossi who is from sealy texas worried he would become homesick however becoming a part of the corps of cadets and training alongside other cadets quickly gave him a group of friends who have helped him grow over the years the corps the band and my upperclassmen have really helped me focus on developing my goals and what i want to get done he said theyve helped my work ethic grow and increase how effectively i can complete all of my tasks pursuing a degree in civil engineering rossi said he chose civil engineering after months of research his freshman year he spoke with engineering upperclassmen professors and visited with student organizations to help him decide the best course of action for himself since joining civil engineering rossi said he has developed another set of friends outside of the corps its good because i can get a perspective of the corps from someone who is not within see how they view things and learn why they came to texas a&m rossi said rossi said he does not have a set career for after graduation but instead plans to go with whatever opportunities become available and doing his best to be as prepared as he can be i strongly believe in not trying to force things because from what ive seen with anything in life is that if you try to force it it will break and just wont work out the way that you want it to rossi said every day i find some way to improve myself and improve something around me as a sophomore rossi has taken his role as a model for freshman cadets seriously aiming to teach them the routine of being a cadet and leading by example he said he has learned that what people say can have a real impact on other people which has influenced where he puts his values whatever value you dedicate to your things whether its a goal or an object others will see that and emulate it he said
2368,dr manoranjan majji assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been elevated to the grade of senior member by the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) ieee the worlds largest technical professional society is dedicated to advancing innovation and technological excellence for the benefit of humanity composed of engineers scientists and allied professionals ieee senior membership is an honor bestowed only to those who have made significant contributions to the profession majji joined the department in 2016 his research interests include structural systems computational vision and sensor systems astronautics and dynamical systems and aerospace robotics and autonomous systems
2369,after becoming captivated with the texas a&m university at galveston campus william mick prouse decided to pursue a degree in ocean engineering with a concentration in coastal studies prouse strives to raise the bar in both his academics and the field of ocean engineering i came to texas a&m galveston wishing to transfer to college station but involvement in student life and various organizations changed that i immediately felt at home prouse said the small campus and family atmosphere has definitely encouraged me to grow into my own prouse always knew he wanted to study engineering but it was not until he dived into oceanic topics that he found his passion i fell in love with the galveston campus and decided to give ocean engineering a shot prouse said after becoming involved in research i truly gained a passion for my studies prouse works under the guidance of katherine anarde a phd student at rice university and fellow collaborator in the coastal engineering laboratory research group the research group is spearheaded by dr jens figlus an assistant professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university prouses project addresses removing errors associated with digital elevations models (dem) in environments with dense vegetation shielding the substrate the project came to fruition as a sub-study of my mentor katherine anardes thesis prouse said we have a symbiotic relationship where im granted the opportunity to research my personal interests under her guidance while also aiding her thesis dems created using unmanned aerial systems (uas) allow researchers to quickly and easily survey large plots of land and with consecutive dems researchers are able to track the morphological changes over a period of time researchers are still fine-tuning their processes to maximize the accuracy of this uas dem data which allows them to rapidly map larger and more environmentally diverse ecosystems with smaller ranges of uncertainty in the data i initially began studying the subject of vegetation-induced dem inaccuracies the summer after my freshman year prouse said that summer katherine tasked me with learning how to operate a drone and create aerial survey maps dem measurement errors occur because photographic sensors lack the ability to see through the vegetation thus creating a false reading from the desired bare earth elevation the overarching goal of his work is to allow for the quick yet accurate mapping of topographic transects to study the impacts of storm events on our barrier islands barrier islands comprising of 85 percent of the united states coastline are the first line of defense against surge and wave attacks from extreme storm events by understanding the effects of storms on barrier islands and recording the hydrodynamics during these events we can offer unique engineering solutions to better guard against the effects of hurricanes with a minimal footprint on our national scenery i enjoy the problem-solving aspect of this project prouse remarked completing research goals reminds me of solving a puzzle and finishing is extremely rewarding when the work is successful prouse particularly enjoys studying structural design hydrodynamics and wave mechanics as they closely relate to his research and are highly challenging fields of study my dream job is to be a coastal engineering consultant specializing in flood prevention programs all over the world said prouse i would first like to continue my research and further my expertise as a graduate student prouse was recently inducted as an undergraduate research scholar and an aggies commit to excellence scholar additionally he has been named a fellow of the texas institute of oceanography and awarded a texas sea grant
2370,the crisman institute for petroleum research a center within the texas a&m engineering experiment station is under new leadership dr jeff spath the new department head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university has taken on the role of director for the institute were committed to keeping the department at the forefront of petroleum engineering education and research and development said spath crisman is a valuable tool that improves both while increasing our industry relations industry-defined problems brought to the institute are used to generate specific research proposals developed by faculty graduate students conduct the research under industry mentoring and faculty supervision to provide answers for industry the resulting knowledge is implemented into new industry practices and into the department curriculum and classrooms the institute was initially established in 1984 by a private donor endowment from wayne and ruby crisman to further research efforts within the petroleum engineering department in 2004 dr stephen a holditch became the director and invigorated the program backed by endowed funding from schlumberger halliburton and chevron the institute was opened to other companies through membership in 2016 holditch came back from retirement to spearhead efforts for the institute to merge research endeavors with the berg-hughes center (bhc) for petroleum and sedimentary systems a part of the department of geology and geophysics within the college of geosciences at texas a&m by combining crisman and the bhc faculty and graduate students we have the integrated team we need for solving the complex problems associated with developing shale reservoirs said holditch at the time of the merger we need to improve the fundamental science in our geologic hydraulic fracturing and reservoir models so they can be used to both match the production history and predict the future production performance more accurately than we can now there is no shortage of problems to be solved by the institute particularly in shale reservoirs their challenging geology and production issues require a combination of petroleum engineering fundamentals innovative techniques and creative thinking something spath knows the institute can provide this industry-driven approach is vital in maintaining the departments relevance and provides the department opportunities to increase visibility and reputation through cooperative research said spath the institute also provides real current problems to the graduate students thereby strengthening their overall education as a final but very important advantage many of our graduates end up going to work with the sponsoring companies
2371,how researchers in medicine and engineering are moving a bone-healing technology forward when biomedical researchers have a technology they believe can help patients they want to get it into the clinic as soon as possible however some therapies that look promising in the lab are challenging to scale up and produce in sufficient quantities to test in a larger group or eventually make broadly available to patients dr carl gregory an associate professor in the institute for regenerative medicine at the texas a&m college of medicine found this out firsthand with his research using adult stem cells to repair bone gregorys earlier work found that injecting mesenchymal stem cells from donated human bone marrowand an accompanying biomatrix of proteins that are usually found in young bone tissueat the site of the injury could help healing to make the bone therapy available to humans millions of cells per patient are required however generating clinically relevant cells from donated human bone marrow is very difficult when you go up an order of magnitude in scale then everything gets bigger and heavier more expensive and every source of error is going to compound gregory said we did one calculation and found that for some specific resources it would take more than exists in the entire world to make enough cells using currently accepted strategies gregory added another problem is that mesenchymal stem cells are usually made from donated human tissues but these sources are finite and variable an alternative approach is to use what are called induced pluripotent (ips) cells a type of stem cell that can be made from adult cells they can theoretically divide an infinite number of times gregory said but weve still run into difficulty manufacturing mesenchymal stem cells from ips cells in large clinically relevant batches thats where engineering comes in among the engineers gregory collaborates with is dr roland kaunas associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university with the engineering philosophies of these members of our team we had a head start gregory said and now were just working on the fine-tuning this fine-tuning involves in part a matrix that can help create the number of cells they need while simultaneously providing a scaffolding for the cells to grow say youre in the swimming pooleven if you can tread water when you start to get tired your tendency is to go to the side of the pool and hang on gregory said our cells tend to do that too so if we can improve and expand the surfaces where cells tend to hold on that will improve their functionality by producing the matrix as small spherical cell microcarriers we provide the cells with ‘floats to grab onto to maximize the growth area in bioreactors kaunas and gregory are also 3d printing scaffolds that mimic the structure of bone the scaffolds can be developed to mimic the surface of the bones the stem cells grow on naturally in the body they need to have a spongy porosity of natural bone with complicated structuresall about the size of a single cell we can generate these with 3d printing and the technology can create the same thing every time gregory said we can also mix the materials with proteins like growth factors or anything else we need in the creation process kaunas added by coating these porous scaffolds with our biomatrix we are providing an environment that coaxes stem cells to more rapidly heal bone next gregory is the lead investigator on a finalist in the x-grants competition that if funded will further this technology the goal of that research is to establish a scalable way to produce cells for treating disease or healing injuries that scalable part of the equation is necessary for treatments to be helpful for an entire population in europe the use of adult mesenchymal stem cells is becoming standard treatment for certain autoimmune disorders but there are only a few facilities that make these cells gregory said patients who need it cant get it so training people to start an industry is key he and kaunas are working on that training portion as well speaking with industry leaders to identify jobs that need qualified people and setting up training programs to get people ready for these positions i personally believe that everything scientists do has to be translatable and everything has to be worth something to the general public gregory said if you are developing a technology from day one you have to think about whether its scalable if its not then no matter how wonderful a therapy it is its not going to be useful photo courtesy of texas a&m university health science center
2372,sophia esteban encourages her peers and prospective college students to find something to be passionate about and stick to it esteban a sophomore in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university has pursued her own advice and followed a passion to eventually work for the ocean view maps department at google inc
2373,i want people all around the world to be able to explore our ocean with a simple click of their mouse esteban said in order to do that i want to develop technologies that will map our oceans identify species and collect data to help us get a sense of the vastly unknown contrary to most prospective ocean engineers esteban always feared the ocean when she was growing up dr sharath girimaji ocean engineering department head caught her attention when he spoke of the student organizations in the department and the things students were working on the aggie ocean discovery xprize teams mission spoke directly to her passion i was drawn to ocean engineering when i heard dr girimaji talk about the xprize team and the amazing things they were doing estban said i knew that ocean was the major for me these people were living out my dream to map the bottom of the ocean and i just had to be a part of it the aggie ocean discovery team is vying for the $7 million prize in the shell ocean discovery xprize competition challenging competitors to develop a means to map the ocean floor by overcoming the initial challenges of the extreme environment cost and technology thirty-two original teams of industry professionals and higher education research teams answered the call to attempt the challenge nine final teams currently remain for the last round of the competition that will be held in december 2018 before xprize i was on the texas a&m women in engineering vex robotics team and that was a great experience with an amazing cause to advance women in the field of engineering esteban said i am also a member of the texas a&m womens ultimate frisbee team and it has taught me so much about teamwork leadership and hard work by joining the xprize team esteban only expected to gain experience through the three-year journey of the competition she quickly learned she would gain so much more i went into this project knowing absolutely no one and nothing but now i have people that are like moms and dads to me at deep down inc and my teammates are my annoying brothers who are always there for me esteban said her greatest accomplishment thus far into her collegiate career is joining the team and advancing to the final round of the xprize competition it has been so rewarding learning from industry professionals meeting ceos of major companies and learning what it is really like in the world beyond college esteban said while she may have decided to join the team all on her own esteban credits an entire support system for where and who she is today i have to thank my parents for raising me to be a strong intelligent young woman and for supporting me in all my endeavors esteban said i also have to credit dylan blakeslee for giving me a chance to grow myself as an engineer and show the world what i am made of lastly i have to thank ron smith and mary budrunas for really making the impossible task of undergraduates competing against industry professionals possible esteban encourages students to utilize all resources at their fingertips to explore various career fields and get involved as soon as possible had i known i would be in this position sometimes working until two oclock in the morning designing things or modeling structures i would have taken those classes in high school esteban said really take advantage of the time you have now to put into learning and exploring and i promise it will pay off ten-fold in the long run
2374,"in a time of critical demand from industry students from the texas a&m university department of engineering technology & industrial distribution hosted a seminar focusing on ethics leadership and entrepreneurshipbetter preparing the capstone cohort for the post-graduation experience thanks to the industry relationships nurtured in the capstone program team techtris hosted guest speaker gene frantz professor in the practice at rice university and chief technology officer and co-founder of octavo systems this roundtable seminar provided all capstone teams the exposure to and experience with ethics leadership and entrepreneurship (ele) practices first hand augmenting lessons in the traditional classroom setting team techtris is developing a small form factor at the mobile integrated solutions laboratory (misl) with an intelligence layer capable of the command and control multiple sensors and measurement devices that utilizes the linux operating system to be used on either the international space station or a satellite the variety of the relationships in the project with customer texas space technology applications & research company (t star) project sponsor misl as well as extended partnerships with nasa and octavo systems gives the team a way to incorporate these important ele practices into their capstone sequence during the guided discussion frantz shared real-world ele experiences from his current roles as well as past experience as a former principal fellow at texas instruments (ti) ive been lucky enough to spend my career at extremely ethical companies with ethics as a foundation you are able to quickly build strong relationships with your customers suppliers and within your organization"" students learned about frantzs ethical and leadership challenges at ti as he became the industry spokesperson for digital signal processing (dsp) technology students focused on entrepreneurship as frantz reviewed his involvement in the development of octavo systems a leader in system-in-package (sip) technology founded in 2013 techtris will include a tiny linux pc based on the octavo systems osd335x sip in their design garrett dupree techtris software engineer reflected on the impact of the seminar [the seminar] was very useful because you want to get in contact with those people who have been successful in industry and hear about the challenges they have faced… and as a student at texas a&m you strive to learn as much as you can to do better if not just as well techtris is a new tech startup based in college station texas founded in the engineering technology and industrial distribution department the company is focused on the design development documentation and delivery of embedded intelligence-based product and systems the team is dedicated to taking new technological ideas and creating fully functional prototypes the undergraduate experience in the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program in the department is based on hands-on experiential learning that includes a significant amount of laboratory assignments and projects senior eset students are required to complete a two-semester capstone project to complete their degree forming a four- to six-member team students conduct product design and development activities as a startup company which includes the application and practice of project management concepts teams serve real industry customers and sponsors with oversight from the course director and a faculty technical advisor click here for more information regarding the eset capstone program"
2375,dr mladen kezunovic eugene e webb and regents professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named a 2018 distinguished member of the international council on large electric systems (cigré) for his longstanding service to the organization the distinguished member award is bestowed upon those who have dedicated years of active participation in the work and development of the association kezunovic who is the director of the smart grid center and site director of power engineering research center pserc consortium was named a 2014 cigré fellow and a honorary member for his contributions to the organization in the fields of protection and automation of power systems and of distribution systems and dispersed generation as a member or a convener of several working groups other cigré recognitions include the atwood associate award in 2008 and cigré technical committee award for remarkable technical contribution to the study committee b5 protection and automation in 2012 he was also recently appointed by the us secretary of energy to serve on the department of energy electricity advisory committee his research expertise is in protective relaying automated power system disturbance analysis computational intelligence data analytics and smart grids he has contributed seminal work in the areas of automated fault analysis predictive outage management and life-cycle test approaches for synchrophasor system he has also served as a consultant to over 50 companies worldwide kezunovic has been a principal investigator on over 150 research and development projects published more than 550 papers and has given over 120 invited lectures short courses and seminars around the world kezunovic will be honored with this recognition during the cigré us national committee annual meeting and luncheon ceremony held aug 7 in portland oregon
2376,"houston-based arovia creators of the spontaneous pop-up display was awarded $50 000 as the winner of the 2018 texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) hosted by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) arovia co-founder president and ceo alexander wesley said he was excited that judges liked their pitch im definitely not a natural pitcher but i love our product i love our team and the state of texas has been really great for us as well wesley said i definitely dont view myself as being a stellar pitch man so i had no expectation at all but im glad the enthusiasm i have for our product and our team and what were doing for our customers comes through wesley added that the experience of competing with other companies that are in similar stages to his was a great experience its really cool to see all the different things that people are doing you can really get stuck in your own world so its fun when you get to hang out with other startups jessica travers one of the finals judges and winner of the 2017 tnvc with intuitap medical said that multiple aspects of arovia impressed the judges we really liked their ability to demonstrate the traction theyve had its very fast "" she said ""obviously theres a demand their intellectual property strategy is very strong which is great and will definitely come in handy in the future theyre meeting a need that nobody else has been able to meet yet so were excited to see where they go and how theyre going to scale and the revenue theyre going to be able to pull in with a total of $380 000 in total prizes the pool for the competition was the largest in the four-year history of the tnvc in the first three years the tnvc awarded more than $670 000 combined the 2018 tnvc was made possible by the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship texas a&m university college of science texas a&m health science center tees clean energy incubator texas a&m engineering extension service texas a&m college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences texas a&m school of innovation texas a&m division of research 80/20 foundation tmc innovation goose society aggie angel network research valley partnership amerra biotex paragon pioneer natural resources thomas horstemeyer ramey & schwaller law firm chevron technology ventures winstead pc and ota compression/kimark systems full list of winners: (for more information on these companies click here) 1st – $50 000 – arovia 2nd – $35 000 – admetsys 3rd – $25 000 – m&s biotics 4th – $15 000 – vastbiome 5th – $10 000 – advanced scanners 6th – $5 000 – atmospark elevator pitch competition: 1st - $5 000 – responderx 2nd - $3 000 – yotta solar 3rd - $2 000 – polar panel additional prizes: ramey/schwaller ip legal services prize – advanced scanners research valley launch prize – responderx thomas | horstemeyer ip legal services prizes – venostent and alleviant medical paragon innovation prize – vitls biotex investment prize – m&s biotics amerra visualization services prize – arovia tees cleantech prize – yotta solar aggie angel network investment prize – arovia goose society of texas investment prizes – arovia and m&s biotics tmc innovation investment and accelerator admission prize – vitls tmc innovation accelerator admission prize – venostent"
2377,the qatar general electricity and water corporation (kahramaa) recently signed a collaborative research agreement with the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) smart grid center and the centers extension in qatar on the study optimizing kahramaas smart grid capabilities and setting its future roadmap kahramaa attendees included his excellency engineer essa bin hilal al-kuwari president of qatar general electricity & water corporation and chair of the sgc-q steering committee and mohamed ali s a almuhannadi manager of the public relations and communications department the purpose of the agreement is for kahramaa and the smart grid center both in qatar and in college station to investigate smart grid technologies and challenges to implementation on the qatar grid it is harmonious with qatar national vision 2030 and qatar national strategy the study aims to give recommendations to advance efficient use of electric energy and transform electricity grid in qatar into a smart grid; promote collaboration to investigate smart grid challenges and deliver innovative and effective smart grid solutions the smart grid center and the extension in qatar will assess the current kahramaa grid in terms of smart grid applications and solutions; conduct a gap analysis study to define challenges and limitations of smart grid solutions implementation; develop a subtle and practical plan for successful smart grid application in kahramaa and ultimately the state of qatar the final outcome of the project will be recommendations for benchmarking and assessment criteria for the smart grid roadmap in the state of qatar and to present a final report that outlines the above recommendations
2378,quentin baker class of 78 graduate from the department of mechanical engineering was recently recognized as a 2018 college of engineering outstanding alumni honor award recipient an honor he said he was stunned and honored to receive we have so many qualified and capable aggie engineers this is an incredible honor to be named an outstanding alumni he said baker (pictured right) president of baker engineering and risk consultants inc has 40 years of experience in risk and hazards analysis research and development he serves as a member of the department of mechanical engineerings industry advisory council (iac) which he said has a critical part for the department one role council members play is to provide feedback on what industry is looking for in graduating engineers what do (the graduates) really need in terms of their training their coursework their capabilities baker said industry gets to say ‘hey for our current situation we would like engineers to be better in these areas and the emphasis shifts over time which is good the department needs to stay current baker said the proof of success is in the high demand for aggie engineers after graduation employers know when (the aggie students) come in theyre qualified and they know how to work he said baker said iac members can also make suggestions to the department to make it a better organization as many members come from management company ownership roles and entrepreneurial roles baker said one highlight of the job is visiting campus throughout the year when he graduated in 1978 he was one of 80 mechanical engineers in his class although the growth causes some feelings of crowding he said he has found the department to still be as tightknit as it was when he was in school the department is near and dear to all of our hearts baker said its a special place for us and its important to us to have contact with students and see what theyre doing thats one of the highlights of the iac meetings is getting the students in and seeing what theyre doing
2379,more than 40 engineering students from the texas a&m university college of engineering shifted into high gear the week of april 30 to may 5 placing second overall in the first competition milestone of the general motors and society for automotive engineers autodrive challenge in yuma arizona comprised of eight universities across north america the competition is a three-year event that challenges university teams to develop and demonstrate the capabilities of an autonomous vehicle the texas a&m engineering team known as the 12th unmanned participated in four events including a stop sign challenge a lateral driving challenge an obstacle avoidance course and a graded technical report presentation each event tested the cars autonomous driving ability and the teams technical competence in a different way the stop sign challenge required the car to maneuver on a straight three-lane road and successfully detect and stop for a series of stop signs a challenge in which the team reached a top speed of 20 mph before stopping the fastest in the competition during the lateral driving challenge the vehicle was tested on its ability to drive down a curved road and make sharp turns while staying within the same lane the team also achieved the fastest performance time on the obstacle avoidance course where the car had to drive down a three-lane road covered with obstacles while successfully detecting and avoiding them the team credits their high overall placement at this years competition to their performance in the technical driving challenges im incredibly proud of my students said dr alireza talebpour assistant professor of civil engineering at texas a&m and the faculty project lead for the competition we had students that were spending day and night working on this car and the teams success is a testament to their amazing work ethic in the coming year the team will focus on expanding the strong technical foundation they built this year each year the end of spring driving challenges will grow more complex culminating in a fully autonomous vehicle field test at the end of the three-year competition the team wont know the upcoming challenges for spring 2019 until later this summer but they already have ideas on how they plan to move forward for this coming year the team will definitely have to add in radars to account for the complexity of the more complicated driving events said alex greene former electrical engineering student and the former autodrive challenge team captain the team will eventually be put in a more urban scenario with moving obstacles to simulate things like pedestrians the team also had many of its senior students such as greene graduate in may they will need to fill in the ranks of the team with new talent and a diverse multidisciplinary group of young engineers students that participated in the may 2018 challenge came from a variety of disciplines including civil computer science electrical industrial systems and mechanical engineering to make the car a reality computer engineering student juan vasquez the teams new captain was one of the team members who worked on the cars systems integration engineering the cars different components to work in concert i worked on the can (controller area network) bus team which is all about how the cars different systems talk to one another to do what we want vasquez said well be going in and tackling new problems based on what we learned from this last year and making it better in the same way the engineers will work to better integrate the vehicles systems theyll work to strengthen and build their relationships with one another through team social events according to talebpour managing such a large team of multidisciplinary engineers is challenging as students with different engineering backgrounds can struggle to communicate with one another or understand the larger picture however he said the teams management leaders plan to make the challenge of interdisciplinary communication a priority and coming together to meet such challenges head on is a hallmark of the aggie spirit this success shows the dedication aggies have when they take on a serious challenge like this talebpour said there is no way we could be here if we didnt have dedicated students and that dedication is what surprised me the most and is what i am proudest of
2380,rice is a primary dietary component for half of the worlds population and is grown on every continent on earth in light of the important part rice plays in the human diet this international crop also has a history of causing health issues from heightened levels of arsenic consumption researchers at the texas a&m university college of engineering are conducting research on how to reduce arsenic uptake in rice plants during their cultivation with the goal of decreasing the number of health issues caused across the globe from this important staple crop leading this effort is dr xingmao samuel ma an associate professor in the zachry department of civil engineering ma explains that the process of cultivating rice makes it much more open to absorbing arsenic however the amount of arsenic absorbed can depend on the region where the rice is grown in the chemicals present in the soil and a variety of other factors that occur on a nanomolecular scale our goal is to understand the uptake process ma said when you water plants the water contains some of the arsenic and other chemical compounds so we want to know how these compounds the soil and (other) factors affect the level of the arsenic uptake in the plant one chemical compound used in mas research zinc oxide nanoparticles has been shown to inhibit the uptake of arsenic in certain varieties of rice while also acting as a fertilizer treating rice paddies with this chemical could potentially limit arsenic uptake while still producing a high yield crop rice has very special chemical transporters that allow the easy transport of arsenic into the rice crop ma said but how easily that rice takes up the arsenic depends on the speciation of the arsenic which is another factor that we are considering arsenic speciation refers to the different species of the arsenic and what forms they can take which can affect how the chemicals are absorbed into rice roots and then transported to the shoots and grains going forward ma and his research team are reaching out to the us department of agriculture with the intent of expanding their work beyond the smaller hydroponic studies which involves growing rice without soil into studies within soil systems to better understand how zinc and other elements can affect arsenic uptake were planning to grow them in soil in the future ma said within the soil system there are microorganisms which will also impact the speciation of the arsenic we will see how it is changed when you expose the arsenic to these nanoparticles while mas research will require further exploration the concept that this work could impact the health of millions of people for the better has remained a positive motivation over the course of the project which is in its second year we as a species eat a lot of rice which means we have a lot of people that suffer from arsenic contamination ma said i think that highlights the importance of this study and we think that if we can limit the arsenic uptake by 50 percent the levels of exposure to people would be so much less harmful
2381,it may one day be possible to power electronics using your body heat based on research conducted by a team that included texas a&m university professor dr jaime grunlan waste heat generated by engines air conditioners human beings etc is abundant and can be converted to voltage that could power portable/wearable electronic devices and critical equipment in remote off-grid locations our hope is to one day have a shirt that will recharge someones cell phone while they are out jogging because of the excess heat they are generating grunlan said
2382,researchers are seeking new ways to harvest waste heat and put it back to work as consumable voltage while the research is currently focused on waste heat from critical energy sectors such as the transportation and electricity-generation sectors and manufacturing processes the team reported that improved energy generation efficiency in materials will naturally lead to widespread use in clothing capable of powering various devices from body heat a team consisting of grunlan the linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the department of mechanical engineering along with dr jeffrey blackburn and dr andrew ferguson scientists from the national renewable energy laboratory and grunlans postdoctoral student dr chungyeon cho recently published a review of carbon nanotube-based thermoelectric materials that are capable of converting wasted heat into useful voltage this publication was featured on the cover of the march 15 issue of advanced materials (carbon-nanotube-based thermoelectric materials and devices vol 30 art no 1704386) one of the highest impact journals in the field of materials science carbon nanotubes (cnts) represent a unique form of carbon with structural electrical and thermal properties that enable efficient thermoelectric-energy conversion the researchers reviewed the progress that has been made to understand the properties of single-walled cnts and the role they could play in thermoelectric devices the thermoelectric work in grunlans lab has been sponsored by the air force a private foundation and a battery company his group has recently spoken to some major sporting goods companies along with a professional rugby team in australia about investing in the development of this important technology in the sports world there is a desire for players to wear jerseys that contain soft sensors that will transmit health information to the sidelines if the jersey fabric were thermoelectric the players own body heat would serve as the power source for those sensors grunlan said the researchers also ran models to demonstrate the harvesting potential of cnts with encouraging results finding that the carbon-based material could act as a thermoelectric material with the same level performance as semiconductor systems while remaining lightweight and flexible grunlans research focuses on thermal and transport properties of nanocomposite materials especially in the areas of thermoelectric energy generation gas barrier and fire prevention he also holds joint appointments in the department of chemistry and the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m
2383,"a texas a&m university-led consortium has received support from a local innovative telemonitoring device and service company to support diabetes and heart disease research the texas a&m precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) has been working since september 2017 to study remote wearable technology to help people monitor and manage diabetes and heart disease in underserved communities the paths-up project received funds from a national science foundation (nsf) engineering research center (erc) grant recently members of the consortium including dr mark lawley head of the department of industrial and systems engineering and deputy director of the center for remote health technologies and systems visited with coordination centric a telemonitoring device and service company with offices in bryan and mcallen the parties involved sought to collaborate to better enable advanced technologies to improve the health of those in underserved communities the telemonitoring services provided by coordination centric assist health care providers in preventing delaying the onset and managing diabetes and cardiovascular disease by using advanced technologies and medical devices ""texas a&m and coordination centric have similar goals "" said ives soto director of provider relations at coordination centric ""we believe that we can help improve healthcare in our communities through the use of advanced technologies and ultimately reduce healthcare costs"" lawley said there are four phases to the research starting with developing biometric sensors to measure readings such as blood glucose and those seen as symptoms of cardiovascular disease and then developing an optical reader that can activate the sensor well be designing a sensor thats going to be about the size of grain of rice that will be inserted underneath the patients skin lawley said it has no power in it no battery or anything like that researchers aim to make the wearable readers light and sleek so they can better integrate into a persons lifestyle the last research thrust is to develop a way to look at the data from the sensor through different techniques such as artificial intelligence machine learning and statistical learning one thing were quite interested in is studying the way physicians use the information coming from this technology how it affects their workflow and helping them integrate that better into their daily activities so that they improve not only the quality of their patients lives but also the quality of their own lives lawley said this is where telemonitoring with coordination centric can play a role as it involves a physician remotely monitoring patients who suffer from these diseases patients can be taught to take daily vital signs that are then automatically and securely sent to their physician which helps the physician take proactive measures when necessary ""we believe this relationship will be meaningful in developing transformational healthcare technologies and most definitely propel our efforts in solving high risk healthcare problems lawley said the outcome is the relationship and a remote health study using patients and clinicians from the rgv as a test group to determine remote patient monitoring efficacy the nsf erc is an interdisciplinary initiative with florida international university rice university and the university of california at los angeles as well as several companies and other federal agencies"
2384,"during the second annual ""aggies celebrate teaching! – recognizing transformational learning"" reception three faculty members from the texas a&m university college of engineering were honored by the center for teaching excellence at texas a&m this years award reception was part of the inaugural texas a&m university transformational teaching and learning conference dr yucel akkutlu associate professor in the department of petroleum engineering was nominated by mohamed eid a senior in the department dr tracy hammond professor in the department of computer science and engineering was nominated by vijay rajanna a graduate student in the department; and dr timothy jacobs professor in the department of mechanical engineering and director of interdisciplinary engineering for undergraduate and graduate programs was nominated by clayton mulvihill a graduate student in engineering students across all disciplines wrote essays giving evidence of and reflecting upon the instructors impact on their learning and lives this annual teaching award celebration provides a unique view of teaching excellence students share their personal experiences of the relationship between teacher and learner growth and change difficulties and triumph – experiences that shifted their thinking and perspectives in a personal way the college of engineering instructors were among six honored by students as inspirational and transformational mentors each faculty-student pair shared unique stories related to their personal experiences making it clear that there are many ways to teach as well as many individuals at texas a&m that promote transformational learning and foster student growth and development"
2385,according to the national petroleum council 95 percent of oil and gas wells drilled in the us today are hydraulically fractured this is because the reservoirs containing much-needed hydrocarbons that attract the attention of current us production efforts are unconventional meaning they are formed of tightly-compacted layers of shale rock fracturing the shale does provide better channels for flow but hydrocarbons in these reservoirs are often confined in spaces of 100 nanometers or less by comparison a strand of human hair is between 80 000 and 100 000 nanometers in diameter in these small pores hydrocarbon reaction to changes in pressure and temperature is unexpected often changing phase from liquid to gas in conditions not seen in conventional reservoirs made of porous rock where hydrocarbons move freely this has a direct impact on both reservoir flow and the amount of gas and oil produced at the surface dr hadi nasrabadi assistant professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering is working in collaboration with professors in the chemical and mechanical engineering departments at texas a&m university to better explain and predict hydrocarbon phase behavior in the nanometric spaces of unconventional reservoirs we are focused on pores 100 nanometers and below said nasrabadi these pores form a significant portion of the pore volume of unconventional reservoirs in these pores the phase behavior is different from what we know in conventional reservoirs nasrabadi a douglas von gonten faculty fellow has studied phase behavior of hydrocarbons in conventional reservoirs for years and feels the answer to the phase behavior issues is actual experimental data he is currently gathering this data from controlled laboratory experiments that use physical testing techniques not usually associated with normal oil and gas research one of the gaps i saw in phase behavior research in unconventional reservoirs was experimental work said nasrabadi there have been several (computer) modeling efforts but there are not as many experimental efforts especially on the phase behavior in shale nasrabadi is working with dr jodie lutkenhaus an associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering on a technique called differential scanning calorimetry in this technique the sample temperature is programmed to steadily increase and the temperature at vaporization and the heat change during the vaporization event is measured (lutkenhaus) is an expert in this technique and she was using it for understanding the behavior of polymers in nanoscale confinement said nasrabadi i had a meeting with her and we thought this technique could be used on hydrocarbons their experiments the first recorded use of differential scanning calorimetry on hydrocarbons in nanoscale confinement are a means of accurately predicting the bubble point of hydrocarbon samples based on heat signatures the research is funded by the texas a&m engineering experiment station's crisman institute for petroleum research and several papers have been published documenting their work nasrabadi is also collaborating with dr debjyoti banerjee from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m in the use of nanofluidic devices these devices are microscopic chips with intricate nanoscopic grooves etched in a glass base normally slated for biomedical and pharmaceutical research nasrabadi uses these chips as a housing for different hydrocarbons which he and his students subject to temperature variations to see under a microscope exactly what temperature is required to change the liquid particles to a gas state these experiments again funded by the crisman institute are also part of cutting-edge research in phase behavior studies nasrabadi believes the data from both types of experiments will lead to a better understanding of the phase behavior changes and eventually to the development of models to better predict oil and gas production from unconventional reservoirs conventional models cannot answer the questions that we have for unconventional production said nasrabadi there are several pieces in this puzzle but one of them is phase behavior and nanopores may not answer all the questions but our experiments and models show they cannot be ignored
2386,on may 8 texas a&m universitys department of residence life and utility & energy services announced the winners of the 2nd annual u-challenge the team that took first place at the graduate level included five doctoral students from dr mm faruque hasans research group in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering – ishan bajaj (team leader) shachit shankaran iyer salih emre demirel akhil arora and spyridon tsolas – and one masters student from the subsea engineering program – mohammad alvi the team was assigned davis-gary hall the u-challenge tasked each of the eight teams – four undergraduate and four graduate – to come up with ways to increase the efficiency of an assigned residence hall the teams were given access to utility and energy consumption data for their assigned hall and then presented infrastructure and student engagement recommendations improvements to decrease consumption when examining the data the team was able to determine that chilled water heating hot water and electricity have the largest impact on the buildings utility costs through their research the team was able to come up with novel approaches to cut the costs associated with each of these areas for the chilled water and heating hot water the team recommended utilizing desiccant-based dehumidification as well as replacing the pneumatic water valves with direct digital control valves to solve the high electricity costs the team made the largest and most novel solution: the implementation of a biogas digester to provide energy across campus essentially food waste goes into the biogas digester where it is then fermented the process results in biogas – which can be used in the same was as other natural gas sources – and compost – which is a high-quality fertilizer in addition to the infrastructure recommendations the team also made student engagement recommendations such as a sustainability orientation monthly utilities flyers and student competitions to promote active engagement for their efforts the student teams who made it to the final round will have the have the chance to see their recommendations implemented at texas a&m in the future residence life representatives are excited to work on implementing student suggestions in their efforts to make sustainability an aggie tradition
2387,what do art and engineering have in common more than you might think this past semester a group of engineering students at texas a&m university has been working closely with an artist from new york to help her design a new smoke painting tool rosemarie fiore isnt a traditional painter instead of using paint brushes and paint she uses fireworks and colorful smoke to create beautiful large-scale paintings last month about 100 people from the community witnessed fiore create a new piece destined for the zachry engineering education complex the team of students assisted during the performance bringing fiore new fireworks and helping her load them onto the tool they designed that tool bring your a frame was based off an earlier design fiore created but was modified to be more efficient
2388,fiore said that art and engineering often work in tandem they rely on each other and can create great things when applied together she said i think engineering is at its best when it extends beyond the mechanical into creativity and design fiore began smoke painting several years ago after accidentally burning herself with fireworks on the 4th of july she instinctively dropped the fireworks and as it rolled across the pavement it left behind a beautiful mark since then fiore has focused almost solely on smoke painting the entire smoke painting process fascinates me but what intrigues me the most is the way smoke reacts to changes in the environment she said the weather temperature air pressure and inversion all affect how smoke behaves electrical engineering student michael bayern said it was very interesting to work on such a project it was a fun change to jump from an engineering project with known constraints and some sort of testing and data to this project which was more like an engineering art project he said it was much more creative and free form than other projects ive worked on for sophomore manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology student mikaela casuga this project combined two of her passions art and engineering casuga was in the engineering innovation center when fiore first visited campus and a friend encouraged her to sign up for the team i love art and i enjoy drawing painting writing and singing she said for me hearing there would be an engineering project involving my passions i knew i had to join casuga said the experience taught her that she can combine both her passions and delve deeper into her own field of engineering applying metallics and nonmetallic materials in the construction of tools that can be applied by artists
2389,bring your a frame was an improved version of a tool fiore designed in 2016 made of aluminum and mounted on wheels a pole is used to maneuver the tool across paper fireworks are lit in unison and inserted into mounts each fuse is the same length causing the fireworks to go off at the same time creating pressure which pushes the pigmented smoke out of the holes on the bottom of the tool the students worked from my original design creating changes to improve my experience using the tool she said for example higher quality wheels were installed also the bottom pattern can be switched out and firework mounts were installed to allow for easy loading unlike tools fiore has made in the past bring your a frame was made of aluminum making it easier to clean and more durable fiore said she was very happy with the end result and plans to continue using the tool for future art works the piece fiore began last month is now back in new york where she will finalize it before it is displayed in the zachry engineering education complex permanently
2390,anita brown a doctoral student in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has received a scholarship as part of the science mathematics and research for transformation (smart) scholarship program smart is a scholarship for service program that funds the remainder of a recipients education in exchange for service in research roles to department of defense (dod) entities following graduation the goal of the scholarship program is to help produce the next generation of dod science and technology leaders ill be working with the us army corps of engineers in the harbors entrances and structures branch of the coastal and hydraulics laboratory said brown on the nature of her work after the completion of her doctoral program they do a lot of work with hydraulic structures and navigation channels and other kinds of things that my civil engineering background can help me to investigate brown has already been acquainted with the armys engineer corps having worked with them last summer on some finite element modeling research it was there that brown was told about the smart program and encouraged to apply as a civil engineering student brown is conducting research with dr john niedzwecki a cain 13 chair and regents professor in the department were looking at modeling debris flow during disasters such as floods and hurricanes brown said when a storm comes and there is debris floating in a waterway were looking at tracking the motion of that debris to see how it accumulates around a structure or waterway brown is currently in the process of evaluating current literature and models in relation to debris flow looking to see how existing models might be improved or future models developed this kind of research is important because there is a lot of attention around understanding how debris accumulate in certain sections of the oceans and how it interacts with structures that may be near waterways browns goal with her research is to take the models that have been developed for specific scenarios and create a methodology that can extend to applications beyond what current models are used for im excited to get the opportunity to fund the rest of my degree and also work in this capacity afterwards brown said
2391,chemical purification and separation are among the most energy intensive processes on earth in 2010 chemical purification and separation accounted for around 15 percent of global energy consumption as many of the separation and purification dependent commodities such as water fuel and chemicals are projected to grow three times by 2050 the same processes will require around 45 – 50 percent of global energy usage the traditional separation processes are not sustainable and a drastically different process is needed dr hae-kwon jeong associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has developed a novel method to separate light olefins – such as ethylene and propylene that are used in packaging plastic processing and textile manufacturing – from paraffins – such as ethane and propane this is one of the most significant separations in chemical and petrochemical industries with propylene production amounting to around $90 billion annually worldwide yet one of the most challenging due to the similarity of their physical and chemical properties traditionally this separation requires the use of massive energy-intensive distillation columns jeongs research has focused on the use of membrane-based separations essentially membrane-based separations act much the same as colanders or strainers; a mixture flows through the membrane that allows the smaller molecules through while excluding the larger molecules membrane-based separations are quite common throughout the chemical industry with the majority of these processes utilizing different polymer membranes light olefins and paraffins present a challenge as the size differences between the molecules are around 3 ångströms (around 0000000003 centimeters) polymers are not selective enough to be a useful membrane for this process jeongs research utilizes metal-organic frameworks (mofs) as the membrane material especially zeolitic-imidazolate frameworks (zif) which are composed of metal ions (usually zn2+ or co2+) and imidazole-derived organic linkers jeong has already shown that zif-8 membranes (composed of zinc and 2-methylimidazole) are incredibly effective at separating propylene and propane however zif-8 membranes are relatively expensive to produce and a significant improvement to their productivity – essentially the speed with which the molecules are filtered – is required for them have any practical applications there are two ways increase the productivity of the membrane; reduce the membrane thickness and/or increase the area per volume of the membrane jeong has developed a novel method to drastically reduce the effective size of the zif-8 membrane detailed in a paper published in angewandte chemie rather than using a membrane composed wholly of zif-8 he replaced the top layer of the membrane with zif-90 the aperture of zif-90 is slightly larger than that of zif-8 but they both share the same structure (see image below) therefore by adding the top layer of zif-90 jeong was able to reduce the effective thickness of the zif-8 membrane which increased the propylene permeance by about four times with little to no loss in its separation effectiveness this drastically improves the productivity of zif-8 membranes and opens the door for practical applications
2392,dr james holste senior professor and professor emeritus in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and his wife cathleen have established an endowment for graduate students in the department the jim and cathy holste graduate fellowship will be used to provide one or more fellowships to full-time students pursuing a graduate degree in chemical engineering recipients will be chosen by the department head texas a&m has been very good to us and i believe in what we are doing here holste said he said he has a special connection to the graduate program both within the department and at the university level and that it has always been his goal to give back to the program throughout his tenure at texas a&m holste has been intimately involved with building up the graduate program serving as a graduate advisor three different times he was also the first associate director of the office of graduate studies at texas a&m and served as associate dean for graduate studies and international programs in the texas a&m college of science pictured above: dr james and cathleen holste were presented with a gift from dr m nazmul karim artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering department head
2393,three texas a&m university researchers proposals were among 89 projects selected by the us department of energys (doe) office of nuclear energy for funding for nuclear energy research facility access and crosscutting technology and infrastructure development the projects are part of the nearly $64 million in awards for advanced nuclear energy technology to doe national laboratories industry and 39 us universities in 29 states because nuclear energy is such a vital part of our nations energy portfolio these investments are necessary to ensuring that future generations of americans will continue to benefit from safe clean reliable and resilient nuclear energy said ed mcginnis does principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy our commitment to providing researchers with access to the fundamental infrastructure and capabilities needed to develop advanced nuclear technologies is critical principal investigators from texas a&m were: dr karen vierow kirkland associate professor and associate department head in the department of nuclear engineering received $748 000 for innovative use of accident tolerant fuels (atf) with the rcic system to enhance passive safety of commercial bwrs dr sean mcdeavitt associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering and director of the nuclear science center was awarded $500 000 for demonstration of a methodology for direct validation of marmot irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and physical property models using u-10zr dr karim ahmed assistant professor in the nuclear engineering department is a collaborator on the project dr marcelo sanchez professor in the zachry department of civil engineering was awarded $608 375 for his proposal impact of coupled gas migration and thermo-hydro-mechanical processes on the performance of repositories for high level nuclear waste three faculty members from the department of nuclear engineering were collaborators with researchers from other universities including: dr pavel tsvetkov associate professor working with the ohio state university on development of optical fiber based gamma thermometer and its demonstration in a university research reactor using statistical data analytic methods to infer power distributions from gamma thermometer response dr yassin hassan department head and the sallie & don davis '61 professor in nuclear engineering working with the university of illinois at urbana-champaign on accurate and efficient parametric model-order reduction for turbulent thermal transport dr lin shao professor working with the university of nebraska-lincoln on bridging microscale to macroscale mechanical property measurements and predication of performance limitation for fecral alloys under extreme reactor applications the awards were dispersed under three doe nuclear energy programs: the nuclear energy university program the nuclear energy enabling technologies program and the nuclear science user facilities program
2394,secretary of the us air force heather wilson and more than 400 invited guests from academia and industry gathered at texas a&m university for the air force science and technology 2030 forum texas a&m is honored to host secretary wilson and other distinguished guests on our campus today said michael k young president of texas a&m as a tier-one research university discovery and innovation are paramount to our mission in education and also in supporting the us air force in foreseeing tomorrows technology wilson launched an initiative in september 2017 to update the air force's science and technology strategy by hosting discussions about research innovations with the scientific community prestigious research universities and business professionals with this initiative we are going out to listen to americans from higher education to small and large businesses to understand what basic and applied technologies will help us create the next game-changing inventions for 2030 and beyond said maj gen william cooley air force research laboratory commander ­ texas a&m has a long history of producing talented graduates who go on to distinguished careers in the air force and our other military branches said wilson we look forward to engaging with the university on the basic and applied research that will shape the future of our air force as one of only 17 institutions in the nation to be designated a land- sea- and space-grant university texas a&m was the perfect setting for this unique opportunity to help shape discussions on research innovations for the next generation of technology used by the us air force some of the most important and high-stakes research in the country is going on right here at texas a&m university said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp aggies can always be counted on to help with matters of national security panel discussions at the workshop focused on four important research areas: space situational awareness; nuclear delivery systems; hypersonics lasers and electromagnetics; and engineering and military medicine texas a&m has one of the largest and most diverse defense research programs in the nation and a long history with the air force in advancing key technologies said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering we are honored to host this forward-thinking and vision-inspiring event as the air force prepares for a technology future that for many is difficult to fathom ideas generated from the forums will be gathered and those with the greatest promise will be considered by a panel chaired by the chief scientist of the air force selected research opportunities will then be documented in a formal report to the secretary of the air force in september to help shape air force research investments over the coming decade texas a&m is one of six university locations across the country to host the air force science and technology 2030 forum the forums were held earlier in the year at the university of nebraska university of south florida indiana university and university of washington the final forum will be held at the university of utah
2395,"governor greg abbott has appointed amy suhl a former student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university to the state commission on judicial conduct for a term set to expire nov 19 2023 the commission is an independent texas state agency created by an amendment to the texas constitution in 1965 that is responsible for investigating allegations of judicial misconduct or judicial disability and for disciplining judges""i am honored to have been appointed by the governor to this state commission and feel it is a privilege to serve the community and state of texas as a whole "" said suhlsuhl resides in sugar land texas and is the vice president and chief information officer of projects and technology of shell global solutions with over 30 years in the field currently suhl plays a broad yet pivotal role in a division that is working to develop innovative uses for information technology in the energy industry she is a member of the tau beta pi engineering honor society and the texas a&m electrical and computer engineering advisory council and volunteers at the sugar land senior center as a technology trainer as well as at local schools as a mentor and tutor in addition to a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from texas a&m suhl received a master of business administration from houston baptist university"
2396,new facility will offer practical experience with next-generation automation wireless and industrial internet of things technologies preparing workforce of the future future classes of undergraduate engineering students studying at texas a&m university one of the largest and most prestigious engineering schools in the united states will have access to some of the most innovative advanced automation technologies in use at industrial facilities around the world as a result of a $15 million donation by global technology and engineering company emerson emerson and texas a&m recently announced the establishment of the emerson advanced automation laboratory to be funded with the companys donation the laboratory will provide texas a&m engineering students a modern high-tech active learning environment simulating real-world plant operations found in manufacturing facilities for the oil and gas refining life sciences food and beverage and other industries the laboratory will be an integral part of the universitys new zachry engineering education complex a 525 000-square foot state-of-the-art facility scheduled to open this fall emerson is partnering with texas a&m not only because its one of the leading engineering schools in the country and has a great research component but also because we are impressed with its efforts to enroll and graduate higher numbers of underrepresented groups in engineering especially women said mike train executive president of emerson automation solutions this investment builds on emersons commitment to stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) education and training aspiring engineers and manufacturing workers to join the ‘digital workforce that is in demand around the world in addition to the new advanced automation laboratory emerson will provide the process control equipment for a fully functional distillation column to facilitate hands-on teaching next door to the distillation column students and faculty can meet to study and problem solve in the new emerson collaboration room emerson will also work with the college of engineering to integrate and expand its industrial wireless technologies throughout the zachry engineering education complex emersons collaboration with texas a&m extends beyond donations to include annual participation in the texas a&m instrumentation symposium as well as participating in technical exchange sessions on campus that examine solutions to todays engineering challenges we are grateful to emerson for its support of this facility and providing our students with next-generation automation and wireless industrial technology to prepare aggie engineers for the future said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering the emerson advanced automation laboratory is expected to serve 1 400 engineering students each year throughout the next eight years texas a&m projects its engineering enrollment to increase from 19 000 students to 25 000 students as part of the college of engineerings 25 by 25 initiative in addition to growth through retention a key focus of the initiative is to provide increased inclusion of underrepresented groups in stem education and this past fall texas a&m boasted the largest entering class of female engineering students in the nation this ongoing texas a&m program joins more than 350 institutions worldwide from two-year technical community colleges to four-year university programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels with which emerson works to support stem education the emerson advanced automation laboratory will include the companys deltav™ control system hardware and software fisher™ control valves rosemount™ measurement devices appleton™ field components micro motion™ coriolis meters and integrated simulation software the lab will also feature maintenance training simulator equipment that will be fabricated by students studying at ranken technical college in st louis missouri which has a manufacturing education and training partnership with emerson
2397,chung-kuk jin a doctoral student in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university chose to pursue an education in the field due to the endless possibilities to impact a vast number of industries for traditional oil and gas industry ocean engineers may conduct offshore structure design or offshore platform installation jin said while for the rising renewable energy industry ocean engineers are expected to design energy collecting devices or structures to make use of different types of renewable energy from the ocean thus ocean engineers have many possibilities to develop their career in different fields which fascinated me most over recent decades ocean engineering has expanded to the exploration of offshore renewable energy underwater automatic vehicle and other edge-leading topics which shows the sustainable development of this field in my point of view ocean engineering is a rising and promising field which is never limited to the traditional oil and gas production jin said im really optimistic about the future development of ocean engineering because it makes me feel that fresh ideas and opportunities will never dry out in this field jin is currently conducting research on three different research topics the first project is to develop a wave energy converter (wec) that could convert the energy of a wave to electric energy by making use of the motions of a floating device recently since people have gradually put more emphasis on the exploration of environmentally friendly energy the wave energy converter has become a hot topic where related research projects blossom jin said our design focused on the low cost of the device and its high energy transformation rate so that it could be profitable for many offshore sites in north america in the united states higher wave energy is concentrated in the west coast therefore the potential location of the wec device is on the west coast to harness the ocean energy jins second project studies the dynamic analysis of a submerged floating tunnel to help solve transportation issues between countries and continents by properly locating the submerged floating tunnel many items can be imported and exported by trains or cars instead of ships which will save transportation time and expenses this idea was initiated by norway to cross the fjords jin said we are trying to ease its dynamic responses under possible dangerous conditions since large responses of this structure will directly relate to passengers safety this work will largely contribute to an innovative transportation method in areas with a special landform the third project focuses on developing an estimation tool for dredging production with dr robert randall professor emeritus in the department we developed an estimation program that is able to quickly simulate the basic need for a dredging project including pipeline length and power of pumps needed jin said marine dredging is necessary for saving the environment by removing toxic material and our tool is of great practical use he has worked closely with two faculty members on his projects thus far – dr moo-hyun kim and randall kim a professor in the department serves as jins advisor in his studies and research initiatives they are both great scholars with rich experience in ocean engineering field jin said their constant enthusiasm toward this major makes me genuinely love what im doing now whenever i get stuck in my studies their advice always helps me realize that there is something more that i can try in addition to receiving the necessary training as a doctoral student i can see the growth of my character over the past five years because of working together with these two great professors jin was recommended and selected to receive the outstanding graduate student award in april 2018 by the faculty members in the ocean engineering department he is also the sole recipient in north america selected by international society of offshore and polar engineers (isope) to receive the 28th isope outstanding graduate student fellowship when speaking to prospective students thinking about working toward a doctoral degree in ocean engineering jin becomes excited because he knows the future in the industry is bright and more energized professionals are needed since getting a doctoral degree is definitely a long journey i believe that an optimistic character and determination are the key to success jin said being an independent researcher requires long-term training which could be very challenging and sometimes even frustrating thus a proper way to quickly release the stress and gain the confidence to start again could be beneficial to every graduate school candidate
2398,texas a&m university engineering student bryton praslicka 19 sees the future and its sustainable although originally from a small north texas town praslickas study abroad travels have taken him around the globe and revolutionized his worldview and interpersonal relationships his global experiences also sparked an interest in green engineeringfrom a young age praslicka dreamt of being an engineer and knew he wanted the best education possible after his friend and fellow engineer showed him around campus he realized that texas a&m was more than a university i saw that texas a&m was a place where i could find community and develop my network he said it was a place where i could grow professionally and personallyafter completing his freshman year and meeting with professors in both the electrical and nuclear engineering departments praslicka fell in love with electrical engineering and how it can be used with renewable energy systems to foster an eco-friendly mindset today hes working on a project that would add 10 smart bus stops to texas a&ms campusa world of possibilitiespraslickas passion for sustainability and green engineering began through his participation in the halliburton engineering global program a study abroad program within the college of engineering funded by a $5 million endowment from the halliburton foundation through the texas a&m foundation the program allows students to gain international experiences in their field of studypraslicka studied abroad three consecutive times and visited 19 countries over the course of 219 days in 2017 after completing an exchange program in doha qatar he backpacked through jordan and croatia before studying engineering ethics in tuscany and electrical engineering in aachen germany while traveling praslicka encountered innovative means of sustainable living that opened a world of possibilities for him i witnessed next generation solar panels with novel applications in doha and experienced how a sustainability-minded country operates during my time in aachen he explainedinspired by what he saw praslicka reached out to rodney boehm texas a&ms director of engineering entrepreneurship to see if he could shadow a green engineer instead boehm introduced him to the aggie mini power station project started by fellow students a few years back but left uncompleted the aggie mini power station was an isolated solar-powered energy station designed to serve as a campus charging station for students electronic devices (such as phones) without drawing energy from other texas a&m facilities repurposed the aggie mini power station became the foundation for praslickas self-led sustainable engineering endeavor: smart bus stopsa reimagination of a classic idea smart bus stops are only one of the ways in which innovative technology is merging with and improving everyday life if implemented across campus these solar-powered devices will provide live updates on bus arrivals and delays as well as allow students to charge their phones while waiting the technology works through a solar panel installed at the top of an existing bus pole which absorbs energy that charges a battery pack (the mini power station) the battery then charges the entire smart bus stop allowing the system to run even when the sun isnt shiningi believe that this project will provide a useful and enjoyable service to students while also serving as a point of community said praslicka i imagine people putting down their phones to charge while they talk with friends or strangers waiting for the bus it would also enhance campus sustainability effortspraslicka hopes to establish an initial 10 smart bus stops across campus but notes that he is still refining his prototype we still have some questions to answer he said things like: how can this handle extreme weather how often will it require maintenance can it be easily tampered withto complete his project praslicka is looking for support from the aggie green fund a grant-making organization for sustainability projects at texas a&ma greener lifewith an advisory committee composed of students staff and faculty members the aggie green fund works to bring creative and direct environmental improvements such as the smart bus stops to campus the organization has helped bring about many recognizable efforts on campus including water bottle filling stations exterior recycling bins and green bike lanespraslicka who has been involved with the organization since last year is serving as its information chair for the 2018-2019 academic year where he will be the primary point of contact for those interested in applying for grants for a proposed project to be accepted for a grant it must directly address sustainability through publicity education and outreach it must also combine student learning with beneficial student services while providing environmental benefit praslicka will present his proof-of-concept prototype of the smart bus stops in hopes of winning a granta major reason praslicka can devote so much time to his project is because he is the recipient of a terry foundation scholarship given by the terry foundation through the texas a&m foundation the scholarship has proved invaluable in his entrepreneurial ventures the terry foundation scholarship was the reason i began to think about traveling abroad and its enabled me to have time to pursue the smart bus stops project since i dont have to worry about my finances he saidultimately praslicka knows that the future of sustainability and engineering is on the horizon with big cities like seattle and austin promoting a new era of ‘hip sustainability through fair-trade farm-fresh food and coffee and increased bicycle users its clear that people are excited about going green he said and thats what we need we need engineers to work alongside biologists botanists city planners public policy lawyers politicians and brilliant young entrepreneurs who are passionate about changing the world to be green this story originally appeared on the texas a&m association of former students website
2399,dr wonmuk hwang associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is researching the mechanics of dna the blueprint of the human bodyhwang and his former doctoral student dr xiaojing teng zoomed into the question: if the genetic information is the same in all cells as it should be why do muscle cells look and act differently than skin cellsto selectively turn on and off different genes to determine the cell type you need to modify this gene expression and one way to do that is to chemically modify dna hwang saida major way the body achieves this is through methylation where methyl groups stick to a particular location in dna so that the group blocks the genetic information in this region from being read by the cell in addition methylation affects local flexibility of dna which in turn controls how dnas are packaged into chromosomes while these processes were generally known how methylation affects dnas mechanical properties has remained unknownthrough extensive simulations using supercomputers at the texas a&m high performance research computing facility as well as the texas advanced computing center at the university of texas at austin hwang was able to determine how the areas of dna around the methyl groups bump against each other and alter mechanical behaviorsalong with that discovery hwang said they found another unexpected insightthese methyl groups not only bump against neighboring atoms in dna but water molecules rearrange around these methyl groups hwang said the rearranged water molecules actually resist deformation even in the absence of the direct collision of atoms with the methyl groups as if the surrounding water molecules are a part of dna itselfthere are multiple applications to understanding how processes such as methylation work one example hwang gave was developing more knowledge on how cancer cells functioncancer cells often methylate their dna to turn off genes that control cell division promoting uncontrolled growth he saidanother is drug interaction with dna and how drug design should take these water molecules into accountthis study wont immediately lead to a new drug but it provides one more step toward more rational drug design hwang said people have been working on cancer for decades and i dont claim that i can solve the problem right away but all of these efforts make step-by-step progress in the right directionhwang said the method developed by his team opens the door to analyzing other types of dna or rna modifications and how their behavior changes depending on what drugs are introducedthe article was featured on the cover of the april 24 issue of biophysical journal which is a premier scientific journal in quantitative biology published by the cell press photo courtesy of biophysical journal
2400,in march the the fuels & petrochemicals division of the american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) named an award after dr m nazmul karim holder of the t michael o'connor chair ii and head of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university the award in process control and automation carries a $500 honorarium and will be presented annually for the next five years the first winners of the professor m nazmul karim award in process control and automation were announced at the 2018 aiche spring meeting in may winners were shashi mistry craig mangan dian wang and nate peters from suncor energy; and perry nordh and john escarcega from honeywell process solutions for their paper increase profitability with global optimization using an established rubric papers were judged according to how the work advances the science and/or practice of advanced controls for the fuels and petrochemicals industries while also considering presentation/paper qualities such as technical and logical validity innovation impact and writing/presentation clarity karim has been the head of the of chemical engineering department since 2012 he has more than 30 years of experience in advanced process control research his research interests are in model based control nonlinear control data-based control and optimization and bioprocess analysis and control according to his google scholar profile karim has authored more than 250 refereed publications and has made over 400 technical invited and contributed presentations in national and international conferences he is the co-author of the textbook chemical and bioprocess control which is used in over 50 universities worldwide he has graduated more than 25 doctoral students and is an aiche fellow pictured from right: bill rooney honeywell; dr kirtan trivedi exxonmobil; shashi mistry suncor energy; dr m nazmul karim texas a&m; and perry nordh honeywell
2401,the four-year engineering medicine degree offers new solutions to transform healthcare engineering medicine (enmed) texas a&m universitys innovative engineering medicine track in partnership with houston methodist hospital received its first scholarship endowment at a recent texas a&m foundation event the spletter memorial scholarship given by rick and kathy spletter 79 is an endowed scholarship with a preference for an enmed student who served or made a commitment to serve in the united states military the spletter family has a keen interest in combining their familys engineering experiences kathy spletter graduated from texas a&m with a degree in chemical engineering as did their older son christopher ‘14 their daughter nicole ‘15 graduated with a biological and agricultural engineering degree and their youngest son andrew ‘21 is a current engineering student i was excited to hear about enmed as an accredited program that would concretize the blending of engineering creativity and problem solving with a medical education kathy spletter said we know that quality healthcare is one of the most critical components of a quality life and our current healthcare system is in need of creative solutions to reduce costs and improve care the event included remarks from dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering; dr carrie l byington dean of the texas a&m college of medicine senior vice president of the texas a&m university health science center and vice chancellor for health services at the texas a&m university system; and dr roderic pettigrew ceo of enhealth and executive dean of enmed byington spoke about the importance of innovation through technology and the impact it can have across patient populations including some of the nation's most underserved such as rural populations and military service members veterans and their families what if remote technology could monitor a patients chronic condition and share results with their physician200 miles away byington asked this is just one example of how texas a&m can lead the way in transformational health technology development through the enmed program we will create innovative ways to better treat underserved populations enmed will train a new type of physician engineer the ‘physicianeer who will be a practicing physician and a trained engineer it is expected to be the largest engineering-based medical degree program in the nation it is also the only program that allows graduates to receive both a doctorate of medicine and masters in engineering in four years the proposed curriculum received approval from the liaison committee on medical education (lcme) to begin recruiting the inaugural class of students set to matriculate in july 2019 it is a case-based format with integration of both medicine and engineering content to develop and improve students clinical reasoning and problem-solving skills through real-world examples students admitted into enmed will have a bachelors degree in engineering computer science or in selected instances a closely related field we believe that this unique program created and run by the outstanding texas a&m faculty will be a leading force in successful outcomes spletter said we feel honored to be a small part of its birth
2402,living up to the high expectations set by their predecessors the texas a&m university formula sae team brought home the championship cup from the sae international competition in lincoln nebraska for the second year in a row the team composed of 22 mechanical engineering seniors took first place in the overall competition as well as first in the endurance event and second in the autocross event including the programs latest victory texas a&m has now won the competition seven times they previously won in 2000 2006 2007 2009 2011 and 2017project manager spencer weaver said the teams accomplishments are even more impressive given that the cars design was created and fabricated by the students from scratch in only nine monthswe didnt copy the teams winning concept from last year and we didnt bring a repeat of the previous vehicle weaver said we built something brand new and still won the pride i have in this team is indescribableyuval doron a mechanical engineering lecturer and advisor for the team said seeing the students succeed was beyond gratifyingdoron who took over leadership of the program four years ago said the programs structure of starting fresh with all new members and a new design each year sets the team apart from its peers in the competition in a nine-month endeavor they accomplish incredible feats he said doron believes one reason for the teams success is the universitys focus on producing great engineers where other teams build race cars at a&m we produce engineers that can produce a race car he said but first and foremost we produce engineers we use the racecar as a medium to teach engineering not as a focal point of what we do that is the distinctionfor weaver and the majority of his teammates who graduated in may the sae competition served as a triumphant conclusion to their undergraduate careers with the program now complete team members are able to walk away from their educational experiences at texas a&m with a broad range of applicable knowledge and hands-on skills preparing them for their entrance into industryall of us have grown and matured through our education said weaver who will begin working for general motors this summer it gives me a lot of confidence about myself and my teammates going into industry that were not just going to go out there and be another engineer that gets stuck on small projects were all going to go out there and do something thats recognizable
2403,dr ken hara assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been recognized with a 2018 department of energy (doe) early career research program award for his achievements and future potential in fusion energy sciences the doe office of science selected 84 scientists including 54 from universities and 30 from doe national laboratories this year hara is one of two texas a&m faculty to receive funding (the other is dr david c powers an assistant professor in the department of chemistry) hara was awarded a total of $750 000 over five years haras research project is titled kinetic effects on self-organization in low-temperature magnetized plasmas awarded through the fusion energy science program self-organized patterns and structures occur in many systems including a wide variety of space and laboratory plasmas and play an important role in mass and energy transfer of the plasmas the goal of his research is to understand the interplay between the large-scale self-organizing structures and small-scale kinetic phenomena additionally such laboratory plasmas can have influence from the plasma-immersed materials particularly the research focuses on coherent structures that can be found in laboratory plasmas with crossed electric and magnetic fields such as magnetron discharges and hall effect thrusters although this has been a well-observed phenomenon it is not well understood how different phenomena in the plasma interact with each other and how those result in self-organization im excited to work on this challenging problem advanced numerical tools that model device-scale phenomena but resolve small-scale turbulence features are required hara said low-temperature magnetized plasmas are very interesting because collisions with neutral atoms and walls (typical features of low-temperature plasmas) and collisionless instabilities and oscillations (typical features of high-temperature plasmas) both coexist understanding the physics of low-temperature magnetized plasmas i believe will lead to breakthroughs in how we control and sustain plasma flows hara received his bachelors and masters degrees from the university of tokyo in 2008 and 2010 respectively and his phd in aerospace engineering from the university of michigan in 2015 he completed a postdoc at the princeton plasma physics laboratory prior to joining texas a&m in 2016 last year hara received the air force office of scientific research young investigator research program award his research interests include electric propulsion plasma physics and applications kinetic theory and simulations and computational fluid dynamics
2404,"dr paula dewitte associate professor of practice in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was invited to join the editorial board of elsevier's computers & security the oldest and most respected technical journal in the information technology security field members of the editorial board serve as assistant editors to provide advice and feedback on the journal and help to coordinate reviews""i am delighted and excited to be part of such a prestigious board as well as carry the aggie flag as our program grows in international recognition dewitte said my selection to the editorial board of computers & security is additional recognition of the quality of the cybersecurity program at texas a&m university gene spafford editor and founder of the journal asked me to be on the board for my work on cybersecurity law policy and ethics – all of which are of emerging importance in the field texas a&m is one of a few schools currently offering cybersecurity courses in these areas this is a good blend of my roles as both a computer scientist and licensed attorneyas a board member dewitte's duties will include: providing feedback and advice on the content and editorial direction of the journal; managing reviews of papers; recommending disposition of submissions under assignment once reviews are complete; suggesting topics for special issues and guest essays; soliciting high-quality submissions to the journal; submitting at least one manuscript to the journal every 18 months; providing feedback on composition of the editorial board and other editorial issues; and participating in board meetingsdewitte received her bachelors degree in mathematics and her masters degree in education from purdue university in 2015 she was honored as the purdue university department of mathematics distinguished alumna she received a doctorate in computer science from texas a&m in and a doctorate in law from st mary's university school of law she has worked extensively with startups and spent nine years in austin with technology companies her research interests are in law and policy as related to cybersecurity as well as risk assessment and management in cybersecurity with its high-profile editorial board and informative regular features and columns computers & security provides a unique blend of leading edge research and sound practical management advice and is aimed for the professional involved with computer security audit control and data integrity in all sectors - industry commerce and academia"
2405,hard work preparation and teamwork helped build the foundation for the inaugural texas a&m university baja sae team's strong overall finish at its first competition according to project manager william swainthe student team traveled to pittsburg kansas may 17-20 to compete as one of 95 teams in its debut appearance the aggies finished with an overall ranking of 33rd among the teams best rankings for individual events included 7th place for maneuverability 25th for acceleration 26th for design and 27th for endurance under the sae international collegiate design series the baja sae competition tasks student teams with designing and building a single-seat all-terrain vehicle with the purpose of serving as a prototype for a reliable maintainable ergonomic and economic production vehicle that serves a recreational user market according to competition guidelinesfor a first-year team our competition results were impressive and did not happen by accident said swain who will be a senior in the department of mechanical engineering this fall the car we dreamt of and designed on paper became a reality and competed toe to toe with teams that had 20 years of experience in the competition it was a great accomplishmentteam co-advisor and mechanical engineering professor of practice dr swaminathan gopalswamy who traveled with the team for the competition said he was pleased by the teams performancemost people who saw our car were extremely impressed to also learn that we were a first-year team gopalswamy said there were many other experienced universities who were still working to put together or fix their cars at the last minutehe said the teams hard work was evident in the results and that he was personally approached by one of the design competition judges to congratulate them on their showing in addition to the teams achievements in the competition gopalswamy said he was also proud of the way in which the students represented texas a&mi found the sportsmanship and camaraderie at the competition very satisfying he said the students were very willing to help other competitors and made many good friends in the process swain said they initially formed last spring out of the texas a&m racing apprentices program the team which ultimately grew to include 27 sophomore and junior students consisted of five subteams which focused on the powertrain electrical suspension chassis and business respectively although building the new program required a substantial commitment from team members to balance the demanding work with full course loads over the past year he said it was ultimately a rewarding experience that gave them practical skills for their future careers it's been a really great team experience swain said it's a simulation of a real-world work environment because you're working on a project with deadlines and only a certain amount of money it's a really hands-on low-risk simulation of a work environmentswain specifically praised the opportunities to interact with industry representatives as instrumental to the experiences they gained in the teams first year our exposure to companies has been unreal he said adding that the team also had the opportunity to present to and interact with the mechanical engineering departments industry advisory council twice throughout their time working on the project dr srikanth saripalli associate professor in the mechanical engineering department and co-advisor for the baja team said it has been a pleasure to watch the group of students develop and grow over the past year in particular he was impressed with the amount of information the students had gathered on other teams across the country and their focus on building a first-year program poised to continue growing in the years to comethe entire team has been very organized methodical and focused saripalli said given that this is a student-led team without any class associated with it i am amazed at their progress and their enthusiasm with minimal effort from the faculty they now have a fully working car i think the team put in a tremendous amount of hard workgopalswamy said he has also been proud of the team for overcoming the various challenges placed in their way throughout the process of building their carthey have overcome not just technical challenges but societal and cultural challenges that start arising when a group of people comes together through self-governance he said gopalswamy and saripalli view the students experiences throughout the project as the basis for several life-long lessons including responsibility understanding teamwork self-initiative and confidence as well as the real-world experience of engineering a vehicle while conforming to requirements deadlines and a limited budgeton behalf of himself and his team swain is grateful for the support of the mechanical engineering departmentwe honestly could not have done it without the department our two faculty advisors our sponsors and the resources at thompson swain said without them this wouldn't have been possible he also believes the next team equipped with the lessons of the groups inaugural year including the time necessary for fabrication and manufacturing as well as the costs associated with the project will be poised to achieve even more at the next baja sae competition in 2019 there were quite a few bumps in the road but for a first-year team it went relatively smoothly we started every meeting with a team prayer asking for protection and guidance and things just fell into place swain said when we started we had no idea about the time it would actually take or the amount of money we would need those were our two main challenges passing on that information to the next team is valuable those two things will give them a better understanding of how to manage the projectclick here to learn more about the texas a&m baja sae team
2406,"selfless service is a well-established core value of texas a&m university but for dr malini natarajarathinam an assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university giving back is more than just a core value it is a driving purposenatarajarathinam was recently recognized by the american society for engineering education (asee) on their ""20 under 40"" list in prism the societys monthly magazine candidates are faculty under the age of 40 chosen globally for their significant achievements and contributions according to the us census bureau the state of texas reportedly had roughly 43 million people facing poverty and roughly 16 million minors facing poverty in 2016 she was selected for her demonstrated talent for teaching and her real-world research in tackling the widespread epidemic of poverty and hunger to mitigate these numbers natarajarathinam gathered several of her industrial distribution students to help develop a proposal to consolidate food products into a single more spacious warehouse for distribution by improving distribution efforts the central texas food bank in austin texas would reach more people through schools and food banks and generate more revenue this later prompted her to launch a $300 000 university-funded service-learning initiative called hunger free project"" in 2016 i love how much i have learned and grown through my service/learning initiatives now i have a unique opportunity to engage my students to experience the same said natarajarathinam to get recognized and be honored for these efforts makes me believe in the value of my efforts and the impact of my studentsnatarajarathinam holds a doctoral degree in operations management and a masters degree in management science from the university of alabama and a masters degree in industrial engineering from auburn university she currently serves as the division of student affairs faculty fellow to assess a way to increase service learning efforts across texas a&m her previous awards include an outstanding service award from the department and the 2013-2014 college of engineering faculty fellow award she has published a variety of works and publications on supply management and her research interests are in coordinated decision making in stochastic supply chains handing supply chains during times of crisis optimizing global supply chains effect of good supply chain practices on company financial health logistics and inventory management and simulation/empirical studies in addition to her recognition from the asee natarajarathinam was also recently commended by the texas a&m university veteran resource & support center for her influence on a student veteran the recognition program was created for faculty and staff student veteran support in which former student veterans are asked who they believe had the greatest impact on their success while at texas a&m all these recognitions make me reinforce the importance of my responsibility as a teacher said natarajarathinam these also show me that whatever i do as long as i keep my focus and attention on my students everyone comes out winning"
2407,the college of engineering at texas a&m university provides industry professionals with a plethora of developmental and educational opportunities partnering with industry experts to offer high-quality intensive short courses to working professionals this summer for expanded opportunities in learning soft skills critical for industry success the master of engineering technical management (metm) program is expanding its initiatives by adding the following professional development courses: data-driven decision making; developing new products; and leading and managing with emotional intelligence the metm program provides industry-critical skills for engineering and technical professionals wanting to expand their skill set in technical management the courses are designed to help industry professionals develop new tools and provide insight for immediate application each course will be taught by faculty members within the department of engineering technology and industrial distributiondr xiaomin yang senior licensing manager in the licensing and intellectual property division at texas a&m university system technology commercialization will be teaching a development course on data-driven decision making yang has more than 15 years of combined experience and has created $60 million through transforming technologies into new business opportunities the course aims to instill a general intuition for data-driven decision making and equip executives with the tools and techniques necessary to analyze large databases and use effective data visualization to gauge key metrics ronald l lerner president and managing director of engineering and project management for advanced inventive and technical design services llc will be teaching a course on new product development lerner has more than 40 years of experience in various fields including design new product development global product design and manufacturing and has held many leadership positions within industry the course will provide an overview of the new product development process (npd) for leaders and managers and the current process procedures and techniques for npd initiativesdr ben zoghi holds the victor h thompson endowed chair professorship in the electronic systems engineering program and is director of the rfid/ sensor laboratory and the metm program at texas a&m zoghi has distinguished himself as a professor researcher and administrator holding many positions over the past 30 years as a faculty member at texas a&m zoghi will be teaching a course on leading and managing with emotional intelligence (ei) this course will focus on how eq and its application can further leadership personal and career development as well as workplace planning and building high-performance teams these courses will be offered in houston texas on july 19-20 visit us here for more information on the courses
2408,there are certain diseases such as cancer and type 1 diabetes that affect many of us directly these diseases can not only be difficult to manage but difficult to reverse with effects that can be detrimental to a persons quality of life dr xiaoning qian is utilizing signal processing and machine learning tools to decipher which genes are critical to understand and predict disease progression so that biologists can use that information to develop new disease management practices modern biological experiments provide a large amount of data big biomedical data involves data sets that are more complex than what the traditional data-processing software can handle in this case these diseases offer complex data sets that require appropriate mathematical models and analytic methods to understand how genetic differences and environmental stress change the living system is a question qian is out to answer in order to begin his analysis biologists provide him with various affected gene data sets from there he and his students develop models and algorithms to analyze the data provided the goal is to identify important genes and decode which genes are intertwined and which trigger the system response for example in immune pathways we need to help this gene identification procedure said qian assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university we need to have the statistical methods and computational algorithms to look at the data to analyze the data and then try to identify the change specifically due to different genetic and environmental perturbations qians goal is to develop analytic methods leading to biologically meaningful messages that can be validated by other researchers ultimately this could lead to the development of a user-friendly software for biologists to easily get the information they need right now they are in the early stage of developing methods to effectively analyze genomic data one way they are working to develop these methods is by incorporating bayesian methods the idea of bayesian is that if you base your analysis on a limited number of data samples there is lots of uncertainty qian said you dont want to ignore that uncertainty – you want to incorporate that uncertainty in your analysis to make sure your derived results are robust genes are linked in complex ways this dynamic process can make it difficult for researchers to acquire a full understanding of the story these genes tell for example it is important to figure out which genes regulate the immune system to get closer to the desired results to do this researchers need to reconstruct the dynamic system in the cells based on their data analysis one potential way to make sure someone can recover is to make sure that even if some critical genes are mutated you can still try to activate the immune system by spiking a similar gene with similar structures qian said this is more of a mathematical way to explain the immune system but in reality cells may not exactly function that way qian said that it is important to identify the genes and pathways critical to different complex diseases to try to understand the relationship among those genes and then to try to model and simulate to see whether that reflects what you observe in the actual cells once you identify which genes are actually controllable you can more easily derive genetic therapeutics for the disease qian said while this sounds fairly simple in theory this is a very difficult task in practice qian explained that if this can eventually be done then diseases can be successfully managed or even cured down the road the methodology that qian is developing which relies on big data set analyses and machine learning algorithms has application potential well beyond genomics and is well aligned with departmental goals of introducing more data science into the curricula both undergraduate and graduate while qian is currently working on developing different models and methods for genomic data analysis the next step is to hopefully have his findings validated across multiple studies ultimately his hope is that the translation of large-scale biomedical data into biological knowledge will help precision medicine to benefit human society
2409,in the aftermath of a natural disaster helping people get back on their feet as quickly as possible is a high priority however the road to recovery can be long in the wake of natural disasters such as hurricanes harvey and maria areas of puerto rico and texas are both still in the midst of a long recovery process however what if there was a way to move recovery efforts along more quickly for residents in these communities and be better prepared for such events in the future drs maria koliou and stephanie paal assistant professors in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university are conducting new research to learn how communities both recover from natural disasters and withstand them koliou and paal are working on developing ways to automate the process of damage assessment that occurs after natural disasters allowing damage assessors to move more quickly in determining what efforts need to be prioritized for optimal post-disaster functionality and recovery
2410,initial findings of their work are published in the american society of civil engineers (asce) journal of performance of constructed facilities in a paper titled performance assessment of building infrastructure impacted by the 2017 hurricane harvey in the port aransas regionwith this research were interested in how the community recovers koliou said were evaluating structural damage and community-level recovery that will allow us to develop a holistic framework for quantifying and enhancing community resilience following natural disastersduring the damage assessment process an engineer will go to an area and evaluate the state of each individual structure looking at what components may have been damaged then based on the type of components and the extent of the damage the engineer will give it a subjective rating: slightly damaged moderately damaged or severely damaged commonly associated with tagging (green yellow or red) this rating plays a role in determining how much access a resident can have to the building ascertaining what materials and time tables are needed for repairs and what financial support will be drawn from different government entities the reason we want to automate this process is because right now its highly subjective paal said in the first part of the process were evaluating the damage and looking at what should be prioritized for recovery so its important that this is as objective and accurate a process as possiblethe goal is to use machine learning in combination with unmanned aerial systems such as drone technology to identify key information a structural engineer would use to measure the extent of structural damage and provide a rating according to paal using machine learning can provide assessment solutions that are more quantifiably meaningful to an engineer this will provide engineers with better tools to measure the extent of the damage and piece data together which in addition to past data and experiences will help them develop the best path forward for recoverythe first step in making an automated damage assessment process a reality is the development of the machine learning algorithm koliou paal and their students visited the coastal community of port aransas texas in september 2017 and again in march 2018 to conduct damage assessments utilizing engineering surveys with video and drone technology the collected data is being used to quantify the damage and recovery of the affected infrastructure as well as develop machine learning algorithms to automate damage inspections based on visual real-world data the end goal is to provide an interface that makes damage assessment quicker and more efficient as well as develop a holistic framework for measuring the communitys level of recovery from a disaster the whole idea is to make these processes quick and provide safe and reliable information in real time paal said one of our project goals is to develop an interface through the drone that (informs) emergency response personnel what the current state of a structure is and tells you whether it is safe to go in or notlooking forward koliou and paal are planning on performing regular field studies every few months for the next three years to monitor recovery efforts looking not only at the built infrastructure recovery but at how the people in the community are recovering their goal will be to further identify indicators within the communities and see what factors can expedite or slow a communitys recovery process they are also looking at expanding their study to other coastal areas using port aransas as a case study they plan to develop a methodology that can be extended to quantify recovery in other coastal communities and propose solutions for enhancing their recovery progressdifferent systems within a community are connected koliou said were trying to identify the different linkages between societal economic and engineering aspects to identify how these attributes work together to affect the people of these communities and their lives and how to get them back to a better quality of life following natural disastersthis research was possible in part thanks to the work of students at texas a&m including doctoral student mohammad aghababaei undergraduate student mary-catherine haggard and graduate research assistant asim bashir the field research for this project was partially funded by the us department of commerces national oceanic and atmospheric administration through a texas sea grant in which koliou serves as the principal investigator koliou and paal will continue their work in this area supported by a newly awarded grant from the national association of home builders on the damage assessment of residential infrastructure impacted by hurricane harvey and irma
2411,ashley holt senior in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as the 2018 goldwater scholarship recipientholt was nominated by texas a&m as part of a pool of thousands of national applicants from colleges and universities the award was presented by the office of learning communities academic excellence undergraduate research national fellowships capstones and honors at texas a&m on behalf of the barry goldwater scholarship and excellence in education foundation im incredibly thankful for all the mentorship and support that ive gotten as a student here and as a scholar holt saidsince joining the department of biomedical engineering holt said she has been part of some amazing projects including building an electrocardiograph in the instrumentation lab modeling the electrical signal through a neuron using labview in a computing class learning how a ct scanner collects data and creates an image in an imaging class and understanding how the body reacts to the implantation of a medical device in her bioresponse classi have always been really interested in biology and medicine holt said i think one of the biggest things about biomedical engineering is that its taking all of the engineering principles and applying them to medicine to help people live better livesoutside of the classroom holt has taken advantage of chances to work with researchers in and outside the department she worked with dr ry young university distinguished professor and professor of biochemistry and biophysics and biology in the department of biochemistry and biophysics to research the mechanisms that allow bacteriophages to destroy the outer membrane of bacterial cells holt has helped identify a new protein involved in the disruption of the outer membrane of e coli which could potentially lead to new antibiotic technologiesshe has published two papers based on her work in youngs lab directly reflecting the success of her researchholt was also selected as a beckman scholar and a university scholar in 2016 she is completing her undergraduate research scholars thesis as part of her capstone experience for the university honors program she is vice president of texas a&ms chapter of engineering world health where engineers are encouraged to solve health challenges occurring in the developing world after graduation holt would like to pursue a md/phd and continue to do research on antibiotic resistance she said she hopes to stand at the intersection of medicine engineering and scientific innovationgoldwater scholarships are awarded to exceptional sophomore or junior undergraduates who intend to pursue research careers in mathematics natural sciences or engineering the goldwater foundation gave its first award in 1989 and has bestowed more than $40 million worth of scholarships
2412,dr tracy hammond professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the aggies celebrate teaching! – recognizing transformational learning award by the center for teaching excellence in the office of the dean of faculties and associate provost this honor recognizes faculty members and instructors who use transformational teaching strategies to inspire their students dr hammonds teaching style can get any student interested in learning and becoming curious to know more said vijay rajanna a graduate student in computer science and engineering her passion and dedication to teaching are unmatched she knows how to connect with students and explains even the most complicated algorithms and theorems through analogies so that learning becomes a pleasant experience for the students she not only teaches the ‘what but also teaches the ‘why and ‘how aspects of any concept which is what makes her teaching captivating hammond teaches the senior capstone design course a human-computer interaction course and sketch recognition course to students in the department in addition to offering opportunities for research within her own lab from the start it was clear that dr hammond made it a priority to enable the success of all of her students said jake leland an undergraduate researcher and senior in the department even as an undergraduate student she provided me with an impressive array of opportunities throughout her research lab when i was attempting to decide on my research focus dr hammond passionately collaborated with me to decide on a topic her continual optimism was contagiously motivational and she supported me in every way that she could hammond is one of six instructors or professors from across the university to be selected for this award based on student nominations dr hammonds excellence in technical skills and focus on innovation prepare our students to succeed in the ever-changing computing field said dr dilma da silva department head in computer science and engineering her enthusiasm motivates the students to pursue lifelong learning once they graduate
2413,in the 21st century it is fair to say that some people are only as valuable as the ideas they can share public speaking and communication skills are essential to persuade explain and read emotions and behavioral clues in a social context however even individuals who excel at casual oral communication with peers may have a hard time translating that skill into a professional or technical setting for many public speaking is intimidating and a highly stressful experience according to surveys public speaking is consistently among the top in the list of peoples greatest fears stressors such as public speaking activate the sympathetic autonomic nervous system that is responsible for the bodys ‘fight-or-flight response while many struggle with effective communication particularly in large group settings the need for effective communication and the exchange of ideas in our world is on the rise how can this problem be solved dr theodora chaspari assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is working with dr amir behzadan associate professor in the department of construction science to improve students public speaking skills in science technology engineering and math (stem) occupations by utilizing virtual reality (vr) technology the team was recently awarded a grant from the engineering information foundation for this project whose mission is to improve worldwide engineering education and practice through information technology and the recruitment of women in particular the goal of this project is to create more opportunities for students to present in a public setting for varying audiences that go beyond their comfort zone while teaching them how to be effective and concise in their speech and to manage their anxiety chaspari said this study will examine how new wearable devices and vr can be integrated to provide low-cost personalized public speaking interventions information and communication technology when paired with a healthy balance of instructional approaches and carefully-designed personalized learning experiences can provide educators with essential tools to create a blended student-centered learning environment that transforms learning helps develop better communication and interpersonal skills and inspires creativity collaboration and critical thinking in this project we are using a vr interface that simulates a public speaking environment allowing us to manipulate several attributes of the virtual audience such as attentiveness engagement and perceived positivity or negativity behzadan said we are further including experiments with various types of audiences presentation settings or social settings participants have access to the vr application on their smartphones and can interact with the scene by wearing a vr headset the majority of existing studies were conducted in laboratory settings with limited real-world implementations with no follow up results in the direction of wearables it still remains unclear whether consistent practice of real-time feedback can help promote an individuals public speaking skills over time motivated by these and similar findings we are working on a transformative pedagogical project that benefits from smartphone devices and wearable technology owned and operated by many millennials and college students thus making the outcome ubiquitous cost-effective replicable and scalable chaspari said we deploy low-cost consumer-grade smartwatches smartphones and vr headsets to investigate in-the-moment public speaking interventions within a virtual learning environment and their potential benefits compared to interventions administered in a traditional learning environment the developed technology can monitor physiological indices and speech patterns integrate bio-signals for assessment of public speaking environments and provision of data-driven real-time feedback this work will provide the general public with an inexpensive public speaking intervention system for practicing presentations in front of a virtual audience and improving confidence speech clarity and the ability to handle stress levels during a presentation
2414,bill hamilton a doctoral student in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2018 association of former students' distinguished graduate student award for excellence in research hamiltons research focuses on how new live media forms can support participation and interaction in shared experiences he studies how people engage in online communities using media forms such as facebook twitter reddit youtube instagram and snapchat as well as how utilizing live media can positively impact that space in collaboration with microsoft research hamilton designed developed and evaluated rivulet a mobile streaming platform for participating in multistream live experiences hamilton also designed the cloud-based web application livemâché that implements a new form of participatory live media known as collaborative live media curation (clmc) clmc enables participants to collaboratively collect broadcast and compose media to create participatory contexts for online learning activities hamilton said we have deployed livemâché to support online learning experiences in several courses here at texas a&m as well as on the massive open online course platform edx hamiltons current research is rooted in his early research of engagement on the twitch video game live streaming platform in his widely cited publication of this work hamilton discussed the motivations of participants the practices of streamers and viewers and the implications for the design of live streaming media my long-term research goal is to support people through novel media forms that afford new opportunities and ways to participate in online communities and society at large he said hamilton is advised by computer science and engineering professor dr andruid kerne i am glad to receive this award and the recognition that it brings for the interface ecology lab and the department of computer science and engineering hamilton said without the support of my advisor and colleagues my work would not have been possible this award will support my continued research which i hope will affect positive change in the world and reflect well on texas a&m
2415,dr yue kuo dow professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected president of the electrochemical society (ecs) kuo is the first aggie president of the prestigious 116-year-old society charter members of the ecs included such distinguished scientists and engineers as: eg acheson who first commercialized artificial graphite; hh dow founder of the largest us chemical company - dow chemical co; cm hall inventor of the hall process for the manufacture of aluminum; and edward weston whose weston cell was the voltage standard throughout the world thomas a edison joined the society in 1903 and enjoyed membership for 28 years further ecs members and publication authors have included nobel laureates isamu akasaki 2014 nobel prize in physics; rudolph a marcus 1992 nobel prize in chemistry; hiroshi amano 2014 nobel prize in physics; shuji nakamura 2014 nobel prize in physics; richard smalley 1996 nobel prize in chemistry; and jack kilby 2000 nobel prize in physics the appointment is just the latest in a long line of achievements for kuo in 2017 he was awarded a japan society for the promotion of science fellowship and appointed chair professor of the department of photonics at national chiao tung university in taiwan in 2016 kuo was elected fellow of the american vacuum society in february 2015 he was awarded the gordon e moore medal for outstanding achievement in solid state science and technology by the electrochemical society in addition to a large number of awards and honors from professional societies industry and texas a&m many of his papers have been most downloaded highlighted and selected to cover page articles such as the top five most-cited solid state articles in the journal ecs transactions he has edited over 35 journals and proceedings volumes he also is the founder of the worlds longest continuously held thin film transistor symposium series for 26 years
2416,rana soltani and her team of fellow texas a&m university engineering students took their innovation to the next level with the texas a&m national science foundation (nsf) innovation corps (i-corps) site fellow program constructing cleverarm a mechanical exoskeleton that can act as a therapeutic aid to those with disabilities cleverarm encases the upper limb of a patient suffering with impairments and neurological disorders such as stroke and provides a new and improved form of physical therapy previous techniques and devices used with this kind of physical therapy can be lengthy and intense soltani said unlike the existing devices our developed device is a compact and lightweight full-arm robotic device enabling easy use and transportability at different settings such as hospitals clinics rehabilitation gyms and even home soltani said due to its design novelties it can provide a comfortable interaction experience for the user the team decided to participate in order to improve their technology in several ways by participating we completed 100 customer interviews these interviews helped us understand the rehabilitation process and users'--patients therapists and physicians--needs better which enabled us to improve our developed prototype to address those needs she said i-corps didnt just help with product development but also the teams comfort and presentation skills in i-corps you get a chance to improve your presentation skills soltani said you are forced to talk to complete strangers and also to present your findings to your team of instructors and mentors as well as other participants soltani said she sees a personal difference after participating after i-corps i gave multiple presentations to large audiences and i could definitely feel the difference im now totally comfortable giving a presentation to any group of any size soltani said
2417,magda lagoudas executive director of the industry & nonprofit partnerships program in the texas a&m college of engineering said the program enables students to really polish innovative ideas through the programs training and travel funds (up to $2 500 per team) to reach their targeted customers anywhere in the country engineering graduates entering the workforce are expected to have the technical skills to address challenging problems lagoudas said however those who are interested to lead innovation will benefit by gaining an understanding of what it takes for an innovative design to become a successful product and create value to the company the program allows students to gain knowledge and skills in that area and explore the different parameters impacting the success of an innovative ideasoltani said she encourages other students to participate in i-corps because it can improve the product as well as the individuals successif your innovation is still in the idea phase and you haven't developed the product it is a great opportunity to receive feedback and better shape the idea to address the needs soltani said also it is a unique opportunity to improve personal skills which definitely helps educational and career success i encourage any student who is thinking about i-corps to applythe college of engineering was awarded a $500 000 nsf i- corps site grant to support up to 150 teams over five years this program provides participants with the foundational elements for pursuing commercialization access to travel funds to apply new knowledge and gain insight for the commercial aspects of their innovation and opportunities for follow-on grants from nsf
2418,"nine students and faculty from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university were invited to kazakhstan to tour that countrys nuclear energy capabilities from may 28 to june 1 the trip was organized by nick carlson director of the us department of energys office at the us embassy in astana kazakhstan and led by dr kenneth l peddicord nuclear engineering professor and faculty advisor for the trip as part of the weeklong program the group visited the semipalatinsk test site (sts) where 456 nuclear weapons tests were conducted by the former soviet union from 1949 to 1989 the group also went to the location known as ground zero where the first ussr nuclear weapons test took place on august 29 1949 sts officials reported that the a&m delegation was the first group of students from the united states to ever visit the site the opportunity to visit ‘ground zero of the first nuclear weapons test was a truly extraordinary event said peddicord it enabled our students from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m to connect with the long arc of history that characterized the cold war it was a very moving memorable and educational moment we are very grateful to the us department of energy and the us embassy in astana kazakhstan for making this possible ""having learned and read about the cold war as a historic event its difficult to truly feel the weight of what living in an era of bygone superpowers and under the looming threat posed by nuclear weapons must have been like said junior christian sifuentes by visiting the place where these weapons were developed and tested to see the destructive power of these devices and the legacy left behind by them it puts so much in perspective this experience was an unforgettable one that left me genuinely breathless i am so thankful to my professor dr peddicord for having put together this amazing opportunity"" the group also visited the sts museum the institute of nuclear physics shakarim state university and the national nuclear center ""traveling within kazakhstan provided a once in a lifetime opportunity to interact with other students from the other side of the world explore former soviet union facilities and visit ‘ground zero of early soviet nuclear tests said senior alexander perry our time spent traversing the country allowed us to be immersed in the culture and visit structures that seemed to be frozen in the cold war era i was amazed to see the similarities between the equipment used at their research facilities and universities with what we are learning with at texas a&m"" other participants on the trip were alexis ash (senior) miguel avalos (junior) cristian garza (senior) jonathen haney (graduate) micah jackson (senior) and kevin savabi (graduate)"
2419,the department of biomedical engineering hosted biomaterials day at texas a&m university on june 1 it marked the ninth annual biomaterials day conference in texas and the fourth time it has been held at texas a&m the goal of biomaterials day which is sponsored by the society for biomaterials is to enhance networking between academic and industrial sectors and increase student exposure to exciting biomaterials research dr daniel alge assistant professor in the biomedical engineering department and lead organizer of the conference said the turnout was impressive there were 191 registrants for the conference representing texas a&m the university of texas at austin the university of texas at san antonio the university of texas at dallas rice university texas state university trinity university the university of oklahoma the us army institute for surgical research abbott and integra life sciences in addition 100 abstracts were submitted for the poster session it was a testament to the vibrant biomaterials research community in the area alge said the keynote address was delivered by dr steven little the william kepler whiteford endowed professor of chemical and petroleum engineering bioengineering pharmaceutical sciences immunology ophthalmology and the mcgowan institute for regenerative medicine at the university of pittsburgh littles research has resulted in 80 peer reviewed publications four us patents and the founding of two spin-out companies located in pittsburgh pa he serves as the 12th chairman of the department of chemical and petroleum engineering the event also included invited talks by leading texas biomaterial scientists dr duncan maitland from the biomedical engineering department at texas a&m spoke of his work developing and translating occlusion devices using shape memory polymer foams other invited speakers were dr liping tang (department of bioengineering the university of texas at arlington) dr junghae suh (department of bioengineering rice university) dr eric brey (department of biomedical engineering the university of texas at san antonio) dr julie hakim (pediatric and adolescent gynecology baylor college of medicine) and dr jerome klawitter (integra life sciences) students presented during a poster session and nine were selected to deliver five-minute rapid-fire presentations awards were given to the top undergraduate and graduate student presenters in each category the winners for best rapid-fire presentation were marissa wechsler (graduate student in dr nicholas a peppas lab at the university of texas at austin) and michael talanker (undergraduate student in dr elizabeth cosgriff-hernandezs lab at the university of texas at austin) the winners for best poster were courtney shrode (undergraduate student in dr melissa grunlans lab at texas a&m) and kabir dhada (graduate student in dr laura suggs lab at the university of texas at austin) in addition to alge other biomedical engineering faculty who helped organize biomaterials day were dr melissa grunlan dr akhilesh gaharwar and dr corey bishop the student chapter of the society for biomaterials at texas a&m which is advised by alge also played a key role in planning the conference and ensuring its success the conference was sponsored by the society for biomaterials the texas a&m college of engineering the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m the office for commercialization and entrepreneurship at texas a&m the national center for therapeutics manufacturing at texas a&m the stephenson school of biomedical engineering at the university of oklahoma the paths-up engineering research center at texas a&m integra life sciences malvern panalytical anton paar netzsch and apl bioengineering
2420,"for decades biomedical engineers have used their acumen to revolutionize healthcare through the development of devices tools equipment techniques and pharmaceuticals that have advanced the medical field in ways previously unimaginable while patients around the world have benefited from this ingenuity those patients almost exclusively have had one thing in common-they've all been human researchers in the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences (cvm) and the texas a&m college of engineering have teamed up to begin filling that gap in the biomedical engineering field--that of veterinary medicine-­by exploring the possibilities of what can be accomplished when innovative minds come together getting to the heart of the problem dr ashley saunders a professor of cardiology and clinician in the veterinary medical teaching hospital's (vmth) small animal cardiology service began using 3d imaging and printing to create models of the heart to aid in the teaching of anatomy and preparing for complex surgeries for animals but while 3d models are useful in this regard the technology has not been a definitive training tool especially in the case of treating minimally invasive cardiology defects cardiology residents are taught heart and blood vessel catheterization through observation and practice relying on an understanding of the anatomy and the feel of inserting a catheter to perform a procedure teaching catheterization using 3d printed models is difficult because doctors can't see inside the blood vessels they're trying to navigate and it's also difficult to replicate the feel of an animal's blood vessels; therefore doctors have to learn catheterization on a beating heart ""that's how you learn"" saunders said ""that's how i learned"" because heart defects like patent ductus arteriosus (pda)--a congenital defect characterized by an opening between two blood vessels leading from the heart--are the most commonly addressed congenital defect by cardiologists at texas a&m's small animal hospital (sah) saunders began looking to create a safer environment in which residents could learn and practice one in which the stakes weren't quite so high enter dr duncan maitland the stewart & stevenson professor i in the college of engineering's department of biomedical engineering and dr mark wierzbicki a postdoctoral researcher in maitland's biomedical device laboratorysynthesizing a solution maitland whose research focuses on novel treatments for cardiovascular disease had previously worked with a vmth cardiovascular doctor to create devices for use in the operating room; the doctor encouraged maitland and the biomedical engineers in his lab to move toward creating devices for animal patients ""i learned long ago that we could reduce the number of animal iterations on device development if we brought clinicians in or even imported our models into the clinical environment for more advanced testing "" maitland said ""just getting iterations on models of real anatomies reduces the number of animals that need to be used in studies and the quality of devices goes up exponentially"" maitland's lab had developed blocks made of silicone to test devices created to treat cardiovascular diseases one day saunders toured maitland's lab and immediately began thinking about how the technology could be applied to help her train residents to treat pda ""the silicone block was made to resemble a pda and i knew we could use the 3d prints from our patients to make one that is more anatomically correct "" saunders saidand that's exactly what she and wierzbicki a doctoral student at the time did the two put their heads together and devised a plan that would combine the 3d imaging technology saunders was already using with the silicone­-based technology wierzbicki was exploring for his dissertation the final product looks like a clear rubber block inside which upon closer inspection has the outline of several ""tubes"" these tubes are arteries cast from the actual heart from one of saunders' canine patients to make the cast saunders used ct scans to create a 3d representation of the dog's heart printed on the 3d printer in maitland's laboratory ""we were able to 3d print the ct scanned heart using a dissolvable material and vapor polish the printed model to smooth out the ridges from the 3d printing process "" wierzbicki said ""we took the smooth 3d printed heart cast silicone around the model and then dissolved out the 3d-printed part after completing those steps we were left with a model dr saunders could use for training""the result was a solution to multiple problems--not only did the project become part of wierzbicki's dissertation but it produced anatomically correct customized models that might change the way budding cardiologists are trained to learn catheterization techniques and repair heart defects to create an even more realistic setting saunders incorporated a camera that projects what the doctors are seeing onto a computer screen so that they train on a simulated heart that mimics a true procedure ""when we do these procedures in a dog we can't see inside the body; we use fluoroscopy with images displayed on a screen that we have to look up at so it is important to learn how to do these procedures by watching a screen "" she said ""we can mimic the procedure by having the silicone blocks because they have the anatomy inside and the block is clear so they can see through it; the document camera displays the image up on my computer screen ""they watch as they pass a catheter in and they learn how to do the procedure by getting the feel of inserting a device "" she said ""it doesn't require fluoroscopy or radiation and it doesn't require them being inside an actual dog to practice for the first time"" the best part--the silicone blocks are virtually indestructible ""this means you can take the block into a training lab setting knowing that it's going to stand up to being used over and over again "" saunders said the future of biomedical engineering: just a heartbeat away because of what the model means for how doctors treat cardiac defects saunders wierzbicki and maitland have published multiple papers related to the model and other devices used in cardiology saunders also has begun using the model in training exercises and labs for both residents and specialists who have an interest in catheterization techniques and interventional cardiology during a recent training that included specialists from around the world saunders found that the doctors responded enthusiastically to the model ""they really loved it "" she said ""they said they feel like they're more comfortable practicing with the model it makes more sense to them"" while most companies that manufacture devices for human cardiology currently aren't interested in making devices for animals as more and more veterinary surgeons begin recognizing the value of this kind of model maitland said he hopes that attention will open the doors for more opportunities for collaboration between biomedical engineers and the field of veterinary medicine ""if you look at all of engineering and biomedical engineering specifically you don't think about animal health care as a primary focus we're not trained to do that and so there are not enough partnerships going on between the two colleges and specifically biomedical and the cvm "" said maitland who is chairing a committee in his department to do just that ""i think we could make a lot of impact and in this case not just with what ashley is developing for training but we can also impact the technologies that are used in animal health care significantly if we just pay attention to it"" this article originally appeared in the spring 2018 edition of cvm today"
2421,dr h gene hawkins a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has been named this years public-sector recipient for the john jake landen memorial highway safety award the annual award is supported by the american road and transportation builders association and traffic safety industry division and recognizes individuals from public and private sectors who have made significant contributions to roadway infrastructure safety previously hawkins was the former division head of the transportation and materials division within the department and before joining the department he was a research engineer with the texas a&m transportation institute for 18 years hawkins has done extensive research studies and presentations on traffic control devices and the manual on uniform traffic control devices that involve evaluating signs markings and other traffic control devices although signs and markings can be taken by granted by some users they play a pivotal role in our ability to travel safely from one place to another hawkins said as simple as signs and markings are i have spent most of my professional career researching ways of making them better hawkins has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than 20 research projects with a cumulative budget of $6 million his research interests include traffic control infrastructure retroreflectivity and visibility of traffic signs and pavement markings driver response to traffic control devices traffic engineering policy and guidelines signal design work zone traffic control freeway operations and historical aspects of transportation engineering according to hawkins the award was unexpected he said that he first became interested in traffic safety as a child when his father who was also a traffic engineer was explaining signs markings and signals to a young boy ive worked with many great people during my career in consulting research and education said hawkins i learned a lot from them and they deserve a part of this award as much as i do
2422,dr daniel a jiménez professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed the interim chair of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) computer society technical committee on computer architecture (tcca) tcca is a community of researchers and practitioners involved with the architecture (integrated hardware and software design) of general- and special-purpose computers this committee oversees ieee computer society activities related to computer architecture research including sponsorship of the ieee international symposium on high-performance computer architecture (hpca) and the association for computing machinery (acm)/ieee international symposium on computer architecture (isca) (shared with acm sigarch) as well as a number of other conferences as chair jiménez leads an executive committee of 18 highly qualified computer architects including many former program chairs and general chairs of isca hpca and other prestigious conferences this includes former chairs of tcca who also provide advice among other responsibilities tcca selects the program chairs and general chairs for the hpca conference and oversees the selection of the program committee for hpca they also cooperate with acm sigarch to select the program chairs and general chairs for the isca conference tcca also sponsors a number of awards many in cooperation with acm sigarch recent initiatives from tcca include improving diversity in their conferences as well as finding new ways to highlight the contributions of computer architecture research and researchers one of the main activities this year will be the 2018 isca conference during which david patterson and john l hennessy will give their acm turing award lecture jiménez and his acm sigarch counterpart will lead the isca business meeting where he will present outcomes of recent tcca activities and discuss new proposed activities including future venues for tcca sponsored conferences jiménezs term as interim chair will extend through september 2018 when a new election will determine the next tcca chair preceding his appointment as interim tcca chair jiménez served as a member of the tcca executive committee for several years as program chair of hpca 2017 and general chair of hpca 2011 as tcca chair he also become a member of the steering committee for the isca conference jiménezs research focuses are computer architecture and compilers he was inducted into the acm/ieee international symposium on microarchitecture (micro) hall of fame in 2017 and the ieee international symposium on high performance computer architecture (hpca) hall of fame in 2015 and is notable for inventing the perceptron branch predictor published with co-author dr calvin lin professor at the university of texas at austin as well as other impactful research
2423,dr andreas a polycarpou dr john a rogers and mechanical engineering graduate teaching fellow mohammad humood from the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are conducting research to help further the broader engineering goal to develop flexible wearable electronic devices which can be integrated into clothes glasses skin and even inside the human body these devices are required to be mechanically robust and able to retain their performance and efficiency under different ranges of mechanical deformations such as bending and twisting without any failure in the rigid components of these devices such as silicon and copper said humood who came onto the project after he was awarded the hagler institute for advanced study fellowship and was assigned to work with faculty fellow rogers according to dr matt pharr who also works on the project the goal of the research was to produce multilayer 3d kirigami microstructures that contain silicon and investigate their basic mechanical response under mechanical pressure kirigami is a variation of origami that includes cutting the paper rather than solely folding it these materials have potential applications in 3d micro-electro-mechanical systems (mems) devices which could then be used to develop the wearable electronics and the texas a&m team was the first to experimentally study the nanomechanics of silicon-based kirigami structures the modeling aspect was done in collaboration with dr yonggang huang in northwestern university this work aims to provide insight into their basic mechanical response with an eye toward potential applications pharr said humood said there is a growing need for 3d mems as a route to improve the efficiency and reliability of current devices such as sensors he said future applications of this technology are broad once developed the sensors could be integrated with the skin and organs of patients which will help medical professionals better understand how diseases develop and predict them early biology such as human skin and organs is inherently a 3d design humood said therefore 3d nano/micro structured flexible devices will yield a complete integration between life and technology the team faced several challenges throughout their research such as the small and somewhat fragile makeup of mems which are made of silicon and its oxides which is inherently stiff and brittle finding and implementing a reliable means of producing such structures was challenging but was ultimately resolved such that robust structures could be produced repeatedly pharr said another challenge humood said was running complex experiments within the scanning electron microscope where the material was compressed this gave us the opportunity to record images and videos while compressing them which helped us to observe their deformation modes humood said the teams paper was published on the cover of small an internationally known magazine having our work accepted for publication in the journal of small and being selected to be on the cover of the journal by the editor highlights the importance of this work as it shows proof of concept for the reliability of these new 3d structures and how they can enable the development of a new class of electronic devices humood said results of the research show that not only were the silicon-based mems promising candidates for building wearable electronics their mechanical characteristics such as load bearing capabilities energy dissipation bending stiffness and elastic recoverability could be tailored by changing the geometry of the microstructure because the materials can change their qualities and mechanical response when their structure is only slightly changed they have a number of potential applications in 3d mems devices moving forward for the broad community we hope the findings of this work show our promise and commitment as engineers and scientists toward continuous improvement of human life polycarpou said photo courtesy of small
2424,in a collaborative study involving equal channel angular extrusion (ecae) a unique severe plastic deformation (spd) process researchers dr ibrahim karaman from texas a&m university and drs don susan and andrew kustas of sandia national laboratories were able to improve the mechanical properties of magnetic alloys without changing their magnetic properties through microstructural refinement this process has proven to be troublesome in the past production of high-performance magnetic alloys and other intermetallics could prove particularly useful in aerospace and space exploration where materials must endure harsh environments including temperature extremes shock and vibration ecae forces a bar of metallic or polymeric material at a 90-degree angle through a die channel this process induces spd without any changes in the cross-sectional area of the sample originally the researchers at sandia national laboratories and texas a&m worked together on a different topic involving shape memory alloys they quickly realized the potential in combining the strengths of their respective facilities on an entirely new study and subsequently applied the experiences to magnetic alloys sandia saw the need to manufacture magnetic alloys in bulk demonstrating superior mechanical properties because ecae allows the microstructure of materials to be drastically altered without affecting its cross-sectional area larger samples with dimensions greater than one inch could be produced while improving mechanical properties simultaneously i was initially skeptical about increasing the strength of the particular materials while keeping the magnetic properties unaffected said dr ibrahim karaman department head of the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m however through collaboration with sandia scientists we were able to achieve what we dreamed of and that lead to a patent application for ecae-processed soft magnetic alloys researchers at texas a&m carried out the ecae processing and some microstructural characterization and mechanical testing sandia took these findings and administered further microstructural and mechanical characterization and magnetic properties testing ecae process has been a key element of texas a&m material processing research in the last two decades and we applied this technique to many unconventional materials with success said karaman ecae has traditionally been applied to common materials such as aluminum copper or steel said dr don susan principal member of technical staff at sandia who added that these materials were malleable and readily manipulated taking the shape of the die with ease this work was groundbreaking because it attempted ecae on a brittle intermetallic alloy conventionally a cold temperature process the team had to experiment with high temperature ecae that had not been extensively explored in magnetic alloys sandia scientists wanted to apply ecae to magnetic alloys with low strength and extreme brittleness such as fe-co-v said karaman as a result their work was able to show ecae can be done in extreme processing conditions producing high-performance alloys that can withstand demanding mechanical environments we think there may be opportunities to apply ecae to other intermetallic alloys such as fe-si or ni-ti to refine their microstructures and improve properties as well said susan these experiments have opened the door for further studies in the field now sandia is pursuing a scale-up of the process with a spin-off company from texas a&m to check the industrial scale magnetic and mechanical properties of these magnetic alloys said karaman its exciting for us to see the fruit of our joint collaboration the findings are electronically published on cambridge core in journal of materials research by the cambridge university press
2425,texas a&ms formula sae team is about a month from international competition and the 22 members are revving their enginessince august 2017 the team has been discussing designing building and testing a race car they created from scratch along with racing the car the students are judged on design cost of manufacturing their presentation of a business model and other vehicle componentson top of building a car from scratch all the students graduated in may some will pursue masters degrees while others already have jobs lined up in the automotive and other industries
2426,for many of the members their interest in the program was piqued when they first started at texas a&m although their interest in cars may have started long beforegrowing up i bonded with my family by working on cars so then coming into college i wanted to study mechanical engineering so i could work on cars and this was the perfect opportunity to make a childhood dream come true said project manager spencer weaverover the past two semesters adam isaacks said he has been impressed by the work ethic of the groupits pretty common that whenever youre put into a group where theres a project theres always going to be that one person who doesnt carry their weight he said but somehow on a team of 22 members theres not a single person who doesnt carry their weight and i think thats going to help us be successfulunlike other university teams texas a&ms team also doesnt pass along designs year to year instead they bring in a fresh approach to the design and datawe do a full redesign every year while others will take the old design and tweak it said team member zach beck we make a new car from scratch every yearthere are a number of rules the students follow within the dimensions of a formula car so that the car remains safe for drivers this years team added another challenge by redesigning the cars chassis or frame which has been similar in the past several yearswere taking a whole new approach to it and the biggest challenge is figuring out does it fit into the rules can we actually build this and how will we package everything around this new design weaver saidthe car is test drove on a concrete runway at the rellis campus but even with the practice weaver said the track will be different at competition making it hard to predict how the car will handlesarah rohmer team lead of the electrical subgroup crew chief and a purchasing manager for the team said she has appreciated the hands-on experience with automotive she has gained through the projective seen firsthand how designs get implemented and problems that can happen she said when you look at a drawing on a computer its really hard to see and visualize all the problems that might arise but when youre working on the car you see ‘ooh a wrench cant fit in there that isnt the best design you see a lot more complicationsthe team will head to lincoln nebraska in mid-june for the sae international competition june 19-23 where they will face 80 teams from schools across the country and world
2427,dr maria koliou an assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a rapid grant (cmmi 1829433) from the national science foundation (nsf) to investigate the seismic resilience of wood frame building systems and explore the efficiency of various seismic retrofit/repair solutions in enhancing urban community resilience koliou is serving as the lead principal investigator in conjunction with dr shideh dashti an associate professor at the university of colorado boulder dr keri ryan an associate professor at the university of nevada-reno and dr chris pantelides a professor at the university of utah who are serving as co-principal investigators this grant will allow researchers from the united states and japan to collaborate as a team to conduct experimental seismic studies on wood frame building systems the systems will be tested on the worlds largest earthquake shake table (e-defense) in miki japan in early 2019 past studies have made progress on understanding structural systems and nonstructural component response but this study will focus on building interactions with lifeline components and soil-structure interaction during seismic events kolious research interests consist of multi-hazard performance-based design of buildings and non-building structures engineering risk analysis post-disaster system functionality and community resilience collapse assessment of structural systems experimental methods in earthquake engineering and timber structures she has previously been awarded research grants on different aspects of her research portfolio including a seed grant through texas a&ms program to enhance scholarly and creative activities a rapid grant from the texas sea grant program through the national oceanic and atmospheric administration and a project on seismic testing of cross laminated timber structures from the us department of agriculture koliou has also recently received the structural engineering institutes young professional scholarship from the american society of civil engineers and an nsf-supported travel grant to attend the 2018 engineering mechanics institute conference
2428,renewable energy sources such as wind and wave can power our world currently mechanical gears are used inside of these energy conversion systems to connect a high-speed electric machine to a low-speed physical energy source improving the design of the systems that convert these sources into electrical energy has far-reaching benefits matthew gardner a doctoral student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is studying the use of magnetic gears and their advantages over the traditional mechanically geared machines
2429,"just like mechanical gears magnetic gears transform rotational power between different speeds and torques but instead of physically interlocking teeth they use magnetic fields by using magnets to transmit torque between the input and output shafts of the gear they avoid mechanical contact this provides a number of advantages such as reduced maintenance reduced acoustic noise and vibrations and improved overall reliability if too much torque is applied to mechanical gears they may break; if the same happens to magnetic gears the magnets will simply slip past each other without causing any damage in regard to wind and wave energy some gearing is necessary in machines to avoid the use of an extremely large and expensive generator for example special turbines convert the kinetic energy in the wind and water into power gearboxes within these mechanically geared systems are subject to severe loads and are often in locations where it is extremely expensive to replace or repair a failed gearbox with the use of magnetic gears the cost of maintenance would be significantly reduced magnetic gears drew my interest because they represent a potentially disruptive innovation in the field of electric machines gardner said much of the research in electric machines represents incremental improvements on the technology that has been developed over the last few hundred years however magnetic gears are a relatively new area of research and are currently not an industry accepted alternative to mechanical gears gardner looks to change that he has worked on a project sponsored by the us department of energy that reduced the cost of wave energy using magnetic gears together with the power and automation company abb gardner and his team built a magnetically geared machine prototype that is one of the largest in the world for its particular set of properties this machine is rated for about 4 000 newton meters of torque to put that into perspective most magnetic gears and magnetically geared machine prototypes in literature are rated for less than 150 newton meters our analysis found that using a magnetically geared generator would be about 50 percent smaller 50 percent lighter and 25 percent less expensive than using a generator without any gearing for this wave energy application gardner said on the other hand reliability concerns ruled out systems involving hydraulics or mechanical gearing gardner works in the advanced electrical machines and power electronics lab under dr hamid toliyat raytheon professor his work has been conducted largely in part with former doctoral student dr matthew johnson ""matthew has done a lot of work that has the possibility to significantly transform the field of electric machines toliyat said i am excited about the opportunity to make a disruptive change in the field of electric machines gardner said magnetic gears and magnetically geared machines offer the possibility to provide a significant not just incremental improvement in systems involving electric machines"
2430,tokunbo tj falohun a graduate student in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has found research to be at the intersection of his strengths and interests i think there are few things that are more compelling than trying to improve human health ive always looked at that as something that draws me something i feel that if i can help out that would be a really impactful experience falohun said biomedical engineering boils down to using technology to improve human health falohun recently was granted a national science foundation graduate research fellowship a prestigious award given to graduate students the fellowship provides three years of financial support within a five-year fellowship perioda $34 000 annual stipend and $12 000 cost-of-education allowance to the graduate institution the support is for graduate study that leads to a research-based master's or doctoral degree in a science technology engineering and math (stem) field along with providing research funding the program also provides access to a community to help scholars network he said receiving the fellowship was an honor i think its a motivator because it shows my growth as a scholar in the field falohun said you get your undergrad degree and thats a step above high school; and then grad school is a step above undergrad but to join this program it shows that theres growth overall being able to pull together a competitive application is a challenge but its something that is also really rewarding the program encourages researchers to develop ways to share scientific knowledge with the public by sharing technology and education that will have an impact on peoples lives there is also an emphasis on improving knowledge in underserved communities and using science to help those less fortunate which falohun said he is passionate about and actively pursues through his research falohun works in the biosensing systems and materials lab under department head dr mike mcshane helping to develop small-molecule biosensorsminiature analytical devices used to measure biochemicals in the body and cell/tissue samples for medical research and clinical application mcshane is the james j cain professor ii in biomedical engineering and has been funded by the national institutes of health and national science foundation to develop this type of technology over the past 16 years one example of the research performed at the lab is the measurement of blood sugar levels for individuals with diabetes the biosensor which is implanted under the skin can respond to blood sugar levels for extended periods without the need for finger pricks the implant can then be read using an external device to inform a patient on their current condition giving them more control of their health the field of biosensors i think is one of our most compelling subdisciplines within biomedical engineering because it enables people to better maintain their conditions falohun said it saves tons of money as opposed to going to the doctor to get tests if we can monitor our own health you can prevent a lot of these chronic diseases that develop over the years so far the team has developed a biosensing platform to measure oxygen glucose and lactate for his masters thesis falohun is working to expand the list to include uric acid an analyte associated with gout the lab also aims to prepare students to be contributors in an interdisciplinary research and development environment through a combination of relevant and challenging biomedical engineering projects professional development activities and an atmosphere that encourages individual creativity as well as collaborative work falohun said mcshane assisted with generating ideas for the fellowship proposal and provided a letter recommendation falohun plans to pursue his doctoral degree and then his goal is to contribute to the development of life-saving medical technologies thats broad but that is the overall direction i want to go into he said
2431,"three researchers from the department of industrial and systems engineering have received funding to develop a wearable noninvasive reliable inexpensive and proactive device to detect and prevent hypoglycemic events in diabetic patients according to the international diabetes federation an estimated 415 million people have diabetes worldwide according to dr ranjana mehta assistant professor diabetes is associated with other serious health complications such as heart disease stroke blindness kidney failure and hypoglycemia-low blood sugar diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the united states and costs the us economy more than $240 billion per year ""frequent hypoglycemic episodes not only affect patient quality of life but also could result in coma stupor behavior change dizziness seizures and even death "" mehta said existing solutions for glucose monitoring such as continuous glucose monitors are invasive costly and reactive self-monitored glucose approaches are intermittent and miss hypoglycemic events especially at night the qatar national research funds by the qatar foundation is funding research to develop better technology to monitor and gather data from diabetic patients mehta along with dr mark lawley and dr farzan sasangohar are three researchers from the industrial and systems engineering department working on the project the proposed project will develop a noninvasive reliable inexpensive proactive and wearable device that can detect monitor and predict hypoglycemic episodes in diabetic patients through the early onsets of hypoglycemic tremors the device will use compact high-precision accelerometers and will have two novel configurations to support arm/wrist and finger-based use ""the innovation of our approach is to develop machine learning-based pattern detection algorithms to explicitly detect and characterize the frequency and amplitude of tremor "" sasangohar said over time the device will develop a predictive algorithm for personalized hypoglycemia event risk which can then provide feedback to patients and healthcare providers along with the researchers in college station the team consists of engineering researchers from texas a&m university at qatar and is affiliated with the center for remote health technologies and systems and texas a&m ergonomics center as well as healthcare partners from hamad hospital and sidra hospital in qatar students involved in the project include industrial and systems engineering department doctoral student karim zahed and school of public health doctoral student yibo zhu mehta said the impact of the project will help uncover more about the relationship between the tremors and blood glucose levels associated with hypoglycemic events as well as a broader impact to healthcare in modern society other areas of science that may benefit from the research include cyberphysical systems telemedicine and preventive medicine ""the system proposed will be the first of its kind to provide a real-time hypoglycemic monitoring that can be easily deployed in daily life "" sasangohar said ""it will save hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare costs and lost productivity and will significantly improve the quality of life for millions suffering from diabetes"" beyond diabetes sasangohar said the technology has a wide range of applications including early detection of seizures essential tremors and parkinson's to fatigue detection during high-accuracy tasks such as surgery one major benefit is that the novel solution would be a noninvasive approach to continuously monitor for drops in blood sugar levels as well as provide feedback about imminent hypoglycemic events the research is in its first year of a three-year integrative multidisciplinary international project user-centered studies are planned followed by a clinical study in a qatar hospital click here for more information on the qatar national research fund"
2432,as the need increases for more powerful and efficient batteries to support developing technologies texas a&m university assistant professor of mechanical engineering dr matt pharr is working to do just that: a pursuit that could have wide-ranging impacts in several areas including sustainable energy transportation and personal electronics along with his team pharr said he is seeking to discover advances to rechargeable high-capacity lithium-ion batteries by exploring possible solutions to the mechanical degradation suffered during use to help with his project pharr was one of four researchers recently selected for a gift awarded by the applied mechanics division of the american society of mechanical engineers to support the theoretical and applied mechanics research of new faculty members
2433,"used as the power source for popular items including power tools electric vehicles and portable electronics lithium-ion batteries have seen widespread adoption throughout industry however several other materials – including sulfur silicon and germanium – are known to be able to provide a larger capacity than the current design though not without significant drawbacks like significant mechanical degradation making them impractical for use at this time pharr who came to texas a&m in 2016 said he hopes his work testing the properties of these various materials will ultimately lead to batteries with higher energy and power capabilities as well as reduced weight and volume ""we are performing experimental measurements to examine the interplay between mechanics and electrochemistry during cycling of high-capacity batteries "" pharr said ""these experiments provide a basic understanding of phenomena in these systems and allow us to extract mechanical properties of these 'new' materials -- lithiated compounds -- as a function of lithium concentration"" he said the measurements also help to inform the development of mechanics models for the rational design of materials architectures and electrochemical conditions that mitigate mechanical degradation during cycling"
2434,by applying a mechanics-based approach pharr and his team are studying elemental combinations to replace the current use of carbon and various oxides and phosphates as a host for the lithium atoms among the possibilities they are exploring include germanium sulfur and silicon along with the ultimate goal of developing a safer more reliable method of using lithium metal without the danger of combustion if successful the batteries could have a large commercial market thanks to the industry preference for their use in addition to providing a better power source for numerous technologies pharr said high-capacity lithium-ion batteries could lead to a range of benefits including enhanced infrastructure the reduction of emissions and improved economic and energy independence for the us in addition to his research on batteries pharr is also working in the areas of flexible and wearable electronics in partnership with anastasia muliana in mechanical engineering and scott finlayson in the college of agriculture and life sciences department of soil and crop sciences to investigate if it is possible to breed more resilient crops pharr said his team's part in the research is mechanically perturbing the plants during growth -- a process which is essentially knocking the crops back and forth to see if they adapt to the strain and grow structurally stronger or weaken over time pharr was also recently included among a group of researchers comprised of members from his former post-doctoral group at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign who authored a study recently published in nature biomedical engineering magazine focusing on developing a small sensor to be placed on the tip of a needle for medical use
2435,two texas a&m university deans have been elected to the national academy of construction (nac) for championing construction science education and enhancing the strength and well-being of the construction industry dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and dr jorge vanegas dean of the college of architecture are among 38 new members of this elite group the nac is one of the nations most esteemed professional construction industry institutions with 292 academy members and tens of thousands of participants in all sectors of the industry banks oversees coordination and collaboration among the engineering academic and research programs at seven universities throughout the texas a&m university system as well as three state agencies: the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the texas a&m engineering extension service and the texas a&m transportation institute banks was previously the bowen engineering head for the school of civil engineering at purdue university and the jack and kay hockema professor at purdue she received her bse from the university of florida mse from the university of north carolina and phd in civil and environmental engineering from duke university
2436,she is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the american society of civil engineers she has received numerous awards including the asce petersen outstanding woman of the year award asce rudolph hering medal purdue faculty scholar award sloan foundation mentoring fellowship and the american association of university women fellowship vanegas who has headed the college of architecture since 2008 is also a research professor at tees in his scholarly activities vanegas focuses on applying creativity innovation design and entrepreneurship in multidisciplinary environments implementing built environment sustainability and advancing asset delivery and management in architecture engineering and construction through integrated strategies tools and methods he has received national and international awards for his education research and professional scholarly accomplishments including being inducted into the pan american academy of engineering in 2010 he holds a bachelors degree in architecture from universidad de los andes in bogotá colombia and master's and doctoral degrees in construction engineering and management from the department of civil and environmental engineering at stanford university vanegas and banks will be formally inducted at ceremonies in san diego on oct 11 2018
2437,"dr xi zhang professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the prestigious best paper award at the 2018 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) international conference on communications (icc) held may 20-24 in kansas city missouri ieee icc is one of the most important flagship annual conferences of the ieee communications society the 2018 conference is the 54th edition and attracts more than 2 400 paper submissions from leading scientists in academia researchers/engineers and industry leaders around the world zhang and his phd student co-author qixuan zhu won the prestigious ieee icc 2018 best paper award for their paper titled ""collaborative hierarchical caching over 5g edge computing mobile wireless networks this award was given to only 15 papers selected from more than 2 400 submitted to ieee icc 2018 in this paper zhang developed new system architectures and models to store wireless multimedia traffics (eg video/audio streaming mobile tv and 3d immersive media) and transmit them over fifth generation (5g) mobile wireless networks his proposed schemes aim at maximizing multimedia-transmission throughputs while minimizing multimedia-transmission delays this research was supported by zhangs national science foundation (nsf) grants and plays critical roles in significantly improving the quality of everyday life based on mobile wireless networks zhang is an ieee fellow and ieee distinguished lecturer for both the communications society and the vehicular technology society he has published more than 320 research papers including one that was named an ieee transactions/journal best readings paper two books and several book chapters in total he has received five prestigious best paper awards at ieee icc 2018; ieee globecom 2007 2009 and 2014; and ieee wcnc 2010 he also received the nsf career award in 2004 he is or has served as editor for many ieee transactions/journals including ieee transactions on communications ieee transactions on wireless communications ieee transactions on vehicular technology and many others also he has served as technical program committee (tpc) chair for globecom 2011 tcp vice chair for ieee infocom 2010 tpc area chair for ieee infocom 2012 and many others zhang is the director of the networking and information systems laboratory he joined the electrical and computer engineering department upon receiving his phd from the university of michigan ann arbor his research interests include 5g mobile wireless networks statistical delay-bounded quality of service provisioning for multimedia wireless networks network protocol design and modeling statistical communications random signal processing information theory and control theory and systems"
2438,a lifesaving device more than 20 years in the making has received 510(k) clearance from the us food and drug administration (fda) the clearance allows a company co-founded by associate department head dr duncan maitland from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university to begin to market the medical device maitland developed the impede embolization plug a device that could provide doctors with a more effective and less risky method for treating aneurysms – blood-filled balloon-like bulges in the walls of a blood vessel that can rupture and cause vascular damage that is debilitating or even fatal the device quickly clots blood to block it from reaching aneurysms tumors or other issues it creates a different kind of clot than current devices
2439,if you put in other devices theyre asking for big clots to form maitland said instead of creating a blood clot that is three or four millimeters in diameter were creating thousands of smaller clots that are connected together how it worksthe device is made from polyurethane-based shape memory polymer (smp) foams while small during insertion the porous polymeric materials are capable of growing to a memorized larger conformable shape when delivered into a blood vessel allowing it to obstruct or reduce the rate of blood flow in the vein or artery targeted by the doctorafter blocking flow in a vascular target there is also concern that one could reform over time with the impede embolization plug test results have shown that smp foams promote long-term health of the areas of the blood vessel reducing the chances that another treatment is requiredthe benefit to patients is that they dont get reoccurrence maitland said this is a less traumatic deliverable device as its being delivered its not potentially rupturing the blood vessels like some of the current devices would and it heals the site so they dont have to have it retreated
2440,while the impede device is built to address issues outside of the brain such as abdominal aortic aneurysms as well as acting as adjunct treatment for tumors or cancer to promote long-term healing where current devices dont maitland said he plans to submit the fda application for a neurological device soon weve created this stepping stone that has value will establish the long-term clinical superiority and it will be a predicate device for future more complicated devices to receive regulatory clearance maitland said
2441,maitland and his team sent the impede embolization plug to the fda for review in 2017 while the plug is not available in the united states yet it has been used to treat patients in new zealand and in several countries in the european union milestonesthere were several milestones that maitland could look back on in the last two decades of research he started working on stroke related diseases in 1995 the breakthrough idea for the porous structures for embolization was formulated in 1999 maitland worked with dr todd landsman who initially developed the impede device as part of his phd dissertation at texas a&m the teams record in the patent literature documents from 2001 which maitland said proceeds any publications by about two years the first shape memory foams research material that was on the right development path was created in august 2011the work has also led to the establishment of shape memory medical inc co-founded by maitland to commercialize stable predictable embolization solutions for a variety of clinical applications the company has 26 issued us patents and multiple patents under review on a worldwide basis several of maitlands graduate students have worked in the company over the yearsmaitland moved from the lawrence livermore national laboratory in california to texas a&m with the goal of commercializing the smp foams for vascular occlusion he liked the policies within texas a&m specifically the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) he said dean m katherine banks has created an environment where researchers are able to work on impacts that extend beyond traditional academic metrics at the same time faculty must respect traditional metrics: maitland has graduated 14 phd students and seven ms students since joining texas a&m in 2008 he has also cumulatively published more than 75 journal publications related to the smp technology and devicesworking on this kind of impact was made possible by the support of tees by conflict of interest management policies of the university and the implementation of those policies out of the division of researchs office maitland saidwhats nextnow that the device technology is in the hands of shape memory medical inc which will work on product commercialization maitland said new research directions are opening up in the short term his team has sponsored research with the company and has received some grants that are allowing them to research how the devices interact with the body and a deeper understanding of device safetyover the long term his team plans to continue working with the company to modify the material so that it increases the effectiveness or opens up new medical applications maitland is also partnering with researchers in veterinary medicine the health science center and other tees centers to open new application directions for the smp technologyalong with about 200 people who have touched the project in one way to another over the last 20 years institutions that have provided support include shape memory medical inc the texas a&m engineering experiment station lawrence livermore national laboratory the national institute of biomedical institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering and the us department of energy
2442,"harikrishnan rajendran a doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected to receive one of two international symposium on superalloys scholarships this scholarship is funded by the minerals metals & materials society (tms) and presented to a student majoring in metallurgical and/or materials science and engineering with an emphasis on all aspects of the high-temperature high-performance materials used in the gas turbine industry and all other applications ""i am incredibly humbled and honored to have been selected for the prestigious tms international symposium on superalloys scholarship says rajendran i would consider this award from tms as a token of appreciation for the research endeavors of my advisor dr jean-briac le graverend this recognition is an encouragement for my doctoral study which focuses on the fundamental understanding and prediction of the property degradation of ni-based single crystal superalloys to better design the material for high-temperature applications and thereby retarding the insidious turbine blade failure i would also like to thank dr (amine) benzerga and dr (george) pharr for their support for my scholarship application and their interest in our research"" rajendran will be presented with the $2 000 award and a certificate during the 2018 materials science & technology conference in columbus ohio in october"
2443,"ye yuan and junru wu doctoral students in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university collaborated with students from peking university in china to win the 2018 conference of computer vision and pattern recognitions (cvpr) ug2 prize challenge the texas a&m and peking university team (tpu) was comprised of yuan and wu representing texas a&m; along with yueyu hu undergraduate student wenhan yang doctoral student and xiaoshuai zhang undergraduate student all at peking university the students were supervised by dr zhangyang (atlas) wang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m and dr jiaying liu associate professor at the institute of computer science and technology at peking university the ug2 challenge was sponsored by the intelligence advanced research projects activity with the goal to bridge the current gap between computational photography and visual recognition tpus objective was to develop image enhancement algorithms to improve visual recognition performance on a given set of intentionally difficult real-world videos collected by unmanned aerial vehicles manned gliders and ground cameras to improve the classification performance of the dataset they developed an algorithm that assembles light adjustment super-resolution deblurring denoising high-dynamic ranging and deblocking into one deep learning pipeline the competition was a great opportunity and unique experience to apply the computer vision algorithms that we developed to solving a real-world cutting-edge problem said yuan tpus team leader the algorithm they created won them a $12 500 cash prize and an additional $5 000 to travel to the cvpr 2018 ug2 prize challenge award ceremony on june 18 in salt lake city utah where they presented their winning algorithm a total of 24 teams from universities and industrial companies participated in the competitions two tracks tpu was the only winning team to come from academia this event has boosted my confidence in pursuing a future research career and i am proud to have learned from and collaborated with such a dedicated team said yuan yuan and wu work under the supervision of wang as researchers in the visual informatics group at texas a&m they intend to invest their portion of the cash prize into research equipment to further contribute to their academic success and capability to combat real-world problems during the competition i was very delighted to see that our students actively collaborated with peers and devoted extremely hard work to winning this prestigious honor said wang i am quite confident in these students and wish them every success in new endeavors"""
2444,according to the world health organization approximately 253 million people across the globe live with visual impairment and 36 million are blind since the 1920s white canes have been used to navigate surroundings and visually notify others of visual impairments four engineering students at texas a&m university have developed a white cane attachment that can provide object detection and turn-by-turn navigation assistance via haptic feedback their project the navigational & object visual assistant (nova) uses an ultrasonic sensor and vibration motors to alert white cane users of any obstacles above the waist with specific vibration patterns the team also created a mobile application that will interact with the nova to signal directions to the user (eg turn left or turn right)
2445,electronic systems engineering technology (eset) students garrett friedrichs hunter schwedler brady langston jason belmares and lathan moore have been working together over the past year in a capstone team called viatech moore viatechs project manager got the idea for the project while working with children with disabilities in the postsecondary access and training in human services (paths) program from the college of education & human development i asked my students what they would like to see happen in their world because often they are forgotten said moore one of my students said ‘we want something cool on our white canes and suggested a flashlight our group decided to take that a step further and add something even cooler
2446,"novas ultrasonic sensor sends out a different voltage based on how far away the object is then the voltage is read through an analog to digital converter and the vibration intensity fluctuates based upon the values read schwedler the software engineer for viatech offered insight on why vibration would be useful for the visually impaired [nova] has no auditory feedback at all which is a big thing that the visually impaired students stressed that they wanted "" he explained ""they need to closely listen to their surroundings and any sort of unnecessary sound can be distracting by having the left and right motor for navigation and the center motor attached to the ultrasonic sensor a user will be able to feel the difference between navigational and obstacle detection vibrations dr ana goulart associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and eset program coordinator served as the faculty advisor for the project we have the potential to help people with disabilities and this project could spur more research into this area in the future said goulart using technology to assist people shows the humanizing impact of engineering on the world today"
2447,the texas a&m university system will join a consortium of higher education institutions and state agencies that will offer expertise research and innovations in support of the us army futures command in austin the us army announced friday (july 13) from the pentagon during a press conference at the pentagon army officials said the effort leverages higher education offerings in texas with private sector innovation cutting-edge science and technology prototyping and demonstrations and warfighter testing and feedback the texas a&m system is ready to support army futures command texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp said this is a great day for the state of texas government and academic leaders came together to offer an unbeatable combination of talent and resources sharp added that the texas a&m system campuses in the region – including college station rellis san antonio and central texas – as well as the texas a&m college of engineering texas a&m transportation institute texas a&m engineering experiment station and texas a&m engineering extension service will bolster the core mission of the army futures command the texas a&m contribution will give american soldiers a technological advantage to bolster national security we are honored to support the us army in this exciting next chapter said michael k young president of texas a&m university with more than 15 000 graduates per year – nearly half of whom are in stem fields – and nearly $1 billion per year in research as well as more than 1 000 current veteran students texas a&m university is well equipped to deliver on expertise and innovation for future success the us army futures command which was announced in october 2017 and informally referred to as modernization command has eight cross-functional teams working toward reducing prototype development demonstration and testing and the evaluation process from 60 months down to approximately 12 the state has a wealth of capabilities to bear between its military resources and broad academic and research base said steve cambone director of the texas a&m system institute for national-security and cyber-security education and research we have the breadth of resources and testing and evaluation facilities within the texas a&m system to help the army ‘fail early and succeed quickly in support of the armys mission to modernize among the areas the army is aiming to modernize include development of improved long-range precision fires a next-generation combat vehicle future vertical lift platforms a mobile and expeditionary army network air and missile defense capabilities and soldier lethality the texas a&m systems offerings include producing graduates with bachelor master's and doctoral degrees in high-need fields including biomedical sciences biomedical engineering chemical engineering computer science electrical engineering mechanical engineering and materials and materials engineering the establishment of the command marks the most significant reorganization of the institutional army since 1973 according to army officials it is being headquartered in austin to best partner with academia industry and innovators in the private sector while providing a good and affordable quality of life for command personnel
2448,hurricanes are massive tropical winds that can cause detrimental destruction that can often be deadly hurricane harvey was a catastrophe that brought in 27 trillion gallons of rain into texas $125 billion in damage and a documented death toll of 88 houstonians are still recovering from the damage in some areas but dr huilin gao assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university is using hurricane harvey to research how coastal flooding damage can be minimalized in the future gao has been awarded a grant (cbet 1805584) from the national science foundation (nsf) to research how key factors in the urban areas of houston played a role in the amount of flooding that ensued she will focus on how urbanization factored in to the severity of the flooding evaluate the skill of precipitation forecasting along with its impact on streamflow prediction and investigate the effectiveness of reservoir flow regulation during the event the research using this integrated modeling framework will help close existing knowledge gaps and will improve future decision-making under extreme flood events gao will seek out solutions to mitigate the impacts of coastal urban flooding by deciphering the hydrological processes that were used during the hurricane her objective is to enhance environmental sustainability education for students of all levels and hopes that it will engage the students in learning more about their environment gaos research interests consist of hydrometeorology hydroclimatology hydrological modeling remote sensing and water resources management she has previously received the tees young faculty fellow award the national academies of sciences engineering medicine early-career research fellowship and the nsf career award
2449,one of the biggest drawbacks of drilling research is a universitys inability to have a state-of-the-art rig available to students for studying the physics of drilling operations it is simply too expensive and risky for most academic budgets yet student researchers need this access to learn how to solve issues they are taught to identify in the advanced drilling classes at texas a&m universityassistant professor dr sam noynaert and professor of engineering practice fred dupriest of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering found a solution to this problem by directly involving their graduate students in actual field drilling operations through a program they developed called applied drilling research (adr) adr offers typically independent unconventional operators the chance to have the specific performance limiters in their drilling processes investigated if the solution to the problem requires physics-based knowledge the drilling operation does not already have a detailed adr contract is drawn up to investigate but only if the company involves the student researchers deeply in their daily operations through this cooperation noynaert dupriest and their students gain access to field data specific well information an experienced engineer involved in the project and often the vendors of the drilling equipment the company uses noynaert and dupriest stress investigation and proper communication in their drilling classes because they noticed a reoccurring theme in unconventional reservoir drilling: not enough time was taken to understand anomalies and drilling limitations that kept occurring this is because drilling operations are expected to stay within specific cost and time parameters so drilling teams are encouraged to work around issues where possible if a drilling team observes that certain rock formations always need an extra drill bit that empirical lesson is passed down to other drilling teams as a known limitation and becomes standard practice dupriest and noynaert feel these accepted issues need to be investigated to determine if research can provide an answer that produces a better tool or technique for future drilling operations thanks to todays technology performance anomalies and limitations can be identified in every foot of holes drilled with a rig using remote access to high-speed digital data i dont need a rig out here in the backyard of texas a&m said dupriest with data available from a typical rig with the subroutines i can run and the instruments i can place on that rig i can get the same level of information i might be able to get from to a large degree a controlled environment at texas a&mthe graduate student researchers in adr view this as an incredible opportunity to work with actual operation data from real-time drilling using the best information possible they expressed excitement to see tenets they learned in class come to life in a practical application(the students) are focused on developing new knowledge but they are doing that within the context of how it gets used and they are promising to deliver to that company a different way of drilling said dupriest its a very different academic learning experiencethe pace of a real-time drilling operation is a daunting challenge for the students as the contract requires an 8 to 12 month day-in day-out effort the professors evaluate morning rig reports and review data with the students the students attend conference calls with company engineers input information the operators provide and analyze causes and effects until a solution is foundits like a normal project anywhere else out in the workplace said noynaert youre constantly re-evaluating and keeping up with itsolutions are published by the student researchers so other companies can improve their operations the information is also incorporated into the curriculum for both the undergraduate and graduate high-performance drilling classes at texas a&m
2450,in one case the low drill rates and the need for two bits to drill a given interval was seen as normal or even excellent performance said dupriest yet our discrete analysis of digital data and operating practices showed that stickslip in a few feet of interfacial severity was the sole cause of damage and that the low drill rate was due more to bit whirl than rock hardnessin order to gain the most complete information needed the companies also experience some academic learning in the initial phase of an adr project dupriest provides training on the physics of drilling mechanics work flow step tests and communications to get everyone in the drilling operation from the decision-makers at the top to those who work the rig in the field on the same page as the student researchers who learn these critical processes in their classes this comes back to academic training said dupriest we should understand how things work and make decisions based on that every time we take a subject and do these adrs we dig and dig and peel away the layers of the onion and find something physically at some level that didnt work the way we thoughtcompanies that have worked with adr have had a change of heart about accepting empirically learned standard practices without question since their drilling teams are able to participate in the field research collect the right data for adr and communicate important observations to the students workers are empowered with a sense of ownership in the process and willingly accept the results and change the way they operate when they understand the benefits of the investigation both professors have noticed an increase in participation of experienced industry engineers in the distance learning certificate classes that teach these same investigative processesfrom the sponsors perspective its a simply extraordinary rate of return said noynaert in a single well theyll pay off the (contract investment in) adr in most cases theyll end up cutting the days per well by two or more and those days are to be saved on each well drilled by each of their rigs going forward which makes the return of investment effectively infinite financially the program does not bring in millions but we dont need millions we just need to fund a few grad studentsthe students also experience an extraordinary rate of return even the undergraduate students who only learn the adr results through their coursework by phasing out observational habits that work around limitations and instead concentrating on solutions ferreted out by technology data and research this next generation of drilling engineers is better prepared to tackle the challenges future unconventional drilling reservoirs presentwhat we hope is when they graduate not only will they walk out the door as confident drilling engineers they also walk out with this unique understanding of how to get technology in the hole within an actual operating organization said dupriestwe are and want to remain the place where if a company says ‘we need a good drilling engineer they should think ‘we need to come to texas a&m first and see if theres any graduates we can hire said noynaert
2451,dr javier jo associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university will play a role and contribute to the national biomedical research effort as a standing member of the biomedical imaging technology-a (bmit-a) study section at the national institutes of health (nih) study sections provide recommendations on what research efforts merit funding with a federal budget jo said such recommendations define the directions of the biomedical research performed in this country jo will serve with bmit-a for six years where he will be expected to demonstrate mature judgment objectivity and teamwork members of nih study sections are invited by their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments publications in scientific journals and other significant scientific achievements members of the bmit-a study section review applications that involve design and development of medical imaging system technologies their components software and mathematical methods for studies at the cellular organ small or large animal and human scale they will then make recommendations as to which to consider for funding as a principal investigator for nih grants i am very grateful for the service provided by the many study section members that in the past have reviewed and continue to review my grant applications jo said these reviewers take a considerable amount of time carefully studying your research applications and provide sound advice on how to make your proposed research project more impactful jo added that this will also be an opportunity to learn about recent developments in other related specialized fields as well as to network with top researchers within and outside his professional community all these would provide great opportunities to establish new collaborations and/or explore new directions for my research program he said
2452,smartphones tablets ipads – mobile devices have become invaluable to the everyday consumer but few consider the security issues that occur when using these devices modern mobile applications or apps use cloud-hosted http-based application programming interface (api) services and heavily rely on the internet infrastructure for data communication and storage to improve performance and leverage the power of the mobile device input validation and other business logic required for interfacing with web api services are typically implemented on the mobile client however when a web service implementation fails to thoroughly replicate input validation it gives rise to inconsistencies that could lead to attacks that can compromise user security and privacy developing automatic methods of auditing web apis for security remains challenging
2453,dr guofei gu associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and director of the success lab together with his doctoral students abner mendoza and guangliang yang are working to combat these security issues gu and his team analyzed 10 000 mobile apps and found that many of them are open to web api hijacking – something that potentially affects the privacy and security of tens of millions of business users and consumers globally the root of the threat lies in the inconsistencies that are often found between app and server logic in web api implementations for mobile apps gus team created the wardroid framework to crawl applications automatically carrying out reconnaissance and uncovering these kinds of inconsistencies using static analysis along with what kinds of http requests are accepted by the server once an attacker has the information on what these requests look like he or she can carry out their own actions by tweaking a few parameters as a simple example gu explains in a vulnerable shopping app/server a malicious user could shop for free by making some of the item prices in the shopping cart as negative (with tweaking some http parameters) which should not be allowed by the app but unfortunately can be accepted by the server after identifying many vulnerable real-world mobile apps/servers that affect millions of users gus team has communicated with the developers to help them fix the vulnerabilities this research has already generated real-world impacts their research paper was published in proceedings of the 2018 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) symposium on security & privacy (s&p18) one of the most prestigious top conferences in cybersecurity with an acceptance rate lower than 12 percent this work has also been reported in several media outlets including bleepingcomputer threatpost and securityboulevard and also generated extensive discussion on the popular technology social news website slashdot this is just one example of gus research on mobile app security at the same conference gus team had another research paper on mobile app security that identifies a new type of vulnerability named origin stripping vulnerabilities (osv) in modern hybrid mobile apps and introduces a new mitigation solution osv-free for more details on gus research on mobile security please visit his labs website
2454,with technology the only thing that never changes is change itself this past weekend 55 students had 48 hours to design new concepts with an emphasis in medical technology at aggies invent which is hosted by the texas a&m university college of engineering from devices to manage cholesterol to an apparatus that would induce hypothermia in a heart attack victim students emerged better prepared to tackle real-world problems with life-saving capabilities joining the texas a&m engineering participants were students from other universities who are participating in the undergraduate summer research grant program students in texas a&ms enmed program and those studying biomedical engineering were also strongly encouraged to participate
2455,this weekend provided students a great opportunity to collaborate with students from other universities and come up with interesting solutions to problems facing the medical industry said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program at texas a&m the awesome thing about aggies invent is that we can give students real problems that need solutions in real life nothing can turn the wheels of innovation like the opportunity to save lives and make a difference in the world in the end it was team sonocentesis who took home the first-place award $1 000 the team was comprised of four biomedical engineering students who developed a solution for patients suffering from ascites or an abnormal collection of fluid in the abdomen the device would use modified ultrasound transducer technology to scan the abdomen and predict the depth of fluid pockets in order to drain the fluid the current procedure has an increased risk for missing the fluid pockets perforating organs or hitting blood vessels for teammate tawfik hussein this aggies invent allowed him to combine his interest in medicine with his love of engineering the senior said this was the first time he has participated in an aggies inventascites is very common in the developing world and the developed world and it can cause a lot of discomfort to patients hussein said for senior kendrick lim the project inspired him
2456,when we first entered the competition we had no idea how to solve this problem he said the time constraint is good because it limits you from trying to figure out every technical aspect and focus on the big picture instead junior niloufar jafari enjoyed being able to work with her friends and classmates on a project outside the classroom it was interesting to me and since my major is biomedical i want to create devices that are helpful she said senior samantha sliva said the event was more fun than she anticipated i didnt think we would come up with such a solid idea she said the solution already in place worked well but all the complications involved have to do with human error by designing a device that could eliminate human error would be a good opportunity the second-place team lift created a device that could help move a patient under anesthesia from the surgical table to the hospital bed in order to be transported to their room teammates were josh allers mario mendoza hunter tellet kyle king martin kao and nathan blackmon the third-place team data md designed technology that would use social media and other data to help predict patterns in emergency rooms to better help hospitals schedule their staff the next aggies invent will take place sept 28-30 in the brand-new fischer engineering design center located in the zachry engineering education complex
2457,the gofly prize a two-year $2 million international competition to create a personal flying device announced the 10 winners of phase i of the challenge including team texas a&m university led by dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering the competition sponsored by boeing launched in september 2017 with almost 3 000 innovators across 95 countries competing in phase i gofly tasked teams with creating a personal flying device that can safely be flown by anyone anywhere 20 miles without refueling or recharging with vertical or near vertical takeoff and landing capability benedicts team created harmony a compact rotorcraft designed to minimize noise and maximize efficiency safety reliability and flight experience as one of the winning teams they were awarded a $20 000 prize based on their written report we decided to take part in the gofly challenge because we think this is a great opportunity for us to contribute to the field of aviation by developing a safe green and more importantly truly practical personal air vehicle which is something we have always dreamed of said benedict this can provide a means of quick transportation for a single person from point a to b via air while experiencing the thrill of flying this will be a paradigm shift in the way we look at air transportation today and will have huge benefits to the mankind in the future the design process involved configuration selection to meet the strict design requirements of the gofly challenge followed by a detailed design using in-house codes for rotor performance analysis and sizing acoustic analysis vehicle flight dynamics and control modeling state-of-the-art legacy computational fluid dynamics codes for performance verification along with targeted experiments and detailed drawings and composite blade structural design they have also built and flight tested a 1/8th scale model of their vehicle
2458,i'm really excited to be a part of the gofly project because it is an outlet for creativity said team member david coleman we have a really constrained design space and so we have to get creative in terms of shape configuration and orientation and we also want a vehicle that looks like you want to ‘go fly it from the beginning of the project the team worked through practical issues that needed to be overcome the first of those was the size of the personal air vehicle (pav); it had to be something small enough (max dimension less than 85 ft) that you can just pull it out of your garage take off vertically and fly it wherever you want you want your pav to be very compact said benedict but then there is a big trade-off between efficiency vs compactness for a rotor if you make a rotor very compact to reduce the footprint you lose efficiency that is the reason why helicopters rotors are very big so we have carefully chosen a configuration that can give you very high efficiency for the given footprint the next issue they addressed is noise benedict pointed out that many pavs taking off from a neighborhood could be awfully loud to combat this the team uniquely shaped the blades to minimize the rotor noise as much as possible one of the goals of the gofly competition is to have a vehicle that is very easy for anyone to fly not just an experienced pilot to overcome this hurdle the team designed the control system in a way that is very stable and easy enough to be flown with very minimal training bochan lee a graduate researcher under benedict is helping to develop the control system based on seven years of south korean navy helicopter pilot experience i'm so excited to participate in the gofly prize because it is a great opportunity to design and build the next generation unique flying vehicle lee said taking the safety of the pilot in to consideration benedicts team chose a design where the pilots legs are nowhere close to the tip of a rotor blade their design also has the pilot seated above the rotor to provide him or her a great field of view unconstrained by a canopy adding to the thrill of flying much like riding a motorcycle the team is now in the process of turning their design into a fully functioning flying prototype for phase ii while they have built and flight-tested a wide range of vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicles in the past this vehicle is much bigger than anything they have ever done there are some unique technical barriers we have identified and those need to be overcome to make this a reality says benedict we have a very motivated team extremely passionate about vertical flight and this challenge in particular and i am very confident that we can make it happen their biggest challenge right now is finding sponsors and raising money to build the prototype i'm excited about gofly because it's a rare opportunity for me to significantly contribute to aviation as a fresh graduate said team member farid saemi i'm not just another cog in the corporate machine i am the motor of an electric flying machine teams do not need to have submitted a design or won phase i in order to compete in phase ii awards for phase ii will include four $50 000 prizes awarded to teams with the best prototypes in march 2019 and phase iii will unveil the grand-prize winner awarded at the final fly-off in the fall of 2019 the texas a&m engineering experiment station office of commercialization and entrepreneurship provided support to commercialize and further develop the teams concept
2459,the 16 team members are listed below in alphabetical order: dr moble benedict (captain) is an assistant professor of aerospace engineering and founder of advanced vertical flight laboratory (avfl) with 15 years of experience in vtol aircraft concepts he was awarded the 2012 aiaa young engineer-scientist award 2016 ahs bagnoud award and $25 000 grand prize at the lockheed martin innovate the future global challenge david coleman is a doctoral student conducting research at avfl on a robotic hummingbird concept which he has designed built and flight tested he has won numerous awards for his work and was one of the semi-finalists for the 2018 mit lemelson award hunter denton is a masters student in avfl he has designed and built numerous small scale coaxial helicopter systems including the gofly proof of concept nima ershad is a doctoral student in the electrical and computer engineering department he is experienced and interested in power electronics and its applications in motor drives design prototyping and analysis of electrical machines and powertrains dr bharath govindarajan is an assistant research professor at the university of maryland with a focus on rotorcraft aerodynamics and helicopter design he has participated and won in the american helicopter societys annual international design competition both as a graduate student and faculty advisor dr eric greenwood received a phd in aerospace engineering from the university of maryland and is a researcher at nasa langley developing rotor noise modeling methods and experimental techniques he was awarded the nasa early career achievement medal in 2017 and the 2018 ahs bagnoud award for this work atanu halder is pursuing his doctoral degree in aerospace engineering he works at avfl developing design framework of next generation vtol uavs based on a novel cyclorotor concept he won best paper award at 2017 ahs forum and vertical flight foundation scholarship in 2018 adam kellen is a masters student in aerospace engineering his specialties include mechanical design cad and experimental testing for the past three years he has worked at avfl to understand the scalability of a novel cyclorotor concept dr vinod lakshminarayan is a research scientist at science and technology corporation nasa ames research center he is one of the primary developers of the high-performance computational software helios which is used for design and analysis of complex rotary wing systems at the department of defense and us helicopter companies bochan lee has seven years of experience as a south korean navy uh-60 pilot and a current graduate researcher at avfl working on autonomous helicopter ship landing he won the 2018 vertical flight foundation scholarship andrew riha is a masters student in aerospace engineering working on boundary layer transition carl runco is a doctoral student at avfl and has several years experience designing creating and flying one-of-a-kind vtol rotorcraft farid saemi is a doctoral student in aerospace engineering he works at avfl and his research is focused on developing physics-based motor controller and battery models dr ananth sridharan is a research scientist at the university of maryland college park during the last 10 years he has worked on several aspects of helicopter design including flight dynamics and control vibration prediction aeromechanics design optimization and preliminary sizing vishaal subramanian is a masters student in aerospace engineering he has participated in sae aero design competitions from 2014-16 aswathi sudhir is a doctoral student in materials and structures in aerospace engineering her research focus is on computational damage mechanics in composite materials
2460,the computer science and engineering and electrical and computer engineering departments at texas a&m university came together to promote computer engineering education and practical applications for students a team of four electrical and computer engineering graduate students known as the hackin aggies have qualified for 2018 hack@dac finals a hardware-security competition for students and industry experts the team is led by computer science and engineering associate professor of practice michael quinn dr jeyavijayan rajendran electrical and computer engineering assistant professor is a member of the events organizing committee having placed first in the initial phase of the competition the hackin aggies competed in the final competition at the design automation conference in san francisco california june 24-28 where they ended up tying for first place the team is comprised of captain sheena goel; bhavani bedre shankar saumil gogri and zhiyang ong sheena bhavani and saumil have all taken and excelled in my verification class and brought excellent verification skills and expertise to the team while zhiyang brings design skills and security architecture expertise to the team quinn said sheena has been the teaching assistant for my verification classes the past two semesters so she was the obvious choice to lead the team and has done a fantastic job in that role the focus of this years competition centers on the trustworthiness of system-on-chips (socs) which are circuits that integrate all components of a computer or other electronic systems the safety of these can be undermined by security bugs in third-party ip addresses (3pips) and vulnerabilities emerging from their integration when exploited a bug may cause system failure or create a backdoor for an attacker to gain remote access and leak secrets from the system competitions present a great opportunity for students to augment their classroom experience by tackling practical challenges in a stimulating environment said dr dilma da silva computer science department head this was one more example of faculty members from the two departments joining forces to better serve our computer engineering students in february the hackin aggies received their first soc design and its simulation-based verification environment along with a few minimal design specification documents and the competition rules document they had until the end of april to find and document as many bugs and security-related issues as possible the goal of this competition is to develop strategies and computer-aided tools for assessing trustworthiness of socs that use 3pips during the contest teams act like a real-life security validation team given an soc with known vulnerabilities the teams compete to find and report the bugs while earning points student and industry teams were invited to register
2461,stephanie wilcox didnt just see her engineering degree as a means to one day attain financial freedom and job security she saw it as a catalyst to affect real change in the world now as a recent texas a&m university graduate with an electrical engineering degree shes interning at the johns hopkins university applied physics laboratory and will travel to china later this year on a fulbright award to pursue research wilcoxs focus isnt in computing and electrical systems instead she wants to study how the human brain functions and interacts with medical technology through the grand challenge scholars program at texas a&m university wilcox got to roll up her sleeves and start researching before she even graduated the three-year program allows engineering students to conduct research based on one of the 14 grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century outlined by the national academy of engineering these grand challenges identified by a team of global technological thinkers as a call to action range from sustainability initiatives to human health improvements and cybersecurity the whole world is trying to solve these issues and this was a way i could contribute she said my research was about using optoelectronics to gain insight into the brain wilcoxs inspiration for this type of research started at a young age since third grade she has watched her best friend struggle with an autoimmune disorder later wilcox began reading non-fiction books about mental health disorders and brain function from there she was hooked she wanted to understand how the brain worked and how reverse-engineering the brain could benefit people around the world with a wide range of health issues i began to see and continue to see the impact of medical progress through technology she said the innovation and excitement of engineering impacted me because i saw its effects so directly wilcox also participated in other research projects throughout her undergraduate career at texas a&m through the undergraduate summer research grant she utilized microfluidics to analyze microalgal response to various temperatures for microalgal biofuel under the direction of dr arum han professor in the department of biomedical engineering and electrical engineering she also did research through the aggie_challenge program to develop a 3d bioprinted cancer mimicking model in another research course she studied the design and development of childrens engineering toys wilcox was a member of engineering honors and the texas a&m chapter of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers for which she served as chair of their annual hackathon tamumake in august wilcox will leave the johns hopkins university applied physics laboratory and head to china for three months of language classes before arriving at her research post the dalian university of technology in east china on the yellow sea i applied for a fulbright because i want to eventually work internationally she said this experience will give me exposure to the skills that will be applicable
2462,as an engineering student wilcox studied abroad at texas a&ms campus in qatar as well as in mexico while abroad wilcox got to see firsthand the power of the aggie network i really wanted to go to istanbul she said so i used the aggie network to find someone who was in istanbul and i connected with them the connection permitted me to travel and see the city with the company of a local wilcox said the aggie network provides a unique community that students and graduates of other universities may not have in the end her personal drive and passion for research combined with her experiences as an aggie have paved the way for her future
2463,triad national security llc which includes the texas a&m university system has received official notice to proceed toward managing the los alamos national laboratory in los alamos new mexico the national nuclear security administration notified triad on july 9 to begin the four-month transition this is a significant milestone in the history of texas a&ms commitment to public service john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system said in announcing the start of the transition of the los alamos national laboratory from the current management team to triad which includes the texas a&m system the university of california and the battelle memorial institute los alamos is one of the most important nuclear security assets in the world we are committed to working with our partners to enhance safety and security at the lab while advancing its world-class science and executing its vital missions sharp added obviously this is a huge affirmation of the nationally recognized quality of research teaching and national service at texas a&m the texas a&m system brings to the triad team expertise in nuclear engineering criticality safety and workforce development all of which are important to the future of the los alamos national laboratory triad will assume management and operational responsibility for the laboratory when the transition period ends nov 1 dr thomas mason will serve as president of triad and director of the los alamos national laboratory mason brings extensive national lab management experience to the position having served for more than a decade as the director of the us department of energys oak ridge national laboratory in tennessee most recently mason was senior vice president for global laboratory operations at battelle it is a tremendous honor to be selected as director-designate of one of the worlds leading scientific institutions which is working at the forefront of science to solve complex nuclear security and energy challenges mason said
2464,the american society for engineering education (asee) has awarded dr arun srinivasa with the 2018 archie higdon distinguished educator award the honor highlights srinivasas distinguished and outstanding contributions to engineering mechanics education through his work to revitalize the introductory sophomore classes by introducing project-based learning and active learning strategies i have been working on these aspects for more than a decade and this award is a recognition of texas a&m universitys commitment and leadership in developing advanced pedagogy in engineering education said srinivasa a professor in the department of mechanical engineering as an academic in the area of mechanics it is a very gratifying and humbling experience to be recognized by my peers throughout the us for my efforts in improving mechanics education and highlighting its relevance to the current practice of engineering srinivasa received the award in june during the asee mechanics banquet at the societys 125th annual conference in salt lake city utah
2465,the university of south brittany (ubs) in france awarded dr jaime grunlan professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university its esteemed honorary doctorate degree – an honor associated with great distinction officially established in france in 1918 the honorary doctorate – also referred to as doctorate honoris causa – is considered among the most prestigious distinctions awarded by french universities to foreign academics who have made a significant contribution to their respective field the ceremony took place june 26 in lorient france along with the university's phd awards ceremony
2466,"""i simply cannot believe i'm getting something like this at my age "" grunlan said ""the doctorate honoris causa means more than i can say i know a number of french academics who have told me this is very rare"" according to a letter from ubs president jean peeters announcing the award grunlan was selected for the honor based on his renown as well as his collaborations with university researchers in the field of nanoconducting polymeric composites for more than a decade grunlan has collaborated with ubs faculty member and fellow polymer nanocomposites expert jean-francois feller grunlan and feller have published numerous papers together since 2005 on the topic of polymer composite sensors/electronics"
2467,researchers at texas a&m university and the stevens institute of technology are laying the groundwork to develop the next generation of biomedical materials used to treat chronic wounds research partners dr svetlana sukhishvili and dr hongjun wang conceived the project during a meeting regarding their groups primary focus of research experiments were conducted at both facilities and the results of each were combined to form one cohesive study both are researchers funded by the national science foundation and the national institutes of health respectively
2468,our group has expertise in developing new polymers and functional surface assemblies for biomedical applications said sukhishvili professor and director of the soft matter facility at texas a&m
2469,the findings from this study provide an important stepping stone for developing smarter skin grafts that can help facilitate wound healing while minimizing infection for those hard to heal skin wounds added wang professor and chair of the department of biomedical engineering at stevens institute of technology at texas a&m we investigated how to build a stimuli-responsive polymeric material that could absorb and release antibiotics when prompted by a physiologically relevant stimuli explained victoria albright graduate student and lead researcher in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m the teams solution was to add functional containers or micelles on the surface of biodegradable fiber meshes to enhance surface functionality once we had a working system we then sought to understand how this material would interact with bacteria and found it would be able to prevent infection as desired albright said
2470,"wang and his team studied the interaction of human cells with the material they found that the material was not only nontoxic but also enhanced cellular growth and migration due to the surface-bound micelles which changed the surface topography or texture this study demonstrates how important the engineering of specific surface structures and functionalization or changing the surface chemistry is for designing advanced biomaterial and controlling interactions of living matter with artificial materials this important advance demonstrates the benefits of bringing together creative approaches from polymer science and biomaterials "" said andrew lovinger one of the national science foundation (nsf) program officers who helped fund this work ""it also illustrates the breadth of nsfs mission which is not only ‘to promote the progress of science but also ‘to advance the national health simply put the team created new polymer materials that can be used to coat wounds with previously unachievable properties virtually turning the surfaces of skin grafts into highly functional ones the material we designed could potentially be used for advanced wound dressings albright concluded these materials would have the highest impact in hard-to-heal wound cases such as those for diabetic ulcers and chronic wounds ""now that we have shown very promising 'in vitro' results with human cells the next critical step for the team is to further demonstrate this concept via 'in vivo' testing said wang next the team will work closely with clinicians to optimize our design maximize benefits for patients and enhance the real-world applicability of the skin graft the team will continue to engineer the skin graft to specifically address different types of wounds and to further personalize it for different patients"" the researchers plan to continue working together to further develop this and similar materials as part of their long-term collaboration the research teams findings were electronically published on the cover of advanced healthcare materials and featured in advanced science news"
2471,junior david moore in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is furthering his medical technology knowledge this summer with an internship at the vaccine branch of the national cancer institute part of the national institutes of health the overall goal of the research project moore is a part of is to develop a method to use extracellular vesicles (evs) as clinical biomarkers for cancer extracellular vesicles are tiny spherical particles that are released by cells and are involved heavily in cell-to-cell communication and in transporting compounds such as proteins dna and rna in and out of cells moore said research interest in evs has skyrocketed due to their potential use as biomarkers for disease as well as their therapeutic potential
2472,since they are released from cell membranes the surface makeup of extracellular vesicles closely matches the surface of the parent cell moore said thus the analysis of a cell's evs can yield much information about that cell which is why they could be useful in analyzing how cancer cells as well as normal cells are responding to treatment moore said the research could have a significant impact on the way doctors treat cancer especially for early detection in recent years there has been a huge emphasis on personalized cancer treatment targeted medicine as there are many different types of cancers and everyone responds the disease differently moore said thus if the method we are working on turns out to be successful it could be incredibly beneficial to doctors in determining very quickly if the treatment they are using is working on the particular patient being treated or if they need to change the type of treatment the team is working on creating an analysis pipeline for detecting/isolating certain types of evs released by cancer cells within the body and using the isolated evs and their cargo to determine the effectiveness of cancer treatments dr jennifer jones the team lead is a radiological oncologist and moore said one of the eventual goals of this research would be to use collected evs from the blood of her cancer patients to determine if they are responding positively to radiation treatments each intern is assigned their own task that fits into the main framework of the project and collaborate to complete tasks moore is collaborating with a team of two other undergraduates two post-baccalaureates and one post-doctoral researcher he is working with one of the post-baccalaureates to learn the different techniques to help him carry out his summer project and will be expected to be the flow cytometry expert among the undergraduate summer intern team by the time he leaves flow cytometry is an analysis tool used to gain information on cells and other small cellular particles such as extracellular vesicles moore said throughout the summer i will be learning techniques such as (ev) isolation and flow cytometry data analysis one of moores first responsibilities will be to cultivate two cell lines prostate and colorectal cancer cells in order to collect their evs for future analysis he said he is drawing from previous research with cell cultures in the pharmacoengineering laboratory directed by dr corey bishop in the department of biomedical engineering the texas a&m lab aims to engineer drug delivery platforms for personalized and targeted medicine augment restore or inhibit cellular functions of interest via gene modulation and elucidate structure-function relationships to enable the design of superior drug carriers moore said the decision to study biomedical engineering came as a result of a love of the science and an interest to pursue a career in medicine either in research or as a practicing doctor i decided i wanted to apply my passion for chemistry and biology to approach medicine from a more innovative technological perspective moore said that is how i decided biomedical engineering might be the best choice of major for me
2473,jeremy osborn won the jd williams student paper award at the 59th annual meeting of the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) took place from july 22-26 in baltimore maryland osborn is a phd student in the department of nuclear engineering working with the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) director dr sunil chirayath the award for the best student paper at the meeting is based on the students written paper and oral presentation and includes a $1000 prize i am honored by the support and recognition from the inmm community said osborn it represents the success of the texas a&m nuclear forensics group osborns paper titled experimental validation of a nuclear forensics methodology for source reactor-type discrimination of chemically separated plutonium presents the results of his dissertation work to develop new methods to determine the reactor origins of weapons-grade plutonium this research is part of a seven-year project funded by the us department of homeland securitys domestic nuclear detection office under an academic research initiative (dndo-ari) grant which is led by chirayath in conjunction with dr charles m folden iii of the cyclotron institute
2474,i believe the greatest strength of the project is the fusion of computational simulations research reactor irradiations radiochemistry laboratory work and experimental measurements osborn explained osborn successfully defended his dissertation this summer and will be graduating in december he recently joined nsspi as a postdoctoral research associate chirayath was also awarded an inmm senior membership appointment at the meeting osborn was one of three nsspi students to present at the meeting; yanuar setiawan and athena sagadevan also had papers there texas a&m nuclear engineering undergraduate student mario mendoza attended the meeting on behalf of the texas a&m inmm student chapter as the incoming president nsspi assistant research engineer dr evans kitcher presented a fifth paper and chirayath also co-chaired a session on education & training: empowering the workforce
2475,a team of 11 texas a&m university women engineering students recently competed and qualified in the semifinals at the 2018 international association for unmanned vehicle systems international (auvsi) robosub competition in san diego california the team was one of 27 that qualified from the original 47 international teams they also received an award for best knowledge transfer for sharing information they learned to benefit other teams and another for mentorship recognizing efforts in outreach to encourage other young women to pursue robotics northrop grumman corporation also awarded the team 10 internship opportunities for next summer this was the first year that the company was awarding internships to university students that participated in auvsi northrop grumman representatives took an interest in the team after attending their static judging and technical presentation
2476,these students are impressive said shawna fletcher director of the women in engineering (we) program theyre working on real-world concepts that professional engineers struggle with on a daily basis theyre doing it on their own time for fun and that is why industry is taking notice the team has competed for the past three years and each time the autonomous underwater vehicle (auv) is redesigned and improved upon past experiences and new ideas are called upon and combined together to construct a better robot than the year before each year a new design leads to lessons learned in the field of underwater vehicles those lessons lead to a better build and a more robust and stable vehicle it was a huge relief to qualify said kaitlin frierson senior electronic systems engineering technology major i know the whole team has worked tirelessly to get the auv ready for competition but it never gets old to hear a bunch of aggies ‘whoop! after a well-earned victory we have a reputation at the competition for being heard across the complex when we qualify
2477,in partnership with the engineering design center the team works to build the auv designed to autonomously navigate through a series of tasks that mimic ongoing research in autonomous underwater systems along the road of building this competitive robot students gain more than technical skills i wanted a way to challenge myself and grow my skills outside of a traditional lecture setting said frierson after the first year i found myself in not only a leadership role but a mentorship role as well it has been so fulfilling to help others develop their skills and confidence the we robotic engineering aggie females is a student-lead project team from texas a&m sponsored by the women in engineering program the team was divided into three sub-teams programming electrical and mechanical and gives students the opportunity to apply their knowledge from the classroom to real-world scenarios
2478,even after spending a year designing and building the vehicle competition day may not be smooth sailing long days are spent at the competition preparing for each test run the team weathers through sleepless nights working to solve the latest mystery of nonperfect performance dedication is an understatement when it comes to describing the members getting through those final weeks sometimes it's loose wires a leaky vehicle or thrusters that aren't working said brenda lopez team captain and senior manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology major whatever it is it has to be figured out before day five [of the competition] once the vehicle is finally working the way its supposed to and goes through that qualifying gate it makes all of the time and energy put into this vehicle and all of those sleepless nights worth it whether its moving forward after a design setback or kicking back at the competition and having a disney sing-a-long the team agrees the lessons learned were worth the time spent working together we supports three competition technical project teams year-round with help from the engineering design center said fletcher the ultimate goal is to give students an opportunity to participate in technical projects and build confidence through understanding what it takes to build a working vehicle from start to finish these students can be proud of their performance as well as how they have grown as a team and as engineers
2479,serendipitous discovery could boost efficiency in jet engines reduce plane noise and more a group of new smart materials discovered by researchers at texas a&m university and their colleagues has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of fuel burn in jet engines cutting the cost of flying the materials which could also reduce airplane noise over residential areas have additional applications in a variety of other industries what excites me is that we have just scratched the surface of something new that could not only open a completely new field of scientific research but also enable new technologies said dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor i and head of the universitys department of materials science and engineering the work was published in scripta materialia karamans co-authors are demircan canadinc william trehern and ji ma of texas a&m and fanping sun and zaffir chaudhry technical fellow of the united technologies research center (utrc) the discovery is based on bringing together two relatively new areas of materials science involving metal alloys or metals composed of two or more elements the first area involves shape-memory alloys smart materials that can switch from one shape to another with specific triggers in this case temperature picture a straight metal rod that is bent into a corkscrew by changing the temperature the corkscrew turns back into a rod and vice versa
2480,many applications many potential applications for shape-memory alloys involve extremely hot environments like a working jet engine until now however economical high-temperature shape memory alloys (htsmas) have only worked at temperatures up to about 400 degrees celsius adding elements like gold or platinum can significantly increase that temperature but the resulting materials are much too expensive among other limitations karaman while working on a nasa project with utrc and colleagues began this research to address a specific problem: controlling the clearance or space between turbine blades and the turbine case in a jet engine a jet engine is most fuel-efficient when the gap between the turbine blades and the case is minimized however this clearance has to have a fair margin to deal with peculiar operating conditions htsmas incorporated into the turbine case could allow the maintenance of the minimum clearance across all flight regimes thereby improving thrust specific fuel consumption another important potential application of htsmas is the reduction of noise from airplanes as they come in to an airport planes with larger exhaust nozzles are quieter but less efficient in the air htsmas could automatically change the size of the core exhaust nozzle depending on whether the plane is in flight or is landing such a change triggered by the temperatures associated with these modes of operation could allow both more efficient operation while in the air and quieter conditions at touchdown karaman and his colleagues decided to try increasing the operating temperatures of htsmas by applying principles from another new class of materials high-entropy alloys which are composed of four or more elements mixed together in roughly equal amounts the team created materials composed of four or more elements known to form shape-memory alloys (nickel titanium hafnium zirconium and palladium) but purposefully omitted gold or platinum when we mixed these elements in equal proportions we found that the resulting materials could work at temperatures well over 500 degrees cone worked at 700 degrees cwithout gold or platinum thats a discovery said karaman it was also unexpected because the literature suggested otherwise how do the new materials work karaman said they have ideas on how they operate at such high temperatures but do not have solid theories yet to that end future work includes trying to understand what is happening at the atomic scale by conducting computer simulations the researchers also aim to explore ways to improve the materials properties even further karaman notes however that many other questions remain thats why i believe this could open a completely new area of research he said while we will continue our own efforts we are excited that others will now join us so that together we can push the boundaries of science this joint project between utrc and texas a&m was funded by the nasa leading edge aeronautics research initiative
2481,working on a tight deadline might be a harrowing experience for most students but texas a&m universitys human-powered submarine team is no stranger to racing against the clock with members working in a tight space underwater in a high-pressure situation to pilot a human-powered submarine across the qinetiqs ocean basin in gosport england the team designed and built a human-powered submarine the hullabalooga and competed in the european international submarine races july 3-13 the team is comprised of students from the department of ocean engineering
2482,the team raced against 11 other university teams from the united states canada poland germany and the netherlands and was awarded best co-ed team hannah toerner team captain and graduate student said it wasnt an easy task getting the hullabalooga ready for competition the people who are physically building the submarines are not the same as the people that designed it because the process takes so much time said toerner the team is one of the few that designed built tested and funded their submarine for the competition themselves the hullabalooga is a tear-shaped two-man submarine that is 12 feet in diameter and 5 feet in width toerner said the building process itself takes about two years and the shell of the submarine must be built first before anything else to allow for trial and error during the rest of the process a great deal of troubleshooting and trial and error takes up most of the time so you can have the hull built in a year and everything in it but it might not necessarily be working and it can take another year to figure it out said toerner
2483,currently testing is being conducted in the wave basin in the offshore technology research center (otrc) at texas a&m the otrc wave basin is 150 feet long by 100 feet wide by 20 feet deep and allows for safety features ballasting and proper functioning of the submarine to be examined and adjusted however the basin does not allow for full speed testing because of its dimensions we can test out at the ortc but we cant go very far because its not a huge tank and so a lot of the issues we encountered we didn't know we had them until we got to the race last year said toerner we took what we had last year and then fixed it for this year and were successful a significant challenge the team faced was not being able to have the students who designed the original drive system present to help guide them through the testing and trial phases making it a multistep process to get the submarine running properly theyll support us in every way but they cant be here to say ‘that is not how it is set up and so its kind of hoping for the best said toerner there was that kind of difficulty transitioning from one class to another without much to go on toerner co-controlled the submarine with a teammate underwater during the race they sat back to back in the submarine and peddled and steered the machine during the testing phase there were some issues with operating the vessel that they needed to adjust to get it competition-ready
2484,only eight out of 15 members were able to compete but even those who werent present were still engaged throughout the duration of the race including toerners younger brother they were calling and facetiming us trying to see how it was going said toerner if we had any questions we would call them because they had been working on this just as much as us toerner said her experience as team captain has developed her time management people management and customer service skills during the competition she acted as the liaison for all communication efforts on the teams behalf giving her a chance to focus on a role that most engineers do not get to experience you can be a great engineer but if you cant communicate those ideas then there's no point said toerner you learn all of this stuff in class like fluid dynamics balance and buoyancy and building things thats great but its completely different once you get that kind of hands-on experience
2485,when your power goes out you probably assume that your utility provider has a monitoring system quickly telling them exactly where the problem is after all this is the era of smart technology and big data but the electric grid wasnt designed or built in this era utility companies may know if there is an outage but they likely dont know exactly where or what the problem is until crews inspect it and find the problem utility providers are essentially blind to developing problems in the grid other than whether the power is on or off not only is their ability to assess a current outage limited they also have no way of identifying a problem that may not actually be causing an outage or anticipating where a problem may occur in the future for example a failing device could be sparking creating a dangerous situation that nobody is aware of for days or weeks before it completely fails and causes an outage but not anymore applying concepts of pattern recognition and advanced signal processing to more than a decade of data a team of texas a&m university researchers has developed a new technology called distribution fault anticipation (dfa) it has the capability to not only help utility providers find the cause of outages but to also anticipate and predict some failures before outages occur (their published research application of dfa technology for improved reliability and operations was presented at the 2017 institute of electrical and electronics engineers rural electric power conference in columbus ohio) power distribution system electrical signals include specific failure signatures which tell a story for instance whether potential faults and outages are about to occur said dr b don russell a power engineer and the engineering research chair professor and distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m simply put theyve been ‘listening to the electric grid for more than a decade to analyze signals and identify which ones indicate a potential problem conceptually it is not much different from an auto mechanic who can hear a problem in an old engine and know exactly what is causing it practically however this is an entirely new technology
2486,the texas a&m research team led by russell includes carl benner jeff wischkaemper and karthick manivannan their research sponsored by the electric power research institute developed the dfa technology it is an autonomous distributed computing system that provides electric utility operators a continuous situational awareness of the condition of each circuit the result is increased reliability of their network and reduced outages it enables the utility operator to predict adverse power line conditions and events generally not detected by conventional technologies dfa recognizes the impending failure mechanisms of most distribution hardware often allowing operators to find and fix failing devices before catastrophic failure said russell the devices report line events to a master station server which provides access to reports from a fleet of dfa devices on circuits across the power system
2487,an obvious example of the benefits from this technology is wildfire prevention high winds can cause electric lines to contact causing arcing on the line and damaging it but not causing a complete outage the sparks from these faults have been known to start wildfires especially during dry conditions and often without the knowledge of utility personnel repeated contact can burn the line down dfa has also helped utilities detect and locate tree branches making contact with power lines and causing faults which can start fires directly or break a line and cause it to fall to the ground an example of this situation was the devastating fire of 2011 in bastrop texas where a true worst-case scenario unfolded when high winds and severe drought conditions caused the most damaging wildfire in texas history many wildfires in the western united states last year were also linked to electric faults russell explained that awareness of adverse events and conditions even before they cause a failure enables utility companies to take preventive action by performing repairs or condition-based maintenance the dfa technology is a result of more than 15 years of continuous research collaboration resulting in the only system of its kind a practical benefit of using dfa is the ability to detect and repair arcing and misoperating devices that often cause wildfires said russell in a four-year study just completed at texas a&m it has been proven that many fires can be prevented with this technology whether preventing wildfires or dangerous power lines on the ground dfa is the new tool that improves reliability and safety industry tested this technology is not just lab tested it is field proven as well robert peterson director of control center and emergency preparedness at pedernales electric cooperative the nation's largest distribution electric cooperative said dfa has been invaluable in providing information that is not available any other way dfa has enabled us to identify potential issues like trees on lines failing clamps failing arrestors etc and resolve those issues before they create power interruptions he said in one case we were able to pinpoint the location of a branch on an overhead line that could have become an ignition source for wildfire in a rural subdivision we have also used the monitors to provide information allowing us to proactively address issues with capacitor switches in order to keep our power factor within regulatory prescribed limits overall the technology has proven itself to the extent that our plans now include expanding their use to the rest of our distribution system dr comfort manyame senior manager of research and technical strategy and robert taylor engineering specialist at mid-south synergy were also complimentary of the technology taylor said it makes me wonder what we did before dfa while manyame said they are hoping to expand their use of dfa in the coming years
2488,thomas ellis manager of engineering at bluebonnet electric cooperative said that their control center operators have used dfa information to accurately determine the cause and location of multiple faults including a fault that affected just one single customer on a stretch of circuit with more than 160 miles of overhead line we would have been unaware of this issue until a member reported an outage which did not happen for a full hour ellis said a crew was already en route with the information that the likely cause was a failed arrester before we even got the call from the affected location according to ellis information provided by dfa allows us to better identify intermittent faults incipient failures and capacitor malfunctions increased prefailure awareness facilitates proactive equipment repair to mitigate catastrophic failures and avoid sustained outages he added that dfa technology not only improves customer satisfaction but also improves worker safety thanks to diagnostic capability of the system leading to more efficient troubleshooting that kind of industry feedback makes all of the efforts by dfa creators worth it according to benner an engineer co-inventor and associate research professor in the electrical and computer engineering department we have spent 20 years developing dfa benner said i get great personal satisfaction when i see utility companies using it on a day-to-day basis to improve their operations and the quality of service they provide to their customers this research is funded by the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the texas wildfire mitigation project which was initially established by the texas state legislature in 2013 with the support of the texas a&m forest service
2489,the zachry engineering education complex opened its doors on aug 25 for an open house students shared their thoughts about the building
2490,"""i like how its open and you can see whats going on in the rooms and labs its complex and intricate and i can already feel its going to be a positive learning environment i'm excited to gain more skills and attributes to enhance my career prospects"" -jeremiah lockhart '22"
2491,"""i wasnt a big fan of the (engineering activity buildings) because they were small so im excited to be in a much bigger space i like how its meant to be interconnected with the clubs and organizations based out of this building"" -keely chacon '21 mechanical engineering"
2492,"""it's definitely more than i expected i'm excited about the common labs i think this building will encourage more collaboration on multidisciplinary projects the eic (engineering innovation center) tried to do that but it never had enough space"" -ian tallerine '18 aerospace engineering"
2493,"""im already proud to be an engineer at texas a&m but seeing this building that pride just skyrockets im going to spend all of my time here -lanise williams '20 industrial and systems engineering"
2494,"""i really like what theyve done with the art i can tell they spent lots of time working on the design and open spaces and it has paid off"" -jonah taylor '21"
2495,"""i'm a first-generation student from a small town we didnt have anything like this its so cool there's lots of technology and endless ways to learn i never really had access to this much technology so im ready to dive into all of it"" -kennon wishert '22"
2496,"""i like the open classroom concept; it's collaborative and you don't have to crane your neck to see the board with the art and open space we look like a west coast tech school"" -mike le '19 electrical engineering"
2497,"""it's very impressive i like how it's a facility for all engineering students freshmen can interact with upperclassmen ask them questions and learn from them"" -emma deblonk '20 civil engineering"
2498,dr kristen maitland associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been accepted into the competitive year-long executive leadership in academic technology and engineering (elate) at drexel® program the elite program accepted 18 women from across the nation and canada into the 2018-19 class who are leaders in biotechnology chemistry engineering and health science each was nominated by her dean or provost and will contribute to institutional initiatives as she expands her leadership skills maitlands research is focused on the use of photonic technologies for detection diagnosis and treatment of disease her research team has developed handheld multimodal imaging and diagnostic systems for applications including bacterial infection and cancer
2499,as an elate fellow maitland said she has set some personal goals for her time in the program including expanding her leadership skills and effectiveness i want to improve my understanding of the financial and administrative structure of texas a&m university and how my area of influence fits within the organizational goals and strategic vision of the university she said maitland served previously in different leadership roles in the department including associate department head and director of graduate programs she recently took a university-wide leadership role as director of the texas a&m microscopy and imaging center a core facility where she is responsible for managerial and technical leadership this program will train me to better understand administration budgeting and strategic plans for the university maitland said along with online assignments and an onsite project maitland will travel to meet with the other fellows three times over the next year at drexel university in pennsylvania the value of participation in an external leadership program is that you gain an outside perspective about leadership and develop a community of diverse academic leaders from across the nation maitland said as part of the program each fellow must plan and complete an institutional action project to address issues beyond their specialty the goal is to collaborate with the dean provost and/or other senior executive mentors to deepen the fellows understanding of new knowledge and skills gained through the fellowship while addressing a need on campus maitland said she plans to focus her project on imaging throughout the university integrating research and core facilities texas a&m has fantastic imaging capability she said we have significant potential to fulfill imaging needs increase capacity bring together imaging users with technology developers and enhance synergy between imaging and data science
2500,"dr ying li has been awarded a new grant from the national science foundation that seeks to support research with the potential to develop an environmentally friendly method of recycling one of earth's most common greenhouse gases li serves as associate professor pioneer natural resources faculty fellow iii and director of graduate programs in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university the three-year award will enable li to support and train one doctoral student to conduct fundamental research in nanomaterials for energy sustainability the support provides li with the ability to broaden the field of his research in the area of carbon dioxide utilization and has the potential to produce an economically viable method of recycling the greenhouse gas into useful products ""this new award focuses on electrocatalytic conversion of co2 and water to gaseous or liquid fuels that can be easily stored and transported "" li said ""the electricity consumed in this process can be generated from renewable sources such as solar and wind so this approach is green and sustainable"" li serves as the principal investigator on the research project which is a collaborative effort with peers from the university of pittsburgh and the university at buffalo details about the research project can be found on the nsf website"
2501,dr john valasek professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and director of the vehicle systems & control laboratory has been selected as the 2017-18 inductee into the university of kansas aerospace engineering honor roll for his national contributions to unmanned air systems (uas) this award is given annually and recognizes alumni and other friends of the aerospace engineering department who have made major contributions to the aerospace engineering profession members of the honor roll serve in perpetuity as role models for aerospace engineering students and the public at large i received a great graduate education at the university of kansas and it has truly helped me and enhanced my career valasek said as an alumnus there is nothing better than to be recognized this way valasek is an internationally recognized expert in the field of aerospace engineering and provides expert input and guidance to federal lawmakers of the senate and house he has advised the senate committee on commerce science and transportation/subcommittee on aviation operations safety and security and the house space science & technology committee/subcommittee on space through these interactions valasek has helped develop policies regarding legislative jurisdiction general oversight and investigative authority on all matters relating to astronautical and aeronautical research and development he is also active with the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine valasek was appointed to the steering committee of the national research council decadal survey of civil aeronautics in 2005-06 which formulated and published a 10-year plan for reinvigorating nasa aeronautics research he served as an invited presenter on uas research and technology for the academies government-university-research roundtable he has also served as a subject matter expert for the academies on the army research laboratory technical assessment board; the panel on air and ground vehicle technology; and the potential delivery systems in conducting enhanced united states marine corps company operations valasek represents texas a&m and the texas a&m engineering experiment station to federal agencies such as the department of transportation department of agriculture department of homeland security department of the interior defense advanced research projects agency us geological survey and bureau of reclamation and organizations such as rand corporation radio technical commission for aeronautics and the international society for optics and photonics valasek is a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and has been with the aerospace engineering department for 21 years he has been actively conducting flight mechanics and controls research of manned and unmanned air vehicles in both industry and academia for 33 years previously as a flight control engineer for the northrop corporation aircraft division he is a co-patent holder (2006) and leading developer of flight control systems for autonomous air refueling of unmanned air vehicles and a co-patent holder for the design of a novel uas (2018) he earned a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering from california state polytechnic university pomona in 1986 and a masters degree with honors and doctoral degree in aerospace engineering from the university of kansas in 1990 and 1995 respectively
2502,the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university was ranked seventh internationally among its peers in a recently released shanghairankings report the department improved three places from 10th in 2017 surpassing the former seventh-ranked harvard university i am delighted to be ranked among the very top mechanical engineering departments in the world said department head dr andreas polycarpou this is truly a testament to our facultys important groundbreaking contributions in areas of national importance not only do we educate some of the best and brightest mechanical engineering students but we also conduct basic and applied research that touches the lives of people in texas and around the world to be considered for the mechanical engineering shanghairankings report universities must meet a minimum requirement of 100 research publications over a five-year period eligible programs are then judged in five areas: number of papers authored the rate of citation for that university's paper versus the average rate for that field international collaboration the number of papers published in top journals and the total number of awards given since 1981 to full-time faculty while working in the department
2503,logan harbour was one of only 13 students selected to be an idaho national laboratory (inl) graduate fellow harbour obtained his bachelor of science in nuclear engineering from texas a&m university this fall he will defend his master of science thesis and graduate in december 2018 before continuing on to complete his doctorate of philosophy the idaho national laboratory is one of the us department of energys (doe) national laboratories the laboratory performs work in each of the does strategic goal areas: energy national security science and the environment inl is the nations leading center for nuclear energy research and development and its graduate fellowship program is highly competitive i am very proud of logans achievements and success said dr jean ragusa harbours master of science and phd chair of committee and research advisor he worked hard on generating a novel and useful idea for inl then on crafting a compelling research outline for the inl fellowship program he did an outstanding job
2504,"harbours graduate work encompasses this thought: ""how can we best utilize computational resources to encourage the growth of the nuclear industry if we can simulate the processes in a nuclear reactor with great fidelity we can optimize the design process and help combat the greatest evil to developing advanced reactors: cost said harbour both my masters and phd topics align with this theme by enabling high fidelity simulation recipients of these competitive fellowships have their tuition and fees covered by their university during their first years of graduate school (years one to three) and their tuition and fees plus a $60 000 annual salary paid by inl during the last two years of their doctoral research performed at the lab in the first years of their phd program graduate fellows will spend most of their time taking classes at their university that balance will shift in the last years of the program where graduate fellows will spend the majority of their time at inl conducting research i believe that the best part is that the fellowship encourages research with a practical application said harbour this is enforced because its fellows conduct the majority of their research in the national laboratory setting"
2505,"there are mutual benefits for the graduate fellows universities and the lab throughout the program the graduate fellows will interact and collaborate with both their inl mentor and their university thesis advisor harbour is now an intern in the inl reactor physics design and analysis organization under the mentorship of dr mark dehart a distinguished r&d staff engineer at inl and a fellow aggie the program allows inl to integrate students into the laboratory and provides graduate fellows with work on significant projects that will help them fulfill their thesis research requirements both the university and inl have the opportunity for joint publications and intellectual property ""inl graduate fellowships provide great opportunities for everyone involved "" said michelle thiel bingham inl's university partnerships program director ""students receive a quality education and an invaluable research experience and help inspire our inl research with fresh perspectives inl strengthens its partnerships with universities while continuing to develop the next generation of engineers researchers scientists and leaders"""
2506,"best poster award harbour also won the best poster award and the top award during an expo in idaho falls idaho where over 100 inl-doe interns presented their summer work inl hosted 360 interns from 97 institutions who were selected from 1 800 applicants harbour won his award in the world nuclear energy future category his submission was titled uncollided flux treatment for discrete-ordinate radiation transport solutions in rattlesnake ""we strive to provide the best internship experience possible by balancing work responsibilities and enrichment activities "" said bingham ""inl follows an 80/20 philosophy we encourage interns to spend 80 percent of their time at inl with their mentor and apply their classroom knowledge to real-life work and to spend 20 percent of their time in enrichment activities like workshops or skill-building activities"" the new inl graduate fellows have now joined the first cohort which was selected in august last year the next call for inl graduate fellows will open in fall 2018"
2507,vascular diseases ranging from blood clotting to heart attacks or failure are one of the leading causes of illness and death worldwide current methodologies do not accurately portray or mimic the dynamic and complex human blood vessel system to overcome this dr akhilesh gaharwar and dr abhishek jain in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university are working together to develop a more translative model of blood vessel diseases that can be used to overcome the limitations of the models used today two new techniques the team has worked on and combined together are organ-on-a-chip technology and three-dimensional (3d) printing organ-on-a-chip technology is able to form tissue-tissue interfaces at the micro and nanoscale and combine physiological flow conditions in a variety of disease and organ models 3d printing which has recently gained popularity in a variety of fields from cooking to laboratory equipment can deposit material in a layer-by-layer fashion producing a structurally accurate vascular anatomy in a variety of sizes and stiffness by combining a 3d printed construct with the appropriate cell types and exposing the scaffold to suitable environments karli gold graduate student co-chaired by gaharwar and jain is creating a new model of a blood vessel to understand the development and progression of vascular disease as well as test various drugs and toxins
2508,recently the team published an article in the leading journal biomaterials analyzing how techniques using organ-on-a-chip and 3d printing compare to current strategies despite major advancements current modeling techniques are often limited at identifying quantifying and dissecting specific aspects of the system that regulate human vascular diseases creating a need for development modeling approaches that can have molecular cellular tissue and organ level variables even with the new forms of technology there is still room for improvement organ-on-a-chip systems often contain a rectangular cross-sectional area compared to round organs such as blood vessels and 3d printed constructs are often difficult to integrate with optical microscopy as they cannot be miniaturized to micron sizes gaharwar jain and gold note in their research that novel techniques such as organ-on-a-chip devices and 3d printing have spurred new innovation and show potential to address this unmet challenge these emerging approaches to model vascular disease provide a unique solution by increasing the translational potential to humans and decreasing the mechanistic complexity associated with the experimental outputs gaharwar said by better understanding the vascular system and diseases researchers can innovate diagnostic and treatment strategies that can ultimately be determined precisely for patients as more progress is made in this direction organs-on-a-chip and 3d bioprinting technologies are expected to add new knowledge to vascular disease processes and predict therapeutic responses directly impacting the entire health care system these bioengineered tools show promise in changing the way we learn about blood vessels and disorders but the real exciting part about this is the ability to now envision a quick turnover of prospective drugs to patients jain said in the next few years these technologies need to be reproduced and validated by the various stakeholders once that happens we hope that in the next phase they will undergo (food and drug administration) approval and market acceptability
2509,in work that could help prevent the failure of everything from bridges to dental implants a team led by a researcher at texas a&m university has taken the first 3d image of a microscopic crack propagating through a metal damaged by hydrogen for the first time we were able to catch the crack red-handed said dr michael j demkowicz associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m previously the only way to analyze such a metal failure was to look at the separated pieces of a completely fractured component which entails a certain amount of guesswork the new research shows what is happening at the crack tip as a part begins to fracture its much better than arriving at the crime scene after the fact said demkowicz as a result the team identified 10 microscopic structures that make metals stronger and less susceptible to a key environmental factor the hydrogen around us that can damage them their work published in nature communications was conducted using two powerful tools at argonne national laboratorys advanced photon source (aps) and represents a milestone for one of those tools as the first experiment performed by researchers outside of the development team at argonne and carnegie mellon university (cmu) a common problem metals surround us in any number of structures and devices but they can be negatively affected by the ubiquitous hydrogen around us mostly from water hydrogen gets into the metal and causes it to fracture unexpectedly in a process called hydrogen embrittlement said john p hanson a reactor engineer at oklo and first author of the paper one prominent example involves the bay bridge in san francisco as the bridge was being constructed in 2013 engineers discovered that 32 of the 96 huge bolts key to the structure had cracked due to hydrogen embrittlement the problem was caught early so there was no catastrophe but it delayed the opening of the bridge by a few years scientists have studied hydrogen embrittlement for over 150 years but it remains difficult to predict thats largely because we dont have a complete understanding of the mechanisms behind it said hanson who conducted the work while earning his doctorate from the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) as a result engineers have to overdesign with additional material to cover any sudden failure and that costs a lot said co-author peter kenesei of argonne who operates the instruments used in the work so a better understanding of this behavior could have a huge economic impact making progress you can make progress on old problems when you have new tools said demkowicz the researchers employed two different synchrotron tools high-energy diffraction microscopy and x-ray absorption tomography to analyze the microscopic structure of a crack in a superalloy of nickel the study represents the first time the microscopy technique was used by researchers not involved in its development the combined experimental tool and analysis software are unique in the world a metal is composed of microscopic crystals or grains in nickel superalloys the fractures brought on by hydrogen embrittlement travel along the boundaries between those grains hanson said the unique tools at the aps beamline 1-id allow for the first time to not only look at the grain orientations around a crack in progress but also the grain boundaries from those observations the team identified 10 grain boundaries that are more resistant to cracks we were able to show not only which grain boundaries are stronger but exactly what it is about them that improves their performance hanson said this could ultimately allow engineers to build stronger metals by designing them with those characteristics in the nearer term the argonne tools could be used to image the microstructure of existing metal components to better predict their susceptibility to failure kenesei notes that the tools are already being used this way to study other engineering materials such as those related to airplanes batteries and nuclear reactors extreme challenges the study took eight years to complete primarily because it involved huge amounts of data that were difficult to analyze the raw data for the work would fill almost 400 dvds further the data looks nothing like a 3d model of the material its highly encrypted in the form of streaks and dots or diffraction patterns that must be analyzed by a supercomputer said robert m suter from carnegie mellon university (cmu) an expert on the analysis to put the challenges in perspective demkowicz notes that the crack microstructure is actually much more complicated than the structure of dna which watson and crick determined through the same general process but by hand the work was supported by the bp-mit materials and corrosion center the national science foundation and the us department of energy additional authors are akbar bagri of johns hopkins university and mit jonathan lind of cmu and lawrence livermore national laboratory and silvija gradečak of mit
2510,around mach 5 interesting things start to happen to vehicles flying in our atmosphere its a harsh flight environment and anything that can go that fast and survive is very expensive a key challenge is that changes in the viscous flow around a vehicle can lead to catastrophic events which are extremely complex and difficult to simulate thats the challenge of the field of hypersonics where researchers dont have the luxury to build flight test and retest which is why the cutting edges in aerospace research are wind-tunnel testing and computer modeling armed with some of the worlds leading faculty staff and students as well as unique laboratory facilities texas a&m universitys department of aerospace engineering is on the front line of this research hypersonics is basically when vehicles are flying through the atmosphere at speeds sufficient such that the heating causes changes in the internal structure of the air molecules said dr rodney bowersox department head and director of the national aerothermochemistry and hypersonics laboratory (nal) these phenomena begin at roughly mach 5 which is about a mile a second as these vehicles are traveling through the atmosphere theyre creating shock waves and as the molecules go through these shockwaves they get excited dissociate and chemically react its a fair question to ask why even travel at hypersonic speeds and bowersox admits that civilian aircraft traveling at these speeds may be a dream (though companies such as boeing seem to share this dream) however its already a current reality for space exploration space planes and national security earths gravity pulls back any vehicles reentering the atmosphere from space at hypersonic speeds and recent tests of hypersonic vehicles by potential adversaries underscore the national security motivation
2511,the most well-known issue of travelling at hypersonic speeds is surface heating for example a turbulent flow can produce six times the heating of a laminar flow and if unexpected could mean the loss of the vehicle said dr helen reed director of the computational stability and transition laboratory computational research coupled with data from tests with models studied in our quiet tunnel will lead to a better understanding of when and why the air flowing over a surface changes (transitions) from smooth to turbulent and we observe a strong increase in heating and drag predicting and controlling the transition process are recognized as critical enablers for future hypersonic systems and engineers need highly accurate predictive tools for confidence in their designs for example designs with extended regions of laminar flow would heat up less thus requiring less heat shielding and likely lighter-mass vehicles being able to build a computer model for this process is extremely complicated but reed is an internationally acclaimed computationalist and has developed state-of-the-art tools and theories to predict airflows to do a flight test is extremely expensive and with the harsh environment it is very challenging to take the right measurements to confirm that you got things right said reed but with our suite of ground test and computational facilities and by working as a team on these problems our goal is to predict the flow field and heating measure it figure out and model the right physics and then those models can be applied to design the flight articles well give our models to those that are building these vehicles and theyll be more reliable in helping them achieve successful missions building the right kind of lab facilities is crucial for any research but hypersonics offers many critical challenges for example most conventional wind tunnels inherently have disturbances and noise levels that are many times greater than the relatively undisturbed (or ‘quiet) atmosphere encountered by a flight vehicle even seemingly small effects can be highly amplified and can give results different than what is observed in flight for some technologies texas a&m has two signature facilities whose flowfields have been especially conditioned to mimic the ‘quiet flight environment: one is low-speed (klebanoff-saric wind tunnel) and one is hypersonic (mach 6 quiet tunnel) reed said the mach 6 quiet tunnel from nasa is one of only two in the united states and is now housed within the texas a&m nal creating and maintaining these types of tunnels is difficult so much so that the tunnels themselves are research projects bowersox along with dr simon north (professor and head of the department of chemistry at texas a&m) and their team have created additional complementary signature facilities and capabilities including a high-temperature shock driven facility capable of producing mach 15 flight conditions within the nal all of which are critical to advancing hypersonics bowersox is an internationally recognized experimentalist having established programs in next-generation propulsion systems turbulent flow modeling high-temperature chemistry effects and diagnostics
2512,the extensive faculty expertise also includes dr richard miles who recently joined the texas a&m aerospace department as part of both the chancellors research initiative and governors university research initiative programs miles is a world-renowned leader in developing new advanced laser diagnostics and he is creating a new laboratory to be located next to the nal to pursue the study of aerospace applications of lasers and electromagnetics according to bowersox miles innovative measurement techniques are enabling new measurements in hypersonics at research facilities across the us in addition dr william saric an internationally renowned expert in boundary layer stability led a five-year air force and nasa-sponsored center in hypersonic transition the mach 6 quiet tunnel was an experimental centerpiece of this program miles said the challenge of hypersonics has been a recurring theme ever since his first experiments with hypersonic helium at princeton university in the 1970s and that it was clear even then that lasers could provide critical measurements that otherwise were not possible with conventional methods in hypersonic flows miles and bowersox met previously while working on the national aerospace plane project and then again when they were part of the defense advanced research project agency quiet supersonic platform which also included reed who was at arizona state university at the time since then it seems that all hypersonic roads now converge on texas a&m at least in the academic domain miles said rodney and helen have built a unique capability and assembled an outstanding team of researchers the commitment that texas a&m has made to hypersonics is remarkable the nal not only has unique wind tunnels it also leads in the development and application of advanced diagnostics once i became emeritus at princeton the opportunity to join the texas a&m team became a reality and it is proving to be a wonderful transition according to bowersox a key strength of the texas a&m program is the excellent cross-discipline faculty from aerospace engineering chemistry physics materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering
2513,student impact the outstanding faculty and laboratories within the department have made texas a&m an exciting destination for students interested in aerospace fields the quality of the students in the program became apparent last year when the texas a&m sounding rocketry team which was a spin-off of bowersoxs laboratory competed for the first time and placed second in a national competition in new mexico despite not being able to launch the rocket due to a sensor malfunction
2514,evan marcotte a former student who now works with blue origin an aerospace manufacturer based out of washington helped start the team a few years ago because he had a hard time getting internships with companies because he didnt have any hands-on rocket experience i think that continued legacy from one student to another is what allows a culture to thrive and grow he said i truly believe that the lab is one of the most unique places in the academic world due to the students who go through there and dr bowersoxs leadership i have no doubt that it will continue to produce top-notch students and do some amazing things marcotte also said that the way bowersox leads the lab is the key to its success he guides and defines big picture plans but allows students to truly take ownership of their projects from design and fabrication to data acquisition and analysis he said he maintains the perfect balance between being there and not to the point where you can make mistakes and learn but always know that if you hit a wall that he is there to help you overcome it similarly reed has created the aggiesat lab student satellite program which has launched four student-developed satellites into orbit the mission of aggiesat lab is to provide students with real systems engineering and leadership experiences develop and demonstrate modern technologies using a small-satellite platform complement students in-class education and teach industry practices all as extracurricular activities bowersox said that another interesting aspect of hypersonics research is that since being able to test and observe some aspects of it is still such a new field there are unique moments you may make a measurement and youll see it and sometimes youll be the first person to ever to see it he said maybe its a fluctuation somewhere even if its a small thing it doesnt matter students love the science aspect of what were doing the students in our department believe in the future of high-speed flight rockets and space exploration and being a part of enabling humans to achieve these goals said reed they closely follow international progress and with their passion and capabilities they will be the leaders the enablers with the quality of research going on with the faculty and students its a good bet that texas a&ms hypersonics program will be involved in helping humans travel faster and farther for years to come
2515,"shanran tang a graduate student in the department of ocean engineering at the texas a&m university at galveston campus is working to explore new concepts and designs of floating offshore wind turbines to reduce the cost of offshore wind development tang and his advisor dr bert sweetman a professor in the department hope to prove that offshore wind is a technically and economically feasible solution to the demand of clean energy offshore wind turbines are large floating devices placed in deep waters supported by a platform to convert wind energy into electric power these turbines are an emerging technology that enable the extraction of renewable wind energy from vast oceanic areas ""the blades of a floating offshore wind turbine are slender and flexible structures that not only rotate with the turbine but also move with the supporting tower on a floating platform tang said the irregular winds and waves apply forces to the whole structure simultaneously and induce both blade vibrations and platform motions; therefore the dynamic behaviors of these blades are extremely complicated"
2516,tang has developed a new beam theory that he uses to compute and analyze the blade vibrations of floating offshore wind turbines we developed a computer program package that can compute the complete floating wind turbine system including solving the complex system of equations for blades tang said these theoretical and numerical developments allow us to build better floating offshore wind turbines the worlds first commercial floating wind farm is currently under construction 25 kilometers off the coast of scotland in the north sea including six 5-megawatt turbines which can power around 20 000 households without carbon emission tang decided to redirect his career after working for almost two years as an inspection engineer in a petrochemical plant in saudi arabia the challenges and unknowns of the ocean drew his interest and led him into the doctoral program in ocean engineering originally from china he has two bachelors degrees (in civil engineering and theoretical and applied mechanics) from china and a masters degree in mechanical engineering from saudi arabia my biggest obstacle so far has been developing an obscure theory in my doctoral studies tang said my advice for those thinking about pursuing a degree in ocean engineering is to remember that the ocean is such a vast underdeveloped territory similarly ocean engineering includes so many interesting topics so do not lose yourself in the vast ocean find your interests and know your direction
2517,the industry advisory council (iac) for the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has once again exceeded its fundraising goal to help support the department now and into the future the council is made up of more than 40 members all of whom are graduates from the department and led by chair brenda hightower 81 the group is dedicated to helping further the objectives of the mechanical engineering department we want to make a lasting mark that will support future growth hightower said we have an endowed student scholarship and our next goal will be establishing an endowed faculty fund our current plan is a combination of putting funds away to build future endowments while also supporting current needs as contributions grow it allows us to put those things into place faster treasurer david pierpoline 81 said the most recent fundraising campaign exceeded its $60 000 goal by roughly $5 000 the texas a&m foundation manages the funds raised by the iac in 2016 the iac established the contributions-based mechanical engineering advancement fund designed to provide direct support to faculty students and the department as a whole
2518,"ultimately the councils goal through its fundraising efforts is to help grow the advancement fund into a substantial source of both current and endowed resources for the department to draw upon for the benefit of faculty and students the iac is a passionate group of former students who are interested in supporting and continually improving the department faculty and students pierpoline said this year was the first time weve gotten former students who are not on the iac contributing its a good start as the group moves forward it is looking to expand its impact by drawing in more support and involvement from younger former students my goal for the next couple years as i lead the council is to broaden awareness about the advancement fund to others outside of the council members to contribute hightower said ""we want the former mechanical engineering students to become aware of the amazing and exciting things going on in the department and hopefully want to be more involved"" in addition to its work raising funds for the department the iac also organized receptions in houston and san antonio with vice chancellor and dean of engineering m katherine banks and mechanical engineering department head dr andreas polycarpou to connect with former students; provided support in the accreditation board for engineering and technology recognition process; provided sponsorship for capstone design projects; volunteered presentations at senior seminar classes and student organization meetings; and acted as a sounding board for the department head and faculty by providing an industry perspective and suggesting program renewal activities"
2519,when sandy and les pittman ‘74 think about texas a&m university what comes to mind is hard work like many students today les and sandy worked usually full time to pay for their education understanding the hardships and sacrifice that come with working and attending school inspired them to establish the sandy and les pittman 74 and pittman family endowed scholarship we both put ourselves through school and missed a lot of opportunities as students because of that said les reflecting on that experience really directed our giving because we wanted students to have these opportunities without the financial burden the sandy and les pittman 74 and pittman family endowed scholarship serves as an endowed fund to provide at least two scholarships to full-time students in good standing at texas a&m who are pursuing a degree in civil engineering the gift was given to the texas a&m foundation to benefit the zachry department of civil engineering in 2014 but was altered in 2017 to focus on students in rural communities the pittmans both grew up in victoria texas where according to les growing up outside of city limits presented academic challenges students in rural areas dont always have access to quality educational resources or scholarship opportunities which is something that motivated the pittmans to alter the original scholarship to focus on students in these communities i think one thing that was always in the back of my mind after we did the original agreement was to change the giving focus to where we grew up sandy said i think students tend to know about scholarships in bigger areas so we wanted to give it back to students who had kind of grown up as we had and had known those challenges les pursued a civil engineering degree at texas a&m while sandy attended victoria college and later received a degree in home economics with a specialization in family ecology from texas state university she went on to become a pre-school teacher and later a full-time volunteer for the eanes independent school district after graduation les worked in a variety of project management roles within the civil engineering industry les also became an established entrepreneur working with a partner to create a commercial land development firm in austin texas and later acting as a principal investor in a houston based civil engineering consulting firm les now serves as an associate professor of practice in the department and enjoys the mentorship aspect that comes with his teaching role raising two sons kyle 01 and jared 03 has given the pittmans a greater appreciation of the impact of financial assistance in college and allowed them to watch their endowment benefit the department in numerous ways weve always preferred that the endowment serve two students each year if possible said les i think texas a&m is definitely a special place weve gotten to meet and get to know the students such as one of our recent scholarship recipients who is active duty military and its a great thing to be able to help them
2520,"nolan goth a nuclear engineering doctoral student is working with the largest matched index of refraction (mir) wire-wrapped bundle in the world the mir bundle at the texas a&m university thermal hydraulic laboratory is significant because it is completely transparent allowing goth to explore new experimental techniques and conduct first-of-its-kind measurements in 2015 goth began working on a department of energy joint venture project that brought together texas a&m framatome argonne national laboratory and terra power the first phase split the group into two teams: texas a&m and framatome handled the experimental work while argonne and terra power did the computational work the sodium fast reactor was a popular reactor built in the united states in the ‘60s and ‘70s but research and development slowed in the ‘80s there is a renewed interest thanks to terra power a private nuclear enterprise backed primarily by bill gates part of this effort is advancing the terra power reactor design so they can create their prototype said goth terrapower areva and argonne national laboratories have a strong interest in this new fuel design that will be potentially used in advanced fast reactors said dr rodolfo vaghetto research assistant professor with the department of nuclear engineering and the project investigator this research is a part of the work we do to ensure a new design goes from conceptual to something that you can actually build operate safely and use to produce energy in a convenient way texas a&ms isothermal experiment focused solely on how coolant flows around the fuel rods of a sodium fast reactor goth used the transparent bundle to provide high spatiotemporal resolution data for rans- and les-based simulation comparisons the transparent channel and rods allowed goth to place tiny reflective particles inside of the coolant that matched the density of the fluid the inserted particles were glass spheres coated in silver making the particles highly reflective goth then used a green light laser and a photon detector to take pictures of the particles as they moved after taking thousands of photos goth had enough data to calculate the velocity flow fields texas a&m is looking at fluid flow velocity and pressure said goth that may not seem like much but it helps us size pumps in future plants and gives us an idea of what power we can operate the reactor at without melting the fuel rods the us department of energy selected nolan goth for a 2018 innovations in nuclear technology r&d award with his publication ""time-resolved piv/ptv measurements on interior subchannels of a wire-wrapped 61-pin hexagonal fuel bundle"" the experiment will continue through 2020 and may include an open benchmark which would share the newly discovered data with people all over the world goth will graduate in december 2018 and hopes to work at a national laboratory or nuclear startup being a part of this joint project has given me the opportunity to network with completely different companies said goth ive developed skills here and im waiting to see who needs my skill set most there are about 40 nuclear startups right now and it would be fun to be a part of something new"
2521,"formation of new blood vessels a process also known as angiogenesis is one of the major clinical challenges in wound healing and tissue implants to address this issue researchers from texas a&m university have developed a clay-based platform to deliver therapeutic proteins to the body to assist with the formation of blood vessels the team is led by members of the inspired nanomaterials and tissue engineering lab in the department of biomedical engineering they have developed technology that introduces a new type of two-dimensional clay also known as nanosilicates that delivers multiple specialized proteins called growth factors into the body to stimulate new blood vessel formation to allow blood vessels time to form the clay is designed to prolong the release through its high surface area and charged characteristics according to biomedical engineering assistant professor dr akhilesh k gaharwar ""clay nanoparticles work like tiny weak magnets that hold the growth factors within the polymeric hydrogels and release very slowly "" gaharwar said ""sustained and prolonged release of physiologically relevant doses of growth factors are important to avoid problems due to high doses such as abrupt tissue formation"" co-investigator dr kayla bayless from the department of molecular and cellular medicine in the texas a&m college of medicine said the clay also keeps the growth factors organized preventing abnormal growth and moderating activity of surrounding cells gaharwar said by establishing clay nanoparticles as a platform technology for delivering the growth factors the research will have a significant impact on designing the next generation of bioactive scaffolds and implants the research was recently published in advanced biosystems and is funded by the division of chemical bioengineering environmental and transport systems of the national institute of science the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering of the national institutes of health and by the national science foundation"
2522,a texas a&m university nuclear engineering research team collaborated with the south texas project nuclear operating company (stpnoc) to solve generic safety issue (gsi) -191 in 2017 in 2018 the nuclear energy institute (nei) awarded stpnoc a tip award for the innovative solution neis top innovation practice awards celebrate industry leaders for new practices enhanced processes and improved technology for nearly 20 years gsi-191 was an industry-wide issue the issue resulted from a loss of coolant in a nuclear reactor which can cause debris to be generated and potentially impact the performance of the safety system to solve this problem the south texas project nuclear operating company partnered with texas a&m in 2010 to develop a widely applicable methodology the solution was the first to be approved by the us nuclear regulatory commission and can theoretically apply to any operating light water reactor plant across the country the methodology provides guidance on evaluating the safety level of the plant against the gsi-191 while accounting for similarities and variable differences between plants the departments main attribution to this project was through the thermal hydraulics calculations and experimental studies performed which included using new tools and existing tools in a new way texas a&m was the first to perform these types of complex analyses with over 100 different scenarios simulated using cutting-edge simulation software the solution guards safety and benefits the industry while the cost savings for the plant are an estimated $43 million
2523,the meniscus a wedge-shaped piece of cartilage acts as a shock absorber in the knee each year 15 million people have surgery to treat meniscus tears in the us and europe the people most affected are athletes and the elderly although the most common surgeries which remove or repair the torn meniscus can relieve symptoms temporarily meniscus transplantation is still the best long-term option however like other tissue/organ transplantations this treatment includes many fundamental limitations such as a shortage of donors and the risk of disease transmission moreover managing the supply chain of the transplantation system which involves meniscus allocation procurement testing and transportation is difficult
2524,the solution dr li zeng an assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university recently received an operations engineering award from the national science foundation for her 3d printing-enabled meniscus transplantation system research project the research project began in 2016 and will be completed in 2019 why 3d printing zengs new system will give doctors the ability to create a meniscus substitute or artificial meniscus tailored to the characteristics of each patient meniscus and blood vessels are not simple said zeng but they are possible to fabricate rather than entire organs which are too complex to manufacture using existing technology to create the meniscus substitute a computerized tomography scan or magnetic resonance image of the patients knee joint will be input to create the computer-aided design file then the patients biological data will be input to create the functional requirements of the meniscus such as the material and printing conditions a biomaterial hydrogel will be used to print the scaffold of the meniscus cells taken from the patients body will fill the scaffold forming a new tissue and meniscus for the patient using the patients cells will prevent rejection from the body the use of 3d printing will substantially reduce the waiting time for a new meniscus because the system can be placed within the transplantation center to enable doctors to print the artificial meniscus on-site which means the treatment can be performed immediately additionally fitting problems will no longer occur because the meniscus will be specifically designed and manufactured for the patient ultimately it will change the current donor-based supply chain to an on-demand personalized paradigm to deliver truly just-in-time agile and patient-centered care said zeng the project is a collaborative study that includes three texas a&m researchers who are in the fields of in system informatics manufacturing and biomedical engineering zeng who is the principal investigator will use the data to find the desired process parameters to create a satisfying product and optimize the overall process co-principal investigator dr shiren wang associate professor in the industrial and systems engineering department is an expert on manufacturing and is head of the material design and 3d printing portion of the study another co-principal investigator is dr daniel alge professor in the department of biomedical engineering whose specialty is biocompatibility and will focus on the end of the study ensuring the manufactured meniscus will be accepted by the human body zengs research addresses challenges in turning the printer-based meniscus transplantation system into reality including cost-risk analysis to facilitate decision making system control for quality assurance and system evaluation for personalized printing for any scientific development said zeng you find something promising then collect data to understand the system and learn how to improve data can be very useful to any innovation process
2525,proud family members sat with smart phones in hand capturing photos of 50 incoming women students friday during the 2018 engineering summer bridge program (esbp) closing ceremony the four-week program gave first-generation college students the opportunity to live in a dorm and get acquainted with campus while also getting a head start on the mathematics course that awaits them in the fall it also gave them the opportunity to make friends and learn about valuable resources at their disposal the program was led by the college of engineering and the women in engineering and access and inclusion programs as first-generation college students these women have the opportunity to change the entire trajectory of their families said dr andrea ogilvie assistant dean for student success by taking part in this program they are setting themselves up for a successful freshman year which can really set the tone for their entire college experience
2526,to kenya gallardo mom of incoming student vanessa gutierrez having her daughter attend the esbp gave her peace of mindi think it was good for her she said coming out of high school she didnt know what to expect i think it will help her be more ready gallardo a houston resident said she was also pleased to see how friendly aggies are i was very happy the first time we came here and everybody was saying ‘howdy! she said i was worried about her safety but not at all now kimberly sanchez gonzalez a freshman from dallas texas said she appreciated how enthusiastic the college of engineering staff members were they really want to see us succeed in engineering she said it was very one-on-one sanchez gonzalez said she was apprehensive at first since no one in her family had experienced college before now sanchez gonzalez has a new group of friends shell be able to lean on when the fall semester begins
2527,this program helped me realize there are other girls here in the same situation as me she said it made me feel more confident in my choicesara coe from cold spring texas said all of her worries went away on the first day of the program i made a lot of friends and i love these people so much she said they are such sweet and kind-hearted individuals and this connection couldnt have been made without this program coe will be in the corps of cadets band and hopes to one day join the united states air force she also hopes that she is in a position to sponsor a similar program one day that could help other female engineering first-generation college students i met other girls who are also first-generation college students in the corps and in engineering she said were all in this together and thats so uplifting and power-giving the esbp was sponsored by david zachry ‘85 and the zachry corporation this program would not have been possible without the tremendous support of zachry corporation said ogilvie we are so grateful that david zachry and zachry corporation believe in the impact women can have on the world and were so excited to see what these 50 women accomplish here at texas a&m university
2528,dr pavel tsvetkov an associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university is exploring novel sensors for extreme environments by taking advantage of fiber optics-based detection approaches in mixed radiation/thermal fields fiber optics sensors offer a uniquely distributed option in situations where traditional sensors would fail or provide only limited information tsvetkovs team will develop an optical fiber-based gamma thermometer (ofgbt) with big data sensor capabilities in collaboration with drs thomas blue and tunc aldemir of the ohio state university and dr diego mandelli of idaho national laboratory the newly developed ofgbt will have the smallest possible sensor footprint in the core ensuring there is no disruption of the reactor while an innovative big data sensor will transmit large amounts of data said tsvetkov ofgbts and their data analytics will provide a safe and improved solution to the monitoring of the spatial power distribution within the core leading to an increase in plant safety and efficiency in addition use of fiber optics will minimize the instrumentation decommissioning footprint
2529,the project is both an experimental and computational effort focused on the ability to measure power distributions in nuclear reactors the research has two tracks in track one sensor development and testing the team will build and test an ofgbt using the texas a&m triga reactor track two modeling and data analysis involves producing power density data the project is a continuation of tsvetkovs fiber optics sensing research which focused on the use of fiber optics in molten salt reactors and high-temperature reactors the current sensor work resulted in several master of science and phd dissertations most recently in master of science dissertations by grace marcantel and charles stratton both students advised by tsvetkov the project is one of 89 projects recently selected by the us department of energys (doe) office of nuclear energy for funding for nuclear energy research facility access and crosscutting technology and infrastructure development
2530,why does aging cause severe deterioration in memory and thinking abilities in some people and not in others neuroscientist dr william griffith regents professor and department head in the texas a&m university college of medicine is merging tools from neuroscience and engineering to investigate the neural basis of cognitive decline with age griffith and his team look at age-related changes in electrical properties of neurons and their impact on neuronal communication were interested in studying properties of synaptic transmission and neuronal properties in parts of the brain important in cognitive behavior he said much of griffiths research focuses on the part of the brain that undergoes neurodegeneration in alzheimers disease this region called the basal forebrain (bf) contains a variety of cells however bf cholinergic neurons (the cells that use the neurotransmitter acetylcholine for communication) make dense interconnections with other parts of the brain involved in memory and attention thus a loss of bf cholinergic cells as in alzheimers contributes to a progressive cognitive decline earlier work from griffiths team showed that the delicate balance of calcium ions across cholinergic neurons cell membranes is altered in aged animal models showing signs of cognitive decline these results suggested that calcium ion-dependent functions such as synaptic transmission of cholinergic cells might also be affected over time these changes could cause bf cholinergic cells to function abnormally although investigating the electrical properties of cholinergic synapses was the logical next step griffith realized that traditional tools did not suit this purpose the basal forebrain is a large network of different kinds of cells he said we couldnt specifically stimulate one kind of cell and study its properties because if you electrically stimulate you nonspecifically stimulate everything to overcome this obstacle griffith recently turned to optogenetics a technique by which specific neurons can be genetically engineered to respond to light rather than an electrical current by expressing light-sensitive proteins called opsins in subsets of neurons innervating cholinergic cells his team can now turn on specific synapses in the bf using light and examine their properties soon griffith plans to study age-related cognitive decline in vivo for this project (which made it to the semifinal round for the x-grant awards this year) he will use a combination of optogenetics and engineering devices based on feedback information called closed-loop systems just as insulin pumps inject the correct amount of insulin based on the feedback information on circulating blood glucose levels a closed-loop system stimulates neurons based on their ongoing activity in particular if a neuron is less active than normal it could be stimulated more griffith is currently collaborating with dr sung il park assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering who has designed a wireless closed-loop miniature system for optogenetics parks closed-loop device small enough to be implanted on the skull of a small animal model can be used to track neuronal activity in real time and provide light stimulation on a feedback basis while the animal model is performing a cognitive task griffith hopes that by rectifying aberrant activity of bf neurons age-related cognitive impairments can be corrected griffith notes that optogenetics-based stimulating systems offer another advantage over conventional stimulating techniques such as deep brain stimulation (dbs) when you do dbs an electrode placed in a certain part of the brain stimulates nonspecifically he said but with optogenetics we can get selective stimulation of a subset of neurons within the next decade or two griffith hopes that technologies such as optogenetics and closed-loop systems will be a part of mainstream medicine to treat a variety of neurological conditions historically we have had limited success treating neurological diseases we can treat some of the symptoms of parkinsons disease or dementia but currently we cannot cure any of these diseases he said with the advent of new technologies like optogenetics there is the potential for game-changing translational therapeutic approaches to treat neurological diseases like we have never seen before
2531,dr stratos pistikopoulos tees eminent professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was recently named the director of the texas a&m energy institute additionally he serves as the course director of the master of science in energy program in the institute co-director of the southern regional manufacturing center in the clean energy smart manufacturing innovation institute (cesmii) and co-lead of the modeling and simulation focus area within the rapid advancement in process intensification deployment (rapid) manufacturing usa institute on process intensification energy including its sustainable production and environmentally responsible use represents one of the grand challenges to human progress and well-being in the 21st century pistikopoulos not only brings outstanding credentials and collaborative leadership to this position but his expertise in the analysis of complex systems will be essential to the integration of the diverse contributions from science technology and policy that must be part of future solutions with pistikopoulos vision and creativity texas a&ms energy institute is well positioned to lead the state and the nation into our energy future says vice president for research dr mark a barteau before joining texas a&m in 2015 pistikopoulos was a professor and director of research in the department of chemical engineering and director of the centre for process systems engineering at the imperial college london he earned a doctorate from carnegie mellon university and worked with shell chemicals in amsterdam before joining imperial pistikopoulos has written or co-written over 400 major research publications and 10 books in the areas of modeling control and optimization of process energy and systems engineering applications he holds two patents and is co-founder of process systems enterprise ltd his numerous awards include co-recipient of the prestigious macrobert award from the royal academy of engineering the computing in chemical engineering award of cast/aiche doctor honoris causa from the university politechnica of bucharest and the university of pannonia and a fellow of the royal academy of engineering in the united kingdom the texas a&m energy institute is a joint institute between texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the institute pursues and supports new approaches of multi-disciplinary energy research education and external partnerships these approaches cross departmental and college boundaries to address all facets of the energy landscape that naturally connect engineering science technology economics behavior law and policy decisions this story originally appeared on the texas a&m energy institute website
2532,"the us department of energy selected stephen king 18 a nuclear engineering student for a 2018 innovations in nuclear technology r&d award king is currently working in the texas a&m university thermal-hydraulic research laboratory and conducting experiments on the pebble bed facility he won the undergraduate student competition with his article ""pressure drop measurements in a versatile experimental facility of packed spheres"" king performed high spatial and temporal resolution measurements then used the results for code validation and model development the pressure drop across the reactor core is critical for reactor design because it is related to flow distribution pumping power and operational cost the ongoing project is funded by the department of energy through the nuclear engineering university program king graduated in may and will complete his master of science degree in 2020 then pursue his phd in nuclear power engineering why did he choose to study nuclear engineering joining the thermal hydraulic lab my sophomore year really struck a chord with me said king i was able to develop a passion for it as the years went on and i learned more in the classroom the more advanced work i could do it never felt boring or like i wanted to do anything else because there was always something new a remarkable future within nuclear engineering king saw a remarkable future not just on the energy side of things or even in nuclear space propulsion and fusion but there was a tremendous amount of work and complexities people were actively trying to solve for some reason it was always a puzzle we could not quite put together and these puzzles were all over nuclear said king he pointed out that the field is still new only 60 years old allowing innovation to flourish the lab king works at is thermal hydraulics based with a focus on heat transfers and fluid flow the flow concept is what captures my interest said king coming from a family of engineers my grandfather my mother and my uncle its ingrained in me perhaps i understand it; to the point where the things that are challenging the things we dont know yet have become a wondrous puzzle and once you find the right puzzle thats more than enough king explained that when he completed his experiment it felt like he had solved the puzzle only to look back and see more theres a joke graduate students tell undergraduate students ‘once you graduate undergrad you think you know everything once youre in your masters program you realize you dont know anything there are a lot of things in the nuclear field were still trying to understand the more we find out the more we desire to learn and build on that knowledge"
2533,king is currently working on an advanced continuation of the pressure drop experiment his team completed the pressure drop measurements using different sphere sizes which resulted in different ratios and different scales of the geometry they are testing a variety of factors that may result in a different distribution pressure in addition to conducting experiments a significant part of kings day to day life as a graduate student involves studying and reading past data we read to understand our beginning until now said king the pebble bed research team includes a mix of undergraduate and graduate students dr thien nguyen and department head dr yassin hassan the escalating complexity of the project has brought everyone together a team can tackle something bigger than one person said king theres a lot of work left to be done its up to us decide what to commit our time to discovering now we have many paths available and i think were embarking on an excellent one
2534,according to king our results from the pressure drops come from a complex equation that has two parts: one part that considers the flow through the bed and one part that considers the resistance to the flow in the bed the flow wants to go through the bed but the spheres and the column itself are creating resistance by the time it finally comes through it has lost a lot of the pressure thus the term ‘pressure drop
2535,mike 86 and sandra wilkinson 86 have generously created the $25 000 george wright capstone endowment to support students in the electronic systems engineering technology (eset) program at texas a&m university to graduate eset students must work in teams to develop design and implement solutions for real-world industry problems past capstone teams accomplishments include helping the visually impaired and working with nasa on lunar rovers and exciting experiments in space dr reza langari jr thompson department head chair for the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution expressed his gratitude for the wilkinsons contribution mike is a highly accomplished graduate of the electronics (now named eset) program in the department his successful venture paragon innovations focuses on smart products with embedded electronics and software the knowledge of which he developed while a student at texas a&m under george wright a former member of the (departments) faculty according to langari wrights dedicated teaching inspired him to pursue this field which he did so with great success the wilkinsons have also started an endowment in the same program meant to help the next generation of electronics engineering technology students and memorialize wrights inspirational approach to teaching embedded systems and electronics we appreciate mike and sandys contribution and hope to see this endowment grow and serve our students in the years ahead said langari for more information about eset and its capstone program please visit the program website or contact program coordinator dr ana goulart
2536,"three texas a&m university industrial and systems engineering students interned with the houston airport system (has) this summer giovanni fuentes worked in the safety and emergency management department while breanna bassett and chris martin worked in the infrastructure control department by investing in the workforce of the future through its summer management intern program the has introduces college students to the exciting world of aviation and air travel while giving them the opportunity to be part of hands-on projects that allow them to develop the job skills they need to be successful in the field fuentes spent his summer assisting the emergency management coordinator with the revision of the hass continuity of operations plan ""my most memorable experience as an intern was meeting with has directors across different departments such as the houston police and fire departments to discuss safety drills that would take place in the event of an active shooter on the skyway "" said fuentes"
2537,"he appreciated the opportunity to work on things of great impact for travelers including helping his department create a detailed plan to relocate every other department in the event of an emergency allowing for airport services to continue ""as an industrial and systems engineering student i am motivated by the overabundance of problems that our world faces "" said fuentes bassett and martin members of the infrastructure controls department assisted project managers with ongoing construction projects their tasks included visiting construction sites ensuring regulatory compliance for airport construction projects calculating costs and creating spreadsheets to analyze project data and assess risk ""i collaborated with two other texas a&m interns on a project "" said martin ""we created a spreadsheet to track project schedules each month and the metrics we designed are being utilized in project briefings the spreadsheet monitors project milestones analyzes shortcomings and creates metrics based on how many tasks are completed each month"" the tool can also assess project progress annually"
2538,"bassett's favorite internship memory involved a rogue tour guide who took them to view the airfield in action ""for the next hour we drove around the airfield and saw all the activity that the average traveler has no idea about "" said bassett ""we saw airplanes being maintenanced cargo being unloaded from a ups plane using automatic conveyor belts airplane food trucks stocking passenger planes and all the baggage being carted hundreds of feet in all directions we happened to be about 80 yards away from a lufthansa a380 as it pulled away from the gate and taxied to the runway i knew that a lot happened at the airport but at that the moment i realized how critical it is that all these operations run smoothly it's incredible to feel like a small piece of a million-piece puzzle"" the has internships allowed the students to directly apply numerous skills and knowledge they learned from their classes ""when working with the data i was able to create excel dashboards macros and userforms by using visual basic applications "" said fuentes ""i was also able to engage in data mining that allowed me to forecast safety incidents for the houston airport system"" as part of the internship they also learned how to navigate professional communications ""this was my first experience being a part of an important issue where many individuals disagreed on specific topics but still managed to be able to exchange ideas respectfully to each other "" said fuentes ""i learned the importance of delivering your ideas without creating hostile or tense situations"""
2539,"as part of the internship they also learned how to navigate professional communications ""this was my first experience being a part of an important issue where many individuals disagreed on specific topics but still managed to be able to exchange ideas respectfully to each other "" said fuentes ""i learned the importance of delivering your ideas without creating hostile or tense situations"" the houston airport system internships influenced the students to explore unexpected paths ""after seeing the operations of working at an airport "" said fuentes ""i realized how many opportunities for growth there are! i believe working in a fast-paced environment that has millions of passengers flying daily can instill passion in the workplace"" ""the internship gave me good exposure to how businesses and airports are operated "" said martin who also learned about the importance of organization communication and contract agreements when managing projects ""i can now see myself applying for manager positions in the future"""
2540,"the aggie network played a vital role in the landing of their internships ""i wouldn't have known about this position if not for an email from an industrial and systems engineering faculty member "" said bassett fuentes believes that the aggie network helped when he was applying due to the reputation of texas a&m fuentes bassett and martin believe other texas a&m industrial and systems engineering students could benefit from the internship particularly those that would like to test their technical knowledge or explore a new career path ""this internship was a wonderful experience for me and i would certainly recommend it to other aggies especially if they live in the greater houston area "" said bassett ""everybody wants to show you around and help you understand everything that's happening there are 35 interns so there's a lot of opportunity to network with peers as well as professionals"""
2541,nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common liver disease in western countries and correlates strongly with obesity and metabolic syndrome this disease is a spectrum disorder – meaning there is a broad range of diseases associated with it ranging from steatosis (fat accumulation in the liver a benign condition that is reversible) to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (fat accumulation with inflammation that is irreversible) and can lead to fibrosis and liver cancer genetics plays a role in the onset of this liver disease but generally speaking people who are on high-fat diets are much more susceptible
2542,a group of researchers including dr arul jayaraman professor and associate department head of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university in collaboration with dr kyongbum lee at tufts university have found that a high-fat diet significantly changes the composition and function of the intestinal microbiota in a study published in cell reports the research team found that low- and high-fat diets resulted in dramatically different metabolite profiles they have shown that a high-fat diet significantly depleted three metabolites – tryptamine (ta) indole-3-acetate (i3a) and xanthurenic acid – whose production is linked to intestinal microbiota present in the gastrointestinal tract serum and liver the team was able to show that two of the metabolites have a direct link to disease ta and i3a were shown to reduce the expression of different inflammatory molecules in macrophages and fat accumulation in hepatocytes – two cell types that are involved in fatty liver disease thus the depletion of ta and i3a promotes for the disease to progress from simple steatosis to more serious stages such as fibrosis the team also examined the feasibility of adding ta and i3a back to the system as a way to control the disease the results show that of the two metabolites i3a is better suited for controlling fat accumulation and inflammation this is the focus of ongoing studies in the jayaraman lab this research was supported by the national science foundation and the national institutes of health
2543,from fall 2017 to spring 2018 a record nine student teams from universities around the world built small-scale drilling rigs as part of the society of petroleum engineers international drillbotics competition these rigs utilized mechanics sensors computer logistics and software designed by the students to drill a vertical well in a test formation of unknown composition without any human intervention the goal is to advance the use of automated technology in drilling the texas a&m university drillbotics team placed third in the competition which has become known for advanced logistics innovative designs and creative solutions as it tests the limits of what automation and students can accomplish coming in third after winning last year might be seen as a stepdown but texas a&m has set a precedent as the only university to place every year it certainly does point to our consistency that were the only team who has been third or higher in every competition so far said dr sam noynaert assistant professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering that says a lot about the quality of students we have
2544,hard work hones skills texas a&m enters the competition with a new team and new members every year some have been all petroleum engineering students and some like this years team were all from different departments each team can have up to five members the only constant is the need to work together and bring all skills on board to overcome the challenges petroleum engineering masters student ibrahim el-sayed mechanical engineering masters student nick timmermann and electrical engineering masters student siddarth biyani labored through months of preparation design mechanical issues software testing and presentation writing undergraduate petroleum engineering student gabriel tatman an unofficial but readily adopted team member crafted the safety screens to protect onlookers while the drilling was in progress all were quick to point out that the rewards of their hard work were higher than just winning a place the scope of being able to tackle this demonstrates a lot of skills said el-sayed who was recognized by a job interviewer for his participation in last years competition its been immensely beneficial there are a lot of similarities with whats going on in the real world
2545,hands-on education students have two semesters to meet a new set of design hurdles technology requirements and equipment changes each time for instance the 2017-18 year featured larger drill pipe specifications meaning drilling could be faster and more aggressive the concept of plug and play was also introduced where teams had the option to take their rigs software and plug it into another rig to test functionality this functionality test will be mandatory for 2018-19 some of the more innovative designs from all the teams in the 2017-18 contest included: design and construction of a non-aggressive polycrystalline diamond bit improved pipe couplings hammer assisted drilling novel bottom hole assembly designs and 3d printed sensor subs several new telemetry techniques from the downhole sensor optimization algorithms dual control loops not affected by the loss of a single sensor auto-generated drilling reports as with any project being a part of the drillbotics team can be exciting daunting frustrating and immensely satisfying but the students maintain it is an excellent addition to their education timmermann who received his bachelors degree in petroleum commented i took mr dupriests class (in spring 2017) the high-performance drilling class and its been really cool to see this what he talked about in his class right in front of me
2546,paper and patent teams build on the work done the year before as much as possible and the results have been impressive the winning team last year wrote and submitted a paper at the society of petroleum engineers international association of drilling contractors drilling conference and exhibition in fort worth titled lab-scale drilling rig autonomously mitigates downhole dysfunctions and geohazards through bit design control system and machine learning by e zarate-losoya t cunningham i el-sayed sf noynaert and f florence a patent was also submitted for technology the students designed the patent is on the control systems explained el-sayed its about using a control system to identify the drilling set points with the assistance of a machine-loading model that predicts where to drill history and future team the drillbotics competitions originated when several society of petroleum engineering members saw the need to increase the use of automation in the drilling industry they established the drilling systems automation technical section and thought student competitions were the perfect way to introduce the topic four years later drillbotics has grown dramatically both in scale and scope leading to a friendly international rivalry among the students to come up with the most innovative systems possible well be putting together the new team in the fall said noynaert who named petroleum engineering masters student cameron gerasti as the 2018-19 team leader this is the hardest part – having to rebuild a team every year - which also speaks to the overall quality of students at texas a&m that we can do this repeatedly with different students each year and still have success
2547,the kleberg foundation recently awarded dr gerard coté professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university and director of the center for remote health technologies and systems and his multidisciplinary team a $957 789 grant to advance research on user-centered diabetes technology for underserved communities in south texas over the next three years the research team expects to design a next-generation continuous glucose monitor that is innovative affordable and accessible the newly designed monitor is envisioned to be a biocompatible sensor the size of a grain of rice placed inside the body near the wrist a new smart wristband will wirelessly transmit glucose measurements to a smartphone app the app will then send updates to the patient regarding glucose levels and possibly information regarding diet and medication
2548,alerts will notify the patient if they need to adjust their insulin levels take a glucose tablet or seek medical help if a patient is approaching a glucose crash which is a possibly life-threatening situation medical personnel and the patients family will be contacted if you think about children who have to manage this disease think about how much freedom this new technology would give them and their parents giving them that freedom is something were driven to do said dr melissa grunlan a biomedical engineering professor and co-principal investigator one of the devices greatest advantages is that it will work at night if a patients glucose levels are too high or too low an alarm will sound relieving the stress of the parent or spouse who often wakes up in the night to check on the patient the device will also create individual data trends over time for patients and doctors to assess and make informed future decisions empowering the patient is our number-one priority said coté although the focus of their research is underserved groups in south texas the technology will have worldwide implications for improving the lives of people with diabetes
2549,why south texas many of the communities in south texas are medically underserved painting a dire local picture that represents the overall health disparity issue across the united states the team is filling a research gap by focusing on south texas a 27-county region where 20 percent of the population has diabetes and 73 percent are at risk of developing it the region also has a higher rate of diabetes-related deaths in border counties than all non-border counties combined we must facilitate access to health care for the underserved communities of south texas said dr farzan sasangohar one of the projects co-principal investigators right now the technology to manage diabetes is not affordable and its not user friendly we want to replace the finger prick test our goal is to make it effortless for people to manage their diabetes our technology will be a sustained intervention that people can use long term the adoption rate for continuous glucose monitors the most commonly used insulin tracking technology is extremely low in south texas although more advanced than the blood glucose test continuous glucose monitoring is intrusive and expensive making it out of reach for the underserved its critical that the technology is cost effective said coté self-monitored glucose approaches are often intermittent and may miss hypoglycemic events especially at night frequent hypoglycemic episodes not only affect the patients quality of life but could also result in coma stupor behavior change dizziness seizures and even death
2550,the project is unique in its focus on making the new technology accessible the industrial and systems engineering contribution to the project includes incorporating user feedback into the design process to make the new technology an easy to use sustained intervention for patients sasangohar is an industrial and systems engineering professor and the director of the applied cognitive ergonomics laboratory whose focus is on human interaction with technology i strive to understand how humans play a role in human-systems interactions said sasangohar humans are key elements of complex sociotechnical systems but are also sources of uncertainty and large variability the project is a multidisciplinary collaboration that includes six principal investigators from the texas a&m biomedical industrial and systems and computer science engineering departments and one from healthy south texas a texas a&m outreach entity only a multidisciplinary team could accomplish this broad spectrum of tasks said coté additional co-principal investigators include dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna a computer science and engineering professor; dr mark lawley department head of the industrial engineering department; and starr flores the regional director of healthy south texas we feel extremely proud not only because access to research funds right now is limited but most important the societal value of this work said sasangohar its concrete and impactful and it puts us on the right path to revolutionizing diabetes technology
2551,dr yu ding isnt the type of engineer that people normally think of when they think of wind energy but perhaps thats why over a decade ago he became the perfect engineer to solve a problem in the renewable energy industry the problem: how do you know if something is really working due to both their massive size and the number of variables involved proving that small changes in a wind turbine are having a measurable effect is a challenging task even the most basic element of a wind turbine isnt constant you obviously cant control the wind itself; its changing all the time ding said but theres also all kinds of other environmental variables -- temperature turbulence humidity etc how do you possibly accurately control those types of things so that you can testify to the effect of an operational change one way would be to control for the variables using some kind of wind tunnel but wind turbines stand at over 300 feet tall if you want to do a controlled experiment youre going to have to use an enormous wind tunnel in front of a utility scale turbine but nobody has been doing that ding said that would be a huge undertaking so you have to rely on their normal operation a proposed change in the wind energy field was installing vortex generators on turbines to improve the power production efficiency vortex generators simply put are small devices that change the way air moves around the turbines to increase energy productivity the industry simply wanted to know do they work finding an answer is extremely complicated in part because a field test is costly adding the generators material wise is not very expensive but you need to put a bunch of them on turbine blades so the labor is pretty expensive ding said someone has to climb up there with special equipment they also have to stop the production and not just for one turbine you have to shut down other turbines in its neighborhood so youre looking at about $7 000 to $10 000 per turbine if youre on a big scale of say 200 turbines youre looking at up to $2 million upfront for a whole farm another problem is even if they do work the expected improvement is small twenty-five years ago when someone studied vortex generators in a lab they said it could get significant improvement say 15 percent or 20 percent ding said obviously that would be really easy to detect in the field the general consensus is that its probably between 1 and 5 percent and with all of the noise you have in this data that 1 percent or 5 percent could be overwhelmed by the noise one percent does not sound like much but if true it is enough to get the investment back in just a couple of years and the benefit over the life of a wind farm really adds up so with all of the given variables how can you possibly hope to reliably measure a change as small as 1 percent the solution searching for a weak signal in that much noise requires data--a lot of it--and that is dings specialty ding the mike and sugar barnes professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university considers himself a data scientist and his phd dissertation was about advanced manufacturing his early work out of college primarily was about using data for quality assurance he applied the same principles to these new problems starting in 2004 over the next several years he worked on some wind energy problems but it wasnt until connecting with edp renewables in 2011 that his research in this area really took off we created data science models to try and see other than the wind speed how you possibly can incorporate other kind of measurables ding said the environmental conditions wind direction air density turbulence wind shear humidity can we put enough data into a model to tell you how conditions are going to affect wind power production so when you feed in new data its like you create a mathematical surrogate and you can compare your datas theoretical power output to the actual power output his work on data science for wind turbine performance and upgrade quantification drew the attention of the german company smartblade ding published a study about quantifying wind turbine upgrades and smartblade asked him to conduct a joint study to see if his method could verify their internal assessments on their own data the two published an academia-industry case study in renewable energy in 2017 quantifying the effect of vortex generator installation on wind power production which presented a strong case of cross validation testifying to the respective method's capability and credibility
2552,the impact the result of that study was enough to convince edp renewables the fourth-largest wind owner-operator in the world to rethink how a turbine upgrade and retrofit effect should be quantified they decided to fine tune dings original approach and jointly developed with dings team a standard procedure that evaluates decisions of installing retrofits on a large scale based on dings innovative approach that re-affirmed gains with more certainty edp renewables installed blade retrofits on up to 1 000 turbines across our fleet brian hayes executive vice president of edp renewables north america said this was an investment of greater than $7 million and increased the amount of clean energy produced by more than 100 000 mwh -- a positive impact to say the least! hayes went on to say the change in thinking he (ding) is driving with our team is significant given the history and general risk aversion to changing methodologies ding compared the relationship with hayes to the relationship between (oakland athletics general manager) billy beane and bill james in the book moneyball ding said that hayes encouraged him to read the book when they first met in the book james is a data analyst who had some innovative ways of looking at the game of baseball but it wasnt until beane and the money-strapped oakland athletics began to buy into them that they were ever applied and accepted it only took one insider in that case billy beane to believe in the data science and now data analytics is routine in major league baseball ding said thats a complete change in mentality the impact of dings research is why he was a recipient of a college of engineering research impact award earlier this year ding said that data sciences impact on engineering applications is everywhere he is now working on developing innovative data science methods for advanced manufacturing the subject he worked on in his phd dissertation and always something he wants to make an impact on
2553,if you have a smartphone you know that when you are not using wi-fi you are using mobile data fourth generation wireless (4g) and long-term evolution (lte) are the most common symbols you see when using mobile data however the current demand on mobile data traffic has far exceeded what 4g and lte wireless can support fifth generation wireless (5g) looks to be a promising solution to the need for higher data capacity but it has yet to be used for mobile wireless communication dr kamran entesari professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is working to address concerns associated with bringing 5g to mobile and offering solutions one of the most effective solutions to handle the high data capacity for 5g is to utilize the millimeter wave spectrum (mm-wave) which is between 30 and 300 gigahertz because of the high cost of components and the high rate of radio signal broadcast loss in air 5g frequencies have mostly been utilized for applications such as indoor high-resolution multimedia streaming but not for mobile communication to be able to utilize the mm-wave spectrum for cellular connectivity the issues of sufficiently large coverage and supporting mobility need to be properly addressed entesari said entesaris focus is to allow radios to support beamforming antennas for 5g mobile users in both transmit and receive modes beamforming is a signal processing technique that transmits a signal directly to the receiver which creates a stronger and more reliable wireless communication for each antenna element a radio unit is required each radio unit includes a transmitter to send the radio signal from the mobile unit to the base station through the antenna and a receiver to collect the incoming radio signal from the base station in the initial version the transmitter and receiver work at different time slots to assure their radio signals do not affect each other however in the more advanced version the transmitter and receiver are supposed to work simultaneously to increase mobile data capacity but this is a very challenging problem since their radio signals directly interact with each other entesari is working to address this issue by finding a way to effectively cancel the leaked signal to the receiver using a replica of the main transmitted signal this research will directly impact the quality of mobile connectivity and enable a new way to support the ever-increasing mobile data traffic for media such as live streaming social media ultra-high definition and 3d video content this work is sponsored by qualcomm inc who has awarded this project a university grant and presented entesari with the qualcomm faculty award
2554,the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) recognized texas a&m university aerospace graduate students jacob mingear and brent bielefeldt undergraduate jessica zamarripa and dr darren hartl with the ephrahim garcia best paper award at the conference on smart materials adaptive structures and intelligent systems in san antonio texas their paper towards high-frequency shape memory alloy actuators incorporating liquid metal energy circuits focused on increasing the actuation frequency of shape memory alloy (sma) actuators by using a multifunctional room-temperature liquid metal energy circuit embedded into an sma actuator
2555,the liquid metal energy circuit can heat the sma via induction heating similar to the operational principle of a stove cooktop this drives the sma actuator to perform work then cooled liquid metal can be flowed through the channel to quickly cool down the sma actuator readying the device for another round of actuation at high enough actuation frequencies sma actuators could be able to replace heavy hydraulic or electrical motor systems in aerospace applications and elsewhere hartl an assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering leads the team of researchers at the multifunctional materials and aerospace structures optimization lab the ephrahim garcia best paper award was established in memory of garcia's extraordinary contributions in scholarship education and service to the field of smart materials and adaptive structures garcia passed away in late 2014 and was a leading faculty member at cornell university he was said to have had a huge heart and was a steadfast supporter of smart materials research and education hartl remembers him as the kind of guy that could speak bluntly about the state of the art but who always spoke with positive passion about our field
2556,in september two new stanton nuclear security fellows joined the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university and will be working with the texas a&m engineering experiment station's center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) for the 2018-19 academic year the stanton nuclear security fellows program supports young scholars to pursue policy-relevant technical research in nuclear security for a 12-month period at texas a&m under the guidance of a faculty mentor fellowships are available for postdoctoral researchers and early-career faculty with the express mission of stimulating the development of the next generation of thought leaders in nuclear security by supporting research that will advance policy-relevant understanding of the issues this years stanton fellows are early-career faculty member dr sherzod kurbanbekov and postdoctoral researcher dr kavita rathore both of them will spend a year working with texas a&m faculty mentors dr sunil chirayath nsspi director and associate professor of nuclear engineering and dr matthew fuhrmann professor of political science kurbanbekov will conduct an investigation of the high-enriched uranium (heu) stockpile of north korea he will use information available in the public domain as well as theoretical projections to estimate the expected quantity of heu in the north korean stockpile produced through both known and possibly clandestine enrichment capacity in the country kurbanbekov notes the results of this study could help us policymakers achieve better outcomes in future negotiations with north korea kurbanbekov received his doctoral degree in materials science from the d serikbayev east kazakhstan state technical university ust-kamenogorsk kazakhstan he began working at the institute of atomic energy branch of the republican state enterprise national nuclear center of the republic of kazakhstan in kurchatov as a researcher in october 2013 and is currently working there as a senior researcher rathores project focuses on the effects of the withdrawal of the us and possibly the european union (eu) from the joint comprehensive plan of action (jcpoa) the jcpoa widely known as the iran nuclear deal was implemented in 2016 with the aim of ensuring that the iranian nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful with the announcement in 2018 that the us would withdraw from the jcpoa the question of how this withdrawal will affect iranian nuclear proliferation becomes pertinent the scenarios of the us withdrawal as well as us and eu withdrawal from the jcpoa should have effects on the country profile for iran and thus nuclear weapons latency values rathore said nuclear weapons latency is the time needed for a non-nuclear weapons state to develop a nuclear weapon once the decision to proliferate has been made rathore will analyze the broad political effects of us and possibly eu withdrawal from the jcpoa and will use the nuclear weapons latency tool developed at texas a&m to estimate the nuclear weapons latency values in face of this new political reality compared to that under continued implementation of the jcpoa rathore completed her doctoral degree in nuclear engineering and technology from the indian institute of technology kanpur india she completed her master's degree in nuclear science and technology from delhi university in delhi india and bachelor's degree in physics from kota university in kota india the stanton nuclear security fellows program is supported by the stanton foundation which was created by frank stanton to support work in his areas of interest including nuclear security texas a&m is one of seven leading institutions in nuclear security in the us that currently hosts stanton nuclear security fellows
2557,"dr zixiang xiong professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a best demo paper award at the 2018 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) international conference on multimedia and expo (icme) held july 23-27 in san diego california xiong received this award for his paper titled ""augmented reality sandpit simulating ant colonies which was co-authored by collaborators lachlan smith and jon mccormack a common way ant species navigate their environment and search for food is by using pheromone chemical trails leading to and from food sources the augmented reality sandpit project featured in the paper shows the creation and progression of these pheromone trails within a colony in an interactive way by utilizing a simulation that gives users the ability to move sand in a real sandpit while seeing virtually projected images on top of the sandpit change to reflect ant colony behavior xiong is an ieee fellow and his research interests include distributed source coding for sensor networks data hiding and network information theory joint source-channel coding networked multimedia and data compression genomic signal processing network traffic smoothing and modeling ieee icme serves as a forum to promote the exchange of the latest advances in multimedia technologies systems and applications from both the research and development perspectives of the circuits and systems communications computer and signal processing communities"
2558,in a rare occurrence and an extraordinary act of philanthropy the university of texas at austin and texas a&m university each received $20 million gifts from j mike walker to support their departments of mechanical engineering walker is an alumnus of both schools and the co-founder of dril-quip in honor of his generous donations both departments have been officially renamed to the j mike walker department of mechanical engineering at ut austin and the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&mthe gifts will provide critical resources for teaching and research within the two departments funding fellowships and professorships to support and recruit faculty research seed grants facility renovations and various programs and organizations for undergraduate studentsmike walker has made an extraordinary investment in the future of engineering not only for the university of texas but for our state and our nation said gregory l fenves president of ut austin our students and faculty will benefit tremendously and because of mikes generosity our mechanical engineering department will continue to expand its reputation as one of the best in the countryi thank mike walker on behalf of a most grateful texas a&m university and aggies present and future for this amazing gift said michael k young president of texas a&m university this wonderful act on his part will propel an already stellar mechanical engineering program to new heights in our continual pursuit of excellence and mission to develop leaders who serve the world both departments are already globally recognized as leading centers of engineering excellence producing high-impact research and demanding the highest educational standards from their students the combination of research output qualified graduates and strong alumni support has led to both departments being consistently ranked among the top mechanical engineering programs in the nation by us news and world report j mike walker has strong ties to the two universities having earned his bachelors degree and phd in mechanical engineering from texas a&m and his masters degree in mechanical engineering from ut austin walker is a dedicated advocate for the value of higher education and chose to invest in both departments because of the powerful impact that his academic experiences have had on his life and careermy experiences at these two universities certainly helped me grow as an engineer walker said but they also taught me how to be a leader how to collaborate on big ideas persevere through tough challenges and bounce back from failure my education shaped who i am today and i want to make that same opportunity available to as many students as i canwalkers gifts will help researchers at both institutions develop new technologies improve quality of life and launch future engineering leaders students will also benefit from greater access to experiential learning and leadership opportunities we are humbled by the generous support of mike walker and will be proud to have his name now tied to our department of mechanical engineering said m katherine banks texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean this gift will enable us to build upon our strong tradition of offering superb engineering education to our students and conducting preeminent and impactful research to benefit the world walker who was born in 1943 in a log cabin outside huntington texas was valedictorian of his class at huntington high school he began his career at exxon refining where he served for four years before taking a leave of absence to acquire his phd he returned to exxon as a subsea engineer in the offshore department of the exxon production research company and subsequently worked for mcevoy and vetco offshore walker then went on to co-found dril-quip one of the worlds leading manufacturers of offshore drilling and production equipment when he retired from his role as chairman president and ceo in 2011 dril-quip had a market cap in excess of $4 billion and over 2 200 employees around the world we cannot thank mike walker enough for his generosity and vision said sharon l wood dean of uts cockrell school of engineering this investment will have a significant impact on our current and future students and will leave a lasting legacy in our school in addition to his accomplishments as a student walker taught engineering mechanics at texas a&m for three years while pursuing his phd he has also been inducted as a distinguished alumnus of the two departments that now bear his name for more information contact: patrick wiseman cockrell school of engineering 512-232-8060; dedra nevill texas a&m college of engineering 979-862-1543
2559,despite ongoing advancements in the transportation industry traffic congestion continues to be one of the more frustrating facets of driving however a team of researchers are taking a unique approach to help solve this problem by improving connected vehicles and traffic operations dr mark burris the herbert d kelleher professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university collaborated with dr alireza talebpour an assistant professor in the department arezoo samimi burris civil engineering graduate student and dr kumares sinha a distinguished civil engineering professor from purdue university their research on the impact of connected vehicle technology on network-wide traffic operation and fuel consumption was awarded the best paper award at the 2018 american society of civil engineers (asce) international conference on transportation and development my research focused on transportation engineering and the research piece we did is trying to predict how travel may change once our vehicles are connected vehicles said burris this is probably the next small step in the evolution of transportation where vehicles talk to each other and talk to the infrastructure the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m funded this research project and was instrumental in bringing sinha to collaborate with the research team the funding allowed for complete flexibility on the research topic and the group of researchers found a commonality in their interest for connective vehicles and their impact on traffic flow our goal was to show what impact this may have and if were showing positive impacts then we want to encourage politicians and auto manufacturers to get this technology on the street as soon as they can so we can enjoy the benefits that we predict will occur said burris the research concentrated on vehicles receiving information wirelessly regarding congestion ahead of the driver then giving the driver a suggested alternative route burris said that he envisioned this technology as a more interactive and intelligent version of google maps where the technology would be integrated into the vehicle itself we tried to add some intelligence into our model that thinks about how people will respond said burris a lot of studies just assume that if your vehicle says its a shorter time then everyone will take the shorter route and people dont do that in real life some people ignore it according to burris the research is unique because it was conducted on such a large traffic area and by using a microsimulation model they tried to integrate realistic data of peoples decisions in accepting the vehicles suggestions the model was constructed in accordance to el pasos i-10 interstate and considered the psychology of human decisions on the road infrastructure connectivity programmed traffic signal times and change in vehicle emissions according to burris many of the challenges derived from building and coding the model to reflect the interconnected vehicles because current programs arent built to support them even though we used the a&m high-performance computer lab it still took days to run some of the simulations said burris burris said that he was happy to have received this honor from the asce and that he hopes that the research will continue under student-driven projects that use the simulation code and develop it even further it does help validate what we are doing as an important next step in connected automated vehicles said burris
2560,nuclear power is an alternative form of energy that is used globally to power infrastructure develop medical equipment and create manufactured weapons while much of the population benefits from nuclear energy there are still complexities surrounding how emitted radioactive waste should be disposed of safely and efficiently this is what dr marcelo castilla sanchez a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university is striving to solve with his nuclear waste disposal research sanchez was awarded $600 000 for his project from the department of energy (doe)s nuclear energy university program which will be funded for a minimum of three years sanchez is the projects principal investigator and is working on a conceptual design for a geological disposal site to safely store and manage high-level radioactive wastes from power generation high-level radioactive wastes are a byproduct of the reactions that occur inside nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel that can no longer be efficiently used the united states alone has generated more than 90 000 metric tons of nuclear waste currently there is no permanent disposal site for nuclear waste and until a solution is devised the material is stored in reservoirs constructed at nuclear plant sites sanchez proposes that the doe or other agencies involved in the disposal build a geological disposal site where a shaft will be installed 500 feet below ground level and lead to a system of galleries where tunnels will branch out and encase each cylindrical capsule containing radioactive material the capsule will be designed out of a high-quality rock and a clay barrier will lie between the canister itself and the waste material we will use clay as the barrier simply because its relatively easy to manufacture its economical and it fulfills all the functions required for a safe waste disposal said sanchez the conceptual design is like an onion with its different layers; you have the radioactive material then the canister then the clay barrier and then finally the rock surrounding the whole thing each layer contributes to the isolation of the pollutant waste the us has spent several decades and billions of dollars on researching potential sites for a permanent disposal site according to sanchez there are still aspects that need more research to gain a better understanding on the interaction of some key underground elements such as gas migration sanchez said that they have made good progress on understanding rock and soil structures but their main focus is to make sure the clay and other barrier materials will remain stable for a long period of time we hope that the chemical processes that might develop in the future wont have a negative effect on the clay said sanchez we have an excellent knowledge in producing gas oil water et cetera from the ground but now we are facing the opposite problem of isolating the ground conditions that will prevent and delay the flow of water and gas migration from reaching the canister containing the nuclear waste despite the significant progress made in this area in the last few decades it seems there is still more research that needs to be done need to achieve a safe and economical disposal of high active radioactive waste said sanchez our group will work hard to contribute to new knowledge in this complex subject with the goal of not transferring this unresolved problem to future generations
2561,stories of hard work are a hallmark of collegiate success but perhaps few students have represented this better than roger simon a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university simon was selected as a participant of the national science foundation (nsf) louis stokes alliances for minority participation (lsamp) bridge to the doctorate (btd) program allowing him to pursue the first two years of his graduate program fully supported getting a chance to do something that i am really passionate about and not having to worry about finances is a great thing said simon i like helping people and i figure that being in this program gives me a chance to give back and encourage undergraduate students to work hard and tell them that anything is possible the lsamp programs objective is to increase the quality and quantity of underrepresented minority students successfully completing science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) baccalaureate degree programs as a part of the lsamp initiative the nsf btd program sponsors a cohort of 12 selected students for the first two years of their graduate studies the program grants students an annual stipend for educational expenses and provides them with networking opportunities simons area of research under the guidance of his graduate advisor dr edward white associate department head and professor in the department is experimental aerodynamics and the dynamics of water droplets that are exposed to air simon aims to understand why water droplets behave the way that they do using the boundary-layer theory and shedding frequency theory among others we run different wind tunnel tests with a solid hemisphere in the wind tunnel and we are studying different things like vortex shedding frequency and understanding the sloshing frequency that happens whenever air is blown over a water droplet said simon we are looking to apply it to different things like aircraft icing on a wing or heat exchangers simons passion for aerospace has been a part of his life since childhood ever since he received his first radio-controlled helicopter at the age of eight he knew he wanted to be an engineer simon was fascinated by flight and wanted to know the intricacies and dynamics of the model toy after going on his first airplane flight at age 13 simon knew he wanted to pursue a degree in aerospace engineering i fell in love with the whole idea of just taking off from the ground and going off into the unknown said simon the reason i chose to come to a&m was because they had a great engineering program once at texas a&m simon got an opportunity to research abroad as an undergraduate student and participant of the engineering learning community introduction to research program the program offers underrepresented freshmen engineering students a high-impact learning and research opportunity to gain research combined with a global experience simon was also a regents scholar and participated in the endowed engineering success program seminar class he was also a member of the national academic council for minorities in engineering and a member of the zachry leadership program (zlp) a program that empowers undergraduate students with soft skills to become well-rounded future leaders in engineering for those that have known simon since his undergraduate career his acceptance into the btd program comes as no surprise ive known him through thick and thin since he was a freshman in the success engineering seminar said dr sonia garcia senior director of the access and inclusion program in the engineering academic and student affairs office not only has he demonstrated how to be a reliable brilliant and involved student but hes also an amazing reliable and genuinely good young man according to garcia simons achievements as an undergraduate student have served to inspire other students both through his mentorship and his actions for those that are interested in (pursuing) their education but thought that they are not at that point or arent good enough or dont have what it takes roger can be a game changer said garcia i know that students leave with a good impression when they see someone that looks like them or talks like them or lives in the same neighborhood as them; they feel more comfortable and say ‘if you did this then i can do this simon plans on continuing research in his main interests of study throughout graduate school he said that his aspirations include continuing to be a role model to all students including underrepresented minorities and someday becoming a professor to teach students of his own he said that he is humbled by his accomplishments and is thankful for all of the people that have helped him get to where he is now if you truly believe in yourself then you should be willing to work extremely hard and be willing to do things that are out of the norm to get there said simon getting the chance to receive my bachelors degree in may and have my parents here to see it was a great experience and i just want to do it again when i get my masters degree
2562,on sept 12-13 the student engineers' council (sec) at texas a&m university held their fall 2018 engineering career fair at reed arena the fair is a premier recruiting event that is planned organized and staffed by students making it the largest student-run career fair in the nation this year more than 10 000 students attended seeking internships and jobs from the 436 companies that participated the career fair brings in a lot of people said matthew milanowski 15 a citgo process engineer who attended this fair as a student from the company side that means we have a lot of good candidates to look out for the day before the fair the sec hosted two events a welcome social and the company showcase at the welcome social students had the opportunity to interact with company recruiters in a relaxed professional setting the company showcase is an informational style event where students learned about how to better understand companies recruiting practices and the typical positions that are filled by engineering students
2563,kimberly robinson a senior mechanical engineering student completed an internship last year and attended this years fair in search of a second internship i really like the career fair because it gives me a different insight into companies robinson said a lot of questions i ask are about what the culture of the company is like she said it gives me a better idea if its a good fit for me in addition to hosting the annual career fair the sec also played a large role in the renovation of the newly opened zachry engineering education complex one of the first donations for the building the largest academic building on campus came from the students on behalf of the sec through funds raised from this career fair
2564,engineers are product innovators but traditionally their sole focus is on technology development where they rarely have a hand in their own product commercialization this can leave them at a disadvantage when developing a product that will fit consumer needs the texas a&m university innovation corps (i-corps) site fellows program is addressing this disadvantage by providing student researchers the skills and resources to conduct market research and evaluate the potential of their innovation the best way i could describe this program is teaching you how to make the plan before the business plan said monica hwang a chemical engineering doctoral student
2565,hwang is working with dr yossef elabd professor and associate department head in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m to develop a process for producing high-quality low platinum loading fuel cell electrodes in large quantities this process is in high demand as fuel cell vehicles remain expensive to produce because of the cost of the platinum catalyst the purpose of this program is to really identify if there is a need for your technology on the consumer market and if there is a need what do people want to use your product for hwang said the goal is to save to time in development by talking to consumers and seeing if the problem they need solved is the same problem we are perceiving in research texas a&m is able to provide this opportunity to teams of engineers such as elabd and hwang through the national science foundation (nsf) who awarded an i-corps site grant to texas a&m to support up to 150 undergraduate and graduate student teams who have innovative product solutions the six-week program includes training participants in the foundational elements of product commercialization access to travel funds to conduct potential industry and consumer interviews and access to industry mentors
2566,the program also provides engineers insight into additional uses for their product outside of what they originally considered aerospace engineering undergraduate student gerardo barillas and his technical advisor dr raktim bhattacharya an associate professor of in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m are developing an aquatic drone that can take water samples and identify hazardous chemicals but found that it has the potential for other uses it was originally built for emergency responders so that they can identify hazardous chemicals in the water source if they were doing a rescue during an event such as a flood barillas said what we found through this program was that depending on the users firefighters police or lab technicians they all had different needs now we are able to go back and implement those needs into the design to make the product more marketable from the start
2567,for some students the experience reinforced the value of networking shreedevi arun kumar a biomedical engineering doctoral student is working with dr corey j bishop an assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m to develop innovative solutions for vaccine delivery in third world countries vaccine transport is costly and requires cold storage and careful handling to retain vaccine functionality conditions that are not always easily present in areas such as remote desert communities where vaccines are brought in on a styrofoam cooler via camel in response to this challenge kumar developed a drug delivery system that keeps the vaccine insulated within a bubble isolating it from environmental factors and allowing it to remain viable i found that understanding how you communicate and form relationships with potential customers is really important arun kumar said i think in a traditional engineering approach you are very focused on ‘how do i make this product work this program really put me out of my comfort zone in talking to consumers but it also pushed me to get out there and ask questions and gave me entrepreneurial that you dont normally get in school for many students the program has helped them realize not only the full potential of their product but also themselves this program really helped me identify what i like doing which is research and development for products hwang said i am still considering where my role will be but i really like trying to form creative solutions for someone that has a certain problem and i learned that as a part of this program students interested in more information on becoming an i-site fellow can contact principal investigator magda lagoudas at m-lagoudas@tamuedu or co-principal investigator; rodney boehm at rodneyboehm@tamuedu
2568,what made you decide to study in qatar i applied on a whim during my second semester of freshman year i knew i wanted to study abroad but as a freshman i couldnt find a program that fit the classes i needed to take i was initially unsure about qatar and the surrounding region but was really excited at the possibility to live abroad anywhere for a few months i remember talking to my parents on the phone about the program to ask for their support they told me that i could go if i could give sufficient answers to two questions: how do they treat women and how are you going to pay for it i reached out to advisors and professors who had worked at texas a&m university at qatar (tamuq) and each person had incredible stories and gave reassurance that as a woman i would be treated with respect additionally i was able to receive financial support which helped convince my parents what was your favorite aspect of being a student thereoften when you go to a foreign country its difficult to make connections with locals and immerse yourself in the culture however when youre a student its much easier to make friends in your classes and meet people who want to show you what their life is like i was in qatar for the holy month of ramadan and would have never had the opportunity to be a part of all the traditions had i not met my qatari friend through a class project
2569,talk about your experiences there as a woman as a woman i was initially hesitant to study abroad in the middle east because i assumed i would be forced into an abaya (black cloak) or a hijab while qatar has had recent pushes to retain its conservative culture i had the freedom to wear what i pleased as long as i remained modest this meant always having my shoulders and knees covered unless i was in the privacy of the female resident hall im used to wearing nike shorts and a t-shirt especially when its above 100°f so this was a bit of an adjustment for me after a while i got used to dressing that way so that i could blend in in qatar most facilities are segregated by gender there are female and male residence halls with strict rules and separate gyms at the rec center at the female-only gym the qatari women would walk in from outside fully covered in traditional clothes only to unveil western workout clothes under their abayas and beautiful long hair underneath their respective head coverings seeing that transformation was always something that stuck with me respect is the word that first comes to mind when i think of the treatment of women in qatar i never witnessed catcalling or inappropriate staring like i have in the united states men would open doors and were always very friendly while still being carefully reserved so as to not cross any of their cultural boundaries when waiting to board public transportation the women had a separate line and would be allowed on first before all of the men did you feel safei felt very safe and became just as comfortable as i am in the united states there are very low crime rates in qatar and everyone i met was very welcoming in fact in 2015 qatar was ranked as the second safest country in the world it especially helped to have the support of the tamuq faculty and the study abroad advisor in qatar
2570,would you encourage other students to study in qatar i would encourage anyone who is looking for a unique study abroad experience to choose qatar! it was amazing to be a part of the aggie family in qatar and learn about their own traditions how do you think this program helped you grow as an individualthis program helped me develop into the person that i am today by getting me out of my comfort zone and giving me once-in-a-lifetime experiences i was able to have honest conversations about religion values and customs with students who came from all different backgrounds these interactions really made me think about my own identity and how it has been shaped by the environment that i was raised in living abroad made me feel uncomfortable at times but it made me more independent and self-aware what kind of engineering activities did you participate in although tamuq does not offer aerospace engineering as a degree i was able to take non-major specific classes like technical writing and anthropology despite not taking aerospace courses i really enjoyed my classes because they involved a lot of group work and allowed me to get to know my classmates outside of coursework there are a lot of engineering activities at tamuq that students can get involved in such as research seminars and special events there were also several engineering outreach programs that were going on do you feel this program helped you prepare for your future careerthe program helped me prepare for my future career by exposing me to different ideas and perspectives it taught me how to work in a group of diverse people and how to communicate cross-culturally studying abroad in qatar definitely helped to set me apart from other applicants when applying to internships and other opportunities -ashley taylor ‘19 aerospace engineering
2571,texas a&m engineerings undergraduate engineering program was ranked eighth among public engineering schools offering a doctorate (tied with university of wisconsin-madison) and no 14 overall in the recently released 2019 us news & world report best college rankings in all six departments were ranked in the top 10 among public institutions the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and the department of biological and agricultural engineering which is part of both the college of engineering and the college of agriculture and life sciences at texas a&m both ranked second among public schools and overall the department of aerospace engineering (6th) the department of mechanical engineering (7th) the zachry department of civil engineering (8th) and the department of industrial and systems engineering (8th) ranked in the top 10 among public institutions and in the top 20 overall the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering (13th among public institutions/21st overall) and the department of electrical and computer engineering (12th/20th) moved up in the rankings this year
2572,"wood structures remain a staple of modern infrastructure but for many the fear of an earthquake striking and destroying their home and sense of security is all too prevalent earlier this year the gulf of alaska earthquake caused widespread fear along the coast researchers at texas a&m university in partnership with researchers in japan are investigating the resiliency of wood structures to create more reliable and robust infrastructure to withstand extensive damage from strong earthquakes dr maria koliou an assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering will serve as the principal investigator for a national science foundation-funded rapid project along with six other collaborators and co-principal investigators across the us the team will be traveling early next year to carry out a series of tests on the seismic resilience of wood-framed structures on the largest earthquake defense (e-defense) shake table in the world in miki city japan in our role this is a rapid project so the nature of the project is to collect time-sensitive data and plan potential payload tests for these wood buildings in collaboration with our japanese colleagues said koliou the ultimate goal is to use the knowledge from these tests to establish a holistic framework to evaluate the performance and recovery of wood residential buildings this project is the first among the japan-us network opportunity mutual agreement which was established over a five year period for the fostering of us and japanese collaborative research the project will be the first of its kind to simulate and construct two full-scale houses with utility lines soil conditions (under one of the houses) and pipelines the testing will consist of different levels of simulated earthquake intensities on the e-defense shake table and a series of structural retrofits on the houses throughout the experiment one part of our work will be to collect damage and restoration repair data using different levels of seismic intensity until a structure collapse occurs says koliou ""the plan of the japanese research team is to test both structures to collapse"" the japanese team will be administering the construction of the houses and leading the tests with koliou and her team helping collect time-sensitive data of the damage and repair process using advanced monitoring equipment koliou and her group will be using state-of-the-art advanced monitoring equipment to capture the damage and the repair restoration process for the structures with this data they hope to create more reliable infrastructure that can not only withstand damage from earthquakes but will be conducive to building recovery and reconstruction efforts the japanese will be doing the tests; it is their test and their data and then we will collaborate with them to do all of these measurements says koliou we will have our own instruments and we will do all of these measurements to identify and collect time-sensitive data for repair and restoration koliou says that this wood-frame structure resilience testing is the first of several that will use this experiment to then conduct similar tests on concrete and steel buildings the experiment will work to collect data from four models of restoration repair and damage of the structure while taking into account the interplay of structural and non-structural components their structural interaction and the utility lines different levels of earthquake shaking will be used for the two wood structures until total collapse "" said koliou ""we are expecting to observe heavy damage on both structures and potential implementation of seismic retrofit techniques says koliou the importance and purpose of this test according to koliou will be to use the qualitative data collected to minimize uncertainty and create robust models that capture the exact interactions between the soil utilities and structural and non-structural components the ultimate goal of this project is to investigate the response of these structures experimentally and then develop analytical models to capture the actual response of the buildings "" said koliou ""[ this will account] for the interaction of structural and nonstructural components soil-structure interaction and lifeline utility performance said koliou koliou said that she has highlighted the differences of japanese buildings from american buildings and will be aware of them as the tests carry out however she said that while there are some differences there is a large degree of structural similarity and this project will benefit both teams this is a unique opportunity to collaborate with our japanese colleagues in one-of-a-kind tests [on] the worlds largest shake table where you can actually represent as realistic as possible current wood-frame building construction said koliou it is really important that there is a very large degree of similarity between the way that the wood-frame residential buildings are built in japan and in the us we can extrapolate results that would be of benefit to the us and the us communities"" the first collaboration meeting between the us and japanese teams took place last may in miki city and kobe japan a dedicated webpage with the progress and focus of this project can be found here"
2573,to honor the legacy of mannan the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has established an endowed scholarship in his name the dr sam mannan endowed scholarship is designed to prepare chemical engineers for leadership roles in in the process safety field and will be awarded to a student pursuing an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering with a minor in safety engineering from texas a&m university give to the dr sam mannan endowed scholarship dr m sam mannan executive director of the mary kay o'connor process safety center (mkopsc) passed away on tuesday sept 11 2018 mannans work at the mkopsc has influenced the entire chemical engineering industry in the us and worldwide process safety which was once seen as little more than wearing safety goggles or a lab coat has become one of the most important areas of chemical engineering throughout mannans more than 20 years with the center the mkopsc has been a driving force in industrys adoption of more rigorous safety standards mannan regents professor and holder of the t michael o'connor chair i in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was a fellow of the american institute of chemical engineers fellow of the uk institution of chemical engineers and a member of the american society of safety engineers international institute of ammonia refrigeration and national fire protection association earlier this year mannan was also appointed to serve on the department of energy's hydrogen and fuel cell technical advisory committee mannan has received countless awards for his work including the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) engineering genesis award in 2014 the charles w crawford service award at texas a&m in 2014 the bush excellence award for faculty in public service at texas a&m in 2012 american institute of chemical engineers norton h walton/ russell l miller award in 2009 the medal of honor from the technical university of lodz poland in 2008 and the texas a&m university association of former students distinguished achievement award for teaching in 2003 in addition to these awards mannan was named the first holder of the ma naser chair by bangladesh university of engineering and technology; distinguished visiting professor sinopec research institute of safety engineering qing dao china; and distinguished honorary professor rajiv gandhi university of petroleum technology in 2011 the technical university of lodz poland conferred a doctoris honoris causa on mannan he was a prolific author and researcher he co-authored guidelines for safe process operations and maintenance published by the center for chemical process safety american institute of chemical engineers he is the editor of the 3rd and 4th edition of the three-volume authoritative reference for process safety and loss prevention lees loss prevention in the process industries and co-authored a book multiscale modeling for process safety applications he has also published over 300 peer-reviewed journal publications more than 220 proceedings papers and more than 270 technical meeting presentations mannan is survived by his wife afroza mannan and their two daughters joya and rumki to honor the legacy of mannan the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has established an endowed scholarship in his name the dr sam mannan endowed scholarship is designed to prepare chemical engineers for leadership roles in in the process safety field and will be awarded to a student pursuing an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering with a minor in safety engineering from texas a&m university give to the dr sam mannan endowed scholarship
2574,"on friday sept 7 hundreds of guests gathered on the newly constructed e-quad to celebrate the official dedication of the largest academic building on the texas a&m university campus the zachry engineering education complex (zach) forty-six years after the original zachry engineering building opened its doors current and former students as well as donors and other dignitaries braved the texas heat to celebrate the future and honor the past of engineering at texas a&m located at the intersection of university drive and bizzell street the zachry engineering education complex is unlike any other facility in the nation the 525 000-square-foot complex (which is 200 000 square feet larger than its predecessor) is set to revolutionize the way the college of engineering delivers education to undergraduate students with its student-centered design and modern learning techniques and technology one of the most important aspects of this building is that all of the engineering disciplines are located together said m katherine banks vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for the texas a&m university system and dean of engineering for texas a&m this allows for connections between the different types of engineers who are necessary to solve many of our technical challenges not only is the new zachry building the largest academic building on campus the funding campaign for the building generated the most support for any academic building on the universitys campus: more than $75 million one of the first donations came from engineering students i am grateful to the amazing student body of the texas a&m college of engineering said reed hampton president of the student engineers council (sec) at texas a&m without the support of each of those intelligent impassioned and innovative aggies not only would the sec have no student body to represent but we would not have been able to make our donation on their behalf since students were among the first donors to the building its fitting that they were also among the first to set foot in the new building during an open house on aug 27 before classes began ""im already proud to be an engineer at texas a&m but seeing this building that pride just skyrockets im going to spend all of my time here said lanise williams '20 an industrial and systems engineering student kennon wishert 22 agreed ""i'm a first-generation student from a small town we didnt have anything like this its so cool there's lots of technology and endless ways to learn i never really had access to this much technology so im ready to dive into all of it the new zachry building has no lecture halls but instead features active learning studios that foster teamwork and furniture that fully integrates technology active learning also called collaborative learning or problem-solving learning exists on many campuses but zach is one of the largest active learning spaces in the country with 18 96-person learning studios and 21 48-person learning studios educational technology and more activity-based learning are key elements to future engineering classrooms studies have shown that active learning helps students retain information better and enhances their educational experience so the college of engineering embraced active learning as part of its goal to transform engineering education and promote collaboration intersection of art and engineering another feature of zachry that may surprise visitors and students alike is the engineering art collection a university committee selected 10 visionary artists from more than 100 candidates to be included in the art collection within the building these privately-funded art pieces are not just aesthetically pleasing they are based in engineering principles and represent the intersection of creativity and innovation through art and engineering ""it is our collective goal that the art will encourage interactivity and function as an academic tool for purposes of engaging the students faculty and former students by inspiring exploration innovation and enterprise said banks we are very excited about the engineering art collection in the building; it is interesting to see how each piece embodies mathematic scientific and engineering principles past meets the future the new zachry honors the buildings history inside the south entrance there is a large section of the original zachry buildings signature aggregate cladding and the original bronze plaque on display some of that familiar aggregate has literally been out of this world a former student involved with the space program kirk shireman 85 an international space station (iss) program manager sent some pieces of the famous aggregate cladding to the iss another feature in zachry also combines the old with the new a digital alcove with an interactive table the theme of the digital alcove is where will your aggie ring take you on display there is a source for student inspiration an aggie ring that has literally been to the moon the ring was donated by gerry griffin ‘56 former flight director on nasas apollo mission and former director of the johnson space center other features of the new zachry are state-of-the-art and designed to promote the best educational experience for undergraduate students they include 60 000 square feet of makerspace multidisciplinary common labs a learning resource center offering tutoring counseling and tech support numerous huddle rooms study areas and collaboration spaces and a career center"
2575,people dont often think of engineering and art as going hand-in-hand but the texas a&m university college of engineering is changing that the zachry engineering education complex features 10 works of art created by visionary artists who draw inspiration from science and engineering the art wasnt intended to simply be enticing to look at but rather serve as an educational tool for engineering students john e hurtado associate dean of academic affairs is developing the first ever engineering art curriculum that will be based on the pieces in the building when students see these art pieces they make a connection to principles and concepts that theyve studied in the classroom principles and concepts like approximation convergence limits superposition turbulent fluid flow nonlinearity data visualization and many others hurtado said last week six of the 10 artists whose work is displayed in the zachry building met with a group of students to discuss the many ways that art and engineering intersect the zachry leadership program hosted the event artfully engineered and invited select students from the college of engineering the college of liberal arts and the college of architecture to attend the small group discussion allowed the students to go from table to table and engage with the artists inigo manglano ovalle whose piece prototype for stellar interloper hangs conspicuously from the third level of the building into the second-floor atrium talked to students about his interest in the invisible forces that surround us the work which his son nicknamed silver surfer depicts a parabola that mirrors itself creating an ellipse
2576,this sentiment seemed to be a common theme among the artists and students laurie fricks piece transparent data was directly inspired by the students and engineering departments at texas a&m the work is spread across a large portion of two walls on the third floor of the zachry building and uses fused glass and mild steel to beautifully display data collected from university archives dating back to 1880 as well as written descriptions from engineering project showcase projects over the last five years the thing that i do is i grab a data set and i try to make data tell a story frick said during the discussion the reason i chose showcase was to tell the story of how people work together frick said that all art has a story its not just what you see but whats going on behind them she said thats what great about the art in this building chemical engineering student danielle yarbrough said that passing art in zachry every day can provoke thought and draw your focus away from the stress of studying it gives you a nice break from that but at the same time it gives you a little something more she said daniel canogars piece pulse collects real-time data from the building and conceptualizes it across five large metal ribbons lined with led screens that appear to weave in and out of the wall on the second floor canogar said his work as an artist isnt very different from engineering with the biggest difference between them being their function were all doing research coming up with ideas breaking boundaries and new thresholds this for me is really important he said engineering has a purpose the interesting thing about art is we dont have that responsibility we can take liberties and push the boundaries of things because we dont have to have that kind of functional aspect he said art is however functional in a conceptual way i dont just think of art as something just beautiful and pretty he said it makes you think differently of the world i always say that art is about paying attention to view the art and learn more about the artists visit the art of the new zachry website
2577,"when a hurricane or tropical storm hits a coastline community the immediate focus of people around the nation is to help the community return to normal working order as soon as humanly possible the media then shifts their attention to the next national story but what about the lasting environmental effects of a coastal storm researchers in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university are working to better understand the natural adaptation of coastal ecosystems to environmental stressors like storms rising temperatures and sea levels the topics include the exchange of sediments between the nearshore environment the beach and the sand dunes; and the factors limiting the growth of coastal vegetation said dr orencio duran-vinent research assistant professor in the department we are also looking at what controls the maximum size of coastal dunes; the post-storm recovery of dunes and barrier islands; and the prediction of their medium and long-term changes resulting from the combination of waves storms wind-driven transport and sea level rise duran-vinent is working with dr ignacio rodriguez-iturbe distinguished university and distinguished texas a&m engineering experiment station professor dr paul mario koola professor of practice in the department and dr rusty feagin professor in the department of ecosystem science and management at texas a&m ""the main goal is two-fold "" duran-vinent said ""to use this knowledge to devise better ways to protect restore and increase the resilience of coastal ecosystems and to develop a new approach in coastal engineering where natural ecosystems are an integral part of the coastal infrastructure"" these natural ecosystems provide flooding protection biodiversity adaptation to external conditions and sustainable development for their communities for example coastal dunes are the natural barriers against storm impact for beaches their success in coastal protection depends on how tall they are at the moment of impact ""coastal dunes arise from the sand trapped by plants after colonizing a bare beach area and their maximum natural size is controlled by the complex interaction of physical and biological processes near the shore "" duran-vinent said recovery of the dune after the storm is controlled by the war between erosive events for example the big waves that kill vegetation and destroy developing dunes and restorative events that deposit sediment and increase elevation this in-turn facilitates plant establishment and wind-driven transport by investigating this topic researchers can design interventions that shift the balance toward constructive restoration processes and make an effective use of the natural dynamics the team envisions coastal protection plans that involve selective human intervention to amplify the natural protection already provided by the coastal ecosystem duran-vincent explained that this process requires three steps the first step is to understand and explain the main characteristics of the hazards such as hurricanes and large wave events the second is to understand the natural response of coastal ecosystems to these types of events lastly it is important to leverage current man-made structures and interventions that minimize coastal vulnerability and maximize its recovery the team's research is a multidisciplinary effort involving people and facilities from the ocean engineering department in college station and galveston and from the ecosystems management department their work combines field measurements experimental observations advance image processing and machine learning techniques mathematical models and numerical simulations ""we are currently using time-lapse photography to measure the recovery of an inlet opened by hurricane harvey in cedar lakes at the texas coast "" duran-vinent said before the storm impact this area was a beach partially covered by vegetation with developing and low-elevation dunes now the inlet is closing rapidly and vegetation is expected to soon colonize the bare sand and start the dune-building phase due to the complexity of the photographs and the huge size of the collected data the team has to go beyond manual classification and rely on advanced image analysis methods including machine learning to extract meaningful information from the data ""we are also analyzing the statistical properties of large wave events to distinguish between extreme ones like hurricanes that can completely destroy dunes from medium size ones that prevent or slow-down dune recovery "" duran-vinent said this information is then included in a probabilistic model of the evolution of coastal dunes that can be extended to barrier islands the model can be used to estimate the natural resilience of a given coastal area under changing conditions and design and test the most cost-effective intervention and help devise a long-term sustainability strategy "" duran-vinent said with a long-term sustainability strategy in place the well-being of coastal ecosystems can be better maintained"
2578,the thought of having the transportation industry taken over by self-driving cars can seem more like a futuristic vision than a reality while there is still a technological gap between traditional vehicles and autonomous vehicles that needs to be bridged ongoing research continues to push toward a future of autonomy in anticipation of an autonomous future researchers in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university in collaboration with purdue university conducted a study on the impacts of connected vehicle technology on networkwide traffic flow and fuel consumption connected vehicles have equipped internet access and can wirelessly communicate inside and outside of the vehicle much like cadillacs vehicle-2-vehicle safety technology in their recent models the study revealed that in connected vehicles drivers can have access to traffic data and travel suggestions allowing them to detour and cause traffic congestion to decrease which would also lower emission levels and create a positive environmental impact the research team is comprised of dr mark burris the herbert d kelleher professor in the department; dr alireza talebpour an assistant professor in the department; arezoo samimi a civil engineering graduate student; and dr kumares sinha a distinguished civil engineering professor from purdue the study was presented at the 2018 american society of civil engineers international conference on transportation and development and received the best paper award we are at a very transformative phase (in the transportation industry) and are at the lower end of the spectrum in terms of autonomy said sinha the success of connected vehicles depends on if more people are willing to be connected; then it will bring more benefits and progress the researchers developed a simulation model of a traffic network encompassing two congested roads in el paso texas these roads were chosen for this study not only because they are highly congested but also because they encompass a nonattainment area meaning that any project implemented in the area would improve air quality or at least have no negative effects in addition the researchers developed an early warning congestion system as a result of the study that would function as a more interactive and intelligent google maps system we are working on the theoretical component of the technology and what we have is a simulation algorithm of a road network that we tried to make as realistic as possible to be able to consider the scenarios and see how it works said samimi to do this they considered two cases of nonoccurring and recurring congestion and developed incident scenarios to see what the effects of that would be congestion areas behave differently in a nonoccurring rural city like amarillo or a larger metropolitan area like houston after the driver receives a warning of congestion ahead the driver is presented with options for re-routing away from the congested area options for re-routing included the shortest travel time for the driver and travel routes based on fuel efficiency the mileage might affect the fuel consumption but its also important how the drivers are traveling on those lanes said samimi if you have a lot of congestion and there is a lot of stopping and going on those lanes then the fuel consumption (and congestion) will be higher samimi played a large role in simulating the data into a viable model she said that because the algorithms in the model were new and innovative there were necessary adjustments that needed to be made to the computing system for the model it took a lot of time to just simulate it and if there were any small problems i would have to restart it all over again said samimi the high-performance computing center at texas a&m university helped us a lot with this the researchers wanted to take their simulation a step further and implement a unique realistic component into their study instead of assuming that all drivers would accept their suggested rerouting options they used market penetration techniques to measure the theoretical random amount of people who would and wouldnt accept the suggested routes provided to them by the vehicle to further develop an accurate representation the team also conducted a recent survey of 2 000 people to see the likelihood of accepting the rerouting suggestions and will use this to further develop their research not everyone is going to accept the recommendation of the suggested route and we modeled this to compare what happens in a connected vehicle environment where quite a few travelers do change their route versus a non-connected environment where only (a) few people change their route said burris samimi said that this research has the potential to help transportation planners and policymakers determine how to get the best results from connected vehicle technology since the research is still theoretical there would need to be a vast market of people wanting vehicles to be connected in order for the benefit to be fully realized according to samimi just because people have the technology that does not mean it will be used as expected said sinha we did a nationwide survey that provided the underlying probabilities and that is the added beauty of this paper the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m funded this research project and was essential in securing collaborations with sinha
2579,the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) announced its class of 2019 associate fellows which included drs manoranjan majji and albina tropina from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university majji is an assistant professor and the director of the land air and space robotics laboratory he has a diverse background in several aspects of dynamics and control of aerospace vehicles with expertise spanning the whole spectrum of analysis modeling computations and experiments he works in the areas of structural systems computational vision and sensor systems astronautics and dynamical systems and aerospace robotics tropina is a research professor with research focused on the nonequilibrium plasma energy deposition for ignition combustion and flow control understanding ignition and combustion of air-fuel mixtures is one of the important challenges for fundamental combustion research as well as for combustion applications ranging from aircraft jet engines to internal combustion engines tropina focuses on the modeling of nonequilibrium plasma based on a three-temperature plasma model with detailed combustion and plasma kinetics the grade of associate fellow recognizes individuals who have accomplished or been in charge of important engineering or scientific work or who have done original work of outstanding merit or who have otherwise made outstanding contributions to the arts sciences or technology of aeronautics or astronautics to be selected as an associate fellow an individual must be an aiaa senior member in good standing with at least 12 years of professional experience and be recommended by a minimum of three current associate fellows the class of 2019 aiaa associate fellows will be officially recognized during the aiaa associate fellows recognition ceremony and dinner to be held in conjunction with the 2019 aiaa science and technology forum and exposition on jan 7 at the manchester grand hyatt in san diego california
2580,the 2018 women in nuclear (win) united states conference awarded the texas a&m university chapter most reactive student chapter they were awarded a certificate of appreciation for being the most reactive student chapter defined as having the most events and reaching the most people angelina garcia a junior and president of win for the 2018-19 school year represented texas a&m at the win conference in huntsville alabama in august the conference was hosted by the tennessee valley authority but a variety of companies were also there including framatome and several national laboratories garcia said this years conference emphasized communication and enhancing visibility
2581,nuclear science week one of their most reactive activities is nuclear science week each year win visits several middle schools in the bryan and college station independent school districts according to the online higher education resource bestcollegescom texas a&m ranks first in texas and 12th nationally on a list of colleges that graduate the most women in stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) one of our overall goals is to encourage more female stem majors said garcia the most crucial age for young women to decide on a stem career path is between fifth and ninth grade
2582,winning women the texas a&m win chapter reactivated in 2009 is one of only eight student chapters in the nation their faculty advisor is dr karen kirkland our win chapter is special because we have not only a large enough number of women in our department to have a sustainable membership size in win but we also have a large contingent of men who actively participate in chapter activities said kirkland we all learn from each other and support each other in this way win has become an important part of how our department prepares our students for postgraduate life nuclear engineering companies across the globe also have chapters founded in 1993 women in nuclear was created to support and encourage women working in nuclear industries throughout the world win global operates in over 109 countries with approximately 35 000 members the us wins vision statement is to position the united states for the future of nuclear energy and technology through the advancement of women we do this by supporting each other and engaging in outreach said garcia its our goal to change the disproportionate number of females to males in the nuclear engineering field the nuclear industry and nuclear engineering as a field has been traditionally white and male said kirkland women are now taking leadership roles in the nuclear industry for example the nuclear energy institute now has a female ceo the nuclear industry provides power to the general population and therefore should be employers of the general population part of wins recruiting and outreach includes explaining what nuclear engineering is and its diverse career paths i knew i wanted to be an engineer but nuclear was a mystery said garcia i researched it more and the public perception was negative but i realized the truth was different nuclear engineering is not bad its not something to be feared in the words of spiderman: ‘with great power comes great responsibility the texas a&m win chapter is open to everybody we have roughly 30 students but are looking to expand said garcia the first meeting is a joint meeting with the american nuclear society student chapter on thursday september 13 from five to seven pm in aien 301 if new members would like to attend a representative from sandia national labs will be giving a presentation and answering student questions win meetings include speakers from the nuclear engineering industry and opportunities to network with other women in the nuclear engineering department win complements the service organization american nuclear society chapter with its many outreach opportunities garcias advice for new students join an organization she said also never hesitate to ask other students in the department or in your organization for help even if theyre older or youre a first-generation student
2583,david coleman and dr moble benedicts paper titled a truly biomimetic hover-capable flapping-wing robot won the best paper award in the advanced vertical flight session at the 2018 american helicopter society annual forum coleman a fourth-year doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university presented his paper among 17 other presenters in the session that focused on novel revolutionary concepts to achieve vertical flight the paper was recognized as the most important technical contribution to this field and was subsequently selected for session best paper award the paper focused on systematically quantifying the effectiveness of two different pitch control techniques in stabilizing the robotic hummingbird for hovering flight: tilting the wing plane of flapping and shifting the average wing stroke position longitudinally this is the first time that both of these control techniques which are the same methods used by real hummingbirds to control pitch have been incorporated in the same flying robotic platform and the resulting stability quantified see a video demonstrating the flight of his robotic hummingbird coleman works under the guidance of assistant professor benedict who directs the advanced vertical flight laboratory at texas a&m
2584,"vinicius guimaraes goecks a doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been selected for a fellowship award in the us army research laboratory (usarl) research associateship program (rap) this award funded by usarl and administered by oak ridge associated universities (orau) is presented to a doctoral student interested in investigating novel forms of human-robot interaction to enable humans to train intelligent robotic agents in real time to perform desired tasks vinicius previously completed a summer internship at usarl in 2017 and 2018 ""intelligent robotic agents have many disruptive applications as research progresses toward augmenting autonomous systems with self-learning capabilities it is essential to investigate how these intelligent agents should be better integrated into our society--especially how humans can shape their behavior in real time "" said goecks ""i would like to thank dr john valasek for encouraging and supporting me to pursue this award and line of research and the army research laboratory for welcoming me on its facilities technical support and funding this program"" goecks is a research graduate student in the vehicle systems & control laboratory (https://vscltamuedu/) and has been working with his advisor valasek for three years goecks earned his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from federal university of mato grosso do sul (brazil) in 2013 he earned his masters degree in aerospace engineering from texas a&m in 2015 and was advised by dr john hurtado he is currently a member of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics intelligent systems technical committee his main research interests are reinforcement learning computer vision and data-driven controllers applied to unmanned air systems"
2585,dr zi jing wong assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was awarded two young scientist awards from the electromagnetics academy and the microsystems and nanoengineering summit the first young scientist award was given by the 2018 photonics and electromagnetics research symposium (piers) piers provides an international forum for reporting progress and recent advances in the modern development of electromagnetics photonics and exciting applications piers is sponsored by the electromagnetics academy wong received the award for his paper parity-time symmetric laser and absorber the second young scientist award was given by the 2018 microsystems and nanoengineering summit the summit was created as an international forum for scientists/students in microsystem and nanoengineering from universities and research institutions worldwide to present their latest research results and to provide a networking platform for the community to develop a roadmap for research and development in the future wong was invited to the summit to present his talk nanostructured metamaterials for extreme light manipulation
2586,dr bonnie j dunbar tees eminent professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university will be honored with the joint george r stibitz computer & communications pioneer and the edward o wilson biodiversity technology pioneer awards by the american computer & robotics museum the george r stibitz computer & communications pioneer award honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the fields of computing and communications the edward o wilson biodiversity technology pioneer award honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the preservation of biodiversity on earth dunbar the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) institute for engineering education and innovation and the aerospace human systems laboratory is being honored for her exemplary leadership mentorship and promotion of stem education she will receive the award on sept 21 at montana state university the american computer & robotics museum is the worlds oldest continually operating museum dedicated to the history of computing and communication its exhibits and collections span over 5 000 years of history of computing and communications dunbar engineer educator and retired nasa astronaut is a member of the prestigious national academy of engineering prior to coming to texas a&m she was at the university of houston where she provided leadership in the development of a new integrated university science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) center she was an md anderson professor of mechanical engineering and she developed a new innovative course for the introduction of engineering to freshmen students she also directed the sasakawa international center for space architecture graduate program she has devoted her life to furthering engineering engineering education and the pursuit of human space exploration dunbar worked for the rockwell international space division company building space shuttle columbia and worked for 27 years at nasa first as a flight controller; then as a mission specialist astronaut where she flew five space shuttle flights logging more than 50 days in space and then as a member of the senior executive service her executive service included assistant nasa jsc director for university research; deputy director for flight crew operations; and nasa headquarters deputy associate administrator for the office of life and microgravity sciences and applications after retiring from nasa dunbar became president and ceo of the museum of flight in seattle where she established a new space gallery and expanded its k-12 stem educational offerings she has also consulted in aerospace and stem education as the president of dunbar international llc and is an internationally known public speaker dunbar holds bachelors and masters degrees in ceramic engineering from the university of washington and a doctoral degree in mechanical/biomedical engineering from the university of houston she is a fellow of the american ceramic society the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and the royal aeronautical society she has been awarded the nasa space flight medal five times the nasa exceptional leadership medal and the nasa distinguished service medal dunbar was inducted into the royal society of edinburgh and in 2002 was elected to the us national academy of engineering in 2013 she was selected into the astronaut hall of fame she was elected president of the association of space explorers in 2016
2587,"aggie stem an aggie stem summer camp (assc) program at texas a&m university has been selected as a recipient of insight into diversity magazines 2018 inspiring programs in stem award dr luciana barroso an associate professor and director of undergraduate programs in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m is a co-director of the assc program along with drs robert and mary margaret capraro who are both professors in the department of teaching learning and culture at texas a&m the program is a joint effort between texas a&ms college of education and human development and college of engineering to encourage meaningful engaging stem experiences for k-12 students it offers several summer programs for low-income students and those who are underrepresented in stem fields one program offered is an all girls camp where attendees learn about various stem topics from female faculty at texas a&m aggie stem looks at both the students and the teachers said barroso ""we do research on how to better conduct stem education for students how we can better prepare teachers to teach stem courses and how to integrate stem disciplines insight into diversity focuses on recognizing diversity and inclusion in higher education and barroso and capraros were recognized for their significant contributions as researchers and educators for assc where they are working to motivate and encourage the next generation of young people to pursue stem education and careers when i got this chance to become involved in this program and to try to reach students at an earlier age i thought it was a great way to help out and become more involved barroso said i want everyone to pursue what they want to pursue and not be artificially limited by what other people told them they can or cannot do barroso explains that high schools have begun to challenge their teachers to incorporate engineering topics into their classes but many teachers arent equipped to teach these courses if i can help connect the math and science that they do know and teach to engineering applications and how an engineer thinks about problems then i think its a win-win said barroso since 2011 the assc has been offering two-week summer camp options for students in the sixth through 12th grades and offers an aggie stem honors program for students who have a particular interest in the stem field and want to explore it in depth its always been a push to help a wide variety of students particularly students who dont necessarily think they can pursue stem degrees or think of college said barroso from the beginning thats been one of the aims for the camps and for much of the research efforts barroso received a bachelors of science in civil engineering and a bachelors of arts in from rice university as well as a masters and doctoral degree in civil engineering from stanford university she joined the department in 1999 and specializes in structural engineering barroso has previously received the ‘02-03 zachry award for excellence in teaching the ‘03 exceed new faculty excellence in teaching award from the american society of civil engineers the 2008 distinguished achievement award for teaching from the association of former students and the ‘15 dick & joyce birdwell award for teaching excellence"
2588,dr ali mostafavi a researcher at the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and assistant professor with the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a $2 million research grant by the national science foundation (nsf) critical resilient interdependent infrastructure systems and processes (crisp) program crisp enables response to national critical infrastructure resilience needs while increasingly focusing on interdisciplinary research mostafavi is also a faculty fellow at the texas a&m institute for sustainable communities and will lead a multidisciplinary team of researchers that includes: dr phillip berke professor in the department of landscape architecture and urban planning at texas a&m and director of the institute; dr sierra woodruff assistant professor in the department of landscape architecture and urban planning; dr arnold vedlitz professor and holder of the bob bullock chair in government and public policy at the texas a&m bush school of government and public service; and dr bjorn birgisson professor in the texas a&m civil engineering department the project builds upon an infrastructure resilience research program that mostafavi established within the texas a&m department of civil engineering to identify interdependencies between critical infrastructure systems using complex networks and system-of-systems models the team will be investigating how human and physical networks interact and how those interactions impact critical infrastructure performance in relation to flooding networks in this case is a broad term for groups of organizations or infrastructure and their interactions an example is the network of organizations involved with hazard mitigation and resilience planning or the interconnected flood control channels and bayous in this project what we aim to do is understand through dynamic network modeling the complex interactions among stakeholder networks network of plans and physical infrastructure networks that affect flood vulnerability and resilience mostafavi said we will see how the properties of stakeholder networks influence the level of integration among the network of local and regional plans and ultimately influence vulnerability of physical infrastructure networks
2589,our network approach will help us answer questions such as who coordinates with whom for hazard mitigation and flood resilience planning who manages what infrastructure who develops what plans what plans affect what infrastructure what roads get flooded if a specific bayou fails the problem of flooding is very complex with various interconnected physical systems and organizations we cannot identify and implement effective engineering and public policy solutions unless we understand and improve these complex network interactions the project will use harris county as the test bed and currently available data from hurricane harvey for testing the research methods the project will provide a better actionable science which in turn will help inform public policy decisions to create a stronger level of national infrastructure resilience another exciting and impactful aspect of this project is the deep engagement with stakeholders in harris county we have a noteworthy study advisory committee with individuals from the harris county flood control district city of houston us army corps of engineers and the texas department of transportation mostafavi said continuing upon those strong relationships well now be able to look at how all these networks are interacting together simultaneously and use that information to translate these findings into actionable science-based policy recommendations for these communities to improve infrastructure resilience from flooding according to mostafavi once methodologies and policies have been developed because of the teams findings they will be shared with stakeholders across the nation the goal is to disseminate the findings to inform policy decisions not only for municipal governments but also at the national level for example in collaboration with berke they will employ a resilience scorecard for communities to evaluate their resilience and hazard mitigation plans which would account for infrastructure interdependencies to reduce physical vulnerability from flooding events mostafavi who has already done federally-funded infrastructure resiliency studies in the aftermath of hurricane harvey through nsf rapid response research (rapid) grants said he is excited about the larger impact this research will have on these communities my previous work has led to a significant impact in terms of discoveries and methods and will continue to do so with this project he said but i am most looking forward to see immediate and long-term impacts on these harris county communities we have been partnering with in the aftermath of harvey
2590,the engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research was presented to 20 texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) researchers and their teams during the tees external advisory board meeting oct 26 the award which is presented to tees researchers who have secured significant research grants of $1 million or more were given to the following: pi: michael demkowicz materials science and engineering co-pis: karl hartwig alan needleman and george m pharr materials science and engineering $125 million grant from the department of energy-national nuclear security administration for the center for research excellence on dynamically deformed solids (credds): discovering the role of heterogeneities in high strain rate mechanical response pi: dan hill petroleum engineering co-pis: george moridis david schechter and ding zhu petroleum engineering $6 million grant from the department of energy for the eagle ford shale laboratory: a field study of the stimulated reservoir volume detailed fracture characteristics and eor potential pi: daniel ragsdale computer science and engineering and director texas a&m cybersecurity center co-pis: paula dewitte robert jones dilma da silva and guofei gu computer science and engineering $44 million grant from the national science foundation for the texas a&m cyber leader scholarship program: developing cyber leader-scholars for the nation pi: jean ragusa nuclear engineering co-pis: mark kimber richard kurwitz sean mcdeavitt luis ortega lin shao and pavel tsvetkov nuclear engineering $3 million grant from the department of energy for nustem: nuclear science technology and education for molten salt reactors pi: javier jo biomedical engineering co-pis: brian applegate biomedical engineering; yi-shing cheng and john wright texas a&m health science center $25 million from the department of health and human services-national institutes of health-national cancer institute for endogenous fluorescence lifetime endoscopy for early detection of oral cancer and dysplasia pi: akhilesh gaharwar biomedical engineering $22 million from the national institutes of health for mineralomics: designing mineral based therapeutics to control and direct cell function pi: jeyavijayan rajendran electrical and computer engineering $2 million from the department of defense-office of naval research for towards verification-guided hardware synthesis for security pi: ali mostafavidarani civil engineering co-pis: philip berke and sierra woodruff land use and environmental planning; arnold vedlitz public service and administration bush school of government and public service; and bjorn birgisson civil engineering $2 million from the national science foundation for crisp 20 type 2: anatomy of coupled human-infrastructure systems resilience to urban flooding: integrated assessment of social institutional and physical networks pi: helen reed aerospace engineering co-pis: rodney bowersox and william saric aerospace engineering $18 million from the department of defense-air force office of scientific research for boundary layer transition (bolt)-experiment and simulation (concave curvature and leading-edge sweep effects) pi: yang shen electrical and computer engineering $17 from the department of health and human services-national institutes of health-national institute of general medical science for unraveling molecular and system-level mechanisms of human disease-associated protein mutations pi: mark burris civil engineering $14 million from the department of transportation-federal highway administration for topic 2 behavioral science and experimental economics approaches for transportation pi: michael mcshane biomedical engineering co-pi: lee hudson biomedical engineering $13 million from national institutes of health for minimally-invasive metabolite monitoring systems for in vitro and in vivo disease models pi: rodney bowersox aerospace engineering $12 million from the department of defense-office of naval research for turbulence transport in extreme non-equilibrium environments pi: mladen kezunovic electrical and computer engineering co-pis: miroslav begovic and chanan singh electrical and computer engineering $12 million from the department of energy for ui-assist: us-india collaborative for smart distribution system with storage pi: akhil dattagupta petroleum engineering $12 million from the department of energy for robust carbon dioxide imaging using joint tomographic inversion of seismic onset time and distributed pressure and temperature measurements pi: bahman yazdani energy systems laboratory co-pis: joseph martinez ahmet ugursal and carlos yagua energy systems laboratory; and juan carlos baltazar architecture $11 million from the city of houston for energy management sustainability and m&v services for houston airport system q&m rfp pi: pushkar lele chemical engineering $1 million from the national institutes of health for mechanical regulation of ultra-sensitivity in e coli flagellar motors pi: karen butler-purry provosts office co-pis: samuel merriweather edac and shannon walton grst $11 million from the national science foundation for lsamp btd: texas a&m university system louis stokes alliance for minority participation (tamus lsamp) bridge to the doctorate cohort xiii (2018-2020) program pi: jean ragusa nuclear engineering co-pis: marvin adams and jim morel nuclear engineering $1 million from the department of defensedefense threat reduction agency for models with multiple levels of fidelity tractability and computational cost for nuclear weapon radiation effects pi: dan hill petroleum engineering $1 million from marathon oil company for marathon oil unconventional fluid flow/eor
2591,the self-driving shuttle system led by texas a&m university researchers has officially launched in downtown bryan giving the community an opportunity to experience the emerging technology in aggieland researchers said downtown bryan provides an ideal environment for the month-long test which features two autonomous trolleys thanks largely to its pedestrian-friendly layout in a relatively high-traffic area the objective for these trolleys is to replace the need for some of the cars that clog up downtown said dr srikanth saripalli downtown bryan is perfect for this research because there are a lot of pedestrians and the city wants to make it a more walkable area i think its a perfect environment for testing how these shuttles can actually work in the real world
2592,the project is led by saripalli an associate professor in the j mike walker ‘66 department of mechanical engineering and is a collaboration between the texas a&m engineering experiment station the texas a&m transportation institute the college of engineering and the city of bryan the electric trolleys will initially run monday through friday in two-hour intervals between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm on a fixed two-block route along main street and regent avenue between 26th street and 29th street which is estimated to take roughly five minutes from start to finish designated stops will be marked by numbered a-frame signs each of the autonomous vehicles will travel at a maximum of 7 to 10 mph and is set to be monitored by two texas a&m student workers who will act as the safety driver and the navigator respectively there will be space for four passengers on each of the two shuttles saripalli and his team will be observing several technical and social factors as the trolleys are exposed to the public in downtown bryans vehicle and pedestrian-friendly space among the most important metrics saripalli and his team will be observing throughout the test are the number of disengagements the vehicles experience defined as any time the human safety driver has to take over control from the vehicle saripalli said examples range from having to manually slow the shuttle down or touching the steering wheel to disengaging for a break or the end of the run
2593,one measurement of success for the project saripalli said will be determining if the team can reduce the number of disengagements for the trolleys over the test period all of the data collected from the test including the number of and reasons for vehicle disengagements will be posted online to allow for better transparency increased awareness and acceptance of the shuttles currently there are a few tests being run by private companies such as the waymo and the gm cruise but the data is not public and is not available to the city planners and federal or state governments saripalli said our data will be open and will help city state and federal officials determine the efficacy of such driverless vehicles both socially as well as technically from a technical standpoint researchers will be looking to test the effectiveness of using cameras versus a 360-degree field of view laser imaging detection and ranging (lidar) sensors to run the shuttle on its route saripalli said finding out how effective the cameras are versus the more expensive lidar sensors could allow for a cost-reduction for some low-speed autonomous shuttle vehicles the technologies along with gps and other equipment will allow the trolleys to detect their surroundings and account for pedestrians bicyclists other vehicles and various obstacles that may impede their path
2594,the final factor saripalli and his team will observe is the social acceptance of the trolleys during their run we want to know how well the trolleys are going to be accepted saripalli said will people find it useful or will they maybe think it is a cool toy but there is no real use for it those are things we want to know the team will monitor social media consider rider interactions with the student workers on the shuttle and take into account the number of rides given each day as factors of acceptance with the potential to give 20 rides per vehicle per day saripalli said reaching around 30 total rides each day would be an indicator of success before coming to downtown bryan the trolleys have undergone several rounds of testing in increasingly populated and complex environments including the rellis campus a route from the stella hotel to traditions club and a route on the texas a&m campus near the memorial student center at the end of the month-long testing period in downtown researchers and city officials will assess the next steps and potentially explore the possibility of extending or expanding the trolley test
2595,dr sung ii park assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the 2018 narsad young investigator award for his work to treat obesity using a novel approach park is proposing to treat obesity by enhancing the activity of neural circuits in the brain that suppress appetite this research would create a way to feel satisfied that is well beyond those of existing technologies in the united states one-third of adults are diagnosed with eating disorders such as obesity which leads to profound debilitation for millions of people park said the economic impact of these disorders is linked with direct medical costs productivity costs transportation costs and human capital costs it is estimated that over $500 billion a year is spent in health care for eating disorders and the burden on society is huge the current available treatments for obesity are bariatric procedures such as gastric bypass that consist of restricting the capacity of the stomach in order to suppress appetite these methods often have undesirable side effects and do not treat the underlying cause of obesity ultimately they act as a band-aid to a larger problem the act of stopping when you are full is in a large way activated by feedback from the gut to the brain instinctive signals from the gut activate neurons in the nucleus of the solitary tract (nts) via the vagus nerve which is the longest nerve in the cranium a critical barrier to progress in understanding of mechanisms by which neural circuits suppress appetite is insufficient understanding of how the complex feeding loop the gut to vagus nerve to nts works to regulate energy homeostasis park said in particular park is looking at vagus afferent fibers within the brains neural network which are fibers that carry nerve impulses from stimuli such as food and hunger toward the central nervous system and brain for this project park is working alongside an interdisciplinary team from the university of washington that includes renowned researcher dr richard palmiter the narsad grant is one of the highest distinctions in the field of mental health research and is supported by the brain and behavior foundation which is committed to alleviating the suffering caused by mental illness by awarding grants that will lead to advances and breakthroughs in scientific research narsad is an acronym for the national alliance for research on schizophrenia and depression the former name for the brain and behavior research foundation
2596,two engineering faculty members were part of the second class of presidential impact fellows which were recently announced by texas a&m university president michael k young and provost and executive vice president carol fierke the 2018 honorees from the college of engineering are dr diego donzis and dr jodie l lutkenhaus the 2018 class of presidential impact fellows includes 21 faculty members across texas a&ms 16 colleges and schools two branch campuses and comprehensive university libraries each recipient will receive an annual stipend of $25 000 for the next three fiscal years to accelerate their teaching research and service efforts the honorarium helps foster opportunities to dialogue and collaborate with other leading scholars and create new partnerships the award also confers the lifetime title of presidential impact fellow texas a&m university is proud to invest in our amazing faculty who continue to make significant impacts through teaching research and service efforts young said these rising stars are meeting the challenges in their field and demonstrating what influence they have toward creating a better world donzis is an associate professor and co-director of the graduate studies program in the department of aerospace engineering his research interests are large-scale high-performance computing fluid dynamics turbulence and turbulent mixing
2597,lutkenhaus is holder of the william and ruth neely faculty fellowship and an associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering her research interests focus on polymer thin films coatings electroactive polymers polyelectrolytes and energy storage lutkenhaus ultimate research goal is to create a 100-percent polymer battery the award winners were identified by their college and dean and confirmed by the academic leadership each is considered to be a candidate for continued or new national and international acclaim this honor is clear recognition of the excellence of these faculty in their scholarly endeavors fierke said they are among the nations very best and will continue for many years to make transformational impacts that reach far beyond the walls of texas a&m the 2018 presidential impact fellows were formally recognized in a ceremony oct 25
2598,the craig and galen brown engineering honors program recently held its annual fall industry night at texas a&m university introducing current students to industry leaders the event hosted keynote speaker greg hyslop chief technology officer of the boeing company and a panel of experts that gave real-world advice to the audience the panel kicked off the evening giving students the opportunity to tap into the minds of industry experts and discover what qualities and skills would make them most marketable and successful after graduation from tricks of the trade to helpful hints about building resumes the panel offered insight that could help students set expectations and prepare for their future careers it gave me an idea of what the real world is like said daaniya syeda a sophomore in the department of biomedical engineering i thought i would be directly applying what ive learned like math or biomedical concepts but things like critical thinking and being able to work on a team are just as important following the panel hyslop took the stage to share his experience as both an educator and business leader
2599,though his career has spanned a number of subjects ranging from higher education to missile defense systems to aerospace technology hyslop learned some of the most valuable lessons from his familys ranch seeing the importance of building relationships firsthand helped hyslop always remember that strong networks and credibility are the foundation of teamwork business and innovation what i took away was that its not as simple as just getting your degree you have to make connections and know people and learn the proper skills said trevor weidner an engineering undergraduate student before opening the floor to questions hyslop offered one last piece of advice to students: anticipate change innovations and breakthroughs in technology will transform business and the roles of future engineers so hold every career palms up and never take it for granted
2600,brent bielefeldt a doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won best student oral presentation at the 29th international conference on adaptive structures and technologies (icast) hosted by konkuk university and the korea advanced institute of science and technology in seoul south korea bielefeldt conducts research in the multifunctional materials and aerospace structures optimization lab under the guidance of assistant professor dr darren hartl his paper was titled expanding the design space via graph-based interpretation of l-system encodings for topology optimization of multifunctional structures bielefeldts research focuses on generating multifunctional structures using a parameterized l-system which encodes topological information similar to how genetic information is encoded in dna specifically the use of a graph-based interpreter for these encodings referred to as spidrs allows for the efficient addition of shape optimization to the topology optimization framework and the increasing of structural dimensionality of specified areas of the topology icast is an international conference that aims at promoting research development and application of adaptive structures and technologies through the exchange of scientific results and insights from leading international scholars and specialists the conference provides a forum for discussion of recent advances in the highly multidisciplinary field of smart materials and structures in addition this conference encourages the transfer of the advanced scientific results to various engineering applications
2601,the texas a&m university department of nuclear engineerings young former student award was established in 2018 to recognize and honor former students excellence in professional leadership and their contributions to the nuclear field this award spotlights outstanding former students that have graduated within the last 10 years who have excelled in the nuclear engineering field while displaying texas a&ms core values dr yassin hassan department head of nuclear engineering presented the young former student awards to dr braden goddard dr james miller and dr adrienne lafleur at the departments awards banquet on oct 4
2602,braden goddard ‘07 ‘09 ‘13 virginia commonwealth university department of mechanical and nuclear engineeringassistant professor favorite tradition : the nuclear engineering departments small family feel dr braden goddard is an assistant professor in the department of mechanical and nuclear engineering at virginia commonwealth university (vcu) where he founded the nuclear security and nonproliferation group goddard conducts research mentors graduate and undergraduate students and teaches courses on the topics of security nonproliferation and radiation measurements goddard oversees three laboratories at virginia commonwealth university: the nuclear security and nonproliferation laboratory the radiation detection and measurement laboratory and the environmental radionuclide assay laboratory he enjoys working in academia because every day is different he has the freedom to make his own hours and can do what he thinks his most important nuclear engineering is far more than power plants and the united states said goddard so while the industry of nuclear power plants may currently be shrinking other aspects that use nuclear technology are thriving within and outside of the united states goddard completed his masters research with dr sean mcdeavitt and doctoral degree with dr bill charlton when my phd committee told me that i passed my defense this meant a lot to me because the people i respected the most now considered me to be a fellow doctor just like them said goddard who recommends students take fewer hours if possible to focus on getting good grades and learning the material this will also allow you to be more involved with american nuclear society (ans) institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) women in nuclear and undergraduate research thus distinguishing yourself from others he said
2603,james miller ‘08 ‘13 los alamos national laboratory advanced nuclear technology staff member favorite tradition: hearing everyone say howdy on campus dr james miller is currently a los alamos national laboratory staff member in the advanced nuclear technology group he has over 12 years of experience in the us department of energy complex as part of the detector development team he supports the department of energy department of homeland security and department of state programs on radiation detection emergency response and nuclear-security related work he is currently the youngest field deployable diagnostician for the joint technical operations team providing real-time scientific support to the us department of defense and department of justice as a fellow in the defense nuclear nonproliferations office of research and development he expanded his knowledge of nuclear detonation detection materials production detection and weaponization while working with program managers for the department of energy miller returned to los alamos national laboratory in 2014 to serve as a postdoctoral research associate under dr mark abhold while specializing in radiation portal monitoring miller enjoys working on unique and complex experiments to answer difficult questions alongside his los alamos team there are two skills that no engineer can ever have enough practice with: communication and coding said miller you can have the best idea or solution in the world but if you cannot communicate it effectively your idea will not matter also ive never met an engineer who didnt want to code better including monte carlo n-particle source code engineers so work on both those skills will always be in demand miller holds both his doctoral and masters degrees in nuclear engineering from texas a&m where he specialized in nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear forensics while working under charlton i remember learning that whenever i was lost to stop and consider what the neutron sees said miller this has morphed into what does the electron see or the photon or the neutron but in general when i get stuck on a difficult physics problem i think about what i would see if i were hitching a ride on whatever particle i happen to think about he participated in inmm ans and alpha nu sigma and coached the texas a&m womens lacrosse team miller was inspired to study nuclear engineering so he could serve his country through the application of math and physics
2604,adrienne lafleur 07 11 los alamos national laboratory technical staff member favorite tradition: midnight yell dr adrienne lafleur has over 11 years of experience in the development and implementation of advanced nondestructive assay instrumentation for safeguards and nuclear nonproliferation she is a technical staff member in the safeguards science and technology group at los alamos national laboratory where she is responsible for several safeguards projects in japan south korea ukraine kazakhstan and armenia as well as projects related to nuclear nonproliferation export controls and nuclear security her favorite part of the job is traveling around the world and installing radiation detectors in nuclear facilities to help improve nuclear material accountancy and international atomic energy agency (iaea) safeguards lafleur has written or co-authored several journal articles and a textbook chapter nonproliferation and nuclear security will continue to be a high priority as countries continue to pursue nuclear power and existing nuclear facilities continue to age and/or undergo decommissioning said lafleur lafleur earned her doctoral degree in nuclear engineering and a certificate in advanced international affairs from texas a&m in 2011 she worked with charlton at the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives she was an undergraduate research scholar who was involved in the institute of nuclear materials management and the american nuclear society her advice for students joining the workforce always be on time and admit when you dont know something
2605,while it isnt a hurricane labor trafficking is the perfect storm subtle and hard to track this type of involuntary servitude is often present in the recovery period following a natural disaster with rebuilding underway a team of researchers from texas a&m university and the university of texas at austin is taking a deeper look into post-harvey houston to find new ways to combat construction-related labor exploitation and trafficking
2606,the project is funded by the national science foundations early-concept grant for exploratory research program (nsf eager) dr eleftherios iakovou director of manufacturing and logistics innovation initiatives at the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m will be co-leading the study the team also includes dr yanling chang corrie and jim furber '64 faculty fellow and assistant professor in the department the ut austin team will be led by dr matt kammer-kerwick a research scientist at the universitys ic² institute labor trafficking is a form of human trafficking that occurs when a person is forced or coerced into a job with little or no compensation hidden in plain sight the most common victims are refugees impoverished people and immigrant workers in the construction manufacturing and mining industries a lack of visa portability withholding of passports and high recruitment fees are some of the risks contributing to the increased vulnerability of construction workers and the emergence of illicit supply chains in the sector iakovou said the industry is further characterized by informal part-time and temporary working relationships because these laborers are lacking financial security they can be easily intimidated and are more prone to exploitation and accepting dangerous working conditions the lingering chaos and need to rebuild after a natural disaster opens the door to the complicated illicit supply chains that lead to the trafficking of temporary workers with their two-year nsf eager grant iakovous team is finding new ways to break those chains using the post-harvey houston construction industry as a foundation of the study the researchers can better understand how trafficking networks function in and are affected by a post-catastrophe environment using information gathered while interviewing post-harvey cleanup laborers the researchers will model human trafficking and exploitation and identify interventions that can be used to cut down on the behaviors that lead to construction-related trafficking this exploration of the current systems used for disrupting exploitation will provide policymakers regulators and companies essential guidance about how to identify and fight trafficking in the future in addition to broadening research opportunities and involvement in ending harmful supply networks this project hopes to ensure that the suffering from a natural disaster ends with the storm this could assist in making the state of texas a fairer and more transparent place to live and work while addressing a pressing societal problem iakovou said
2607,oral cancer kills more than 10 000 people in the united states every year even though the survival rate is higher than 85 percent if oral cancer patients are diagnosed early enough unfortunately the majority of patients arent diagnosed while the cancer is still in the early stages something that dr javier jo is trying to dramatically change with a nearly $1 million three-year grant from the cancer prevention and research institute of texas (cprit) jo associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been working on this research for more than a decade the idea came from speaking with oral pathologists about relevant problems in their clinical practice dentists and physicians typically rely on the naked eye to look for lesions in a patients mouth that may be cancerous and should be further examined with a biopsy but identifying these areas can be difficult because a patients mouth can form lesions that may be benign precancerous or cancerous jos research is seeking ways to improve the number of cancerous lesions caught at the early stage while reducing the number of unnecessary and painful biopsies of benign lesions even though these lesions are right there and you can see them only 30 percent of patients are diagnosed at the early stage jo said we believe thats in great part because its very difficult to make decisions about what lesions really need to be biopsied since cancerous lesions are not easy to distinguish from benign lesions even for experienced dentists and oral pathologists jos team has tested several endoscopic imaging technologies to identify potential cancerous oral lesions the most promising one so far is a fluorescence endoscope that illuminates the lesion with a certain color of light to make the lesion glow and the glowing or fluorescent lesion is then imaged with the same endoscope the medical imaging instrument being developed is noninvasive and requires no chemical to be applied to the patient to enhance the image the team is now fabricating these fluorescence endoscopes to deploy them to different clinics in texas and start imaging patients with suspicious oral lesions the fluorescence endoscopy data that will be collected will be used to continue developing and validating the numerical methods of the computer-aided diagnosis (cad) system which is the software that will allow us to process the fluorescence endoscopy data and transform it into useful diagnostic information jo said
2608,jo said that the specific goal of the cprit grant will be to continue developing the cad system software that will interpret the fluorescence endoscopic lesion images to train the cad system jos team will be collecting fluorescence endoscopy images of suspicious oral lesions to build a large database that could be datamined in order to identify characteristics in these images that are specific to premalignant or malignant oral lesions once the lesion is scanned the cad system will compute and display a color map of the area where certain colors will indicate a high probability of the lesion being benign or cancerous as we continue to collect more images we will continue to improve the cad system that hopefully will be able to provide diagnostic information with sufficient accuracy to be useful to help the dentist or oral pathologist to make a sound decision on how to clinically manage a patient presenting a suspicious oral lesion jo said jo said the ultimate goal is to offer the tool to dentists offices to assist with the screening of oral cancer and to oral pathologists to assist with the diagnosis of oral cancer by providing guidance during the biopsy examination
2609,when the lesion is really large the oral pathologist cannot take multiple biopsies and kind of has to guess the best place from where to take the biopsy jo said we think that our tool could also provide guidance to the oral pathologist to indicate where the greater chances of cancer are in the lesion so that the biopsy would be taken from that location the main impact of this technology is that it could lead to a significant increase in the percentage of patients that are being diagnosed at the early stage thats our main motivation jo said if we can facilitate the identification of oral cancer patients while the cancer is still a small lesion as opposed to when it has already metastasized to other parts of the body that would make a huge clinical impact to oral cancer patients in the last three years jos research program has received close to $45 millions of combined international federal and state research funding toward the development of this transformative clinical imaging technology we strongly believe that our technology could potentially be used to assist at every stage of the clinical management of oral cancer patients not only for screening and early diagnosis but also for guiding treatment and monitoring for cancer recurrence jo said jos team in this cprit grant includes dr yi-shing lisa cheng and dr john wright professors in the college of dentistry at texas a&m; dr nadarajah vigneswarab professor in the school of dentistry at the university of texas health science center in houston; dr thomas schlieve assistant professor in the department of surgery at the university of texas southwestern medical center; and several postdoctoral fellows and students in jos research lab including dr rodrigo cuenca-martinez dr jose rico-jimenez michael serafino elvis duran-sierra and oscar benavides
2610,from kicking off your day to wrapping up at night alexa was fully integrated into the living space of the smart life airstream that texas a&m university students lined up to tour on oct 9 amazon web services (aws) partnered with the college of engineering and the colleges information technology (it) division to bring two unique opportunities to campus; the first an open opportunity for students to check out the smart life roadshow a traveling showcase of the newest and most innovative smart tech products and the second was a chance to hack an amazon deeplens in order to explore the facial recognition features [it] wanted to bring a fun event for the students to learn some new technology that amazon is releasing said michael leary associate director of information technology datapalooza introduced the same technology that runs alexa to students in an instructor-led scenario with the deeplens
2611,this opportunity for students to engage with aws is part of an ongoing strategy where it turns traditional vendors into technology partners adding more value to engineering students educational experience through these exclusive events aws has been a great partner said leary the more we do with them from a business standpoint the more they come forward with opportunities like this introducing new technology to our engineering students so far this strategy has been successful while a four-hour workshop heavy on coding and technology seems daunting to most students lined the hall of the zachry engineering education complex to ensure their spot when check-in first began as students dove deeper into the technology exploration part of the workshop mentors from aws rounded the room to guide the participants through the activities
2612,coding and programming are things that i very much enjoy said clay ozuna '18 an electrical engineering student this is a new field and i thought itd be a great opportunity to see what else is out there essentially we built a model on the aws website and pushed it onto the deeplens device we built a face recognition model thats able to measure how confidently its reading a persons face theres so much more that goes on in deep learning than i thought its just crazy to think about how much out there i dont know about yet ozuna said
2613,faculty and students can leverage aws educate part of the texas a&m institutional membership this gives students access to annual credits to work on projects online curriculum gain micro-credentials and complete paths that will land them on amazons job boards based on the skills they have crafted in these pathways from courses and certifications for newbies all the way to technical training these services are available for all texas a&m students
2614,advances in both hardware and software infrastructure make it possible to carry out realistic simulations of materials that can lead to a better understanding of their behavior leveraging these advances the computational materials science summer school (cms3) at texas a&m university aims to train students in some of the most advanced and widely used computational materials science simulation tools a three-year $500 000 grant from the national science foundation (nsf) opens up the possibility of upscaling the school to include more participants expanding the curriculum introducing immersive visualization through virtual and augmented reality tools and providing shorter in-depth seed courses under the direction of dr amine benzerga professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m cms3 has been training students on computational simulation tools during a 10-day summer school for seven years simulations are one of the key ingredients used to realize the materials genome initiative which was designed to support united states institutions in the effort to discover manufacture and deploy advanced materials that are essential to economic security and human well-being faster and at a reduced cost cms3 will contribute to this mission by training the scientists and engineers who will discover and develop the materials to make technologies of national importance possible cms3 helps to push the thriving field of computational materials science (cms) by providing up and coming researchers with a broad exposure to as many computational techniques as possible the training provided will equip the participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to push the frontiers of simulation-enabled materials research the nsf award leverages existing cyberinfrastructure to expand participation including those from underrepresented groups through local and remote training while the summer school can only accommodate 20 students on-site with the addition of remote capabilities the class size can be expanded to include 80 remote graduate and postdoctoral researchers including industry participants in short the idea is to equip a new generation of materials scientists with state-of-the-art computational models in a very original way says benzerga
2615,included in the expansion of the school will be the introduction of immersive visualization through virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar) tools to help students with different backgrounds and learning styles interpret complex material data for this portion the immersive mechanics visualization laboratory run by dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering will be employed it is challenging for graduate students to analyze very large amounts of data that come from the supercomputer during materials simulations said benzerga the idea is to use ar and vr to help students better visualize the resulting simulations sometimes better visualization not only leads to better understanding but triggers new ideas that lead to better ways of analyzing interpreting and presenting their work said benzerga another goal will be to expand the cms network of experts among national laboratories and academic domestic and international institutions who will contribute to the teaching efforts in the areas of continuum micromechanics mesoscopic simulation and atomistic modeling with an overarching theme of data science
2616,benzerga would also like to expand the school to include shorter seed programs in specialized areas offered at different times of the year the paradigm is that there is a horizontal theme and a vertical theme he said so far the paradigm has been horizontal we teach multiple codes but the students dont get the chance to go very deep in their learning with any particular one the specialized classes will run three to five days giving experts the time to teach one particular computational method with much more depth benzerga envisions the first year to be for on-campus participants only with the possibility of adding remote accessibility in the future the overall project aims to train the scientists and engineers that will discover and develop the materials that will make technologies of national importance possible
2617,when johnny waclawcyzk jr 91 arrived at his office one day in 2012 he faced a disheartening prospect the building had caught fire over the weekend and he would spend months assessing the damage among the deeply personal items damaged was the civil engineering diploma he had earned from texas a&m university in 1991 although sealed in glass it was stained with soot and had considerable water damage from the firefighting no longer was it suitable to display i felt bad (about my diploma) but there was a lot of other stuff to deal with because of the fire waclawcyzk said many personal and business items had to be replaced and the business needed a new office since then abs group where waclawcyzk works in san antonio has recovered and settled comfortably into a new building however until recently waclawcyzk lacked a replacement diploma to hang in his new office aware of how deeply waclawcyzk regretted the loss his wife sandi contacted texas a&m university and ordered johnny a new diploma in time for his 50th birthday waclawcyzks two children amanda and alan were also in on the birthday surprise surrounded by his wife and children waclawcyzk received his engineering diploma for the second time in aggieland in september 2018 he was pretty shocked … he got a little teary-eyed sandi said the damaged diploma remains in a hope chest in waclawcyzks home the new professionally framed one hangs in his office theres a new guy in the office that we hired whos an aggie i told him ‘see i actually do have a diploma! he said waclawcyzk may be proud to be an aggie but he is even prouder of his family amanda is simultaneously pursuing a bachelors and masters degree in accounting and expects to graduate from texas a&m in 2020 alan is following in his fathers footsteps and is a freshman in the college of engineering whenever he sees his diploma waclawcyzk recalls his accomplishments and the aggie spirit that runs deep in his family it was exciting to see his pride in his education alan said it made me excited for when i get my first diploma i remember him bringing home the remains of his aggie diploma it had always been the centerpiece of his office and it truly framed his pride in being an aggie amanda added after all that he has provided to me during my time at texas a&m it was beautiful to be able to give something back to him
2618,cindy and gary allison recently created the gary allison 87 family endowed scholarship for computer science to assist in recruiting top academic freshmen to the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university gary allison said he and his wife wanted to create the scholarship so that other students could experience the same impact that he did at texas a&m i feel deep gratitude for all that my time at texas a&m offered he said professors like dr bart childs and others made a profound impact on me well beyond the computer science curriculum both the program and texas a&m university gave me the opportunity to grow technical business and leadership skills that have helped me achieve success as ive become involved with the (computer science and engineering) department in recent years attracting top students is an imperative to continue our legacy of success we hope this scholarship will play a part in continuing this legacy for texas a&m allison is currently the executive vice president of engineering at bazaarvoice inc he has worked in the software industry for 30 years 16 of which have been in executive leadership positions for companies such as e2open and convio he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from texas a&m graduating magna cum laude and a masters in software engineering from the university of houston clear lake allison is an active member of the departments advisory council and coaches and mentors startup companies and research and development leaders in the austin technology scene he and cindy reside in cedar park texas
2619,"dr timothy a davis professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is the 2018 recipient of the sigma xi walston chubb award for innovation this award is given to honor and promote creativity in science and engineering and it carries an honorarium and invitation to give a lecture at sigma xis annual meeting davis work focuses on solving sparse matrix problems and he is a go-to expert in the area google street view uses his software to place images in their accurate location to create a high-quality viewing experience for users linux also steadily relies on his software in its open-source systems and his work is behind the programming platform matlab the use of his algorithms and software extends further than even he is often aware for example the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) used davis solvers to scan for illegal activity on the dark web and this analysis helped the fbi rescue six girls from sex trafficking in colorado ""i encounter new applications of my work in unexpected areas often out of the blue because the codes i write are so robust and well-documented that the engineers and scientists who rely on my work rarely need to ask me how to use them davis said google used my solvers for a year before they dropped me a note the us geological survey previously took days to create maps of the moon mars and other planets but thanks to davis solvers they now create these maps in minutes they thanked me for ‘helping to pave the way for future human exploration davis said companies government labs and academics also work with davis to incorporate his software into their projects his solvers have improved drones vlsi circuit simulators database systems earthquake simulators engineering computer-aided design tools and half a billion smartphones as his research continues to impact the world of computing and assist others in their endeavors an often-revisited crowd favorite of davis algorithms is his art when a coordinator for the london electronic arts festival caught sight of the colorful images of his sparse matrix collection the coordinator asked davis if he could graph music in the same way although it was completely unlike any he'd done before davis' creative passion led him to accept the challenge in 2013 the london electronic arts festival used his artistic algebra as their theme for the event and his artwork appeared on billboards all over london today davis research is focused on two areas: sparse linear algebra on graphics processing units (gpus) and methods for solving graph algorithms in the language of sparse linear algebra over semirings gpus provide the promise of high performance and lower energy use but they work best on very regular problems the challenge is to map the irregular nature of sparse matrix algorithms to perform well on gpu architectures davis will speak as the walston chubb lecturer at the sigma xi annual meeting to be held oct 25-28 in san francisco"
2620,one of texas a&m university's foundational values is giving back to the community and thats what lisa and stephen lucy ‘82 have done through their philanthropic work the saying that charity starts at home holds true to this family and it is by this mantra that the lisa and stephen h lucy ‘82 endowed fellowship was established the lisa and stephen h lucy ‘82 endowed fellowship is a two-fold donation that helped to fund the zachry engineering education complex and will serve as an endowed fellowship to at least one undergraduate full-time student with a minimum 30 grade point average requirement the gift is aimed toward first-generation and historically underrepresented students to attend texas a&m this is the fifth scholarship the lucys have established in partnership with the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m the scholarship is to help those groups that havent had the same opportunities as we did growing up in a family that was already college educated said stephen we understand the benefits that a college education can provide and lisa and wanted to create those same opportunities for others stephen originally from longview texas has worked extensively as a structural engineer locally and abroad he is now the chief executive officer of a structural and civil engineering firm jq engineering and has been with the firm for 24 years lisa originally from kansas graduated with her occupational therapy degree from texas woman's university in denton texas and works in childrens pediatric and fitness care stephen said that his decision to be a civil engineer was not a difficult one to make as his father dan lucy ‘48 was a first-generation aggie civil engineer along with his uncle who graduated in 1946 and his brother who graduated in 1981 my dad was always involved in texas a&m after he graduated said stephen because my dad was a civil engineer and i was around it all my life i knew from the second or third grade that i was also going to be an aggie civil engineer stephen said that a key motivator in establishing these endowments was when he was named a recipient of a presidents endowed scholarship while in school his donor robert guyler ‘29 was the first third-generation aggie to enroll at texas a&m while he only attended for a year guyler remained close to the university (guyler) was like a surrogate grandfather to me when i was going to texas a&m; even years afterwards we still stayed close until he passed away said stephen i saw the impact that his gift had on me for the lucys this endowed fellowship was the next step in commemorating a personal and long-lasting connection with the university supporting texas a&m in one way or another has been a long-held family tradition that will serve many future students by providing them with newfound opportunities
2621,from robotic roaches to detecting cancer dr hong liang is using the tiniest of particles to tackle the biggest of issues liang the oscar s wyatt jr professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as the 2018-19 american society of mechanical engineers foundation swanson fellow which will help her pursue this research the fellowship provides a great opportunity for me to learn and serve our nations advanced manufacturing initiatives as part of a nationwide manufacturing agenda liang said as a faculty member this will be the first time in my career to serve our nation at such broad level and scope it is an exciting opportunity to learn to serve and to develop new visions and skills the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) is a global community of diverse mechanical engineering experts and leaders since its foundation in 1880 it has set the standard for engineering solutions that benefit the world at large through asme we connect with our peers develop collaborative research projects and carry out scholarly activates liang said through discussion and argument we generate new ideas and sometimes new fields of study those are all important impacts on our research that cannot be measured by a number liangs field of study is nanomaterials and nanosurfaces the building blocks to everything like puzzle pieces they slot together to form a complete picture – be it a desk a microchip or an aggie ring every object has its own distinctive set of puzzle pieces that act and react differently making nanoparticle research both fascinating and challenging this fascination led liang to her previous research with robotic roaches using a miniature computer plugged into the nervous system of cockroaches her team was able to send signals down miniature wires to control the insects path with mounted cameras and microphones on the roaches the insects would be able to crawl into small spaces such as collapsed buildings and broken sewers to gather information while the unique characteristics of each nanoparticle make categorizing them difficult liang said they can also open the door to future research that can change the way that industries operate for example by understanding the luminosity traits of a certain particle liang and her team of researchers could introduce a new way to detect cancer a major part of cancer treatment is discovering it at an early stage while this usually happens after a mass has already formed liang is working to find a way to detect malignant cancer cells before a tumor has a chance to appear there is a certain nanoparticle that lights up under ultraviolet or infrared light so that means that if you have that particle attach to a certain molecule relating to cancer then it will shine liang said if you have the potential to have skin cancer and the particles attach to a group of cells then you would know that the area would be cancerous and you could remove that part of skin there is still a lot work to be done but liang believes this method would not only reduce the amount of cancer cases caught in later stages but also give people who have a family history of cancer a means to detect and remove it before treatment such as chemotherapy is needed
2622,"the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university celebrated some of its brightest students at its fall 2018 donor recognition and scholarship/fellowship banquet on oct 18 more than 300 guests were in attendance in the bethancourt ballroom in the memorial student center where the department also gathered to honor the generosity of its donors through their contributions and continued support of the departments mission during the evening department leaders shared highlights and expressed thanks to its students who have excelled in their programs and represent the future of both the department and mechanical engineering at large ""we strive to provide our students with an education based on fundamentals while encouraging creativity and problem-solving skills through experiential learning opportunities in our laboratories and through industry connections "" said dr andreas polycarpou department head ""all this is made possible through the support of our donors their generous contributions build a legacy that continues to provide advancements and improvements for the department and profession"""
2623,the 2018 department of nuclear engineering distinguished former student award was presented to dr david senor ‘88 ‘89 ‘92 for his technical accomplishments service to his alma mater research collaborations within the department student mentoring and love for all things aggie dr yassin hassan the nuclear engineering department head presented senor with the award during the department awards banquet on oct 4 2018 dave senor was an outstanding student at texas a&m university both as an undergraduate and a graduate student said dr kenneth peddicord a nuclear engineering professor and the director of the nuclear power institute he was one of the first students to be awarded the four-year department of energy fellowship leading to a phd dr senor has gone on to make a major impact in his professional career and is leading important national security missions he is a real credit to our department and to texas a&m senor is the tritium technology program deputy manager for science and technology at the pacific northwest national laboratory (pnnl) in richland washington his work focuses on irradiation behavior evaluation physical mechanical and thermal property measurement and manufacturing development of conventional and advanced nuclear materials it is easy to stay motivated in my career because the programs mission is critical to us national security he said knowing that your job supports a key component of us national defense is very satisfying and motivating senor said that pnnl provides a nice blend between an academic environment and an industry environment i like the fact that i get to lead fundamental science research much of which is first-of-its-kind but i also like the fact that the science is very closely tied to real-world applications he said the science has purpose and impact
2624,senor is responsible for leading the research efforts associated with the us production of tritium one aspect of the job is interacting with universities to not only leverage existing research capabilities relevant to the tritium production mission but also introducing nuclear engineering students to the tritium program this ensures the us maintains a highly-capable technical workforce for the future 2018 marks senors seventh year of mentoring senior design teams in the nuclear engineering 406 and 410 classes i provide a tritium-related design challenge every fall and then mentor one to four design teams through the course of the academic year senor said adding that the tritium design challenge provides students with an opportunity to work on a topic that is of significant interest to the us government the design challenges are typically related to hot topics in the program and the results provide us with a starting point for further investigation under his mentorship the undergraduate teams have designed cores to produce tritium and reports that have influenced the research directions of the us department of energy and other organizations our students are immensely grateful for his technical guidance and motivation in these capstone design projects said dr karen kirkland a nuclear engineering professor and associate department head this year pnnl is challenging texas a&m students to develop conceptual designs for future advanced reactors for tritium production two teams are working together on a liquid metal reactor concept and another two teams are working on a molten salt reactor concept victor ibarra jr 19 is working on simulating a molten salt reactor focused on tritium production ibarra has met senor twice already for his senior capstone design project hes interested in pursuing tritium production in his career and is grateful for the opportunity to work with pnnl on a new type of project it will be excellent for interviews ibarra said the project involves core modeling thermal hydraulics and elements of nonproliferation senor also collaborates with texas a&m faculty for various radiation materials science projects
2625,a fightin texas aggie senors favorite tradition is muster it is an absolutely unique tradition that links us to our history and also brings aggies all around the world together for a common purpose on the same day he said senor is very involved in the columbia basin a&m club and has served as muster chair on numerous occasions although he has a busy travel schedule senor may be found in the kyle field stands during many home football games as a student he worked in the advanced nuclear fuels laboratory under peddicord dave was a key person in the lab said peddicord his work on the material property correlations of niobium-1 percent zirconium became a reference in the field for researchers he went on to build upon this expertise in his career at pnnl outside of class senor played in the jazz band during his time at texas a&m and was an active member in the american nuclear society and alpha nu sigma there was an overall sense of strong support from our professors and a desire to do whatever they could to enable my success both academically while i was at texas a&m and also in the years since then he said senor fondly recalls football weekends living on campus in walton hall and spending time with his future wife denise class of ‘85 senor chose nuclear engineering at texas a&m because nuclear science and technology seemed to offer almost unlimited potential for electricity production space power and propulsion medical advancements and a host of other applications nuclear appeared to be the future and i wanted to be a part of that he said i continue to think that the wide scale adoption of nuclear power is inevitable particularly if there are technical or political reasons to limit the use of fossil fuels in the future beyond terrestrial electricity production nuclear technology still offers enormous advantages for space power and propulsion and a variety of other applications such as desalination and remote baseload power senor advises nuclear engineering students to keep an open mind about career opportunities emphasizing that the nuclear engineering degree is comprehensive and prepares one for a wide variety of possible careers some of which are outside of traditional nuclear engineering opportunities senor is a member of the american nuclear society the minerals metals and materials society and the us naval institute he currently serves on the nuclear science user facilities science review board he has authored or co-authored over 190 journal articles presentations and technical reports in the open literature holds two us patents and has organized five international workshops and symposia i am very honored and humbled to receive the distinguished former student award from the nuclear engineering department at texas a&m he said as anyone who has known me for more than 30 seconds knows i am a proud fightin texas aggie to receive this recognition from my department at my university means more to me than i can adequately express
2626,interested in creating an industry partnership for nuclear engineering students senior capstone design project contact dr karen kirkland
2627,without electricity that the power grid supplies we wouldnt be able to work in the office or enjoy the comfort of our homes and in many ways this power is distributed and ultimately depleted with nothing in return qin yan a doctoral student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is studying the impact of electric vehicles on the power grid in hopes of bringing support back to the grid in a new way electric vehicles need power to charge their batteries which may put a burden on the power grid system yan is working to alleviate this impact and develop a solution that would be mutually beneficial to both the vehicle and the grid
2628,yan is also taking renewable energy resources such as solar generation into consideration for this study and examining how to coordinate each element to better support the power grid as part of her research yan proposed an integrated bidirectional electric vehicle charging station that includes the charging station for the electric vehicles solar generation and battery storage in a commercial building she also developed an optimization algorithm to minimize the operational cost we are integrating these elements – electric vehicles solar generation and also battery storage yan said this symbiotic relationship would bring even more reliability to the grid enhancing the support it could give in other areas
2629,"i feel this research area of electric vehicles and solar generation is very promising and may be realized in the near future yan said with the growing development of distributed generation the traditional power system is facing new challenges and this study can help mitigate such impact on the current power system yan works alongside dr mladen kezunovic director of the smart grid center at texas a&m electrical vehicles are coming said kezunovic eugene e webb and regents professor ""they are not deployed as widely as we expected them to be but in the future the expectation is to have more electrical vehicles around so the question is open on how the electrical vehicles can not only benefit the owners but also the electrical grid"
2630,a graduate team from the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded second place in the national 2017-18 material handling industry student design competition the team formed in a material handling course is the first group from texas a&m to place and included graduate students nishat unmeshbhai mehta and salil vijay rajwade dr andrew johnson associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering served as their faculty advisor each year the college industry council on material handling education commissions an industry-submitted problem for the case study competition student teams are given the information and tasked with designing and proposing a solution within a six week period for the 2017-18 contest the challenge was twofold along with designing a new facility for a growing manufacturer of custom steel components teams were tasked with integrating an overhead crane system into their layout to help move heavy parts it was basically mapping the entire production flow in a factory mehta said i had never worked on a large-scale project like this and i learned how each process related to one another like designing and material handling (systems) we learned a lot about that with this project because it covered the whole factory after sorting through the data and additional research the team designed a new facility connected to the existing building and a monorail crane system for material transportation attaching the facilities gave the company an efficient option for future expansion rajwade said the experience gave them a better understanding of the concepts presented in their material handling course and allowed them to apply things they learned directly and immediately to a real-world example johnson is proud of his teams dedication and achievement he believes that offering hands-on practical experiences is important for helping students grow and plans to continue participating in the contest in the future i want to give students a new challenge he said if i reuse the same project from past years then i often get the same answers having a design competition like this where they receive information about a company and get an industry problem with actual industry data for students to solve is a great opportunity
2631,the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has partnered with texas instruments (ti) to develop the power management circuits and systems course using ti power management lab kits (ti-pmlk) a series of labs and kits that offer a practical application of the fundamentals of power management this course was developed with the collaboration of dr jose silva-martinez dr edgar sanchez-sinencio and dr prasad enjeti silva ti professor i in analog engineering is one of the instructors of the course a few years ago the power management group at texas instruments approached the analog and mixed-signal center at texas a&m of which silva is a member about developing courses in this area of study tis university team saw there was a skills gap in this area so they developed the ti-pmlk in collaboration with dr nicola femia a power expert from the university of salerno that was then incorporated into the power electronics course taught at texas a&m this collaboration is mutually beneficial to companies in industry as well as faculty and students alike companies benefit because this course prepares students for this specific area that is very important for them this also fuels research for the faculty members in the electrical and computer engineering department and because of courses like this they are able to more quickly introduce students to a new area of study through guest lectures and hands-on lab assignments students gain practical knowledge that can be used immediately upon graduation thanks to this type of collaboration you can tailor your labs and examples used in class to practical applications silva said those guys in industry will come to our class and advise us we are doing relevant research that helps them to maintain their worldwide leadership texas a&m students and faculty are willing to address challenging open problems in todays industry the students are not only exposed to these challenges they are able to collaborate with the engineers who are developing the actual products to address these concerns this course provides students the opportunity to obtain a full understanding of power management fundamentals allowing them to adapt to the always evolving world of technology if you learn very well how to bike it doesnt really matter if you use this bike or a new model of the bike you know how to ride the bike and that is what is important silva said its the same thing with technology we see new devices new things coming every day but the real essence of the technology the roots the fundamentals are very much the same if you learn those things very well and as many aspects of the technology as possible you are prepared to adapt to all these changes the objective of this course is to equip students as leaders in this field this course is a senior level course however about 50 percent of enrollment has been graduate students for the past two years silva hopes to eventually turn this course into a stacked course which means that different types of students within the class will be given separate and more challenging assignments based on their level of study ayesha mayhugh from texas instruments has been a part of this project silva sanchez the ti jack kilby chair professor distinguished professor and director of the analog and mixed-signal center; and enjeti ti professor iii in analog engineering and associate dean for academic affairs are partnering within the department to make this course possible and to continue its path to success the texas a&m electrical and computer engineering department consistently produces highly capable engineering graduates said kyle flessner senior vice president of the ti technology and manufacturing group they are consistently a top producer of engineering talent for texas instruments
2632,aaron cogwell a junior industrial and systems engineering student spent his summer as an in-market operations intern at the frito-lay distribution center (a subsidiary of pepsico) in carrollton tx while the company gained new tools to increase the efficiency of their supply chain he gained a new perspective and an enhanced set of job skills the internship included a mixture of shadowing training project work and presentations the internship began with him visiting the frito-lay distribution center in oklahoma city where he observed the unique ways the engineers tackled their problems it ended up being extremely beneficial as i brought some of their best practices back to my home site said cogwell he gained functional knowledge of how the frito-lay supply chain works then applied his education to a project on improving the center in carrollton
2633,during his time there he made a positive financial impact on the company my statistical analysis skills were definitely an asset when presenting to the leadership team but it was my excel visual basic for applications abilities that really impressed everyone said cogwell by utilizing what i learned in industrial and systems engineering 230 i was able to create a fully functioning excel tool that created a map of the fastest moving products in the distribution center the internship taught him the importance of having a motivating company culture and increased his communication skills this internship was a positive influence on shaping my goals said cogwell i learned the importance of a good work culture and why a healthy environment that pushes you to constantly improve is important when making your first post-graduation choices work will always be work but if you truly enjoy the people you work with then you will be excited to return day after day he credits his successful hire to the help of mr josé vázquez the director of the industrial and systems engineering student resource center mr vázquez went above and beyond in assisting me said cogwell not only did he help clean up my resume but he introduced me to several pepsico contacts and allowed me to sit in on their presentations he also found support at frito-lay his manager and mentor destinee stuck was a role model for him both during and after the internship
2634,according to vázquez there is a saying in spanish i quote to my students: ‘el que tiene padrino no se ahoga rough translation: those who have a godparent will not drown success in life is about networking and a network is the professional equivalent of a godparent someone who can help in a big or small way and is always ready to pitch in i have a passion for connecting people and providing opportunity and what better tool than the aggie network it works i learned a lot during my internship but the skill that stuck with me the most was the ability to work outside of my comfort zone said cogwell i would definitely recommend this internship to all aggies regardless of their major
2635,sir isaac newton first stated an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force dr edward r dougherty has written a book expanding upon newtons fundamental theory to interrupt negative behaviors in biological systems dougherty is the robert m kennedy 26 chair professor and a distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university his recently published book titled optimal signal processing under uncertainty encompasses a unified way of finding a solution to a problem without having a full understanding of the system
2636,while finding a solution can usually be done using well-established methods when you understand every part of the system many times you only know part of the system these problems have been around for a long time in a variety of areas but not until recently has finding a solution to certain problems become more difficult this is in part because until recently many technological systems such as computers were not that complex someone designed the system and therefore it was understood the more complex a machine gets the more mistakes it can make dougherty said with the advancement of technology computers are now built by different teams of people and it is becoming increasingly difficult to verify that what the system is doing is correct additionally because we did not design biological systems such as a group of cells finding a solution to a problem within this is even more of a challenge in his book dougherty explains that the best way to alter a systems behavior when you do not have full knowledge of the system is by finding an operator or intervention that is optimal relative to both the engineering objective and system uncertainty – the best drug or best image filter in signal processing you could have an image and the image has been distorted by transmission and you want to capture it but theres noise in it dougherty said you want to suppress that noise to restore the original image what do i mean by getting the best restored image theres an error between what i actually receive and what i should be getting i want to minimize that error dougherty is an institute of electrical and electronics engineers fellow since 1987 he has published 19 books while this book has applications in a variety of fields his primary research interest is in genomic signal processing which is the analysis and use of genomic signals to gain biological knowledge that can be used to diagnose and treat genetic diseases
2637,"the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university continued its high recognition among peers nationwide maintaining its 7th place ranking among public undergraduate programs according to the most recent us news and world report rankings including private universities texas a&m was tied for 13th overall with princeton university ""we are proud of the work of our faculty staff and students to continue to propel our department toward preeminence "" said department head dr andreas polycarpou ""the ranking indicates that our peers recognize our dedication to excellence as our faculty make important contributions to the discipline and society"" the rankings are based on a combination of several factors including faculty resources financial resources student excellence alumni giving graduation and retention rates and expert opinion from institutional peers around the country to see the full results visit us news and world report"
2638,linda and joe fowler 68 have established the linda and joe fowler 68 endowed scholarship in aerospace biomedical and mechanical engineering to be used to provide three or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in aerospace biomedical or mechanical engineering from texas a&m university joe fowler is the former president of stress engineering a firm focused on providing solutions for companies and industries that require in-depth technical knowledge and proven performance in the fields of engineering design and analysis thermal and fluid sciences instrumentation and testing he has also a two-time aggie 100 recipient (2005 and 2009) as well as an engineering outstanding alumni in 2000 he earned his bachelors with honors masters and doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m the fowlers understand the importance of different fields of engineering this prompted them to establish scholarships in multiple engineering disciplines my son and myself graduated with degrees in mechanical engineering says fowler my grandson is currently studying aerospace engineering at texas a&m and i have come to appreciate the excitement of the field and there is no doubt that biomedical engineering is a huge part of the future for everyone says fowler
2639,a new multiuniversity center led by texas a&m university will contribute to our understanding of materials science fundamental to the maintenance of the united states nuclear deterrent it will also train the next generation of scientists and engineers who will ensure the safety security and effectiveness of the nuclear weapons stockpile the center for research excellence on dynamically deformed solids (credds) will receive $125 million over five years from the department of energy through the national nuclear security administration (nnsa) the nnsa is the agency behind the nations stockpile stewardship mission (ssm) which works to guarantee that our nuclear weapons are reliable without testing them (per the us policy to abide by the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty which is not yet legally in force) we are honored to be selected as a new nnsa center said dr michael j demkowicz an associate professor in the texas a&m department of materials science and engineering and director of credds in addition to credds support of the ssm and training of future scientists i am excited about the new science that will come out of it research from other facilities created as a result of stockpile stewardship has led for example to an improved understanding of how supernovas happen and insights into the fundamental properties of matter in addition to texas a&m other universities involved in credds are the university of michigan the university of california at santa barbara and the university of connecticut principal investigators for those universities are respectively dr a misra chair of the department of materials science and engineering; dr i j beyerlein and dr a m dongare maintaining the stockpile the nations last nuclear test was in 1992 and the weapons in our stockpile are aging changes over time like radiation damage to some materials and even corrosion mean that the weapons must occasionally be refurbished said dr marvin l adams the htri professor in the texas a&m department of nuclear engineering and associate director of the institute for national security and cybersecurity education and research but that maintenance can entail the introduction of new materials and processes thats because some of the old manufacturing processes used to produce the original parts of a weapon no longer exist plus some of the materials used in the past cant be used now because of environmental safety and health implications as a result scientists and engineers are exploring advanced manufacturing processes like 3d printing as well as new materials but how do you ensure that those replacements will work if you cannot test the final weapon enter supercomputer simulations of how the new parts and materials will perform under the conditions of a nuclear explosion those simulations however must be informed by a thorough understanding of the fundamental science involved thats a big part of what gives us confidence that these weapons will work and that thorough understanding is what the stockpile stewardship program has given us and continues to give us said adams credds focuses on the science of the metallic materials behind our nuclear weapons for example it will explore new materials produced by advanced manufacturing processes these materials which can have properties superior to their predecessors have complex microstructures that challenge conventional knowledge of how materials deform or change under the conditions associated with nuclear reactions of special interest to credds researchers is how the materials deform under very high strain rates or how quickly the shape of a material changes under extreme conditions in nuclear reactions this is very very fast think billionths of a second among other challenges credds researchers aim to observe what happens on the level of individual imperfections in a metal when the metal is exposed to high strain rates they will not only examine the material afterwards a kind of post-mortem analysis but also see whats happening during the deformation so this center is going to be all about high-speed cameras acquiring lots of data very very quickly and developing new tools that allow us to look at the individual features of a material demkowicz said toward the future just as important as the science it explores credds will also train students this is about educating the next generation of scientists and engineers to support stockpile stewardship said dr andrew l ross the brent scowcroft chair of international policy studies in the department of international affairs at the bush school of government & public service at texas a&m and director of the national security affairs program we need to have people who can do this not just now but 10 20 years down the road to that end credds will include a variety of outreach activities that include seminars and a summer school planned for the fourth year of the project in addition undergraduates graduate students and postdoctoral associates affiliated with credds will have the opportunity to visit and spend extended periods of time at the national laboratories involved in stockpile stewardship and all these benefits combined makes ross believe that texas a&m is the perfect home for the new center given the strength of our engineering program top ranked not just in the country but in the world its the right place to do this kind of work he said im not surprised that nnsa chose texas a&m to take the lead on this this material is based upon work supported by the department of energy national nuclear security administration under award no de-na0003857 any opinions findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the national nuclear security administration
2640,cheryl a and retired usaf colonel john k buffin 67 have established the cheryl a and john k buffin 67 scholarship in the college of engineering to be used to provide scholarships to two full-time students in good standing who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in industrial and systems aerospace electrical or mechanical engineering from texas a&m university john buffin earned his degree in aerospace engineering from texas a&m in 1967 while working in the acquisition business for an aerospace firm buffin saw that women were underrepresented in the field he and his wife cheryl created this scholarship in response to his experience i felt the way to spur change and encourage women to be involved in stem-based careers was to provide a scholarship that was tailored to them buffin said
2641,mozilla awarded dr jeff huang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university a grant to support his significant research in detecting and eliminating web browser-based attacks specifically huang is focused on developing automated tools to protect web browsers from memory corruption vulnerabilities memory corruption is currently posing the greatest threat to browser security by exploiting a memory corruption bug in browsers attackers may read or even change the users private data the security issues inside the browsers are very serious because there are so many malicious websites and billions of users huang said once you open a tab to visit a potentially malicious website the code in that website can steal data in your browser for example when you use a browser such as mozilla firefox or google chrome and log in to your banks website you are using a space in your browsers memory if you open a new tab and visit a malicious website bugs can infiltrate and share this space of memory giving attackers access to your bank information this programming flaw is particularly difficult to remedy but huang and his team have already developed and open-sourced automated tools to detect these vulnerabilities the goal is to have a tool that is automatically setup when firefox and chrome release a new version huang said the tool will automatically scan the browsers code inspect its behavior and combat any potential memory corruption vulnerabilities its going to be very helpful and protect billions of people a day huangs automated tool has already surpassed existing technology in its ability to find these bugs with the support of this grant he plans to learn more about browsers and how to enhance his tools to better detect and debug them long term i am interested to see the technical transfer of this technology to other areas such as computer operating systems huang said of the 115 submitted proposals mozilla selected eight for the mozilla research grant huang was also awarded the google faculty research award earlier this year for his work with memory corruption vulnerabilities and is collaborating with google security on his research
2642,dr pushkar lele assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has received a grant from the department of defense (dod) – army medical research and materiel command the project will determine how bacteria form complex macromolecular apparatuses and how environmental factors trigger their assembly bacteria like most living systems rely on molecular machines to do just about everything from the synthesis of enzymes dna replication and intracellular signaling to surface-colonization cell division and motility these machines are assembled from a highly-disordered crowded soup of biological building blocks present within the intracellular confines the emergence of such complex structures is guided by the process of self-assembly in this research lele and his group will examine how environmental cues trigger the self-assembly of certain types of molecular machines according to lele the central question driving the research is how the kinetics of self-assembly influence bacterial adaptation how quickly can a particular machine be built to respond to an environmental stress asked lele that would determine whether it is of any use – it is not adequate to be merely effective in function the rate of assembly is likely to be important especially under duress we are proposing to study this by introducing an environmental stressor – it could be chemical it could be thermal it could be mechanical – and asking at what rate will the assembly progress and how will that impact the chances of survival ultimately lele hopes to learn the principles by which environmental cues can guide cellular self-assembly with potential future applications in biomimetics and nanotechnology to study the effects of environmental stressors on intracellular self-assembly lele and his research team will employ a novel combination of three different techniques the first is total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (tirf) this technique allows researchers to follow the dynamics of protein molecules within the cell in order to visualize these proteins lele's group generates and employs fusions of the proteins of interest with a protein that fluoresces when illuminated by a powerful green laser the second technique is called optical tweezers it involves the use of a highly focused laser beam to indefinitely trap and hold microscopic objects at desired locations optical tweezers were invented by arthur ashkin in 1986 who recently won a nobel prize in physics for his work on the technique focusing the laser results in intense nonuniform electric fields lele said under the right conditions it helps trap di-electric particles such as bacterial cells a cell will remain trapped in one position and will go wherever the laser beam is moved within the sample plane by rapidly scanning the laser between multiple positions multiple bacterial cells can be trapped simultaneously lele and his team have now combined optical tweezers with tirf enabling them to translate bacteria toward or away from a stressor as desired while observing the intracellular self-assembly process
2643,the third technique is called förster resonance energy transfer (fret) in this technique two types of fluorescent fusions are employed that form a ‘fret pair when the two fluorophores are within a short distance under illumination a nonradiative transfer of energy occurs resulting in emissions at certain wavelengths of light these can be detected with a photomultiplier or a sensitive camera as a result fret has become an important tool for in vivomeasurements of protein-protein interactions lele hopes to use fret in combination with the above two methods to develop a comprehensive understanding of the importance of timing in the self-assembly and functioning of protein complexes it is ambitious but it promises powerful insights into the cellular self-assembly process lele said adding that the survival of bacteria depends on the exquisite timing of a variety of important events we are trying to understand how some of the events are precisely timed to give rise to protein machines
2644,dr walter buchanan professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has been selected as a recipient of the 2018 accreditation board for engineering and technology fellow award the award will be presented to him in early november at a gala in baltimore it is a great honor buchanan said only about 150 of these awards have been given out in the past 30 years the accreditation board for engineering and technology (abet) is a lead accreditor for engineering and engineering technology programs across the globe since its founding in 1932 it has partnered with professionals and experts in industry academia and government to evaluate the quality of top academic programs the abet board of directors annually recognizes up to five experts that have gone above and beyond in their dedication to the organization and mission for more than three decades buchanan has done just that starting as a program evaluator in 1987 he has served on the executive board of the engineering technology accreditation commission and several other committees including the awards committee for the 2017 fellow award out of all 50 campuses that he visited during his time as an evaluator including a handful in kuwait and saudi arabia its texas a&m that stands out the most to buchanan i think weve got the best programs for a number of reasons he said the faculty are more involved in research than a lot of other institutions i think we have a good schedule of classes that do labs great recruitment its really applied engineering there are more labs and more hands-on stuff going on in labs buchanan wants to offer special thanks to his nominator and friend dr lawrence j wolf president emeritus at oregon institute of technology and to dr reza langari professor and jr thompson department head chair of the engineering technology and industrial distribution department for their ongoing support
2645,the texas workforce commission (twc) and the texas science and engineering advisory board have named texas a&m engineering as the new host of the 2019 texas science and engineering fair (txsef) becoming the third host in the 18-year history of the prestigious science and engineering competition twc anticipates nearly 4 000 students parents school officials and industry representatives will attend the fair at texas a&m university in college station texas on march 29-30 2019 we look forward to welcoming texas brightest student innovators to texas a&m university this year and commend them on their dedication to encourage students to pursue science technology engineering and math (stem) occupations said twc chair ruth ruggero hughs as we begin our new partnership with texas a&m engineering and continued partnership with exxonmobil corporation we look forward to expanding the number of students participating in the texas state science and engineering fair and creating new ways to engage and inspire our future scientists and our next generation of influencers i am pleased to make this announcement and congratulate texas a&m said twc commissioner representing labor julian alvarez with our partnership and commitment to support programs that encourage students to pursue science technology engineering and math (stem) occupations texas a&m a world-class educational institution is the perfect venue to inspire them he said our texas students participating in this years texas science and engineering fair are ushering in a new era for this statewide event that serves as an opportunity for students to showcase their classroom education to solve real-world problems the texas a&m university system is committed to serving residents statewide and this is an excellent opportunity to welcome the states best and brightest to the flagship campus at texas a&m university said john sharp chancellor for the texas a&m university system both the texas workforce commission and exxonmobil recognize the strength of texas a&m engineering and how this partnership will foster innovation among our future engineers and scientists for 18 years twc and exxonmobil have spearheaded the texas science and engineering fair where middle and high school students from 13 regional divisions across texas compete in over 20 categories judged by experts in the field top finishers from the high school division are awarded scholarships to attend the prestigious governors science and technology champions academy summer camp and also have the opportunity to compete in the intel international science and engineering fair in may 2019 in phoenix arizona the texas science and engineering fair offers a great opportunity for the youth of texas to learn more about science and engineering which can lead to future career choices in these areas said truman bell chairman of the txsef advisory board and manager of community relations for exxonmobil corporation exxonmobil is pleased to support this effort which will inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers for more information on the texas science and engineering fair visit wwwtxag/txsef
2646,the only good thing about oil spills is that they are extremely rare in fact there has only been one recorded deep-water ocean spill but their rarity presents its own problems when it comes to choosing how to react to them thats why research done at texas a&m university to create stronger prediction models will play a critical role in assessing the pros and cons of tactics used in future spills the texas a&m oilspill calculator (tamoc) model developed by dr scott socolofsky professor in the zachry department of civil engineering and his team is being used by the us national oceanographic and atmospheric administration (noaa) in its oil spill model gnome (general noaa operational modeling environment) the severity of an oil spill's impact depends on the amount and source of oil what courses of action responders choose and the physical properties of the oil
2647,the presence of oil in the ocean affects surface and subsurface organisms and resources linked in a complex way including humans damages include that which we see directly impacting wildlife such as coating birds or mammals with a layer of oil and the toxicity of the oil itself which may be poisonous at high enough concentrations oil spill research at texas a&m seeks to mitigate the effects of future spills predict the hazard conditions under future spill scenarios and help with decision support in future spills for the response effort it takes into consideration the solubility of oil something previously ignored in past models which allows for different predictions of impact on the ecosystem with the texas a&m oilspill calculator we are able to demonstrate the best choices for a blowout model and help to improve model prediction said socolofsky better predictions will save resources during the next major subsea blowout by helping to direct the response a blowout occurs any time an operator loses control of the flow rate in an oil well pipeline blowouts are most likely to occur during drilling of a new oil well since less is known at that time about the characteristics of the oil reservoir only in extreme cases do blowouts result in oil spills as occurred during the deepwater horizon accident an example of how this model can be used is to determine the impact of subsea dispersants during deepwater horizon dispersants were used resulting in a debate that still continues about how much measurable impact they had and whether that impact was worth the potential adverse effects on the environment when considering trade-offs socolofsky said to remember that an oil spill is already a bad event for the environment so any decision really comes down to mitigating these effects the choice to use dispersants is made whenever they will reduce exposure of toxic oil compounds to people people usually encounter oil through fumes in the air oil on the coast or oil on the sea surface subsea dispersant injection aims to reduce oil residue in the air coast and surface by allowing more of it to be dissolved into the ocean the epas first line of decision making is to protect human health said socolofsky dispersant injection did do that during the deepwater horizon accident and would still be selected today if human health would be protected an unfortunate trade-off is that the oil still enters the environment and in the case of subsea dispersant injecting impacts more of the ocean water column and seafloor than if dispersants were not used the national academies of sciences and engineering are still looking into the topic and socolofsky has been called in as an expert however how best to use or not use dispersants was never his goal socolofsky just set out to make the best model for these types of spills the model helps us make informed decisions for policy about dispersants so that if we are to have a future spill were prepared to respond in the best way he said whether thats to use dispersants or not thats up to someone else to decide but at least our model can provide objective background on what that decision should be made about the adoption of the tamoc model by government and industry earned socolofsky a college of engineering research impact award this year the team is also now working with noaa to predict what might happen for an accidental blowout in the arctic
2648,dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was recently named the chair of the adaptive structures and material systems (asms) group a branch of the american society of mechanical engineering (asme)
2649,a branch designates a large organizational group within asme that operates between the technical committee and division levels the asms branch is the largest and most active branch under the aerospace division and is primarily concerned with adaptive structures consisting of smart materials with characteristics that can change in response to internal and external stimulation the asms participates in and co-sponsors three international technical conferences multiple awards and a number of service and stem outreach activities managing the substantial budget required to execute each of these hartl was elected to the role of branch treasurer in 2016 and has also served as branch co-chair where he largely focused on executing the award-granting mission of the branch as chair he is responsible for the full range of branch activities including organizing and running the two full branch meetings held in march and september and nominating personnel for various branch subcommittees he also maintains the relationship between the branch and the aerospace division
2650,alejandra hernandez a student from the industrial and systems engineering department at texas a&m university has spent the last eight months as a process engineering intern for the production control (pc) team at the tesla factory in fremont california tesla inc is an american multinational corporation based in palo alto california that specializes in electric vehicles lithium-ion battery energy storage and solar panel manufacturing their roadster vehicle accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in as little as 19 seconds even faster than a cheetah the pc team optimizes the internal logistics and operations necessary to supply the assembly line with parts and materials anytime the parts are delivered late to the assembly line even by a few minutes the downtime associated with the delay costs the company thousands of dollars solid support and orchestration from the team is essential to achieving the companys overall goals as a process engineering intern hernandez supported the team with manpower calculations for different processes cycle time studies warehouse designs and routes for material conveyance after a few months she was given a leadership position to represent a team of engineers in solving the manual material flow for 25 percent of the assembly line she designed defined piloted and/or improved more than 12 material storages as well as their material flow (material storages are on-site warehouses that hold inventory to accommodate for parts that have a fast turnaround) hernandez started each project from scratch these projects were significant to me because like my mentor used to say i was given the opportunity to start off with a ‘white canvas she said not only did this opportunity demonstrate my technical skills but it also gave me the opportunity to express my creativity by thinking outside of the box and solving different problems the industrial and systems engineering classes hernandez took taught her how to compute technical calculations such as cycle time studies while her extracurricular opportunities developed her interpersonal skills participating in aggies invent and completing my capstone design project prepared me to work as both a teammate and a leader she said what i learned in the classroom transformed into meaningful habits collaboration was a significant part of hernandezs internship she explained that cross functional teamwork was the key to successfully finishing multiple projects during her time with tesla she worked with engineers associates managers full-time staff and other interns regardless of their position every tesla member has the opportunity to make a huge impact in the company said hernandez the tesla internship also helped hernandez decipher what she wanted to do after graduating this december she envisions working for a consulting firm and gaining more supply chain experience before one day starting her own it assured me that i was on the professional path i wanted to grow in by continuously improving everything around me she said i would hands-down recommend this experience to anyone who wants to test themselves and find out how far they can go in their career the most valuable lesson hernandez learned the fact that there is always room for improvement has taught me that industrial engineering is not a profession its a lifestyle now i always ask: how can i get the job done but better faster stronger the secret is to strive for the best work possible at everything we do
2651,tesla and elon musks companies have always attracted my attention because of their missions and goals she said a few years ago tesla redefined their mission statement from ‘accelerate the world's transition to sustainable transport to ‘accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy by changing only one word they changed humankinds hopes and future a texas a&m networking event gave hernandez the opportunity to interact with tesla recruiters after speaking with them she knew she wanted to support the acceleration of worldwide change she credits many people with helping impact her internship and preparing her for the work there: from texas a&m: james wilson rodney boehm james donnell jose vazquez jeana goodson alaa elwany and angela winkler said hernandez from tesla everyone in the pc department especially my manager and mentors sachin malik and eugene de mesa
2652,theres an app for that or is there today we use apps for navigation ride-sharing and local weather enabled by a gps outdoor location service but not many apps exist for indoor location this past weekend students at aggies invent tackled this problem as well as other similar need statements related to smart technology sponsored by aruba a hewlett packard enterprise company students had the opportunity to develop solutions to problems in 48 hours with experts on hand to guide them
2653,this was the first aggies invent held in the zachry engineering education complexs susu and mark a fischer engineering design center more than 200 students applied to participate in the weekend-long event a record number of applicants rodney boehm engineering entrepreneurship program director said they had a difficult number narrowing down the selections nine teams of students worked tirelessly to develop innovative apps that integrated arubas bluetooth low energy technology in the end it was team evexia who took home the first-place award of $1 000 their app focused on simplifying the process of making visiting a hospital for day surgery into three easy steps for many going to the hospital is stressful patients can get lost trying to find the correct office then have to fill out a lot of paperwork by streamlining all of these steps into three or fewer the team surmised that patients would be much more relaxed throughout the experience
2654,i worked in a clinic this summer and i had so many patients come in and complain about various things usually the check-in process and being in the wrong building said teammate andrea brunal a senior biomedical engineering student we knew with this technology we had an opportunity that would be really cool to impact peoples lives second-place team museo focused on creating an unforgettable experience for art museum patrons their app used augmented reality that would bring the art and the artist to lifeinstead of simply looking at a piece of art in a museum and wondering where the artists inspiration came from one could use museo to watch a rendering of a 15-year-old pablo picasso talking about his work its like pokemon go but van gogh said teammate erin stephan junior mechanical engineering student third-place team smartcart created an app that allows shoppers to easily find what they are looking for in a store eliminating the need for a customer to wander up and down the aisles trying to find an item the team designed a device that hooks onto a shopping cart with a holder to fasten a phone the bottom of the cart is lined with a scale and sensors the scale recognizes when items are in the cart that were not on the customers shopping list and then sends the customer a notification to remove the item or scan it the app also would allow retailers to promote items by sending shoppers push notifications with coupons based on the customers location with an easy payment system built in theres no need to go through the checkout line the idea is to reduce the amount of time that customers are having to spend in stores and to improve the efficiency with which they shop said teammate rebecca mcfadden general engineering student it also allows brick and mortar stores to collect more data on what their customers are buying and how their store is being used
2655,boehm said it was exciting to host aggies invent in the new space were grateful for the opportunity to use the fischer engineering design center for aggies invent he said it gives our students the opportunity to take any idea they have and turn it into a reality if you dream it we can build it brandon look fong general engineering student said aggies invent drew him in because its a chance to take the skills learned in class and apply them to real-life problems it gives you a chance to affect real change onto the community and maybe onto the world fong said its like taking the first step and saying ‘who knows where this could go the next aggies invent will be held oct 26-28 and the deadline to apply is oct 15 to learn more about aggies invent: internet of things visit the website felysha walker and jennifer reiley contributed to this article
2656,"a team of researchers including three from the texas a&m university college of engineering set the sky as their limit to take home the first-place prize in the blue sky competition at the north american manufacturing research conference the goal of the blue sky competition is to identify long-term challenges and new visionary ideas for manufacturing to influence the future of research and education in the us the texas a&m team had to work together to develop a plan that had a wide-ranging hugely-impactful concept so they focused on civil infrastructure infrastructure which includes everything from roads and buildings to power and water transportation systems enables trade supports businesses maintains the quality of life and provides security against unpredictable events however as the nations infrastructure ages concerns regarding the affordable construction and restoration of civil infrastructure need to be addressed our team is highly multidisciplinary with expertise that spans advanced manufacturing civil engineering construction sciences and architecture said dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering we decided to enter the competition because we felt that our idea has significant potential to renew the us aging civil infrastructure through re-imagining the way we build the team researched advances in manufacturing technologies specifically 3d printing also called additive manufacturing this method can potentially offer unique capabilities including geometric freedom material-saving through design optimization and functional complexity dr stephanie paal assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering said all team members had a common understanding that innovation in civil infrastructure was lacking our team saw an urgent need to rethink the design and construction of civil infrastructure paal said our vision was that by developing and testing new cost-effective manufacturing methods and materials for implementation in civil design and construction processes we might be able to advance both fields in momentous ways dr zachary grasley professor in the civil engineering department and director of the center for infrastructure renewal said the concept of 3d printing infrastructure is both visionary and a challenge because the manufacturing community views construction as only partially related to their goals if the us successfully implemented 3d printing technology to build civil infrastructure grasley said it could lead to improved efficiency levels and productivity levels in construction the way that we construct or manufacture civil infrastructure – things like bridges buildings pipelines pavements and homes – has changed little over the past several decades in comparison to other manufacturing fields grasley said the industry is ripe for innovation at some job sites robots and printers are already fabricating building elements; however additive robotic construction can accommodate growing populations and strengthen national resilience through faster and higher-quality rebuilding capabilities said negar kalantar mehrjardi assistant professor in the college of architecture and team member the judging panel in the competition consisted of industry and government experts including experts from federal program offices having our team win the competition is a reassuring indication that these panel experts saw the potential of our idea to have an impact on the future of manufacturing research and education elwany said dr zofia rybkowski team member and associate professor in the college of architectures department of construction said one of the benefits of the competition and others like it is they enable faculty to prepare students to lead in technological advancement additive manufacturing of buildings will fundamentally change the way our future graduates manage projects rybkowski said awareness and discussion with texas a&m students and graduates provide the opportunity for them to guide progress not only in financially lucrative ways but in ways that are sustainable and responsible"" i see this win as a great opportunity for texas a&m to take a leadership position in the us in the burgeoning field of advanced manufacturing for infrastructure construction grasley said"
2657,m susanne and rudy dismuke 78 have established the chieko t dismuke memorial scholarship iv in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering to be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m university this is the fourth scholarship in memory of rudy dismukes mother chieko t dismuke in addition to the scholarships in memory of his mother the couple has also created scholarships honoring four of dismukes professors at texas a&m each of the four professors and my mother have inspired me to succeed and instilled a wealth of knowledge in me over the years dismuke said the dismukes are dedicated to giving back not only to the university as a whole but especially to the department rudy was in while attending texas a&m i have always given to the association of former students but i decided to give back to the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering because of the values and knowledge it provided me with dismuke said
2658,what started as a programming hobby for after class has turned into a major research project for texas a&m university seniors justin mcginnity and cody piercey were bridging the gap between mechanical engineering and computer science said piercey industrial distribution engineering major with a computer science minor you can take the mechanical engineering perspective that professors have to offer and then try to do that in our programming the two began working on programming during their sophomore year on their personal laptops they started working in augmented reality (ar) and virtual reality (vr) software and were lent an oculus rift vr headset by dr tanil ozkan assistant professor of instruction in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering mcginnity a mechanical engineering major with a computer science minor said the two had never done work in vr but found operating the programs interesting the two developed an idea that they could compose codes in the software that would benefit engineering
2659,the vr space is untapped so no one had really developed anything in virtual reality yet mcginnity said anytime we do something were the first ones to do this it feels good to know youre this pioneer in a vr space ozkan gave them their first project: develop 3d models of molecular atomic structures which would help students better visualize the structures by being able to move around them in a virtual space from the molecular models mcginnity and piercey branched out to finite element analysis which allows researchers to gain valuable insight of their study through vr piercey said they were able to develop several stress studies within the program that researchers can view from all angles theyve also reached out to professors to see what else they would like to use the software for were not experts were programmers and so we ask what engineers want to see this software be able to do what would help them in vr mcginnity said as the two started and have grown their project they drew the attention of mitch wittneben associate director of information technology (it) for the college of engineering who met and hired the students in april 2017 to work for it
2660,the students were then supplied with sponsored equipment so far they are sponsored by computer manufacturing company lenovo and supported by software company ansys who have donated equipment and provided projects to mcginnity and piercey we hire student workers and give them professional development experience in areas that they are truly interested in wittneben said as they develop their skills in the different virtual systems mcginnity and piercey have learned to write their own algorithms to convert data from a 2d to 3d space and even add color to their models were still definitely learning a lot piercey said i feel like i dont know even close to what i would need to know in the software but its a learning process looking forward both students said they hope the programs they develop will one day help further education in the classroom if students are doing these studies we want them to have a way to view their results in vr mcginnity said no one really has a way of doing that yet thats universal and accepts all kinds of file formats so thats kind of our goal is to be able to standardize that and make it accessible to a&m students
2661,dr judy amanor-boadu an electrical engineering former student is creating new stem opportunities for girls in ghana amanor-boadu 13 18 was inspired during her graduate studies at texas a&m university to start a series of girls robotics clubs in her home country of ghana i am motivated to provide to these girls what i did not receive and to see them succeed in their careers because they had this opportunity said amanor-boadu she set out on her mission by sharing it with the women in engineering (we) director shawna fletcher who gave her a lego mindstorm kit to take to the pilot school and gauge interest
2662,we has been supporting several all-girl first (for inspiration and recognition of science and technology) lego league teams locally for three years said fletcher judy saw their interest and wanted to start efforts to inspire young girls in ghana judy has used her affinity for electrical engineering to mentor these students as well as our college-level women she is a remarkable example of what girls can accomplish with a career in stem! there has been an energy of excitement as this is completely new at the elementary and middle school levels said amanor-boadu who traveled to ghana in november 2017 the pilot program is being carried out at christ the king international school in accra ghana the headmistress and teachers welcomed this idea and have helped to teach and encourage the students to take part in it the one big problem is that interest from female students has been so overwhelming that some had to be turned away from the club there just arent enough lego robots for the girls to work on as of now there is only one lego robot and 20 to 25 students are working on it
2663,introducing engineering growing up in ghana everyone amanor-boadu knew aspired to be a medical doctor that is still the case today she said there are very few conversations about engineering and the medical schools cannot accept every single student so most students that end up in engineering are those that did not get admitted into medical school amanor-boadu believes that if the concepts of engineering are introduced to students at an earlier age they will see how important it is for strengthening the economy bridging the digital divide improving human health and engendering democracy and peace it is imperative that there is a pipeline to produce engineers who will design and develop devices tools and solutions that influence communication access to information and the provision of humanitys basic needs said amanor-boadu she also wants to improve the ratio of women to men in engineering in order to strive for a more equal balance sparking an engineering interest has to be tackled at the elementary and middle school grade level to help them to see that that there are other professions the lego robots are especially valuable because they encompass mechanical electrical and programming skills they can be designed to solve a diverse array of problems just by reconfiguring the structure and reprogramming it these fundamentals help develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills of the students the pilot program has shown great success and the future goals of the program are to first expand to more than one club in the pilot school after that the school will field a team to compete in first lego league to give the girls the opportunity to compete at the international stage then it can be extended to other schools in accra and hopefully even the whole country
2664,ties of affection amanor-boadu received her bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering from kwame nkrumah university of science and technology kumasi ghana in 2010 and texas a&m in 2013 respectively she recently graduated from texas a&m with a phd in electrical engineering and is now working at intel at texas a&m she received the office of graduate and professional studies george w kunze endowed graduate award for research excellence part of her research included the creation of stand-alone solar power systems for africa she hopes her research will inspire the students to help solve the electricity problems ghana faces amanor-boadu previously worked for the texas a&m women in engineering (we) program and was one of two graduate students hired to assist in developing programs to increase the retention of women in the college of engineering i mentored the we autonomous underwater vehicle team over a period of two and a half years to successful qualifications to semi-finals in the international robosub competition she said i love to see upcoming female engineers excited about their careers and seek to help develop their unique skills and talents her advice for female engineering students never give up challenges will certainly come but others have blazed the trail before you so there is the absolute possibility that you can make it continue to dream big and solve the worlds problems one step at a time
2665,those interested in supporting women in engineering program efforts please contact shawna fletcher director (fletcher234@tamuedu) and those interested in supporting girls robotics clubs in ghana please contact judy amanor-boadu (judyboadu@gmailcom)
2666,by partnering with ford motor company dr bruce tai hopes to accelerate his research into the development of a new minimum quantity lubrication machining process – an advancement that could provide such benefits as a significant reduction in water waste energy use and costs tai and his collaborators on the project including dr wayne hung of the engineering technology and industrial distribution department at texas a&m university were recently awarded a new grant from the national science foundation that will enable the researchers to continue furthering their work in addressing this real-world problem through the grant opportunities for academic liaison with industry funding mechanism tai an assistant professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m said the goal of the project is to advance the current minimum quantity lubrication machining technology – that uses a small amount of oil mist in machining rather than the traditional wet process – and to address the industrial needs for machining efficiency
2667,"if successful the research could lead to global benefits through new machining practices in cutting tool design optimal machining parameters and flow systems in a broad range of areas that include the automotive aerospace and defense industries with the emergence of 3d printing technology and its capabilities tai believes they could be used as a tool for customizing complex machining tools with internal features in the lab ""minimum quantity lubrication can be a challenge and risk in production when the mist flow cannot be effectively controlled to lubricate and cool down the machining spot "" tai said ""in this project we will use 3d printing technology to customize the tool design and internal features to help us analyze flow pattern in a more systematic and parametric fashion"" access to the full-scale state-of-the-art facilities at ford is also expected to provide beneficial opportunities to move the manufacturing research forward for efficiently also where typically minimum quantity lubrication machining requires a time-consuming and expensive process of extensive tests to correlate the relationships among the machining tool flow parameters and machining performance tai and his group have found another approach ""we attack this problem by looking to the black box and finding what happens mechanistically "" tai said ""this will help the industry make more accurate decisions in a more efficient way"""
2668,alexa what is the big deal about receiving an alexa innovation fellowship the alexa innovation fellowship inspires and enables the next generation of curious minds to invent the next big thing in conversational artificial intelligence (ai) the fellowship empowers faculty members to help student entrepreneurs innovate with voice interfaces texas a&m university is the only recipient of the alexa innovation fellowship in the state and just one of 10 in the country the universities were selected based on a number of criteria including their technology entrepreneurship curriculum student access to grant funding and experience with alexa
2669,rodney boehm 78 will be the texas a&m university alexa innovation fellow he is the director of engineering entrepreneurship and an associate professor of practice in the texas a&m college of engineering in this role he shares the knowledge he gained during 30 years in the telecommunications industry and five years at a startup with students of all levels he has designed and implemented new opportunities for aggie engineers to excel and test their skills inside and outside of the classroom through entrepreneurial events such as aggies invent invent for the planet and aggie boss talk his slogan the sun never sets on innovation
2670,voice is the most natural convenient interface and we believe it can change the way humans interact with technology said kevin crews the senior project manager for the alexa fund fellowships to achieve this reality we need to solve many hard conversational ai challenges we must help entrepreneurs build voice interfaces into their technologies since technology innovation and entrepreneurship starts on college campuses were partnering with leading university entrepreneurship centers to help student-led startups across all industries supercharge their innovations with voice alexa is integrating into more and more of our daily lives texas a&m engineering students will now be able to integrate conversational ai not only into existing technology but also create entirely new innovations to improve our world
2671,enhancing aggie entrepreneurship ten leading entrepreneurship center faculty members passionate about new technology were selected as the inaugural class of alexa innovation fellows the alexa innovation fellowship empowers entrepreneurship centered faculty to serve as expert resources in voice interfaces on their campus innovation fellows receive $25 000 alexa devices hardware kits application program interfaces and regular training the funding and devices are intended to help support student startups in pursuit of integrating voice with their technology using alexas developer services the alexa skills kit and the alexa voice service the training opportunities will help demonstrate the art-of-the-possible with voice by introducing innovation fellows to successful alexa fund-backed entrepreneurs and the alexa team in seattle
2672,the alexa innovation fellowship will enhance texas a&ms robust entrepreneurial engineering programs texas a&m engineering students currently practice their innovation and entrepreneurship skills in an immersive and creative environment they have access to the new fischer engineering design center a 60 000-square foot makerspace a new 1 600-square foot engineering incubator and a variety of entrepreneurial programs like the i-corps site fellows program engineering entrepreneurship living learning community and more no matter what stage students are at in the entrepreneurial process they will find support at texas a&m whether it's generating an idea forming a team building prototypes or providing an engineering incubator texas a&m engineering even gives students access to mentors business leaders and legal advice the alexa innovation fellowship will benefit both amazon and students in the creation of new smart technology we live in a world where we interact with technology every day; however most of the time we are limited by a keyboard or mouse said boehm conversational ai allows natural engagement to a very broad cross-section of the population i am excited to see our students develop new applications that have not even been imagined
2673,according to amazon conversational ai systems are computers that people can interact with simply by having a conversation conversational ai signals a huge advancement in the way we interact with technology unlike menus touchscreens or mouse clicks using our voice to have a conversation is one of the most natural ways to use a computer; it requires no learning curve this new method of human-computer interaction makes powerful computer applications even easier to use and accessible to more people
2674,"ethan beyak a doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a 2018 national defense science and engineering graduate (ndseg) fellowship he is among 69 fellows nationwide offered the highly competitive award in recognition of his academic excellence and science technology engineering and math (stem) achievements there were over 3 600 applications received this year awardees receive full tuition and all mandatory fees coverage for up to three years at any accredited us college or university that provides advanced degrees in science and engineering and a monthly stipend of $3 200 in addition fellows receive up to $1 200 annually for health insurance coverage and up to two trips per year for training and/or conferences that support their educational initiatives (all expenses paid based on the government travel policy) beyak is conducting his research in ""transition prediction via stability of hypersonic boundary layers in thermochemical nonequilibrium"" under the direction of dr helen reed professor in the department he graduated from the university of arizona in 2016 with bachelors degrees both in mechanical engineering (honors) and in mathematics and a minor in aerospace engineering as an undergraduate student beyak conducted experimental research in shock/boundary-layer interactions under the direction of dr jesse little and he also has experience as a systems engineer with raytheon missile systems in tucson arizona in modeling simulations and analysis started in 1989 ndseg has awarded nearly 3 600 fellowships to us residents and nationals who pursue a doctoral degree in one of 15 supported disciplines at a us institution the ndseg fellowship program is sponsored by the air force office of scientific research the army research office and the office of naval research under the office of the under secretary of defense for research and engineering this program is administered by solutions through innovative technologies inc"
2675,bradley l worsham 88 has established the bradley l brad worsham 88 heep fellowship in the college of engineering to be used to provide one or more fellowships to full-time students in good standing pursuing a graduate degree in engineering from texas a&m university the heep graduate fellowship is awarded to those who demonstrate outstanding academic performance research ability potential and leadership qualities these students work under the supervision of a hagler institute for advanced study (hias) faculty fellow to complete research studies these faculty fellows from around the world are invited to study at the institute since its inception the hias has hosted faculty fellows with one hubbell prize in literature two nobel laureates 18 national academy of sciences memberships and 21 national academy of engineering memberships the worshams saw benefit in introducing students from texas a&m to the worldwide academic community they feel this experience allows students to gain a better understanding of the global community while texas a&m is itself an inspirational place former students and professors are the keys to maximizing opportunities and lifelong learning for students worsham said it is in this light that i chose to contribute to the fellowship endowment to enable graduate students to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities created by hias worsham and his wife liz have generously supported texas a&m through various contributions to the university he is a member of the aerospace engineering advisory board and earned his bachelors degree from the department in 1988 as a former presidents endowed scholarship recipient worsham understands the direct impact that scholarship has on students the generosity of my donors changed the course of my life as i would not have attended texas a&m without their gift he said
2676,when roesha nigos began as a freshman engineering student at texas a&m university she knew she wanted to study engineering but wasnt sure what to major in when she decided computing was for her she was told that she would never thrive in a computing environment but despite those comments she persisted now as a junior computer science engineering student she had the opportunity in october 2018 to attend the grace hopper celebration in houston an annual international conference targeted at women in computer science that hosts a career fair as well as presentations and technical workshops from leaders in industry for nigos the experience provided her with a likeminded community of engineers she could turn to when she felt limited grace hopper was the turning point in my road to computing nigos said this community is exactly what i need in times of doubt and uncertainty these were the people i could turn to when a programming assignment is defeating me or my internship projects seem to go nowhere
2677,one of the many benefits of the conference is the networking and community focus outlined by nigos bringing women together to discuss and learn in an industry that is typically male dominated more than 20 000 people attended the conference in 2018 with 70 students 19 of which were male attending on behalf of texas a&m university
2678,ten percent of the students we give scholarships to are males in order to better prepare them for roles in industry and to give them a better idea of how to attract and retain women in computing said dr dilma da silva department head of the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m many of our students are in the situation of taking classes containing 100 students and maybe two are women it is very different for these men to be in the opposite situation where everyone is mostly women and it gives them an understanding of what it is like to be a woman in this industry the department is able to support students with scholarships to the conference thanks in part to assistance from general motors inc by sending these students to the conference the department hopes to inspire students by successful engineers in industry and also help them make career connections i learned so much in terms of technical skills how to deal with specific challenges in my career and interviewing and networking skills said lilly maxwell a senior computer science and engineering student the grace hopper conference opened up so many windows for me in terms of internships for next summer and i got the opportunity to meet several incredible young women in this industry da silva as well as dr scott schaefer professor and associate department head for academics both attended the conference da silva gave two presentations during the course of the conference continuing a tradition of leadership and speaking at the conference maintained by her and dr nancy amato an unocal and regents professor within the department and the director of the engineering honors program for the texas a&m college of engineering there are more jobs in computing than talent right now so we need all the talent that we can get da silva said this conference offers our students the opportunity to be inspired by successful women from industry and academia and we are proud to have our students be a part of it
2679,los alamos national laboratory begins operations today under a new management and operating (m&o) contract between triad national security llc (triad) and the us department of energys national nuclear security administration (nnsa) the nnsa awarded the m&o contract to triad on june 8 2018 the new leadership team at los alamos is determined to strike the right balance between mission delivery for the nation and safe operational excellence across the entire laboratory said thom mason the new laboratory director and president of triad we are committed to partnering with the national nuclear security administration (nnsa) as an integral part of the national security enterprise triad is a public service oriented national security science organization equally owned by its three founding members: battelle memorial institute (battelle) the texas a&m university system (tamus) and the regents of the university of california (uc) i am honored and excited to lead los alamos national laboratory and to work with its talented and dedicated men and women to transform our culture and position the laboratory for success well into the future said mason each and every employee is critical to the success of los alamos national laboratory the employees and the surrounding communities play an important part in the success of our mission the new contract which takes effect today november 1 2018 includes a five year base with five one-year options for a total of 10 years if all options are exercised the laboratory is one of the largest science and technology institutes in the world and it conducts multidisciplinary research in fields such as national security space exploration renewable energy medicine nanotechnology and supercomputing los alamos is one of the most important nuclear security assets in the world said texas a&m system chancellor john sharp we are committed to working with our partners to enhance safety and security at the lab while advancing its world-class science and executing its vital mission los alamos national laboratory is a multidisciplinary research institution dedicated to enhancing national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the us nuclear stockpile developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction and solving problems related to energy environment infrastructure health and global security concerns about the texas a&m university systemthe texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $455 billion through a statewide network of 11 universities and seven state agencies the texas a&m system educates more than 148 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year system-wide research and development expenditures exceeded $972 million in fy 2016 and helped drive the states economy
2680,the zachry department of civil engineering announced the recipients of the departments 2018 distinguished graduate legacy award and the distinguished graduate award at the departments annual scholarship and fellowship banquet that was held at the hilton hotel in college station texas on nov 15th the distinguished legacy award was established in 2014 to honor remarkable former students whose life-long contributions and service have had an immeasurable impact on the civil engineering profession and society the inaugural recipient hb pat zachrys lifetime achievements serve as the benchmark against which future consideration of recipients are judged john thomas lamar mcnew 18 was selected as this years recipient
2681,mcnew was a patriot mentor and teacher a former head of the department and vice president of the texas a&m college of engineering mcnew devoted himself to the service of others through his excellence in teaching after receiving his bachelors degree in civil engineering in 1920 mcnew became an instructor of civil engineering at texas a&m mcnew later pursued a masters degree in civil engineering in 1926 at which point he became a professor of highway engineering at texas a&m mcnews devotion to the engineering discipline was superseded only by his love of country suspending his studies to serve as a lieutenant of engineers in the us army during world war i mcnew later became the civil engineering department head in 1940 and left his teaching position to serve in world war ii as a lieutenant colonel and airport engineer before returning home to texas a&m in 1944 mcnew was then made vice president of the college and later named director of the colleges engineering extension service in 1945 positions he held until his death in 1951
2682,the following individuals were selected as distinguished graduate recipients for 2018 the award recognizes these former students as engineers that have excelled in the civil engineering profession highlighting their significant contributions and achievements
2683,lee c lennard 87 (image to the right) president and chief executive officer of bge inc is known as both a consummate professional and an empathetic humanitarian after receiving his bachelors degree in civil engineering from texas a&m in 1987 lennard established a career as a consulting professional civil engineer that has spanned more than 30 years since joining bge inc in early 2000 the firm has grown to become a well-known and trusted resource for providing engineering solutions in the southeastern united states lennards career has embodied the ideals of civil service contributing his technical expertise to harris county fort bend county and the city of houston serving on numerous task forces professional boards and advisory committees
2684,mario roberto monterroso vasquez ‘73 founder and executive director of ingenieros estructurales and construcciones y proyectos has left an impact on the engineering discipline that can be seen from texas all the way to his home country of guatemala where he has spent most of his professional life as a structural engineer monterroso began his studies at texas a&m in 1969 where he attended on scholarship and graduated magna cum laude later graduating with a master of engineering degree in civil engineering in 1974 monterroso then returned to guatemala where he served planned and constructed a variety of public works projects and established his own engineering firm demonstrating a talent for both engineering and business acumen his work across guatemala includes hydropower projects ports hospitals high rise apartment buildings malls and warehouses and much more
2685,william bill j winkelmann 73 chief executive officer of winkelmann & associates is known as a man whose passion intelligence and business acumen have driven him to exemplify the principles of success that texas a&m demands of its graduates over a 44-year career in civil engineering winkelmann graduated with a bachelors degree in civil engineering in 1973 and then worked as an engineer in houston for several years before moving up to north texas establishing his own engineering and consulting firm in 1982 pawa-winkelmann & associates winkelmann later sold the firm and established yet another firm winkelmann & associates inc in 1989 which has been known as a reputable and dependable firm for almost 30 years winkelmanns professional work includes a long history of development work in north texas including clients such as ikea costco kroger and many more
2686,david yeaman 84 president and general manager of the burns & mcdonnell engineering companys federal and aviation division places his aggie values at the core of a more than 32-year career in the industry with projects spanning the field of military and commercial aviation facilities airport and airfield design and engineering planning yeaman began his work at burns & mcdonnell in 1991 where he leads more than 500 employees in aviation engineering design projects his engineering career has covered the realm of project management business development and project finance demonstrating his unique skill set that has led to many key project management positions being dedicated to both professional results and community impact he has advocated for the companys corporate social responsibility programs to serve more than just the basic needs of consumers and shareholders
2687,dr george m pharr professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university has been recognized by the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) for his work in the development of nano-indentation and fundamental contributions in the field of contact mechanics pharr has made significant contributions in materials science during a distinguished academic career at texas a&m rice university and the university of tennesseehe was honored with the nadai medal at the asme international mechanical engineering congress and exposition held recently in pittsburgh pennsylvania asme cites pharr for a research career spanning 38 years beginning at rice with a faculty appointment in 1980 pharr has conducted investigations of hardness friction wear and other performance characteristics of metals and various other materials in surface contact while at the university of tennessee (ut) pharr served as director of the joint institute for advanced materials a partnership of ut and the oak ridge national laboratory a phd graduate of stanford university pharr is a fellow of the materials research society asm international and the minerals metals and materials society he was elected to the national academy of engineering in 2014
2688,imagine you have a 1985 jaguar xj6 but it hasnt run since 1992 its 2018 and your job is to ensure that it will not only work but start on the first try you maintain the car but some parts arent made anymore and you have to make them yourself this is the world of the us nuclear-weapons stockpile and dr marvin adams and his texas a&m university collaborators are helping national-security professionals navigate this tricky world the first nuclear weapon explosion was in 1945 and from 1945 to 1992 the testing of us nuclear bombs took place largely in the south pacific before moving underground in nevada to alleviate environmental concerns you didn't have to understand things perfectly then he said it was an era of physical testing in 1992 the explosive testing of nuclear weapons in the united states ended and in 1996 the united states signed (but has not yet ratified) the comprehensive test ban treaty which bans nuclear-explosive testing across the globe
2689,the united states has not developed new nuclear weapon designs since the end of testing but instead has been refurbishing some retiring others and making repairs and replacing parts in others materials degrade over time but our experts still have to ensure they will work said adams adding that guaranteeing the weapons are still functional is imperative to the goals of nuclear deterrence thats where predictive computational modeling comes in one place where texas a&m is unquestionably strong is predictive science and engineering in the area of particle transport (neutrons photons and charged particles) said adams we have unique strengths in this area adams is a professor of nuclear engineering associate director of the institute of national security and cybersecurity education and research deputy director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station center for exascale radiation transport (cert) and holder of the heat transfer research inc endowed professorship he credits the success of the predictive computational modeling group to the collaboration among dr jim morel and dr jean ragusa (nuclear engineering) dr lawrence rauchwerger and dr nancy amato (computer science) dr bani mallick (statistics) and dr jean-luc guermond dr raytcho lazarov and dr bojan popov (math) we feel fortunate to have such an excellent multidisciplinary group said adams the team has a long history of developing methodologies that us national laboratories have adopted and use in their daily work the team develops predictive science and engineering methods that help national laboratory experts calculate the effects of time on the weapons and their probabilities of success the more time passes from when the devices were originally tested prior to 1992 the more difficult the calculations become as the materials degrade over time and devices change from tested configurations through refurbishments or repairs eventually each type of nuclear weapon will have to be refurbished or replaced how do you verify the calculations and run through every variable very carefully said adams anybody can calculate an answer but calculating how accurate your answer is and predicting uncertainties is extremely difficult
2690,supporting national security adams and his team are currently working on several projects in this realm each is sponsored by the department of energys national nuclear security administration (nnsa) or one of its laboratories the team is currently working on an $11 million project for the cert an important phenomenon in nuclear weapons is thermal radiation transfer he said we figure out how to develop and test predictive methods for thermal radiation transfer by using neutron transport as a surrogate we design complicated neutron transport experiments predict the results predict how close our answers should be to reality execute the experiments then compare the experimental results to our predictions lawrence livermore national lab (llnl) has sponsored two of the teams current projects: ‘computational r&d in support of stockpile stewardship ($14 million) and ‘collaborative r&d in support of llnl missions ($15 million) these two projects are developing advanced computational methods and new computational results that support the nations nuclear deterrent and other national security missions for which llnl is responsible the projects which are the third set of three-year projects from llnl that morel has led with adams as co-pi grew out of texas a&m's role as an affiliate of lawrence livermore national security llcthe organization that manages llnl for the nnsa the expertise weve developed here at texas a&m is part of what made us an attractive partner in the competition for the contract to manage and operate the los alamos national laboratory (lanl) said adams the texas a&m university system the university of california and the battelle memorial institute united by their shared commitment to national service formed triad national security llc which competed against several other groups and was awarded the lanl contract in june of 2018 the triad team assumed management of lanl on november 1
2691,dr arun srinivasa has been named a fellow of the society of engineering science srinivasa serves the j mike walker ‘66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university as the holdredge/paul professor his research interests include the plasticity of metals and polymers thermomechanics of dissipative processes dislocation dynamics cosserat continua design and dynamics of compliant mechanisms a fellow grade in the society of engineering science is conferred upon worthy candidates to recognize their outstanding achievements in a field in which the society has interest who has been a regular or life member of the society for at least five years and whose contributions to the society and the technical community have justified this honor
2692,tell me about yourself: my name is logan havern im an industrial engineering major from the woodlands texas class of 2019 what do you want to be when you graduate: an entrepreneur what attracted you to the national science foundation (nsf) i-corps site program i was initially attracted to the program because it gave me an opportunity to validate my startup idea i wanted to speak with people in industry to make sure my idea was viable and the program created the perfect environment to do this how did you stumble into entrepreneurshipi first learned about biometrics when i was working at jetblue in new york city they were testing biometrics in the boarding process so i got some brief exposure to the technology this sparked my interest and led me to begin exploring more about biometrics and its applications the more i researched biometrics the more my interest grew after a few months i knew that i wanted to be part of the rising development of this new technology what exactly are you trying to get off the groundour goal is to help grow biometrics we are trying to make it easier for companies to adopt biometrics by creating software that helps companies comply with biometric privacy laws regulation compliance is currently a huge impediment for companies trying to commercially apply biometrics by helping companies surpass this obstacle we can expand the use of biometrics this new technology has the potential to benefit countless people across various industries for example biometrics can be used to increase security access for personal bank accounts or it can be used to reduce wait time in heavily congested areas like festivals concerts or airports the benefits of this technology are truly expansive what did you get out of the i-corps site program the i-corps site program gave my co-founder and i a much clearer understanding of the most important step in developing a product the required customer interviews helped us better understand the market and realize that our initial idea was not valid had we not spoken with over 30 potential customers about our idea we would have created a product that was neither functional nor useful in the real world this allowed us to focus more on understanding the market and figuring out what type of product was really needed
2693,could you have done this aloneno i would not have been able to develop blip without my co-founder juan pablo my mentor panos moutafis with zenus biometrics and the guidance from the i-corps site program all three have been crucial to getting me to where i am today what was the most impactful part of the program that really set your momentumthe most important part of the program was my mentor panos my mentor is the co-founder and president of a facial biometrics company he met with me weekly and guided me every step of the way he helped me to land key interviews and showed me the right questions to ask without his guidance we would not have a grasp on the biometrics market he has become our most trusted advisor on the project and provided us with ideas to enhance blip in ways we did not even know existed whats next for blipover the next few weeks we will continue to conduct customer interviews to validate our product then we will begin development of our product and test the market with a basic solution we also plan to pursue the national version of the i-corps site program in which teams are awarded additionally funding to help with more intensive customer research click here for more information on the nsf i-corps site program
2694,students researchers and professors from the texas a&m university system – including those at the flagship campus in college station and at the nearby 2 000-acre rellis campus – recently showcased a wide range of work and projects that could help the us military in its quest for modernization charles w schwartz the chairman of the board of regents of the texas a&m system said system officials wanted to allow us army gen john m mike murray and members of his staff at the army futures command to see firsthand what texas a&m university and the texas a&m university system can offer him a recent three-day trip to aggieland by murray marked one of his first stops outside of austin since the army futures command opened its headquarters in the texas capital city in august see a new video highlighting the visit at a press event murray told reporters that the army futures command is focused on making sure soldiers will have new equipment improved tactics and the operational schemes necessary to remain dominant on the battlefields of the future
2695,although we are based in austin we are on a countrywide search for the best talent and best ideas we can find the four-star general said so we are thrilled with any partnership we can build we are thrilled with whatever we can contribute to the work that goes on down here at texas a&m or throughout the entire system some of the work highlighted by texas a&m officials and members of seven state agencies within the texas a&m system included: research on hypersonic travel; developments with unmanned aerial vehicles; advanced communications systems; and the latest search and rescue capabilities the texas a&m system takes service to country very seriously chancellor john sharp said during murrays visit we are mission-driven it is not about us sharp told murray there isnt a question you can ask us that the answer is not ‘yes we will do everything we can to fulfill that mission
2696,hardware is a part of every electronic device you use whether its a sensor in your car or a chip that controls the temperature within your house it is vital that the systems that we rely on so heavily remain uncompromised until recently cyber attacks were primarily targeted toward software but they have now shifted toward the deeper layers of hardware which poses new challenges to defenders instead of simply ensuring that the software is robustly secure researchers now have to find ways to creatively secure the underlying hardware as well this is the primary focus of dr jeyavijayan jv rajendran assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university
2697,typically hardware designers build the hardware design and then send it to a fabrication facility or foundry in another part of the world where the design will be manufactured as a result the threat of hardware trojans or malicious components being inserted into the hardware becomes a concern hardware designers typically worry about power performance and reliability rajendran wants them to make security a priority as well i want them to think ‘okay if we have to do this in the design how does it impact security thats the mindset that i want to build in the next generation of hardware engineers rajendran said it is important to be proactive about the type of attacks that can happen in a foundry and to consider the security of these designs in the presence of untrusted entities in the supply chain think about viruses that attack electric power grids our nations infrastructure smart grid and mission control systems rajendran said they arent actually hardware attacks but software affecting the systems if the hardware itself is affected then it creates a lot of problems rajendran first started studying hardware security while earning his phd at new york university though his initial research project was not on security he helped organize the hardware security competition embedded security challenge more importantly rajendran said he realized he enjoyed the topic which ultimately led to this research because hardware is in every electronic system hardware security requires collaboration from experts in a variety of fields connecting the dots that spans across different fields is the most interesting as well as the most difficult aspect of this work rajendran said its like constantly discovering the connections between different things and exploring the area hardware security field is very new everywhere we see we turn around and there is a new problem that keeps us going
2698,"kathryn denton 81 and robert ""robby"" denton 80 have established the kathryn denton 81 and robert denton 80 chemical engineering scholarship to provide support to one or more full-time undergraduate students in good academic standing in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering my father was an aggie class of 1948 so i grew up with aggie traditions including the most important one – giving back to texas a&m university for the education i received said robby my degree from the chemical engineering department was my ticket to a wonderful job at exxon production research company and i owe that to the wonderful professors that i had robby began his career at exxonmobil three weeks after he graduated with a degree in chemical engineering and recently retired after 38 years of service during his tenure at exxonmobil robby worked on various engineering assignments that took him across the world from texas and new york to malaysia and qatar my job provided kathy me and our two children michael and chris a chance to see the world and we have wonderful memories from that experience said robby"
2699,dr anthony guiseppi-elie has been named associate dean of engineering medicine (enmed) at texas a&m university he is currently a tees research professor and professor in the department of biomedical engineering with a courtesy appointment in the department of electrical and computer engineering enmed is texas a&m universitys innovative engineering medicine school option at houston methodist hospital developed to educate a new kind of physician to create transformational technology for health care i welcome the opportunity to represent the college of engineering on the leadership of enmed and to work closely with my colleagues in the college of medicine and at houston methodist hospital to realize one of texas a&ms most ambitious undertakings as we continue to lead the world with innovative academic programs intended to impact patient outcomes said guiseppi-elieguiseppi-elie is world-renowned researcher whose interests are in engineered bioanalytical microsystems in the service of human health and medicine this includes bionanotechnology microfabrication and 3d printing of bio- and electroresponsive hydrogels biomems physiology-on-a-chip abio-bio interfaces and interfacing of biology and engineering at the molecular cellular and tissue length scales he has published more than 150 archival scientific papers 31 books or proceedings chapters holds eight us and foreign patents and has given over 200 invited lectures he is an editor-in-chief of bioengineering an associate editor of biomedical microdevices and a member of the editorial boards of the journal of bioactive and compatible polymers nanobiotechnology and applied biochemistry and biotechnology he has been a guest editor for the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) journal of biomedical and health informatics guiseppi-elie is a fulbright specialist award recipient in bioengineering at the university of tucumán in tucumán argentina and has been an ieee-engineering in medicine and biology society distinguished lecturer he is a fellow of the american institute of medical and biological engineering the royal society of chemistry and ieee a lifetime member of the american institute of chemical engineers and holds memberships in many other prominent organizations guiseppi-elie will assume his new role on dec 3
2700,in association with their new technology development hub in dallas walmart is sponsoring an artificial intelligence course at texas a&m university the course is being taught by dr zhangyang atlas wang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering the partnership will create a hands-on competition for students enrolled in the course grouped into teams the students will develop cutting-edge computer vision algorithms to identify and track customers using walmarts surveillance camera system it has been about a year since walmart technology opened offices in texas we identified early on that partnering with premier universities in the state would be a primary goal said carlos riojas walmart senior director of software engineering and artificial intelligence the world of technology is evolving and expanding to new horizons from breakthroughs in cybersecurity to cutting-edge facial recognition the synergy between researchers and industry helps produce technology that uses real-world data to solve existing problems creating a way for a computer to not only identify a person but track them across multiple camera feeds is difficult a moving person is hard to predict and their movements are often free form compared to a programmable path however being able to identify and track the same person from camera to camera will give enterprises the ability to better understand their consumers and cater to their needs through this walmart will be able to analyze customer behavior and how they move through the store to help optimize the shopping experience and product placement it will also serve as a valuable tool in terms of safety as they will be able to locate and track those who might pose a threat to shoppers i think as computer science researchers we always like to see our research generate a real-world impact we are excited to see our algorithms work on something on a walmart-sized scale said wang computer vision and machine learning can be very theoretical and mathematical but they can also be useful in our daily lives by sponsoring the course and providing awards for the winning teams such as graphics processing units and research and development internship opportunities to students walmart is helping to build the computer science leaders of the future our partnership with texas a&m is a signal that walmart values the quality of students and research in the department of computer science and engineering and we would like them to be part of our next generation of retail solutions riojas said we look forward to innovating together in specialties like artificial intelligence and the ‘internet of things
2701,the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering has announced the funding of a grant to investigators at texas a&m university and yale university for the development of a wrist-worn cuffless blood pressure monitoring system the project is sponsored for $12 million over four years with a team of engineers computer scientists and physician-scientists led by drs roozbeh jafari and bobak mortazavi at texas a&m and drs harlan krumholz and erica spatz at yale the goal is to create a device that can unobtrusively measure blood pressure throughout the day and night and across a range of activities
2702,elevated blood pressure occurs in almost half of adults and is a strong risk factor for heart disease and stroke the blood pressure treatment guidelines recommend frequent measurement of blood pressure to define risk and treatment response but current methods involve the periodic inflation of a blood pressure cuff which is bothersome during the day and interrupts sleep at night the development of a cuffless wearable device could revolutionize the approach to blood pressure management a technology that was developed over a century ago and has undergone very few changes and enhancements over the years we have developed a novel approach for measuring blood pressure that can obviate the need for the traditional blood pressure cuff said jafari principal investigator and associate professor in the departments of biomedical engineering computer science and engineering and electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m we are excited to see the translation of this technology to practice with its significant impact on how blood pressure can be used for diagnosis prognosis and management of hypertension
2703,the funding represents an emerging collaboration between the two institutions we are so pleased to have created such a strong multidisciplinary team my hope is that this technology will lead to a paradigm shift in the way that blood pressure is measured and will strongly improve our ability to reduce risk in the population said krumholz the harold h hines jr professor of medicine and public health at yale the work will require advanced analytics applied to the data produced by the device in order to maximize its clinical impact i see the future as combining novel ways of acquiring information with sophisticated approaches to analyzing the complex streaming data with the use of analytics in ways that provide useful information noted mortazavi assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m in the end the value of the technology will depend on the clinical impact from the outset we are making plans to test the device in clinical populations and are oriented toward evaluating not only the validity of the information but its usefulness in characterizing and treating hypertension said spatz assistant professor of medicine at yale our hope is that this technology will lead to a paradigm shift in the way that blood pressure is measured and will strongly improve our ability to reduce risk in the population noted jafari and krumholz
2704,dr alexei poludnenko associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2018-19 mcelmurry teaching excellence award at the aerospace engineering annual awards banquet held nov 15 the mcelmurry award is presented annually by the senior class to a member of the aerospace engineering faculty who exemplifies dedication and commitment to developing students professionally and academically by displaying a desire for students to succeed creatively presenting classroom material and offering opportunities for mentorship and guidance outside of the classroom the award is named after thomas uriel mcelmurry lt col usaf (ret) who taught in the department for 13 years poludnenkos research interests include aerospace propulsion systems chemical and thermonuclear combustion turbulence in reacting and non-reacting flows computational fluid dynamics and high-performance computing and space weather plasma physics and magnetohydrodynamics
2705,clean energy is at a crossroads to become a viable replacement for fossil fuels solar power plants must first improve their efficiency to match the electrical output of nonrenewable energy sources this relies heavily upon the innovation and development of new products that absorb and exchange heat at higher temperatures paving the way for clean energy to power the future a team of researchers have created a synthetic material that will make solar energy a more cost-effective efficient and reliable source of power their findings were published in nature a leading multidisciplinary science journal dr dorrin jarrahbashi assistant professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university led the thermal-hydraulic design simulations and performance analysis for the project unlike the solar panels attached to hybrid cars or residential rooftops the ones found in solar power plants are massive and many they absorb as much thermal energy from the sun as they possibly can and channel that heat into a fluid-filled converter called the heat exchanger there a liquid version of carbon dioxide known as supercritical co2 acts as the medium in the energy conversion the hotter the fluid gets the more electricity that can be produced still a novel technology using supercritical co2 as the medium fluid lowers electricity and manufacturing costs and promises greater efficiency for future power plants
2706,however jarrahbashi said that the current metal materials used to construct heat exchangers in supercritical co2 energy cycles are only stable up to 550 degrees celsius if the heat rises above that the components begin to rapidly break down and lose effectiveness – ultimately needing replacement to combat this the researchers created a new composite material from a combination of ceramic and tungsten a refractory metal that can withstand temperatures over 750 degrees celsius this leap in heat absorption could increase the efficiency of generating electricity in integrated solar and supercritical co2 power plants by 20 percent along with enhancing energy output the composites durability and low production cost will help cut down the expense of constructing and maintaining power plants using this material for manufacturing heat exchangers is an important step towards direct competition with fossil fuel power plants and a large reduction in greenhouse gas emissions said jarrahbashi
2707,with its unique chemical mechanical and thermal characteristics the applications for the composite are numerous from safely upgrading nuclear power plants to constructing rocket nozzles the implications of this innovation stretch far into the future of research and industry i am very pleased that my contribution to this research has an impact on the future clean energy jarrahbashi said through this project i enjoyed exploring new areas of research and developed the leadership skills required for directing interdisciplinary research initiatives the team included dr devesh ranjan associate professor at the georgia institute of technology; dr asegun henry associate professor and noyce career development professor at the massachusetts institute of technology; and dr mark anderson professor at the university of wisconsin-madison dr kenneth sandhage professor at purdue university headed the project the study conducted in collaboration with oak ridge national laboratory was funded by the department of energys sunshot initiative
2708,dr jodie l lutkenhaus associate professor holder of the william and ruth neely faculty fellowship and recently named presidential impact fellow in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university just published a paper in nature materials the findings presented in this paper represent a significant step toward lutkenhauss ultimate goal: the creation of a battery made entirely of polymers a major hurdle to creating a metal-free 100-percent polymer battery is finding a polymer that is electrochemically active -- meaning it has to be able to store and exchange electrons lutkenhaus along with a team of researchers including doctoral candidate shaoyang wang think that the organic radical polymers will do the trick owing to their chemical structure organic radical polymers are very stable and reactive as shown in the image below organic radical polymers have a single electron on the radical group this unpaired electron allows rapid charge transfer in these polymers during redox reactions
2709,according to lutkenhaus the main appeal of this class of polymer lies in the speed of the reaction these polymers are very promising for batteries because they can charge and discharge way faster than any common battery in a phone or similar device this rapid charging could dramatically change the way electric vehicles are used today the redox-active properties of organic radical polymers have been known for some time however prior to this research the exact mechanism by which electrons and ions are transported through the polymer had not been described in part the scale and speed at which these reactions take place make it difficult to capture reliable data however lutkenhaus and her team were able to capture incredibly detailed measurements using a specialized device an electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (eqcm-d)
2710,the use of an eqcm-d is actually quite simple but it operates on tremendously small scales lutkenhaus explained the experimental setup: as we charge and discharge the polymer we are actually weighing it so we know exactly how much it weighs even down to nanogram accuracy the device is so sensitive that we can measure ions going in and out of the organic radical polymer the results of the eqcm-d analysis led to somewhat unexpected results before this research the consensus was that only anions were transported in this process however the results show that lithium ions are transported as well further the behavior and transport of the ions seems to be more dependent on the electrolyte than the polymer itself with this deeper understanding of the underlying processes lutkenhaus plans to take a closer look at the electrolyte polymer interactions this work was supported by the grant de-sc0014006 funded by the us department of energy office of science
2711,its game day in college station late september maroon and white tents cover the campus theres an electric spirit in the air an energy beginning to build momentum standing next to the nuclear engineering buildings yellow brick walls underneath a line of concrete carved cattle heads 10 nuclear engineering students split into two groups of five half walking and half riding in a golf cart the students place a radiation detector housed in a pvc pipe on the back of a golf cart another student carries a handheld detector they begin to roam campus from spence park to the memorial student center to west campus
2712,"the heat and humidity are an invisible steam rising from the pavement people are enveloped by the shade of the tents and old oak trees one student drives while the rest watch the radiation detection mapped out on a laptop the results from radiation detectors spike in certain areas like the red brick of buildings and the texas a&m university seal on military walk these background radiation increases are normal and perfectly safe said dr craig marianno assistant professor of nuclear engineering and the deputy director of the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) certain materials and structures have naturally higher radiation than others ""i started the tailgate sweeps because nuclear sweeps happen on a daily basis in the us and i wanted to share those challenges said marianno i also wanted to provide my students with an experiential learning opportunity nuclear security professionals use radiation detectors to scan or sweep an area typically they scan more at-risk areas such as political rallies the tailgate sweeps provide an exciting and safe training opportunity for nuclear engineering students to explore hands-on field work with detectors and see how nuclear security can be applied at large events several of his students have graduated and gone into the nuclear security field and jonathan chen 18 the undergraduate student of the year hopes to be one of them"
2713,chen knew in his first year of nuclear engineering that he gravitated more toward homeland nuclear security than the nuclear power field he took a bold step forward by emailing a professor he had never met and introducing himself that professor was marianno even though chen was only a sophomore marianno let him join his radiation detection research group and participate in the sweeps which are geared toward his graduate class nuclear engineering 605 radiation detection and nuclear material measurements for the next three years chen helped out with the game day event which on most years meant four game sweeps per football season chen advanced in his studies and began leading tours himself his favorite part seeing the students faces as they complete radiation detection readings outside the lab for the first time
2714,chen thinks its important for students to know that there are many career options in nuclear engineering beyond working in a nuclear power plant the game day sweeps have inspired him to pursue a nuclear national security career himself the sweeps the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives and the institute of nuclear materials management give you an increased understanding of the field and if this is something you would like to do he said the goal of the tailgate sweeps is for the student to observe how environmental radiation levels can change based on landscaping building structures and other phenomena if they found a higher than average radiation reading then marianno or his teaching assistants would unobtrusively localize the source in conjunction with the students the readings would be analyzed by marianno so he could determine the gamma-emitting isotope in large events such as aggie football games it is not uncommon to find radiation fields created by individuals who have been injected with medical radiation for diagnostic or therapeutic reasons these short-lived radionuclides are typically used by doctors to visualize internal structures such as a heart during a stress test
2715,some examples of medical isotopes include technetium-99m and iodine 131 for diagnostic imaging or fluorine-18 for positron-emission tomography (pet) scan which uses radioactive labeled compounds to highlight different organs in the body a person injected with radioactive tracers can be detected from a few yards away for several days following some medical tests one thing they wont pick up chemotherapy the chemo in chemotherapy stands for chemicals and the treatment does not include radiation
2716,marianno was originally a health physicist before switching fields to national security with a focus on radiological threats he spent 10 years with the us government in nuclear incident response and consequence management now he teaches a mix of undergraduate and graduate classes on radiation detection nuclear nonproliferation and emergency response dose assessments while also training law enforcement and providing his expertise to the world
2717,samia alghazo ‘20 is not your typical student after immigrating to the united states at the age of 19 she worked hard for 14 years to raise her family now that her three boys are in high school she is back in school studying nuclear engineering at texas a&m university and is the 2018 marna g kissmann ‘90 scholarship recipient alghazo started her journey to texas a&m by completing her associates degree in computer engineering at austin community college she was inspired to apply to texas a&m and pursue nuclear engineering by her two nieces who recently graduated from the department and lead successful careers alghazo is double minoring in radiological health and mathematics while pursuing the nuclear criticality safety certificate outside of class and she is determined to make the most of it i want to expand my mind and take advantage of all the opportunities available said alghazo studying at texas a&m required a 360-degree life change i left a lot to go back to school said alghazo this is both my dream and my mothers dream she always wanted me to go further in school and when she passed away in 2012 i knew i had to make it happen to live up to her memory alghazo emphasized that her goal was to do something ambitious challenging herself and her abilities after college she aims to design radiological health devices
2718,now alghazo travels the 100 miles from round rock to college station twice a week to attend her classes and then be with her family on the weekends (meaning she travels roughly 3 000 miles per semester) her sons are a freshman sophomore and junior in high school im happy i was able to dedicate part of my life to them and now to focus on this she said alghazo has faced her share of challenges and successes on her path to a degree when she encounters an obstacle she calls her father and brother-in-law whenever i call my brother-in-law gives me the right advice she said it was difficult for her to start again after so long and she had to start with basic mathematics her freshman year now shes minoring in math on the other hand alghazo was surprised at some of the benefits of attending texas a&m i have a lot of new friends i never thought i would make said alghazo whose favorite activity outside of the classroom is playing volleyball with the american nuclear society i realized diversity is celebrated at texas a&m the kids are very respectful to me they're from all parts of the country and world you build relationships that are not usual when you come to college thats the memory i will take with me alghazo received the marna g kissmann ‘90 scholarship in october and marna stepan her academic advisor was the donor for it it was a welcome form of support for alghazo and a form of encouragement to move forward with her journey when i first heard that my advisor was my scholarship donor i immediately ran to her office said alghazo i had to tell her thank you!
2719,stepan graduated with her bachelors degree in sociology and started her career at texas a&m in the financial aid office i saw how a scholarship could be customized to fit donors specifications said stepan a donor can choose to support students in a certain organization or from a certain county in 2009 after living all over the world stepan came back to college station and began her new career as the nuclear engineering undergraduate advisor in 2012 she endowed her scholarship ive always felt its important to give back to society she said endowing a scholarship pays for itself said stepan someone could give $1 000 every year then after 25 years your $25 000 is gone endowing builds interest the marna g kissman scholarship will continue to support students in perpetuity she wanted to support students who were good students but may not have a 40 to make her scholarship extra impactful she also specified that her recipient should have undergone significant hardships and have a financial need scholarships fund students she said students are our future stepan enjoys working in the department of nuclear engineering which she describes as supportive and close-knit she also appreciates the discipline of nuclear engineering seeing nuclear energy as the energy of the future marie curies biography was one of my favorites growing up said stepan i had no idea how it would later connect to my life stepan is leading by example by endowing a scholarship and having a direct relationship as an advisor with her students she hopes her recipients will be inspired to follow in her footsteps which alghazo has plans to do as she hopes to one day create her own scholarship the best part of my job is interacting with students on a daily basis she said i enjoy seeing them progress throughout their academic career her previous recipients are working in health physics and attending graduate school both in the us and in the uk stepans advice for students work on your time management ask for help when you need it and talk to your advisor she said but most importantly: be kind and give back
2720,if you are interested in creating an engineering scholarship please contact patrick wilson assistant director of development at 979-204-8556 or pwilson@txamfoundationcom
2721,in 2016 texas space technology applications and research (t star) a small bryan-college station area startup company came to the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university with a new concept to create highly motivational capstone design projects for undergraduates after retiring from nasa matt leonard ‘86 the president of t star decided to implement an idea he had to bring the public sector closer together with academia by bridging the gap with a private company using the public-private-academic (ppa) model to be highly successful and to create a sustainable model leonard stated the prototype requirements of the public sector need to be communicated to the innovation and creativity available at the undergraduate level of engineering programs within academia once a prototype has been developed by a capstone team it needs to be supported and converted to a product by a private sector company leonard decided to test his model when he created t star by collaborating with various divisions within nasa to identify projects which could be undertaken successfully by capstone students i looked across all of the departments within the college of engineering at texas a&m said leonard until i found the electronics systems engineering technology (eset) and mechatronics engineering technology (mxet) programs their approach to capstone projects was exactly what i was looking for and it was a perfect fit after piloting this model with a couple of small projects t star is now moving forward with sponsoring multiple projects each semester this semester the two projects t star is sponsoring for nasa customers are named helikite and dust collector helix the mxet capstone team will be taking on the helikite project while the eset team floating logistics and instrumentation (fli) will be designing a prototype to meet the requirements of the dust collector project both of these projects have significant participation from nasa scientists and engineers and both teams have visited the johnson space center in houston to meet their nasa customers and kick off their projects
2722,a conceptual block diagram of the helikite project shows that the team will design and develop a system capable of being attached to an ultra-light aircraft towed by a rover-type vehicle the payload will be able to make a number of different measurements using an inertial measurement unit and integrate that with light detection and range finding a global positioning system temperature and imagery that can be downlinked to a ground station for display this project is the first step that nasa scientists are taking in the development of a new capability to explore mars and other planets the members of the helix capstone team are micah erikson randall matthews john tran and jeffery watts
2723,fli will be tasked to design and build a new electromechanical system that has the ability to deploy a dust collector assembly that will rotate slowly collecting particulate debris at the edge of space (over 100 000 feet) the system will autonomously monitor its altitude while attached to a weather balloon once the balloon reaches a specific altitude it will deploy the dust collector assembly when the altitude is reduced to another predetermined level the apparatus will close thus protecting the collected debris from contamination at lower elevations during a mission of up to 12 hours flis system (codename cardinal) will wirelessly communicate operational and system health data back to a nasa ground station members of the fli team include johnathan liang caleigh fults jennifer robinson and nick prax the project is sponsored by dr marc fries a planetary scientist in the astromaterials research and exploration science division at the johnson space center based on the continued success of the ppa model the eset and mxet programs look to expand upon partnering with other small companies that require embedded systems hardware and software design support for their public-sector customers the model thus far has created a win-win scenario for all collaborators while providing eset and mxet students with challenging and rewarding capstone design experiences
2724,dr timothy jacobs has been named a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) jacobs serves as professor and steve brauer jr 02 faculty fellow in the j mike walker ‘66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university as well as director of interdisciplinary engineering for undergraduate and graduate programs in the college of engineering his research interests include internal combustion engines in-cylinder combustion and emission formation processes fundamental experimental diagnostics and investigations advanced and novel combustion processes alternative fuels and aftertreatment systems and their coupling to internal combustion engines an asme fellow grade is conferred upon worthy candidates to recognize their outstanding engineering achievements fewer than three percent of all asme members are fellows
2725,"with 48 hours on the clock 51 engineering students grouped into 10 teams innovated and presented cybersecurity defense measures for the 20 to 50 billion devices estimated to be connected using the ""internet of things"" by 2020 these proposals were judged by a panel of national security agency (nsa) and texas a&m staff in its first student make-a-thon sponsorship the national security agency teamed up with texas a&m university to tackle cybersecurity issues in aggies invent: internet of things and aggies secure aggies invent gave us an opportunity to explore another area of engineering and highlight all our unique skills sets said connor jakubik a junior aerospace engineering student aided by nsa mentors many of whom are former aggies the student teams selected and solved real-world challenges detailed by the federal agency these included such topics as developing methods for evaluating privacy risk of internet of things devices detecting compromised routers autonomously monitoring internet of things devices for anomalies and detecting unmanned aerial systems the nsa mentors were some of the most knowledgeable people ive ever met said xavier polisetty a sophomore engineering student after my experience with aggies invent im considering an nsa internship from national voting and polling to personal cellphones and tablets the internet of things connects the world with daily uses such as transferring data on a flash drive or changing a thermostat with a cellphone to unique research opportunities like the future navigation systems in autonomous vehicles the internet of things is a network of information sharing this world of cyber connectivity is efficient and convenient and opens doors to the future of technology and communication however because of the novelty and rapid advancement of the internet of things there is an overall lack of security to prevent hackers or cyber actors from accessing connected devices and data therein cybersecurity is a tremendous threat today it is not a matter of if something needs to be protected but how it will defend itself said rodney boehm director of engineering entrepreneurship at texas a&m"
2726,at the end of the 48-hour event team net 360 claimed first place for their proposal to create a digitized mixed-reality network operating center the team included drew dehaven shrey shah vansh narula connor jakubik patrick zhong and xavier polisetty network operating centers are tasked with monitoring every part of a cybernetwork using multiple physical computer screens to assure that it is secure and functional with too much data displayed on too many screens the process of fixing a disruption in the network is hindered by an overflow of information once the various nodes and branches are waded through to get to the core issue be it an outage anomaly or cyberattack someone is then manually assigned to handle it as the internet of things creates a larger and more complex web of information the greater the need becomes for a streamlined and efficient way to view and fix networks enter net 360 a digital network operating center that allows users to view inspect and correct the nodes of a network with a virtual reality headset the teams interface displays a 3d model of the network that highlights disturbances in the normal data flow and automatically notifies the right team to examine it this method provides a better way to visualize data that enhances collaboration and easy interaction with the nodes by allowing networks to be monitored in real time it also cuts down on the time lost to manually assigning tasks and allows issues to be resolved quicker this in turn saves money for the companies involved the nsa provided us with a set of difficult problems to solve and i am amazed at the solutions our students came up with said boehm more importantly the nsa mentors said that our students impressed them tremendously with their level of knowledge innovativeness and passion for their projects each team spent a lot of time researching the problem reading papers finding out how the problem might already have partial solutions and asking the mentors lots of questions said amy andrews technical director with workforce support activities at the nsa every piece of information they got helped shape the solutions space equally intriguing was that every team presented not only what their solution was but highlighted the areas they researched and how those items influenced their recommendations see more photos from the event
2727,"the association for computing machinery (acm) symposium on principles of distributed computing (podc) has been an annual conference since 1982 and has grown to be one of the premier conferences on algorithms for distributed computation they have a tradition of recognizing members of the podc community on their 60th birthday through an event at the conference and a jennifer jubilee was held at the conference in july to celebrate dr jennifer welch and her accomplishments the jubilee was organized by her friends and colleagues dr hagit attiya (technion israel) dr faith ellen (university of toronto) and dr nancy amato (texas a&m university) the conference was held at royal holloway university of london united kingdom i am deeply honored to be recognized by my colleagues said welch chevron professor ii and regents professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m i greatly appreciate the mentoring collaborations and friendships i have experienced in the distributed computing community as well as all the dynamic problems we work on the first speaker was her massachusetts institute of technology (mit) master's and doctoral advisor dr nancy lynch lynch gave an overview of the research they did together starting with her graduate work through more recent collaborations these topics included transaction processing modular methodologies for verifying complex algorithms and neighbor discovery in mobile networks jennifer was one of my first graduate students at mit when i first started my theory of distributed systems group said lynch she and i worked closely together on projects involving clock synchronization byzantine agreement and formal verification of distributed algorithms the second speaker was dr shlomi dolev of ben-gurion university israel who was a postdoctoral fellow with welch when she first arrived at texas a&m in 1992 he focused on their joint work on clock synchronization in hostile environments and providing middleware for dynamic distributed systems he also discussed the journey from self-stabilizing byzantine schemes to geoquorums for ad hoc networks and the connections to distributed cryptographic schemes the third speaker was dr nitin vaidya of georgetown university who was welchs colleague at texas a&m in the 1990s he talked about their joint research on algorithms for distributed computation in mobile ad hoc networks in particular neighbor discovery token circulation and mutual exclusion the last speaker was attiya a longtime collaborator attiya highlighted their work on finding differences in the inherent efficiency of implementing two popular consistency conditions for shared data she also discussed working with welch on their co-authored textbook ""distributed computing: fundamentals simulations and advanced topics"" on her accomplishments welch said it is exciting to find a clean abstraction of a problem motivated by real-world distributed systems and discover an efficient algorithm for it another mathematically fascinating aspect of my area is proving lower bounds on efficiency or impossibility for solving certain problems under certain assumptions although these results can be viewed as negative they let you know whether your solution is optimal in which case it is time to move on to another problem"
2728,the texas a&m university institute of transportation engineers (ite) student chapter (tamu-ite) competed in the 2018 ite international collegiate traffic bowl that was held in minneapolis minnesota and took home second place the team competed in august after winning first place in the texas district traffic bowl in june the four-member tamu-ite team is comprised of jayson stibbe civil engineering graduate student and president of the tamu-ite student chapter xiaoyu sky guo civil engineering graduate student pappu divya civil engineering graduate student and kentaro iio civil engineering graduate student as far as transportation competitions go this one is the biggest for our chapter said stibbe we (all received) plaques and the winner had their name put on a trophy which goes in the international headquarters the collegiate traffic bowl program for the 2018 season saw 68 ite chapters compete spanning across the us and canada and over 240 ite participants comprised these teams the competition was held in a jeopardy-style format and tested the students knowledge on transportation planning engineering topics and other traffic manual knowledge and miscellaneous trivia stibbe said that the team started prepping for the competition in march and felt well prepared by june we had a coach who (already) competed in the competition before and (was) really passionate about it said stibbe since the establishment of the ite traffic bowl in 2010 tamu-ite has won six district awards and has been among the top chapters in the institute
2729,carolyn and edwin moerbe 61 have established the edwin and carolyn moerbe scholarship to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing who plan to pursue an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m university this scholarship is the second established by the moerbes their goal in establishing their endowments is to alleviate the financial burden of attending school we chose electrical and computer engineering for our first endowment to honor our grandson who is a current student in the department moerbe said the moerbes chose the chemical engineering department for their most recent endowment in honor of their other grandson who followed in edwins footsteps and graduated from the department as a chemical engineering major myself moerbe said i wouldnt have been able to complete my degree if i had not received the opportunity award scholarship i knew that once i was able to provide the same opportunity for a student i wanted to do so
2730,alisa and paul habenicht 85 have established the alisa and paul habenicht 85 scholarship to provide a full-tuition scholarship over four years to a full-time student in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in the college of engineering or college of education and human development from texas a&m university in college station texas alisa and i wanted to provide first-generation students who have demonstrated financial need the opportunity to change the world with an education they might not be able to afford otherwise said habenicht paul studied petroleum engineering at texas a&m and is the executive vice president of north america at hunt oil company alisa studied educational curriculum and instruction and taught at many different schools across texas and the middle east during her career we are excited to help bright young people learn and mature at texas a&m so they can go out and positively impact the world said the habenichts its also a great way to stay connected and support the university where we have such fond memories
2731,the texas a&m university department of computer science and engineering supported student travel to the 2018 tapia conference in september in orlando florida the tapia conference fosters opportunities that are distinct from most other computer science conferences as it acknowledges promotes and celebrates diversity in computing the conference brings together many individuals from underrepresented communities with research-oriented discussions regarding accessibility and socially-aware computing according to seth polsley a texas a&m computer science student and attendee students were able to interact with graduate students researching technology based on their first-hand experiences with a disability see a presentation given in sign language by a speaker who was deaf (through an interpreter) attend a career fair and connect with undergraduate and high school students from underrepresented communities about their plans and goals
2732,one of the biggest advantages of attending this conference was the opportunity to meet so many new people ive never done so much networking ever before in my life i met people from the technology field with the latest knowledge in this domain the career fair helped me a lot in my internship hunt i talked to companies at the career fair such as google microsoft and facebook i even had two interviews i loved the enthusiasm of the people at the conference given the chance i would definitely do it again thank you -juicy ray 20
2733,it gave me a vision of the skills i need to work on before graduation in order to find an excellent career -maryam savari 21 it was so encouraging to see aggies across the nation doing cool things i cant wait to find my place soon too -amy li
2734,the conference was a life-changing experience for me i learned so much more about the computer science field and i think it helped me decide what i would like to work on -omar santos 20
2735,i learned about the efforts in some states and programs that aim to expose girls in rural areas to technology who may not otherwise get experience with computers i learned about the statistics and studies around women of color in tech the conference was enlightening it reinforced my belief that we as stakeholders in the technology industry should aim for greater diversity - maria francine lapid 19
2736,i was nervous at first since i didn't know anyone on the trip but i slowly began to meet people who showed me kindness and helped raise my confidence as a programmer everyone was so supportive i was able to ask questions without being judged and was given support without even having to ask for it it was wonderful to see so many strong female programmers as attendees speakers and recruiters it helped calm my fears of entering the tech industry by seeing so many women happy in their careers with a healthy work/life balance -gabi nosworthy
2737,as a person that is part of an underrepresented group in computer science it is always amazing to see people who look like me and are from the same background from industry leaders to prominent researchers i see a diverse view of excellence -chris madison 19
2738,the theme for the 2018 conference was diversity: roots of innovation this years conference emphasized the historical role of diversity with respect to stem (science technology engineering and math) innovation and declared it as a standard essential set of roots for computing innovation in the future conquering computing challenges going forward – while ensuring benefits across all global residents – requires the resources talent and experiences from a diverse collective the computer science and engineering department has been a long-time supporter of the annual conference the tapia conferences are sponsored by the association for computing machinery presented by the center for minorities and people with disabilities in information technology and are in cooperation with the computing research association
2739,from construction workers carrying heavy building materials to a traveler hauling luggage lower back pain is most commonly caused by overstressing and damaging the spine through actions such as improper lifting techniques while this ailment is often treatable it is uncomfortable and disruptive to the daily lives of those who suffer from it and can be a slippery slope leading to surgery or permanent spinal damage as part of an ongoing effort to investigate spine-related disorders a team of researchers at texas a&m university became the first to successfully use dynamic x-ray technology to map the lumbar spine the revolutionary computerized visuals produced in the study will set the stage for future research on the prevention and treatment of lower back pain and other spinal injuries funded by the national institute for occupational safety and health the project is led by dr xudong zhang professor and liollio family faculty fellow in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m zhang also holds joint courtesy appointments in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering and department of biomedical engineering his team consists of suman k chowdhury assistant research scientist in the industrial and systems engineering department university of pittsburgh graduate student ryan byrne industrial and systems engineering graduate student yu zhou and collaborators at the university of pittsburgh and washington state university their work has been published in human factors and the journal of biomechanics under the titles lumbar facet joint kinematics and load effects during dynamic lifting and segmental variations in facet joint translations during in vivo lumbar extension respectively
2740,unlike the static images that help doctors diagnose broken bones zhang explained that dynamic x-ray technology uses multiple x-ray sources and high-speed cameras set up at different angles to capture a series of images that track bones in motion the sequences can then be converted into highly-accurate individualized 3d models with a detailed view of the motions of lumbar intervertebral joints and often-overlooked stabilizer joints known as facets the team was able to examine direct real-world effects of what a person is doing and what his or her lower back is experiencing through their findings the team is redeveloping fundamental knowledge of the spine and guidelines for worker safety that address what motions are considered high- and low-risk lift maneuvers and what should be avoided to help prevent spinal damage but the road to research doesnt end there by mapping and modeling full digital replicas of human beings zhangs research extends into the future to perform what-if simulations to advance the basic understanding of the biomechanics of the spine and how that knowledge can be applied we can only ask our human subjects to perform safe tasks we cant ask them to push limits zhang said but once we build the subject-specific computer models we can virtually push their limits and create simulated injurious scenarios doing so would allow his team to draw conclusions about what happens to the spine when put under various degrees of pressure and stress this would open the doors to various human-centered design and health applications including evaluating new helmet or exoskeleton device design and new surgical approaches to treating spinal diseases or injuries with that goal in mind zhangs next step is mapping the cervical region of the spine to take a deeper look into the causes of neck pain and the responses the neck has to impacts such as receiving whiplash during a car crash
2741,laura deremo a senior in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is pushing the boundaries of the typical undergraduate experience by pursuing a research project that intersects the fields of materials science and electrical engineering for this project she is working alongside dr patrick shamberger assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering on a special type of computer memory called resistance switching memory we quantify electricity using resistance current and voltage deremo said for example a light bulb works because current runs through the filament inside the bulb more current equals brighter light my research was using a material that could change how much current it let through so we start out with a dim light stress the material with a high voltage and then we would have a bright light my job was to analyze the physical reason that the material changed how much current it let through high-resistance filaments will produce a dim light bulb and low resistance will produce a bright bulb the material can switch between being a high and a low-resistance state computer memory relies on storing zeroes and ones but it does not care how those numbers are stored as there are two distinct states – in this case high and low – of a material it can be used to build a computer memory which is where her project comes into play my research is really at the intersection of electrical and materials engineering deremo said understanding the physical phenomena requires understanding the material really well but it's all useless if the research ignores the application of the material which is the electrical engineering in addition to working on this multidisciplinary research project deremo started the women in ieee student organization in the department deremo hopes other girls see that there really is a place for them in the field of electrical and computer engineering and that they are not alone upon graduation deremo will begin her career as a design engineer at texas instruments she will join many graduates from the department which has provided a large number of students to the company's workforce at texas instruments deremo will be designing redesigning and testing another type of memory f-ram f-ram is similar to her current research project in that it is a physics-based electric access memory which also uses dual states but with a different material deremo urges other students to always look for opportunities because she decided to get involved in this research project in addition to her normal student load deremo saw many more doors open for her including the offer to work at texas instruments in a similar area
2742,"now just six months away from graduation senior mechanical engineering student and marine corps veteran matthew curtis is well on his way to leaving texas a&m university with not just a degree but a potential business as well through the susu and mark a fischer 72 engineering design center and other entrepreneurial organizations on campus curtis has refined his design for a more effective tourniquet inspired by his service in the military ""i could never really pursue the idea until i came here and had access to the resources and opportunities at the university "" curtis said ""i probably could have come up with something but it certainly wouldn't be where it is today without those resources"" curtis was among the most recent recipients of the james j cain '51 award in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering this fall as well as the cynthia ""cindy"" '92 and john survil '84 and bebe and bruce glasgow '73 scholarships the california and washington native enlisted in the marine corps out of high school with plans on making it a career after serving for four years he returned to california to help his father who was recovering from ankle surgery run his business during that time curtis began to research universities and decided to study engineering after considering several schools across the country he selected texas a&m a self-described hobbyist mechanic curtis was drawn to study mechanical engineering because of his natural inclination to work with his hands as well as the discipline's flexibility he said the broad professional opportunities the department offered upon graduation were greatly appealing to him and have already begun to serve him well in his development of a new tourniquet"
2743,"building on an idea he first had while deployed in afghanistan curtis' vision for a new tourniquet is specifically aimed at creating a product that is both more durable and that can be applied in an easier faster way - in part to reduce the human challenges associated with what is often a high-stress situation ""in a stressful situation your ability to concentrate and perform fine motor movements decreases drastically "" curtis said ""as much as possible equipment should compensate for that which means it should be as simple to apply as possible so that you don't have to think about what you're doing"" although there is still work to be done in perfecting the device curtis said he is confident in the effectiveness of his design thanks to input from fellow veterans and peers as well as medical and industry experts curtis said he has been able to further refine his product to address even more challenges than in some of his earlier designs in addition to his academic and entrepreneurial activities curtis is also involved with the peer advisors for veterans education organization through texas a&m's veterans resource support center where he helps fellow veterans in the transition from the military to college life rodney boehm director of engineering entrepreneurship got to know curtis this spring while teaching a course on startups for engineers and during a three-week study abroad trip to italy for an engineering ethics course boehm described curtis as a very focused student with a great idea who listened to constructive input and was driven to see his project to completion and said their shared time abroad was particularly illuminating during those three intense weeks i came to better appreciate his leadership and thoughtful discussions in class boehm said he stands out because of his drive maturity leadership and passion following his graduation in may 2019 curtis plans to pursue a master of business administration as he works to grow his business and further develop his tourniquet technology for students seeking to follow in his footsteps curtis encourages them to spend time with hands-on projects and activities as much as possible so that they can walk away from their undergraduate career with an understanding of engineering in both a practical and theoretical sense ""connect what you're learning in the classroom with real-world examples "" curtis said ""just do the work and you'll be ok"""
2744,a team of researchers from texas a&m university has received the best paper award at the 2018 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) international conference on vehicular electronics and safety the authors include graduate student hongxin kong; visiting scholar jun cheng; dr krishna narayanan eric d rubin 06 professor; and dr jiang hu professor and co-director of graduate programs in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university the year-long study described in the award-winning paper ducer: a fast and lightweight error correction scheme for in-vehicle network introduces a newly developed error correction system for the car industry cars talk in ways other than honking a horn or revving an engine similar to a cellphone there is a constant internal dialog happening within the wiring of a vehicle this code-based conversation between microcontrollers keeps the car running smoothly and safely it supplies both quick reactions when the car is in motion and dependability in times where the driver is at risk however sometimes this system of communication fails when the internal communication of a car breaks down it resends the initial order to correct itself and cannot process any part of the previous instruction much like when a text message fails to send in an area lacking sufficient service this causes a delay while the new message is being sent and reprocessed this interruption especially when dealing with a moving car can be detrimental our work attempts to develop an error correction technique such that message retransmission can be avoided hu said at the same time the correction must be realized with low overhead on computing resources and computing time ducer accomplishes both goals the proposed correction system helps cars run smoother and be more reliable in addition to being lightweight ducer also lowers installation costs by being compatible with existing car technologies like connecting a phone to a bluetooth speaker vehicle encoding requires both a transmitter and a receiver to update the system and allow the car to understand itself generally includes having to install entirely new equipment however ducer will only need a new receiver to properly sync with a car narayanan said with eyes on the road narayanan hu and their students are looking toward the future with ducer in addition to providing the car industry with a new technique for vehicle communication it paves the way for further research on autonomous cars which need fast and reliable in-vehicle communication to function this work was a collaborative effort between researchers working on coding theory and computer engineering narayanan said such cross-disciplinary work with a view towards solving a problem with practical importance is exciting in addition to being an achievement for this team this award lends itself to the collective initiative of the department of electrical and computer engineering to further the area of consumer electronics currently a handful of professors are lending their expertise and research to bettering the vehicles of tomorrow university distinguished professor dr pr kumar for example has developed air traffic controls for drones and cybersecurity systems for autonomous vehicles similarly dr jean-francois chamberland professor and associate department head is studying the design of sensor networks and limitations of wireless communication when applied to autonomous and connected vehicles finally the research done by dr scott miller debbie and dennis segers '75 professor and co-director of graduate programs is diving deeper into how to create an effective communication system for both autonomous and manual consumer electronics
2745,while blood vessel diseases are treatable in many cases this can vary from patient to patient and therefore it is difficult to find the right cure for every patient some patients may be underdosed while others get too many drugs unnecessarily to help make the process more efficient researchers from texas a&m university texas childrens hospital and baylor college of medicine are working to design technology to predict the workings of vascular diseases and responses to drugs at a patient-specific level dr abhishek jain assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m and his collaborator dr jonathan flanagan from texas childrens hospital and baylor college of medicine were recently awarded the trailblazer award from the national institutes of health national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering for their research in sickle cell disease (scd) scd is a group of genetic disorders that cause red blood cells to become misshapen and break down from an early age patients with scd have a high risk of vascular disease and even stroke in some patients current models to test drugs used to treat scd are not reliable and cannot accurately predict how a persons body will respond to the medication it is also difficult to predict which patients with scd have the highest risk of suffering a stroke versus those who dont
2746,the team is designing an organ-on-a-chip that consists of a device that will mimic an artery of a pediatric scd patient and associated biological readouts that will provide information on the progression of vaso-occlusion including during drug treatment the major outcome of this research will be that we will acquire a strong proof of feasibility of an organ-on-a-chip system that may predict occlusive events in scd in a disease and patient-specific manner jain said this will be an important contribution in potentially reducing deaths from cardiovascular events and stroke among children having scd because this methodology will help determine new medications and new uses of existing medications quickly and cost-effectively for this disease and others down the line to train the technology to interpret data from the blood researchers are isolating the cells of the blood vessel – progenitor endothelial cells – from blood samples of both healthy and scd volunteers when they include these cells and the blood flow of the same patient within their medical device they will be able to predict if the patient will respond to drugs that prevent stroke or not approximately 10 percent of all scd patients will suffer a clinically overt stroke before adulthood the causes of stroke in scd are poorly understood and there is an urgent need to define the underlying mechanisms with a platform technology such as this we may be able to identify the regulatory genes that cause stroke and find the most effective therapy to prevent stroke in these patients flanagan said the trailblazer award is an opportunity for new and early stage investigators to pursue research programs such as this that integrate engineering and the physical sciences with the life and behavioral sciences high-impact projects will have the potential to transform understanding or practice by applying an innovative approach to an appropriate biomedical challenge to generate informative and impactful data or craft a solution to a significant problem the team was awarded $580 000 for use over a three-year period
2747,don 58 and marilyn lummus have established the don 58 and marilyn lummus professorship of practice in engineering to support the teaching research service and professional development activities of the professorship holder don noted that texas a&m had been a defining influence in his life and that he and marilyn were happy to be able to participate in the future of the university in this way his parents grew up during the great depression and were unable to attend college; however they instilled the importance of education in their children all of whom have masters degrees while attending graduate school at harvard lummus was particularly impressed with the frequent guest lecturers from industry and business therefore the establishment of this professorship seemed to be an ideal way to further extend such experiences in the undergraduate program at texas a&m during his time on campus lummus was a member of the corps of cadets in squadron 9 a member of the ross volunteers and was commanding officer of the seventh group during his senior year he also served as president of the texas a&m chapter of the tau beta pi engineering society following his education lummus served as ceo and owner of several manufacturing companies
2748,on a quest to solve real-world challenges and change the world through inventions and solutions to improve lives jun zou 95 has accomplished far beyond his initial goals i started college in china in 1984 and obtained my bachelor of science in naval architecture in 1988 zou said my dream job was to be a chief naval architect in charge of designing the most advanced aircraft carriers in the world
2749,he applied to the ocean engineering master of science program in 1992 and began coursework on january 15 1993 his first few weeks as an aggie tested him in more ways he could have ever imagined he registered very late arrived on campus later than expected missed orientations had a language barrier and no transportation just to name a few a series of other obstacles were also in front of me as a stranger in a college town zou said how do i get to and from campus where are the classrooms where can i buy my textbooks where and how can i buy groceries for my daily living zou was overwhelmed with how many people stopped what they were doing to patiently listen to his needs – people from all walks of life including hotel staff students department administrators and faculty members their friendliness and kindness warmed my heart and calmed down my uneasy nerves zou said even 25 years later those unforgettable moments are still so fresh in my mind just like it happened yesterday zou went on to finish his phd in 1997 and became a hydrodynamic analyzer working on global performance analysis of tension leg platforms in 2005 he became one of five major founders of houston offshore engineering llc their staff grew from only 11 total people in 2005 to more than 150 staff members in 2014 his greatest honor though is houston offshore engineering being consecutively awarded the aggie 100 award three times since 2012 the award recognizes the fastest growing companies run by former students and is awarded by the mays business school mcferrin center for entrepreneurship with that said it is the time for me to do whatever i can to help whoever might really need help just like me 25 years ago zou said earlier this year my wife and i decided to establish a scholarship to assist students in the department of ocean engineering zou also serves on the department advisory council that meets bi-annually to ensure students graduating from ocean engineering are equipped with appropriate skills and knowledge to enter the workforce
2750,md5 in collaboration with army futures command offered up the challenge for developers designers and hackers to come together in austin texas for a hackathon to explore nontraditional innovative methods to counter small unmanned aerial systems (suas) the a team a multidisciplinary team from texas a&m university and the army research laboratory (arl) stepped up to the challenge and was one of the three teams that won the md5 a-hack-of-the-drones 2018 hackathon with the promise of $15 000 to further develop their ideas there is a growing need for technology and solutions to counter commercial off-the-shelf suas that pose a potential threat when used by terrorists state-sponsored operatives and others that mean to cause harm the hackathon brought together individuals and teams who created solutions to this problem including prototypes models software applications and platforms the hackathon drew 127 participants with 14 submissions for final evaluation participants came from many environments including texas a&m the university of texas the us army armament research development and engineering center 75th innovation naval research lab quantitech and ibm watson the a teams inspiration came from the major concern shared by both the united states and its allies like south korea that the growing ubiquity of low-cost suas allows anyone with one of these devices to enter regions of civil or military interest and wreak havoc in ways unimaginable their belief was that it was of prime importance for agencies engaged in national security to be capable of detecting and tracking these devices to better protect the interests of those they serve
2751,a member of the team is an on-duty officer in the south korean air force and is keenly aware of the swarms of suas administered by the north korean military being used for reconnaissance and surveillance across the demilitarized zone between the two nations the a team presented a computer vision solution to detect track and intercept enemy drones in real time from a live video stream their solution uses a motion detection algorithm to detect any object moving in front of the camera when motion is detected machine learning is used to classify the object moving as a 'drone' or 'not-drone' this helps to remove false-positives in case a bird or any other object is moving in front of the camera the same algorithm is then replicated on a different camera if both cameras detect the same drone this information is used to triangulate and track the 3d position of the enemy drone using estimation algorithms having the 3d position of the enemy drone in real time a vehicle can be sent to intercept and minimize its threat
2752,the ability to accurately detect estimate and track objects in the field has huge implications for the private industry - especially those that employ pattern/feature recognition in their services it was great to work with many capable students and researchers during the competition the multidisciplinary team was the key to the success during this competition: we were able to distribute the tasks according to each participant's strongest skills team member vinicius g goecks a doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m said we had great support from the mentors during the competition which definitely helped to shape our final product the arl researchers helped us to define our computer vision approach and shape the product according to the army's need a team members included edan coben emily fojtik garrett jares grayson woods humberto ramos nicholas waytowich niladri das sunsoo kim vedang deshpande venkata tadiparthi vernon lawhern and goecks support for the team came from faculty members dr daniel ragsdale from the department of computer science and engineering and dr john valasek dr john hurtado and dr raktim bhattacharya from the department of aerospace engineering and the army research laboratory
2753,caitlyn talbert has established the caitlyn talbert 16 scholarship in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering to be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university a recent graduate talbert felt called to support the university through a scholarship endowment she chose the mechanical engineering department specifically because of her experience while a student i chose the mechanical engineering department because its near and dear to my heart and it provides students with so many opportunities within the industry talbert said utilizing the shell global match program talbert began her legacy of impact i was fortunate to be a recipient of an endowment during my four and a half years of school and i wanted to reduce the financial burden for someone else talbert said
2754,dr pushkar lele assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded the cells 2018 young investigator award the first such award given by the journal cells is an international peer-reviewed open-access journal of cell biology molecular biology and biophysics according to the announcement lele was chosen for his research into flagellar motors in bacteria: dr lele discovered that these [flagellar] motors behave as ultra-sensitive molecular sensors that detect chemical as well as mechanical stimuli the impact of this finding was immense because it identified the sensors that form the basis of the bacterial ‘sense of touch this sense of touch enables bacteria to detect the presence of colonizable surfaces and to trigger the onset of infections (cells young investigator award 2018 announcement) in addition to the cells 2018 young investigator award lele was also presented with the engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) this award is presented to tees researchers who secure significant research grants of $1 million or more specifically lele was awarded for securing a grant from the national institutes of health for his research project mechanical regulation of ultra-sensitivity in e coli flagellar motors
2755,access to affordable reliable and sustainable energy across the globe is one of the 2030 targets of the united nations wind plays a prominent role in the solution of increasing renewable energy in part through the use of wind turbines drs raktim bhattacharya and robert skelton in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university are contributing to a solution by providing the means to build larger lighter blades for the turbines using tensegrity principles with a $375 000 grant from the national science foundation
2756,the goal of their research is to develop a suite of theoretical and computational tools for the design of high strength-to-weight wind turbine blades with custom aeroelastic properties that are critical for deploying large wind turbine blades wind power is one of the fastest-growing sources of new electricity supply and the largest source of new renewable power generation the wind power industry is moving to offshore sites where larger wind turbines can be deployed as the rotors become larger the blades must become longer but remain lightweight strong and stiff currently fiber-reinforced polymer composites have been identified as the best material for rotor blades use of these composites poses some challenges including design analysis manufacturing vibration control structural health assessment and transportation the theoretical and computational tools the team is designing will significantly alleviate some of these challenges and provide a feasible path to address the proposed expansion to increase energy generation from 40 gigawatts in 2012 to 400 gigawatts in 2050 in the united states the tensegrity-based design of wind turbine blades has several advantages including accurate modeling aeroelastic tailoring optimal sensing for structural health monitoring and the ability to contract to a smaller form for easy deployability the scientific problems that will be addressed in this research also present a new systems engineering perspective that is missing in current engineering typically these systems are first built and modeled then sensing and actuation architecture is decided in an ad hoc manner followed by the design of the estimation/control law that is constrained by this ad hoc sensing and control architecture the texas a&m team will use the grant to pursue an integrated approach for design of the structure the sensing/actuator architecture (for control and optimal health monitoring) and the control law to alleviate stress and maximize energy absorbed from the wind this will provide a new perspective with strong theoretical foundations
2757,dr m katherine banks has been named winner of the 2019 pinnacle award presented by schlumberger for her dedication to future engineersbanks is vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for the texas a&m university system and oversees coordination and collaboration among the engineering academic and research programs at seven universities and three state agencies in the a&m system she leads systemwide national laboratory engagement and serves as a board member and principal executive engaged with triad national security llc for the management and operation of los alamos national laboratoryshe is also the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station where she oversees administration for $300 million in sponsored research she has made national security research a priority with $16 million in awards from the department of defense in 2018 and strategically focused on hypersonics cyberphysical security and materials in extreme environmentsas dean of engineering banks leads one of the largest engineering schools in the country at texas a&m university with more than 20 000 students and 675 faculty under her leadership the college of engineering initiated its 25 by 25 initiative to transform engineering education and increase access for qualified students to an enrollment to 25 000 students by 2025 she also oversaw construction of the largest and most technologically ambitious building on the texas a&m campus the zachry engineering education complex the building is dedicated to undergraduate engineering education and its student-focused design will revolutionize the way engineering education is delivered to students this dedication to expanding and transforming engineering education has positioned texas a&m engineering students at the forefront of todays industrybanks is a university distinguished professor and holder of the harold j haynes dean's chair in engineering and is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the american society of civil engineersbanks along with the honorees of oil and gas investors 25 influential women in energy will be recognized at the second annual women in energy luncheon feb 12 2019 at the hilton americas houston the full list of honorees can be found here
2758,a team of researchers from texas a&m university at college station and texas a&m university at qatar has received the 2018 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) signal processing magazine best column award the award was given to dr erchin serpedin and dr khalid qaraqe along with their former doctoral student dr sangwoo park for their paper titled gaussian assumption: the least favorable but the most useful which was published in the march 2013 issue of the ieee signal processing magazine the paper explains how to develop signal processing estimation techniques that are robust to the distribution of noise the work presented in this paper has countless applications in many fields such as signal and image processing computer vision machine learning radar biomedical engineering wireless communications and system identification the award will be presented during the ieee signal processing society's awards ceremony that will be held during the 2019 ieee international conference on acoustics speech and signal processing (icassp 2019) icassp represents the flagship conference of ieee signal processing society and is the foremost and most comprehensive international conference on signal processing and its applications serpedin is a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m in college station his research interests lie in the fields of signal processing machine learning and big data analytics and their applications in bioinformatics wireless communications cybersecurity and smart grids qaraqe is a professor in the electrical and computer engineering program at texas a&m at qatar his research interests lie in the fields of wireless communications and remote health technologies
2759,the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university presented its first outstanding alumni award to mike mcgee vice president in the office of research administration at the texas heart institute im very humbled and appreciative of getting this recognition especially being the first maybe its because im the oldest mcgee said i look forward to enjoying this relationship for many years to come mcgee graduated with a bachelors degree in bioengineering from texas a&m in 1978 shortly after graduation he began working as an engineer at the texas heart institute (thi) during his 40 years of service there mcgee has made contributions to the institution and to the researchers educators and clinicians who have advanced cardiovascular medicine to benefit both the students they train and the patients they serve i had the very good fortune of working with other people who really made that happen mcgee said i would to thank those people and recognize those people ive been fortunate to be part of some just amazing advances working with some amazing people mcgee joined texas heart institute during a time of exciting creative innovations such as the development of the implantable ventricular assist device (vad) which can provide a bridge for patients waiting on heart transplants or while their own heart recovers from certain conditions more than 1 000 patients have received vad implants at thi and more than 20 000 patients worldwide all of those 40 years have been wonderful and ive enjoyed being able to support the department mcgee said im just extremely excited about where the department is now and all the opportunities and the growth thi has provided 20 years of co-op educational opportunities for many biomedical engineering students from texas a&m as well as sponsorship of many senior design projects mcgee also provided administrative support to help thi and the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences win a $3 million texas emerging technology fund grant to launch the center for cell and organ biotechnology which has provided new jobs and educational opportunities for biomedical engineering and veterinary medicine students and faculty for decades mike has provided major support to the biomedical engineering department including long-term active service on the biomedical engineering external technical advisory board said dr mike mcshane head of the department of biomedical engineering he is certainly a role model who is very deserving of this award mcgee said he is proud to have texas a&m be part of his past present and future and plans to continue to contribute however he can to the success of the department many more can find ways to continue to support the department all of us can do what we can and contribute as we can mcgee said if we find ways to support good things and whats going on here i think the rewards for that are really all that matters and really worth that effort
2760,dr karen kirkland associate department head and professor of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university is the principal investigator of the terry turbine expanded operating band project her research was featured in the november issue of the department of energys (doe) light water reactor sustainability newsletter kirklands team is working on increasing knowledge of the operational characteristics and limitations of terry turbopumps and the systems that use them the terry turbine is a compound-velocity impulse turbine terry turbopumps are used by the us nuclear industry as steam-driven turbopumps to power essential safety systems the co-pis are dr yassin hassan the sallie & don davis '61 professor in engineering professor of nuclear engineering and professor of mechanical engineering and dr abhay patil an assistant research engineer in the mechanical engineering turbomachinery laboratory
2761,experimental testing is currently underway at texas a&m read the entire article in the november issue of does light water reactor sustainability newsletter
2762,to help students learn more about the many different roles biomedical engineers can play in the medical device and health care industries the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university invited industry experts which included former students to speak at the departments first experts panel event this fall the panel provided a forum for students who are looking for jobs and careers in industry to hear from experts in the field each expert shared their own background in industry with careers ranging from manufacturing to research and development to quality engineering while each had a different story panelist tony knight director of quality at medtronic neurosurgery in dallas said initially graduates should expect to gain knowledge in many areas once they enter industry before they decide what they want to pursue in their career choose after five or six years as youre moving through your career where you want to focus and specialize knight said students submitted questions for the panelists before the event and several were asked during the evening as well one question was what students should pursue in college to best prepare them for the working world keith nelson 82 head of operational excellence at novartis in dallas said leadership is key to standing out in an engineering environment what separates the good new hires from the questionable new hires is their ability to lead others nelson said youre leading yourself and you are leading two three maybe up to six people to prepare for that youre going to need to demonstrate leadership another skill that helps applicants stand out is problem solving said jeff summers moderator of the panel and vice president of operations at quest medical inc in dallas you need to seize problem-solving opportunities while youre here whether that be in your classes or your group you have senior design the engr[x] program and others summers said students asked whether the panel members thought getting a masters degree right after their bachelors degree was preferred there were mixed responses from the panel mike mcgee 78 and vice president for research administration at the texas heart institute in houston planned to get his master of science after graduating but changed course after he got a job at the texas heart institute i am one of the biggest advocates of the master of science program mcgee said i kind of regret not getting it later in life building from that comment steve golden 90 and chief operating officer at coracoid solutions llc in california said starting to work in industry doesnt mean further education is no longer an option some of you want to get out into the workplace as fast as you can thats just fine golden said theres always time to go back for more education that door doesnt necessarily close
2763,two of the panelists have experience with startup companies a topic about which biomedical engineering senior linda bustaman was excited to learn i love the idea of working at a startup bustaman said ive talked to some of my professors and a lot of them say ‘since youre young you should definitely go do a startup because you dont require that much health insurance when youre younger compared to when youre older golden has started several companies and said finances can be a significant hurdle for a startup on top of that he said that overcoming the fear of failure is really the key jacqueline havelka 87 and co-founder and director of the technical writing company inform scientific said it takes a lot of gumption to start a company you have to really choose your business partners wisely havelka said you dont want someone to steal your idea hal xu second-year graduate student said he appreciated how the panel included experts from different engineering areas they were answering the same questions but there were really different answers from everyone so it gives a pretty good perspective on all the areas like quality manufacturing and r&d xu said im not too sure specifically which area i want to go into so this was helpful olivia cain biomedical engineering senior and member of the biomedical engineering society at texas a&m said she was curious to see what the panel was about and appreciated the personal points of view from the different panelists i definitely feel this is beneficial for those who are earlier on in their education because the advice they had was go get leadership experience go show youre passionate cain said as a fifth-year senior i dont have the time or ability to go back and do that but for them they have the opportunity still to achieve those things before they graduate i think this would be very valuable for them the department of biomedical engineering plans to host similar experts panels in the future as a way to expose students to different career options as well as help them gain experience networking with former students in the medical device industry
2764,the national academy of inventors (nai) has named dr cynthia hipwell among its newly elected class of fellows for 2018 hipwell a tees eminent professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university worked 21 years as a technology and business process innovator developing industry-leading technologies as well as new tools and methods to accelerate the pace of technology development and increase business impact election to nai fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life economic development and the welfare of society she will officially be inducted into the academy in april at the eighth nai annual meeting at the space center houston hipwell who joined the mechanical engineering department in 2017 holds a wealth of experience in nanotechnology tribology sensors and actuators that she is putting to use through her innovation tools and entrepreneurial new technology (invent) laboratory even as new research propels technologies into new and exciting directions there is a crucial need for the development of tools and methods capable of delivering faster higher impact innovations and feasibility studies that indicate commercial viability it is a pursuit on which hipwell has her eyes firmly set
2765,"""i am most excited about some of the new ideas that are emerging as we bring researchers from several disciplines together and see how we can really impact critical product areas with new technologies "" she said hipwell is working on numerous projects through her invent lab alongside researchers well-versed in disciplines that include tribology materials cognitive ergonomics and human-machine interactions upcoming projects will include the pursuit of high-resolution flexible tactile sensors and actuators to be used for haptic feedback applications – such as a vibration motion or application of force to recreate the sense of touch – in a range of situations including communications hazardous work environments virtual reality and design as well as an improved understanding of the finger-device interface for the optimal performance of haptic devices hipwell has a particular interest in the process of developing a piece of technology from its early conceptual stages to a fully realized and functional product though she plans for her lab to mature several new technologies over the coming years - as well as a system for achieving better faster results - hipwell also wants to instill a passion for this pursuit in her students as well ""often that process has to happen across multiple disciplines to address performance reliability and manufacturability "" hipwell said ""my hope is that by leading this type of multidisciplinary feasibility work that we can not only get more university developed technologies out the door but that we also train more students to be system thinkers and innovators as they leave the university and head out into the real world"""
2766,engineering students were recognized at the texas a&m university college of engineering student awards banquet on nov 8 first presented in 1947 as the engineering faculty senior award the craig c brown outstanding senior engineer award is the most prestigious honor bestowed on a graduating senior in the college of engineering the award is based on outstanding scholastic achievement leadership and character the college of engineering outstanding graduate student award recognizes one masters student and one doctoral student who have demonstrated excellence above and beyond usual levels of achievement the craig c brown outstanding senior engineer award winners: joseph carlson weatherford texas aerospace engineering with an unyielding determination to succeed carlson has excelled in both the classroom and accomplishing the goals he has set for himself he is part of the engineering honors program and the texas a&m university research program holds a leadership role in professional organizations participates in community service activities and is involved in undergraduate research projects carlson recently had an internship at lockheed martin and while he was there he developed a new technology for low-speed wind tunnel testing his work will be published in a technical white paper that he will also present at the 2018 american institute of aeronautics and astronautics aviation and aeronautics forum and exposition carlson has received the joanne k and edward pete aldridge ‘60 endowed scholarship award and the donna and dub jett ‘68 scholarship award he looks forward to continuing to create new technology for the aviation industry in the future megan culler albuquerque new mexico electrical engineering as a dedicated and highly motivated student culler has demonstrated great promise in achieving the goals she has set for herself through holding leadership positions within prestigious organizations her involvement in extracurricular activities and undergraduate research in cyberphysical modeling and analysis for power systems culler has maintained a 40 gpa while in the texas a&m university honors program with a passion for cybersecurity for large-scale power systems culler has represented texas a&m at national conferences most recently a manuscript that culler wrote was accepted to be published in explorations texas a&ms undergraduate research journal she has been awarded the lockheed martin national scholarship and is a craig and galen brown scholar through her work she hopes to use the skills shes attained to give back and help improve cybersecurity around the world jacob hartzer austin texas mechanical engineering hartzers passionate curiosity and drive to discover led him to get involved in multiple research projects and to acquire skills beyond what a typical engineer learns in the classroom through his undergraduate research in mechanical engineering and involvement in extracurricular activities and coursework he has excelled maintaining a high gpa throughout his college career he has represented texas a&m as a national scholar ambassador and has received numerous honors including being named a brown scholar receiving a national merit scholarship and earning a deans excellence honorable mention from the college of engineering hartzer has participated in several internships including bray international nxp semiconductors and most recently pepsico & frito-lay hartzer feels that these experiences his research and his drive to make the most of those is what sets him apart justin macmanus harlingen texas biological and agricultural engineering with an unparalleled work ethic and maturity macmanus has developed a natural instinct to always work hard and see things through no matter how burdensome the task this led him to join the texas a&m corps of cadets where he has received numerous honors and distinctions including most outstanding academic sophomore and junior being inducted into the ross volunteer company and the or simpson honor society and being accepted as a guidon bearer for company f-2 macmanus has also distinguished himself at texas a&m in numerous ways including being accepted into the engineering honors program and being a member of the american society of agricultural and biological engineers macmanus is also an active member of his church and has volunteered for several community service activities he has interned with several companies including garver llc and has participated in the usda research experience for undergraduates luke oaks troy ohio interdisciplinary engineering with a personal goal of becoming as inspirational to others as neil degrasse tyson oaks is well on his way by amassing an impressive record of research and academic successes during his time at texas a&m his passion for improving education for all led him to become a mentor for incoming engineering freshmen he has served as the student bodys vice president of academic affairs and is a beckman scholar a university scholar a craig and galen brown scholar and a member of the zachry leadership program his experience as an engineering honors student and grand challenges research scholar enhanced his development of a plenary conference event that was attended by more than 200 texas a&m students and faculty after graduation oaks plans to work in the systems engineering field or further his education jose quiros college station texas civil engineering quiros has not only shown an aptitude toward academic success at texas a&m but is also actively involved in student organizations in addition to be enrolled in engineering honors he is an officer in the jtl mcnew student chapter of the american society of civil engineers and was a planner for the 2018 texas-mexico asce student symposium he is a member of the zachry leadership program which has enabled him to become and effective on campus leader quiros has maintained his high gpa while becoming involved with organizations like the latino male united chi epsilon honor society and engineers without borders zachry richards cedar park texas biomedical engineering in addition to his outstanding academic record richards has taken the texas a&m core value of selfless service to heart and has served the local community in many outreach endeavors he coordinated and executed land clearing for affordable housing as a member of student bonfire to help habitat for humanity working alongside the community to help families in need he is an undergraduate researcher with the texas a&m cellular biomechanics laboratory where he conducts independent cell research with 3d facial bone replacement scaffolds and presented a poster at the 2018 cellular and molecular bioengineering conference he also tutors for the developmental mathematics program in the academic success center helping students pass state standards to take college math courses 2018 college of engineering outstanding graduate student award winners: daniela alves de oliveira phd candidate biological and agricultural engineering alves de oliveira is a dedicated researcher who worked and consulted for eight years for food industries in brazil including four years at one of the biggest food companies in the country the brf before coming to texas a&m university her current research focus is on the design of an electrochemical biosensor for the rapid detection of foodborne pathogens using nanotechnology and stimuli-responsive polymers to enhance capture and sensitivity of these sensors her research has resulted in 14 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals and she is first author on five of them she was also awarded the 2016 henry kahn memorial scholarship award for graduate student excellence by the polymer technology center at texas a&m tokunbo tj falohun ms candidate biomedical engineering falohun is an aspiring innovator in the realm of medical technology whose career goal is to bring affordable life-saving medical devices to those in need his journey so far has consisted of a mix of scholarly training and entrepreneurial and industry experience he returned to academia to develop a more sophisticated understanding of biomedical engineering for his graduate research falohun is developing miniature implantable biosensors for the early detection and management of chronic diseases and hopes to advance this technology with his doctoral degree he also recently received a national science foundation graduate research fellowship which is a prestigious award given to students who are pursuing a graduate degree in a stem field the college of engineering also recognized the following newly endowed scholarships: cloud family scholarship james l buttler 75 scholars program rita and mark puckett 73 endowed scholarship shell aggies engineering endowed scholarship
2767,a texas a&m university college of engineering research team is harnessing the power of machine learning data science and the domain knowledge of experts to autonomously discover new materials the team developed and demonstrated an autonomous and efficient framework capable of optimally exploring a materials design space (the materials design space is an abstraction of the concrete world it is the space of all the possible materials under study characterized by fundamental material features) an autonomous system or artificial intelligence (ai) agent is defined as any system capable of building an internal representation or model of the problem of interest and that then uses the model to make decisions and take actions independent of human involvement the authors of this interdisciplinary work are dr anjana talapatra and dr raymundo arroyave from the department of materials science and engineering and shahin boluki dr xiaoning qian and dr edward dougherty from the department electrical and computer engineering
2768,their autonomous framework is capable of adaptively picking the best machine learning models to find the optimal material to fit any given criteria their research funded by the national science foundation and the air force office of scientific research will reduce the time and cost spent going from lab to market by ensuring the greatest possible efficiency in the search for the right material the underlying mathematical theory has many applications including affecting the field of biomedicine for example with their bayesian learning and experiment design framework a disease can be modeled to uncover critical risk factors to develop effective therapeutics for specific patients and reduce the cost of human clinical trials
2769,the team wanted to test the framework exhaustively so they carried out the demonstration in a closed-loop computational platform using quantum mechanics to predict properties of max-phases which are promising materials for high-temperature applications including novel oxidation resistant coatings for jet engine turbine blades the texas a&m group is also applying the framework to the discovery of high-temperature shape memory alloys that can be used to build aerospace vehicles with morphing wings for example autonomous innovation significant research on efficient experiment design techniques has been done before however this team is the first to use a bayesian based technique (meaning they take stock of all that is known about a material/material class and leverage that knowledge to find the best material) and employ it in an autonomous fashion continuously searching not only for the next best computation/experiment to run but also for the best model to represent the acquired data the accelerated exploration of the materials space to identify configurations with optimal properties is an ongoing challenge said talapatra who works as a computational scientist in arroyaves computational materials laboratory current paradigms are centered around the idea of performing this exploration through high-throughput experimentation and/or computation those approaches do not account for the constraints in resources available we have addressed this problem by framing materials discovery as an optimal experiment design the methods presented in this research are flexible and adaptable to different research situations significantly talapatra and bolukis algorithm can work with very little initial data making it ideal for new materials research the algorithm represents a smarter step forward compared to previous work in the field other algorithms force one to start with a predefined model which introduces a constraint into the experiment and can skew the results our algorithm can automatically and autonomously decide which model is the best model out of n models at any given time depending on the acquired data said talapatra the autonomous computer program reduces the number of steps and limits the use of limited resources since it can start with as few as two experiments as initial data points the algorithm is ideal for optimizing initial experiments and discerning the best path forward it can be used as a one-step tool by experimentalists to simply decide on the next material to explore or as a purely computational tool to replace expensive computational models and reduce computational costs it can also be used in a combined experimental and computational setup at the very least this framework provides a very efficient means of building the initial data set since it may be used to guide experiments or calculations by focusing on gathering data in those sections of the materials design space which will result in the most efficient path to achieving the optimal material typically materials research occurs in a very ad-hoc way and serendipity tends to be the rule rather than the exception said talapatra the problem is you often dont know the fundamental physics behind why a material is or is not working our models are not precise enough when you start a materials discovery journey you start with the very basic physical knowledge such as the number of electrons and what happens when the elements join together you have to find the similarities between the features and the properties we included as much science as possible in the (artificial intelligence) models said boluki a doctoral student who will defend his thesis next fall boluki and talapatra worked as implementers in the project and coded it in python together the paper on the algorithm has been peer reviewed presented at several conferences and given good feedback from the materials science and engineering community engineers and scientists at texas a&m are already using the program
2770,from cell pathology to materials science: the mathematical underpinning in 2011 qian and dougherty began collaborating on enhancing experiment design in biomedical research they utilized mathematical models to see when cells are going to the tumor stage that same year federal policymakers announced the materials genome initiative which aims to accelerate the discovery of new advanced materials by combining the use of computational and experimental tools along with digital data over the last eight years nationwide much time money and resources have been invested in this effort qian and dougherty turned their focus to materials science problems in 2013 the team started working on optimal design problems two years ago initially collaborating with drs turab lookman and prasanna balachandran from los alamos national laboratory current paradigms are typically centered around the idea of exploring the materials space through experimentation or computation and their approach showed that there are more efficient ways of discovering materials while other people were focusing on the generation and analysis of huge amounts of data we realized that the best way forward was to focus on experiment design how to explore the vast domain of possible materials and increase our chances of success by choosing materials with a goal target property or response in mind said talapatra their research is published in the paper autonomous efficient experiment design for materials discovery with bayesian model averaging in physical review materials
2771,what sparked you to start doing these whiteboard drawings the whole purpose of the whiteboards originally was to see if i could make one of my friends smile as much as i love engineering ive always wanted to make comics and that is something that i am definitely confident about; that is always something ive done since middle school i just want to help people smile or laugh using what i love art to just spread a little happiness if thats possible were not putting down anyone here its just good fun its a spur of the moment sort of deal i really dont have a process for it it just comes and goesits not for attention its not to show off my skills its mostly because i know that there are days where i could not find something to smile about people dont realize how important that actually is i know that a lot of my friends have looked out for me so in turn i picture all the students here whether or not they look at these boards if i could cheer you up a little bit then i will do the best that i can do and thats all
2772,its all very entertaining people have commented that they look forward to checking out the latest one i am glad; that means i have done my job i also think its funny because sometimes my friends and i will pass by and ill point out ‘thats you or ‘thats you when you personalize it to all the majors you can really point at your friend and be like ‘thats definitely youwhat do you think of the engineering inspired works of art in zachit makes me so happy i genuinely love all the pieces in the building especially the fireworks one (smoke painting #44) that has a very special place in my heart i got to see a piece the light one (a-gadda-da-vida) being installed and i spoke with the artist and [asked] how did you make this what was your idea i love asking him questions because i wanted to pick his brain i enjoy the moving art (what it takes to make) near starbucks that one is so much fun before the official opening of zach i would just go walk around and admire the art because i thought it was so cool i wish i could do that i really do what would you tell others if you had a megaphone in zachpeople are going through things outside of school and that is the main reason why i like doing the whiteboards because through the ups and the downs since freshman year i have friends who would somehow make me laugh or smilethats the whole premise of art; you make a lot of mistakes i view engineering as art because with every mistake that i make whether or not i learn from it its incorporated somehow engineering is just a different way of doing art some people say no its completely different than art there is nothing similar about the two they are very similar; you have a mindset of ‘oh im imagining something how do i make it how do i take this idea and i make it with engineers its with physics math and all sorts of things artists its the same thing they also use physics and math its just maybe not in the way engineers think and ive been asking one of my friends in entrepreneurship if we can have an engineering art festival because i think it would be an interesting way to combine the two i believe there are a lot of engineers that are artistic but may not realize it or [are] afraid to get out of their comfort zones at the same time i believe there are a lot of artists that dont realize and recognize that they are also very intelligent and hard-working and they also share the same skills as engineers
2773,the college of engineering at texas a&m university recently recognized tokunbo (tj) falohun biomedical engineering graduate student with the 2018-19 outstanding engineering ms graduate student award falohun said he is incredibly honored to receive this award i am very proud to represent the department of biomedical engineering as it has provided me with opportunities that have been essential to my growth as a graduate student falohun said this award is further motivation for me to give my best effort in everything i do both in my current position as an academic researcher and eventually as a real-world problem solver in the fields of biomedical engineering and health care the department faculty nominated falohun for the award which comes with a $5 000 scholarship the award was created to recognize exceptional achievement and overall performance as a graduate student support from the outstanding engineering master of science graduate student award will allow me to remain focused on research while learning from other professional development engineering and entrepreneurial activities around campus falohun said falohun works in the biosensing systems and materials lab under department head dr mike mcshane helping to develop small-molecule biosensorsminiature analytical devices used to measure biochemicals in the body and cell/tissue samples for medical research and clinical application in chronic disease management mcshane said falohun was an obvious choice for the outstanding graduate student at the master of science level i have been highly impressed by tj since he first applied to our graduate program in fall 2015 as an aspiring innovator in the realm of medical technology tj has articulated a career mission to play an influential role in bringing affordable life-saving medical devices to those in need mcshane said he has gained a mixture of scholarly training entrepreneurial and industry experience falohun has disseminated the result of his research on sensors for managing gout at various professional meetings including the national society of black engineers 44th annual convention and the biomedical engineering society annual meeting during the fall semester falohuns specific research focus is characterizing the properties and optimizing the sensitivity of the hydrogel implant used in the biosensors in recognition of his achievements and innovative ideas falohun was recently awarded a national science foundation (nsf) graduate research fellowship outside of the lab he is involved in several impactful activities including tutoring k-12 students from underserved communities in math and reading comprehension and mentoring young people to pursue higher education in the stem fields he also serves on the leadership council for 3-day startup and guides undergraduate students through a three-day entrepreneurship boot camp finally tj is working through the nsf innovation corps (isite) program to explore the commercialization potential of implantable biosensors in summary tj has an impressive combination of academic excellence productivity in research and leadership in various outreach and innovation programs that make him an exceptional choice for the outstanding graduate student award mcshane said
2774,dr walter buchanan professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has been elected fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) for his leadership in accreditation activities of engineering technology programs ieee fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement the grade of fellow is conferred by the ieee board of directors upon a person for achieving an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the ieees fields of interest buchanan has been evaluating programs since 1987 has served on the executive board of the engineering technology accreditation commission and several other committees and recently received the 2018 accreditation board for engineering and technology fellow award buchanan joined the texas a&m faculty in 2005 he received his bachelor of arts juris doctorate and phd from indiana university as well as a bachelor of science in engineering and master of science in engineering from purdue university buchanans previous honors include receiving the american society for engineering education (asee) james h mcgraw award asee frederick j berger award national society of professional engineers outstanding service award and the international conference on engineering and computer education award
2775,finals week in the texas a&m university college of engineering was less harried and more furry thanks to the incorporation of visiting therapy dogs to help students alleviate stress we have more than 13 000 engineering students each week studying in our new zachry engineering education complex as well as the states only vet school said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering vet school professors have demonstrated the benefits of human-animal interaction to relieve stress so bringing animals to interact with students between classes is a good way to help our students manage the challenges of finals week a volunteer team from aggieland pets with a purpose brought therapy pets into the building to visit students during final exams promoted as finals are ruff paws to relax with puppies and pi oohs and ahs could be heard throughout the zachry engineering education complex as students stressed from the rigors of finals week were greeted by an assortment ranging from a young golden doodle (labrador-poodle mix) to an elderly rottweiler-shepherd mix students laughed as they petted and brushed the dogs took selfies and loved on the animals a blind tortoiseshell-colored tabby cat named spirit astonished students by happily walking on a halter and leash in the hallways rewarding petting with loud purrs
2776,as a veterinarian i have always known that pets and people share an extraordinary connection defined today as the human-animal bond said dr eleanor green dean of the texas a&m university college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences research is now confirming that this connection is mutually advantageous documented benefits of the human-animal bond include positive effects on cardiovascular function and health including lowered heart rate decreased blood pressure and even improvement of some abnormal heart rhythms a sense of well-being and reduced anxiety also result in correlation with hormones such as cortisol prolactin oxytocin and dopamine
2777,veronica stilley director of the student services office in the mays business school brought her dog izzie a bichon frise poodle mix sporting a holiday-themed bandana through her job stilley said she sees the stress that students are under during finals week so she volunteers with aggieland pets with a purpose to give back to the community we go on a regular basis to hospitals and rehab facilities nursing homes and hospice facilities she said during finals time aggieland pets with a purpose visits campus local high school student krista bligh brought in her golden doodle parker his scruffy fluffy fur and elf hat made him a crowd favorite i knew i wanted to do therapy work with him she said first year engineering student avery wintters practically tackled parker and exclaimed that she had been stressed all week i just finished a final for precal she said i only have one more wintters said dogs make her feel more relaxed a sentiment that bligh said she hears often whenever students walk up to him they just light up with a smile and ive just had lots of people tell me that it really helps she said just petting him releases stress and they can get away from it for a little bit
2778,five graduating seniors in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are hoping their final project as students could offer an improved version of a much-used medical device jéssica sousa gabriel tello daniel tello emily tasker and brenda cancino worked together as part of the departments senior capstone design program to design a new kind of stretcher board – named the separable organizational all-inclusive radiolucent (soar) board – addressing some of the challenges facing medical professionals with the current designs the group-based senior capstone design program is a requirement for all mechanical engineering students seeking to bridge the gap between classroom and industry by requiring students to use their knowledge and skills to complete an engineering design project equivalent to assignments they will soon receive as aspiring professional engineers as all five students prepare to graduate from texas a&m this december and head out into industry they took time to reflect on their project and lessons they will take away from the senior capstone design program
2779,what problem does your project address brenda cancino: current stretcher boards require the transfer of a patient onto multiple platforms from the time he/she is picked up at the point of injury to the time he/she is stabilized this is necessary due to material incompatibility with medical equipment such as ct (computed tomography) scanners but in situations where time is of the essence mere seconds wasted can lead to dire consequences for the patient medical professionals must also carry out these transfers while dealing with the burdensome vital signs monitor and its cables (which they often simply place on the patients legs) what factors influenced the design gabriel tello: the most influential factor to the design of the board was material compatibility a large majority of stretchers currently in the market today are incompatible with imaging equipment since they are typically made of radiopaque materials that blur images and in some instances will even introduce faint lines in the image that can be confused with serious injuries such as lung collapse for this reason our teams stretcher board was carefully designed with radiolucent materials that were analyzed with a ct scan to verify that the board would not impede with medical personnel's ability to examine a persons injury without ambiguity
2780,where did the idea for this design come from daniel tello: the soar board design was inspired by two boards that are commonly used in the medical field: the spine board and the scoop board the spine board is a standard board used in the field and although they are sometimes radiolucent it can be difficult to place patients on a spine board because it is necessary to lift patients on the other hand the scoop board uses a hinge design that allows patients to be scooped onto the board without having to be lifted and increasing the risks for further injuries however the scoop board is manufactured with materials that would interfere with x-ray and ct scan imaging the soar board takes some of the best features of both designs while including new components to design a new stretcher board that is more comfortable for patients and more efficient for medical personnel to use how does this design differ from other solutions to this problem jéssica sousa: contrary to boards in the market our design is made of radiolucent materials such as high-density polyethylene which means that the patients can remain on the same platform when receiving medical care and going through x-rays and ct scans the board also includes cable holders allowing tubes and wires to be organized instead of being on top of the patient and a removable monitor platform additionally the soar board has a separable design allowing the medical professional to roll the patient onto the board versus having to pick up the patient reducing the strain on their backs
2781,how did the team go about achieving this design emily tasker: besides the initial contact with our sponsor to understand the purpose and direction of the project we interviewed emergency room nurses emergency medical technicians and other medical personnel we began with phone interviews but were also able to interview in person we talked first hand with a texas a&m emt about his work and where there could be improvements from the information gathered we split up different aspects of the board into subgroups: board structure device integration and supports/ergonomics subgroups in our team brainstormed ideas and then the team would have a roundtable discussion to vet the ideas and finalize a design
2782,meet the team and learn more about what they took away from their experience participating in the senior capstone design program:
2783,brenda cancino: the computer-aided design and finite element analysis techniques that were essential to this project are directly applicable to my future role our studio instructor emphasized the need to justify our decisions and to communicate them effectively both of which are major takeaways for me from this experience
2784,jéssica sousa: throughout this process i gained useful knowledge with regard to project management which was essential while going through the process of planning reporting and evaluating our design this project challenged my team and me throughout the two semesters to identify the root cause of problems and to highlight opportunities while developing tools to select and present the best solution which allowed me to improve my critical thinking skills those two skills will be of major importance throughout my engineering career
2785,emily tasker: from senior design i have gained self-confidence in the engineering skills texas a&m has taught me although i may not know a subject or understand a problem i have learned and practiced with tools to achieve a solution this will be beneficial especially in the coming years when i start work at frito lay i am essentially a freshman on the first day of class but senior design and texas a&m have taught me that i have the tools and abilities to learn design contribute and develop solutions and ideas
2786,daniel tello: i have gained valuable skills in project planning project management and team communication by working on this design project these skills will be useful in my career upon graduation by helping me provide technical support to plant personnel as well as in planning and driving predictive maintenance programs
2787,gabriel tello: working on a two-semester long design project provided me with numerous skills such as project management planning and documentation as an incoming maintenance engineer these skills will be applicable when working with teams in small or large projects to achieve better maintainability and reliability of facilities
2788,jack wiley ‘18 is a nuclear engineering student originally from washington state while taking a break from running the texas a&m university table at the american nuclear society national conference in washington dc last year wiley started a conversation with varex imagings radiation modeling software division he was offered an internship that would open his eyes to a greater magnitude of career options than he had ever considered before
2789,working at varex imaging as an applications engineering intern he learned that with his texas a&m nuclear engineering degree he could pursue work in the nuclear radiation or software fields among others the group wiley worked with focused on the continued development of the atilla software used for modeling radiation transport wileys hours were spent on sensitivity testing tweaking the program slightly every day his input had a direct influence on the final product and he looks forward to seeing the industry embrace the new developments in the expanding technology varex software augments monte carlo n-particle methodology to create more accurate shielding estimates an advancement that could ultimately save thousands of worker hours wiley enjoyed living in washington state and working with a small focused team my nuclear engineering classes gave me a deeper understanding of what i was doing and how to critically analyze the results said wiley dr (john) postons communication class also prepared me for how to project myself in a professional setting wiley noted that although the logistics may be difficult he would highly recommend the internship to other aggie nuclear engineering students being able to interact with people in a company and see how a product is developed and refined has greatly impacted my professional growth said wiley
2790,south texas project russell mendoza ‘18 a nuclear engineering student from belton texas spent his summer as a reactor and fuels intern at the south texas project (stp) in bay city texas mendoza collaborated with ian craig ‘19 a nuclear engineering student from rockwall texas to verify the integrity of spent fuel assemblies for dry cask storage a typical nuclear fuel cycle is about 18 months after 18 months in the reactor fuel assemblies are transferred to a spent fuel pool this was stps method from 1989 until 2018 now the pool at the plant is full and many of the assemblies need to be transferred to dry cask storage craig and mendoza characterized spent fuel by reviewing all the recorded information on the fuel assemblies by the plant which included comparing computer and paper data each fuel assembly was characterized on physical damage and radiochemistry they reviewed refueling inspection documents and condition reports to justify the physical integrity of a fuel assembly they also reviewed end of cycle radiochemistry data their education helped them to discern what an engineer meant from 1989 to 2014 in the documentation ian and russell were great to work with said david bean a nuclear engineer at stp and their internship coordinator they took on what would appear to be a job that would take more months than their internship allotted for they dug in got up to speed and through diligent work were able to compile a large amount of data from many sources into one easy to follow product
2791,stp made the internship dynamic by giving mendoza and craig the opportunity to explore the plant with them frequently including multiple visits to the control room i was able to read the flux mapping dials said mendoza our work will be implemented and viewed by the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) it was real work and a critical project most significantly mendoza and craig saved both the nrc and stp time by discovering potential fuel leakers how a power plant is run seems like a simple diagram in class but theres so much more involved said craig being able to walk around the plant with my mentors every day gave me a real working knowledge of the power plant if you have any interest in nuclear power or reactors i would recommend at least touring a plant ill never forget going into containment at mode 1 (when the reactor is in full operation) said mendoza we dressed down in full protective clothing it was sweltering in containment pushing 115 but when you go down below the reactor it was freezing
2792,another adventure was touring the reservoir and seeing six-foot-long fish the stp reservoir is 7 000 acres and is one of the largest above ground man-made lakes in the world the plant's 12 220-acre site provides a protected habitat for several threatened species including bald eagles peregrine falcons and white-tailed hawks mendoza shared that knowledge of the terms and how a nuclear reactor worked greatly helped his internship studying abroad in switzerland austria and france with the department of nuclear engineering and touring dry cask storage and spent nuclear fuel in the alps was a great asset for my internship said mendoza if i could go back and study nuclear engineering again i would focus more on the consequences of different things like xenon gas nuclear engineering internship options at stp include reactor analysis thermal hydraulics and risk management but interning in the nuclear industry is just one way to set a student apart in their future job search hands down i would recommend going to the sec (student engineering council) career fair said mendoza presenting the face behind the application making an impression and meeting the companys representative play an important factor in your job search
2793,bean recommends aggies seeking an internship or career at stp start as soon as possible if you are able to land an internship the experience will be valuable and probably lead to other opportunities as well he said i chose texas a&m because of its quality engineering program and nuclear facilities said craig after graduation craig will pursue his masters degree at texas a&m while mendoza has accepted a government job offer wiley is currently pursuing opportunities in the software and radiation detection sectors marna (stepan) the undergraduate advisor helped convince me to try nuclear said wiley nuclear is impressive on the surface and the deeper i get the more futuristic it still is i like being at the center of innovation i found my family here monte carlo n-particle® are registered trademarks owned by los alamos national security llc manager and operator of los alamos national laboratory
2794,texas a&m universitys core values the aggie spirit and many meaningful traditions serve as important reminders to joe and melanie gregory of their time as students at texas a&m it was in this spirit that they decided to establish the melanie ‘82 and joe gregory ‘82 scholarship to be used to help fund one or more full-time students who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in civil engineering both of us love the university and being a texas aggie is special to us said joe melanie and i met at texas a&m and thats another reason we are fond of a&m a graduate of the zachry department of civil engineering joe began his career at chevron in new orleans upon graduation melanie received her bachelor's degree in health and physical education from texas a&m and a masters degree in exercise physiology from the university of houston joe and melanie currently reside in the houston area where joe serves as president of chevrons project resources company they hope that by establishing this scholarship students will have an opportunity to develop their technical and leadership skills in the field of civil engineering the gregorys have expressed a preference for students that live in galveston county the place that they call home we want to be able to continue supporting texas a&m and this endowed scholarship is one way in which we can remain connected to the university and its students said joe
2795,few people on campus have had as profound of an impact on generations of texas a&m university students as dr lee l lowery jr 60 lowerys students know him better by his nickname l³ and agree that his infectious breed of humor is a familiar trademark of his character from galveston texas lowery started his freshman year of college and received three degrees from the zachry department of civil engineering including his phd in civil engineering this was the start of his transformative and illustrious career as a professor where he spent six decades as a student teacher advisor and friend to many in aggieland it was through his love for teaching that lowery became a three-time recipient of the zachry award for excellence in teaching the departments distinguished graduate award in 2010 and continues to remain a staple in the structural engineering program its not work; teaching students is just fun lowry said when reflecting on his career ive never ‘worked so i wouldnt know what that is lowerys guidance has impacted countless aggie civil engineering students in a career that has spanned more than 50 years it is through this dedication to student success that the dr lee lowery ‘60 scholars program was established as an honorarium this endowment was gifted in lowerys name by brothers andy townend ‘88 and terence townend ‘87 and will be used to support full-time upper-level students in good standing who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in civil engineering i was working two or three jobs while being a college student and lowery just had a way of making sure that i continued to come to class and kept me focused on work college and not quitting school early said andy he taught his students to keep your eye on the prize and we went to him for job advice interviewing advice and everything else because he was there for us just as lowery received the national defense fellowship that aided in his graduate studies the dr lee lowery ‘60 scholars program is the gift that will keep on giving to students like andy and terry who came from modest families and had to work as students to put themselves through school (the national defense fellowship) changed my life and it has changed ever since said lowery it makes me feel good anytime students can get money for school and if i can be somewhere in the middle of it then i am certainly happy to help terry the progenitor of the endowment stated that lowery was the best educator that he and andy knew the brothers also remember lowery for the monumental impact hes had on their overall success as engineers and his ability to take theoretical concepts and apply them to practical applications bringing real world learning to balance engineering theory this fund is dr lowreys vision and i thought it was a great vision to back him up on and give it to a kid who would be in financial need said terry im hoping those students can go on and give back after they graduate to a scholarship such as this
2796,from the operating room to the battlefield augmented and virtual reality are poised to change the future of how we live this past weekend more than 50 texas a&m university students spent 48 hours solving problems and conceiving new uses for the technology their ideas ranged from collaborative office platforms that would allow companies to work together from anywhere around the globe to a combat simulator that would give soldiers additional training that could save lives in the end it was a multidisciplinary team of students who took home the grand prize $1 000 and a brand-new dell workstation laptop the first-place team developed phobi-app a mobile-based app to help people overcome their fear of public speaking by providing a virtual environment to simulate various social situations the app would also sync up with wearable health trackers to record heart rate and monitor the users progress they chose public speaking because it is one of the most stressful situations for many people however they showed how their app could be extended to treat other phobias
2797,linda bustaman phobi-app team member said that public speaking is one of the biggest fears that americans face and her team wanted to come up with a solution to this problem the need statement asked students to design a platform for exposure therapy to benefit people with phobias ive always been interested in the medical field as well as virtual reality and gaming she said ive always been split between the two and i dont want to give up one to do the other this need statement let me do both shes studying biomedical engineering and hopes to one day work for fjord an accenture company that combines designing and consultancy the opportunity to network with the company was one of the reasons she wanted to participate
2798,representatives from dell accenture and fjord partnered with the engineering entrepreneurship program and made this event possible each company sent representatives who served as mentors and judges while also providing students an opportunity to network olusola babatunde a member of team phobi-app has participated in four aggies invent events so far the mechanical engineering major said that the design competition has shown him why engineering is important the industry im interested in is mostly design and product development he said the whole process of developing a product coming up with solutions and requirements is exactly what i will be doing in the real world other members of the winning team included christian schommer ‘20 computer science major; hamza hamid ‘18 industrial and systems engineering major; and namgyun kim phd student in the college of architecture the second-place team bestfit designed an app that allows online shoppers to use augmented reality to virtually try on clothing before making a purchase third-place team vizmat designed a virtual reality platform that would help students study molecular structures jennifer sigmund senior higher education strategist for dell emc served as a mentor at this aggies invent she said it was inspiring being able to work with such talented and motivated students who are interested in changing the world with the likelihood of workforce shortages in many industries dell needs to be looking for new ways to help build a future-ready workforce sigmund said todays students who are digital natives are the key to solving real-world problems dell is interested in partnering with programs like aggies invent to help tap the potential of budding innovators by giving them an opportunity to show off their tech savvy and entrepreneurial skills the next aggies invent invent for the planet will take place in february when texas a&m will be joined by more than 30 universities around the world for a global 48-hour design challenge
2799,the practice of separating carbon dioxide (co2) from power plant emissions goes back more than 30 years when concerns were raised about its effects on the atmosphere sequestering co2 usually means capturing it during power plant processes and concentrating it in a compressed state so it can be injected in a geologic storage reservoir deep underground a discovery in 1972 determined that compressed co2 gas could enhance oil recovery when it was injected in a hydrocarbon reservoir using co2 to produce more oil and gas would seem to be a win-win situation today – good for the environment and good for energy production – but underground reservoirs have fractures and faults meaning co2 can potentially escape to date co2 monitoring is mostly limited to surface measuring near injection sites and rarely tracks its movement underground dr akhil datta-gupta a university distinguished professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering is working to broaden those monitoring capabilities he is the principal investigator on a texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) research project to develop a better method to track co2 storage and use in oil production his method has the potential to be far more rapid practical and cost-effective than current efforts meaning it would be a true win for energy and the environment
2800,the oil is trapped because of something called interfacial tension forces that hold the oil in small pores said datta-gupta the co2 is miscible with the oil so we can actually drive the oil out of the smallest pores of course one of the big challenges is how to track that co2 because if you are injecting the co2 and it leaks back to the surface then you are not getting any environmental benefit you want to make sure that co2 stays in the ground datta-guptas process involves the accurate modeling of the hydrocarbon reservoir where the co2 is going and the effects the co2 has on pressure temperature and subsurface formations in that area he will be using the advanced imaging technology he developed for hydrocarbon reservoir investigation and management this fast marching method-based program is an efficient way of tracking the co2 movement underground because it rapidly transforms the 3d governing equation of subsurface modeling into a one-dimensional equation leading to orders of magnitude savings in computation over a full 3d simulation this speed is needed for quick responses should the co2 enter a fracture where it could potentially escape the reservoir the focus here is real-time imaging of co2 using temperature pressure and time-lapse seismic data or close to real-time imaging said datta-gupta so as the data is being generated and processed well use it to reconstruct the gas movement in the subsurface pressure and temperature data for the project will come from the injection site and monitoring wells at the petra nova carbon capture and storage site near houston texas the location is part of a joint venture between nrg energy jx nippon oil and gas exploration corporation and hilcorp energy company for seismic monitoring we basically send out sound waves and then we look at the properties of the reflected waves and reconstruct the image similar to medical ultrasound imaging said datta-gupta imaging the human body with its known properties is relatively routine but understanding unseen and unknown subsurface compositions will be difficult
2801,we are not only trying to image the gas plume we are at the same time trying to estimate what the properties of the medium are going to be said datta-gupta thats what makes it doubly challenging for us datta-guptas research project is titled robust carbon dioxide imaging using joint tomographic inversion of seismic onset time and distributed pressure and temperature measurements and it is funded by the department of energys safe and permanent storage program with a $12 million budget aimed at mitigating greenhouse gases the project team includes battelle memorial institute as a subcontractor further support is provided by shell global anadarko petroleum corporation chevron corporation and jx nippon oil and gas exploration corporation to an estimated amount of $300 000 while the generous funding makes the project one of the top grant awards for tees this fiscal year and garnered an engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research for datta-gupta his focus is on the challenges and developments the research presents this is very exciting to be getting data from the largest co2 sequestration project in the world said datta-gupta it opens up a lot of research opportunities for us as a department to dive into new areas which is carbon capture utilization and sequestration; this is going to become increasingly important in the future
2802,preventing terrorists from smuggling nuclear and radiological material across our borders has been a priority for the department of homeland security (dhs) and us customs and border protection (cbp) since the beginning of this century radiation detection portal monitors are currently the primary means by which the cbp scans cargo and vehicles at ports of entry to detect radiation with approximately 1 300 deployed at the us borders ryan coogan a masters student at the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) is working on studying the strategic analysis of radiation detection portal monitors and mobile detection systems in border monitoring essentially this work attempts to answer a very particular question: if we want to catch nuclear materials being smuggled into the country and we already have a border with static (but obvious) radiation detectors do we continue to invest in more of the same do we plug holes in the border or do we diversify into mobile detection that can discretely operate state-side accepting that an intelligent adversary may bypass our border detection
2803,we looked at what kind of an adversary might pursue nuclear terrorism we also examined the uncertainties that plague network modeling and how we might avoid them we then created a network in shield a program created by jun lao at nsspi some years ago and ran a series of simulations said coogan coogans work builds on tools developed as part of a large multi-year multi-disciplinary project led by nsspi and funded by the dhss domestic nuclear detection office called the smuggled heu interdiction through enhanced analysis and detection (shield) as part of this project researchers from nsspi and the texas a&m university department of industrial and systems engineering developed an integrated systems analysis model and created a code to analyze the strategic problem of nuclear material smuggling coogan used this software to perform a comparative analysis of two networks: one that deploys more radiation detection portal monitors and another using mobile detection systems according to coogan the results point to using more mobile detection systems what we found is that were better served investing in mobile detection while a static system may be effective against opportunists its not very effective against the type of adversary which is going to engage in nuclear terrorism while his study did not examine the cost associated with the different systems coogans research suggests that mobile detection systems have a significantly higher payoff in terms of their ability to successfully detect a simulated adversary coogan earned a bachelor of science degree in physics from michigan state university and a bachelors degree in liberal arts from drew university he worked with his advisor dr craig marianno deputy director of nsspi and assistant professor of nuclear engineering on this project and he successfully defended his thesis on oct 3 he will be earning his masters degree in nuclear engineering in spring 2019 after graduation he aspires to work in government to better inform the public and decision makers about nuclear technology
2804,four undergraduate students in the departments of electrical and computer engineering and computer science and engineering at texas a&m university placed third in the national embedded security challenge which was part of the international cyber security awareness worldwide (csaw) competitionfor the challenge several teams were tasked with showing device vulnerabilities this year's competition centered on the security implications of the wide deployment of internet of things devices which is the network of physical devices vehicles home appliances and other smart items and how to prevent future attacksthe aggie teams project demonstrated an attack on a bluetooth bulb they showed that they were able to hack it and modify the light color turn it on and off and transmit data which exposed just how vulnerable this type of embedded system is to hackers
2805,the texas a&m team comprised of students ryan vrecenar joshua zschiesche michael hall and mahesh naidu were advised by electrical and computer engineering professor of practice dr stavros kalafatis and assistant professor dr jeyavijayan rajendran eight other finalists competed in the challenge the competition held nov 8-11 at the new york university tandon school of engineering included teams from around the world this competition was a unique opportunity to learn and develop embedded hardware security vrecenar said seeing firsthand the security of an iot (internet of things) device its apis as well as a whole new scope of 'what happens after an exploit' to wrap [the] mind around how an adversary could use side channels available to them was an experience we hadn't gotten at this depth in all of my schooling by thinking on the data exfiltration problem domain we were able to shape defense techniques and explore complexity and covert trade-offs of possible attacks and think how an attacker or defender to a resource could think this was the second time the texas a&m team participated in this competition placing fourth last year and now moving up the ranksour students have shown a natural inclination toward the skills necessary to excel in cybersecurity rajendran said the seniors made great improvements since last year and invested in the future by mentoring their younger peers ahead of and during the competition in such a short period of time the team has set itself apart from others in the nation kalafatis saidthe embedded security challenge is the oldest hardware security competition in the world and is aimed at hacking into the hardware of embedded systems
2806,dr jun kameoka professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received a grant from the bill and melinda gates foundation for his work centered on the growing field of paper electronics and its application in the agriculture industryin order to better assess the conditions of the soil of surrounding areas of land kameoka and his collaborators have designed a paper-based sensor that will monitor physical biological and chemical soil conditions that are altered by plant diseases because the full crop yield is so valuable it is important to assess the conditions in various parts of the land to guarantee that each piece is thriving where one piece of land may be getting adequate moisture and is free of pests another may be suffering the paper sensor is buried in the soil with an antenna the unique paper is coated with silicon and is resistant to weather conditions due to its hydrophobic nature using conductive ink the paper can receive and transmit radio frequency signals to a quadcopter aircraft up above as it surveys the land currently the teams focus is to explore the applications within the agriculture industry and develop a low-cost crop surveillance system that can detect moisture heat and other weather variables that can complicate crop season
2807,according to kameoka the project is in its very beginning stages but has vast potential ultimately kameoka can see paper electronics used in other applications such as the internet of things which is the network of physical devices vehicles home appliances and other items embedded with sensors to connect collect and exchange datakameoka is working alongside fellow electrical and computer engineering professor dr kamran entesari; dr binayak mohanty regents professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering; and dr won-bo shim professor and associate department head for academics in the department of plant pathology and microbiologythis grant is provided by the gates foundation program called grand challenges explorations grand challenges is a family of initiatives fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems in 2007 the gates foundation launched grand challenges explorations to engage more of the worlds innovators more quickly twice each year grand challenges explorations invites high-risk high-reward proposals on a range of challenges
2808,andrea dumont 14 is a former student of texas a&m university who received her masters degree in water resources engineering dumont now works as a consulting water resources engineer and in addition to her day job runs a personal blog called the watermark where she writes about all things engineering we sat down with dumont to find out what its like to be a water resource engineer by day and work as an engineering social influencer by night 1 what do you do on a day to day basis as a part of your job i work as a consulting engineer which means i solve all sorts of water problems for different communities companies and people i consider myself a water engineer because my projects involve groundwater hydraulics pumping systems and dams i might start the day using arcgis or writing my ideas into a report but by the end of the day i've stepped into meetings or driven out to see a construction site or a client it's extremely mobile and flexible because of the project-based nature of consulting plus i'm a huge advocate for practical engineering which means engineers who step out of their offices and into the field or the shop floor that's where we learn from our designs and better optimize the solutions we recommend as professional engineers 2 what would you recommend for students who are interested in the kind of work that you do i recommend that students stretch themselves no matter what type of work they are interested in i've been reading lately about how the culture of engineering is changing we're evolving to be more digital-based and team-focused the static component is that we will always be engaging in lifelong learning and that you as a digital native have an advantage that you can teach to older generations in the workplace focus on learning skills which translate to a lot of different types of engineering projects such as matlab or financial skills if you are passionate about a particular discipline like water resources consider taking a few extra classes but don't be married to the idea that what you learn in the class is exactly what the day-to-day activities in the career will be 3 is there anything you wish you had known before you got into industry after school when i was considering engineering and even when i was an undergraduate student i had thought that the perfect engineering job was this corporate vision of wearing business casual pencil skirts and sitting in a cubicle working in cad and writing up my calculations i am so glad that real life engineering has so much more to it i'm constantly running to conference calls or to meet with clients hello movie-esque business woman life! that's the heartbeat of engineering: sharing perspectives to create something as a team that one person couldn't create on their own engineering is not a one-person activity so it's super important that we focus on our social development just as much as our technical development 4 is there anything you learned at texas a&m that you think helped set you apart in your career as a graduate student i didn't participate in as many of the traditions as the undergraduates what i didn't know then is that our biggest tradition that of community would have such a life-changing impact on me around the time i was living at home with my parents and job searching an aggie alumni reached out to dr gretchen miller and asked if she had any students interested in groundwater it was a perfect fit one that i would not have gotten without the connection it has also played a part in the social camaraderie at work when we talk about our alma maters during football season it's something that is ingrained in the education at texas a&m university that has given me an advantage in texas similarly when i am at engineering events around austin like professional society events i constantly see aggie rings and use them as conversation starters 5 what advice would you give to the upcoming generation of young engineers there's a lot of social rhetoric about loving your job and loving what you do i know personally because i add to this narrative and i'm a huge advocate of encouraging engineers to find a niche which matches their values remember that some of it is a curated view and that even if it stems from a deep work satisfaction there are difficult days and difficult personalities don't be too hard on yourself if you aren't loving your job every single second or if you temporarily can't see the path to your dream position however you should spend enough time reflecting on your career goals and your happiness to understand when it's time to shift gears into a new role or new project be the steward of your own engineering career path but also be realistic you will absolutely be surprised in five years or 10 years when you find yourself in a new engineering culture doing something that you never imagined was even a possibility it might be technical or it might not that's the beauty of engineering - andrea dumont ‘ 14 for more information on what dumont does as a water resource engineer and other aspects of engineering visit her blog at http://andromedadumontcom/ interested in studying water resource engineering at texas a&m check out information on our water resources specialty track
2809,when it comes to walking with a transfemoral prosthetic its a lot harder than it looks traditional transfemoral (above the knee) prosthetics are passive or semiactive meaning they are made up of a single metal rod that is able to bend a little bit but does not give the wearer a full range of motion or the ability to change their walking pattern without either of those features walking can become a tedious job when it comes to dealing with various terrains going downhill or walking up and down a set of stairs to help make daily life easier for amputee patients dr pilwon hur assistant professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has developed a robotic transfemoral prosthesis hur became interested in the topic of rehabilitation robotics when he was studying biomechanics and neuromechanics for his phd with a degree in mechanical engineering and a personal interest in mechatronics (a hybrid of mechanical electrical and computer engineering) and robotics he already had an extensive knowledge in the technical side of the issue however it was not until he was in the midst of completing his dissertation that he was inspired to take his research a step further i was trying to understand how humans move and why we move this way and how i could use this information to help people who are disabled said hur since i was interested in walking and balance i figured i should work in that area for rehabilitation so when i was doing my post doctorate i mostly worked with stroke patients and learned a lot about rehabilitation robotics at that time
2810,his design is focused on addressing the weight of the prosthesis because one of the main reasons many amputee patients dislike robotic prosthetics is because they are too heavy to maintain any sort of natural movement his design uses series elastic actuators which is a spring that can be added to the motor of a robotic device used to control force and increase shock tolerance and compliance with the surrounding environment it is an existing technology but hur took a different perspective to use a rotary spring that will help reduce the devices weight as well as control the system more effectively making it easier for the wearer to handle and walk were optimizing the design of the structure so that we can minimize the weight and so that we can cut off some parts which based on our analysis are not necessary so that we can make it lighter said hur we can lower the specs of the motor allowing us to use a much lighter motor to achieve the same goal the spring saves energy and that energy can be used to control the system so the use of battery power is minimized in addition to the device as a whole hur is working to develop a new design for the foot one that will replicate the rolling behavior of the foot joints and allow the foot to bend like a regular one it will help give patients a more natural feel he is in the process of conducting tests in the lab to see if this tool will enhance the bioperformance of the prosthesis hur is currently searching for a commercial partner to license this technology manufacture it conduct the necessary testing and get it to the market for consumers the texas a&m engineering experiment stations commercialization and entrepreneurship office is ready to offer licensing terms for the intellectual property corresponding to the technology while the market for the device may not be huge hur believes that it will help amputees navigate their world without being weighed down by a prosthetic what i hope to achieve with this technology is for amputee patients to walk without any worry or hesitation and just live their lives without any difficulties said hur
2811,through the immersive hands-on experience of working in a unit operations lab texas a&m university undergraduate students in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering get a taste of the real world combining the freedom of experimentation with the mentorship of exceptional instructors students develop the leadership and technical skills necessary for success in their future careers in order to support this integral development kim tompkins mcdivitt 88 and phillip phil mcdivitt 87 have given a generous endowment to the chemical engineering unit operations lab their gift made through the texas a&m foundation will be used to support the expansion and maintenance of unit operations labs and resources kim and i are happy to have the opportunity to do a small part to enhance the educational experience of future chemical engineers the unit operations lab is a foundational element in the development of fundamental chemical engineering skills the opportunity to work with and build relationships with other students and the growth of problem solving abilities all of these are core elements for success post-graduation said phil for more than 27 years after graduation phil worked in a variety of positions at celanese corporation in 2015 he moved to ascend performance materials where he became the president and ceo in 2017 both of my parents grew up on farms and so hard work was really really important phil said and then if you go to chemical engineering its really about again hard work and not taking shortcuts and really learning how to solve problems learn more about the mcdivitts and their journey in their why i give video produced by the texas a&m foundation
2812,on jan 23-24 the student engineers council (sec) at texas a&m university held their spring 2019 engineering career fair at reed arena the event attracted approximately 5 700 students seeking internships and jobs from the 394 participating companies making it the largest spring semester fair the sec has hosted to date the fair is a premier recruiting event that is planned organized and staffed by students making it the largest student-run career fairs in the nation in addition to many aggie-owned companies in attendance students had the opportunity to meet and speak with recruiters from many fortune 500 companies such as valero oracle intel raytheon usaa l3 technologies american express and more i think the biggest impact the fair has is preparing students for the future said reed hampton president of the sec a lot of them come in and they havent had a lot of experience dealing with recruiters and staff in an industry setting which is a skill that is going to be vital for them in their upcoming years at school and in their professional careers the sec and the career fair are a great introduction to the rest of their life its a doorway to the future the day before the fair the sec hosted two events a welcome social and the company showcase at the welcome social students had the opportunity to interact with company recruiters in a relaxed professional setting the company showcase is an informational style event where students learned about how to better understand companies recruiting practices and the typical positions that are filled by engineering students through brief presentations given by the participating companies
2813,dr matthew yarnold an assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university received the 2019 american institute of steel construction (aisc) early career faculty award the award honors individuals who demonstrate promise in the areas of structural steel research and teaching and other contributions to the structural steel industry the award will be presented to him in april i appreciate receiving the aisc award and look forward to furthering steel teaching and research in my career said yarnold he is also an assistant research scientist at the texas a&m transportation institute yarnolds research interests include structural steel behavior bridge engineering the experimental assessment of structural systems novel techniques for structural health monitoring and engineering education he has extensive experience with the experimental testing of structural systems and has led research projects for the national science foundation state departments of transportation and private engineering firms he is an active member of several national committees through the american society of civil engineers and the transportation research board yarnold has roughly 15 years of structural engineering research and design experience he began his career at lehigh university where he received his bachelor of science and master of science degrees following graduation he accepted a position with the engineering firm ammann & whitney where he contributed to more than 15 bridge design and rehabilitation projects while also obtaining his professional engineering license after a successful career as a consultant he returned to academia and completed his phd at drexel university he joined the zachry department of civil engineering in 2017
2814,between media and international pressure to reduce controversial cost overruns and production delays lockheed martin partnered with a team from texas a&m university to analyze and streamline the companys final assembly process for f-35 fighter jets global security and aerospace company lockheed martin is a leader in engineering innovation from cutting-edge military aircrafts such as the f-35 lightning ii fighter jet to advanced spacecraft systems their influence can be seen throughout the world and beyond unfortunately when their inventions cause expenses to soar their troubles are also broadcast around the globe in order to help resolve some of these troubles researchers from the department of industrial and systems engineering investigated how lockheed martin could increase their production rate from assembling one plane every six days to one plane every day and a half the team consisted of dr lewis ntaimo professor and marilyn and l david black faculty fellow and a trio of students dr amarnath andy banerjee professor and corrie and jim furber '64 faculty fellow led the project
2815,innovations in the air with production partners and customers in more than 10 countries around the world the f-35 joint strike fighter program relies on a global network of manufacturers to create each aircraft lockheed martin is responsible for the final assembly of three variations of f-35 military aircrafts these versions designated as types a b and c are nearly indistinguishable from one another on looks alone along with internal components the main differentiating feature of each is their landing and takeoff capabilities type a the most common and basic version of the f-35 is designed to operate on conventional runways in contrast type b requires a shorter takeoff and landing distance finally type c is crafted explicitly for aircraft carriers and is able to take off and land vertically due to a rotatable engine
2816,as banerjee described the assembly is not only dependent upon the delivery of necessary materials and manufactured pieces from company partners but also must adhere to each countrys specifications and codes and specified production steps this in addition to each category of f-35 needing to be configured differently to achieve their distinctive landing and takeoff functions means that parts cannot simply be switched out if a shipment is delayed such factors added to late delivery dates and drove up costs increasing criticism and controversy
2817,simulating solutions with pressures rising to reduce production setbacks and widespread negative media coverage on cost overruns the texas a&m team searched for solutions using a statistical distribution-based simulation model of the assembly process it was an interesting experience to take the things we do as industrial engineers like developing simulation models analyzing data and doing future projections and then getting to see how our result directly compares with whats actually happening in the production facility said banerjee using their model which has been given to lockheed martin as an ongoing resource the researchers ran what-if analyses that detailed how potential changes such as adding workers combining tasks or modifying task precedencies might affect production time the what-if scenarios were further bolstered by elaborate scripts written in r a statistical analysis freeware banerjee explained that the model and r together estimated the likelihood of a task to be behind or on schedule and produced an interactive visual that allows the company to infer the cause of task-related setbacks this new insight was used to predict how prospective changes will positively and negatively impact the assembly process and create a list of suggested steps to gradually and smoothly increase production rate in doing so the team not only helped solve the problems that lockheed martin faces in the present but also set them up for a more efficient and cost-effective future
2818,dr ali ghrayeb a professor in the electrical and computer engineering program at texas a&m university at qatar has been elevated to fellow grade of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) ieee fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized as a prestigious honor and a distinctive career achievement ghrayeb was recognized for contributions to modulation design and implementation of multiple antenna wireless systems he has made significant contributions to the advancement of modulation design and implementation of multiple antenna wireless communications systems known as multiple-input multiple-output or mimo mimo is considered one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of wireless communications revolutionizing the telecom industry and penetrating almost all wireless standards ghrayebs contributions in modulation design for mimo systems are being considered for inclusion in future wireless standards especially 5g li-fi and the internet of things for example orange france has built a testbed and demonstrated the efficacy of his schemes for 5g samsung and china mobile research institute have also successfully conducted a 5g prototype trial employing ghrayebs modulation schemes his contributions on low-complexity mimo systems has made its way to a number of wireless standards including the ieee 80211 standard (transmit antenna selection) it is an option for the cisco airnet wireless lan system and has been included in the lte standard (base-station antenna selection) for various deployment options lastly his work on low-complexity decoding has been implemented by a number of leading companies in the storage industry including ibm seagate and link-a-media ghrayeb earned a phd in electrical and computer engineering from the university of arizona he joined the texas a&m at qatar faculty in 2012 he was previously a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at concordia university in canada he was the executive chair of the 2016 ieee wcnc conference held in doha qatar he has served on executive committees of many ieee conferences and also on the editorial boards of several ieee journals including the ieee transactions on wireless communications and ieee transactions on communications
2819,nasa has challenged teams of students to develop heads-up interactive displays to be utilized by astronauts during space walks a team of students from texas a&m university is one of 16 chosen to participate in the spacesuit user interface technologies for students (suits) 2019 challenge the objective of the suits competition is to develop a user interface utilizing the microsoft hololens for augmented reality (ar) that would enable astronauts to finish a task more efficiently by providing a set of instructions via the display environment the team has until april to develop a system and then present their prototypes to a group of testers at johnson space center in houston typically astronauts follow written procedures when performing tasks on a mission even those that have been done frequently to ensure that every step is executed correctly and nothing is missed for complex tasks during an extra-vehicular activity (eva)/spacewalk the crew cant carry laptops paper or anything physical to follow detailed written procedures on their own they rely solely on voice guidance from mission control or an intravehicular (iva) crewmember using a helmet-based interactive display guiding information can be projected on the astronauts helmet visor within his or her field of view freeing up dependence on voice-guided commands since the student teams dont have direct access to the actual space environment for research and development virtual reality will be used to emulate space conditions and test the ar algorithms in a simulation the faculty advisors for the team are well versed in space dr greg chamitoff professor of practice in aerospace engineering is a former shuttle and international space station astronaut who served 198 days in space visually guided actions would be much more efficient than the way we have operated in space for the past 60 years he says it would provide better situational awareness improved clarity of desired actions and reduced likelihood of errors dr ana diaz artiles is an assistant professor in aerospace engineering with interests focusing on human spaceflight and space system engineering with strong emphasis on extravehicular activity and human performance in altered gravity environments having additional support from ar technology can be very helpful providing additional information on a specific tool or piece of equipment including how to use it and the next steps in the operational procedure she says included in the requirements for the challenge all eva task instructions should be displayed the astronaut should be able to communicate with the iva astronaut or ground control at any time and all hand gestures must be operable with eva-gloved hands
2820,team members include doctoral student neil mchenry and undergraduate students brock balthazor leah davis ashu mishra israel gomez iii and tylor herndon
2821,dr john valasek professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and director of the vehicle systems & control laboratory has been elected the chair of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) intelligent systems technical committee (istc) the istc addresses the application of intelligent system (is) technologies and methods to aerospace systems the verification and validation of these systems and the education of the aiaa membership in the use of is technologies in aerospace and other technical disciplines the systems of interest include both military and commercial aerospace systems and those ground systems that are part of test development or operations of aerospace systems these include but are not limited to autonomous and expert systems discrete planning/scheduling algorithms intelligent data/image processing learning and adaptive techniques data fusion and reasoning and knowledge engineering valasek is a fellow of the aiaa and senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers he is a thaman professor of undergraduate teaching excellence and member of the honors faculty he has been actively conducting flight mechanics and controls research of manned and unmanned air systems (uas) in both industry and academia for 33 years he was previously a flight control engineer for the northrop corporation aircraft division where he worked in the flight controls research group and on the agm-137 tri-services standoff attack missile program valasek was the founding director of the multi-engineering department center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems where he organized and led funding efforts in underwater ground air and space autonomous systems his research is currently focused on bridging the gap between traditional computer science topics and aerospace engineering topics and has been funded by the air force office of scientific research the air force research laboratory the office of naval research the national science foundation the national aeronautics and space administration the federal aviation administration and industry he is a co-patent holder (2006) and leading developer of flight control systems for autonomous air refueling of unmanned air vehicles and a co-patent holder for the design of a novel uas (2018) valasek is currently a member of the aiaa unmanned systems technical program committee and the aiaa istc he is a former member and chair of the aiaa atmospheric flight mechanics technical committee as well as the aiaa guidance navigation and control technical committee and the aiaa general aviation technical committee he is currently an associate editor of the journal of guidance control and dynamics he earned a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering from california state polytechnic university pomona in 1986 and a masters degree with honors and doctoral degree in aerospace engineering from the university of kansas in 1990 and 1995 respectively
2822,from fitbits to mobile meditation apps personal health has taken technology by storm while many programs use inputs such as heart rate or calorie intake to track the condition of a user a persons voice can speak volumes about their well-being utilizing the insightful nature of speech and vocal patterns dr theodora chaspari is working to develop a digital program that monitors and tracks a users emotional state while keeping their identity completely anonymous her research has the potential to transform everyday devices into valuable assets for psychological healthcare and future research chaspari is an assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university her project is funded by a 2019 pesca grant provided by the universitys division of research similar to the way a fitbit records activity to track a persons physical fitness many voice-compatible accessories such as cellphones and amazons echo are able to record speech to track and monitor emotional wellness this is done through the use of coded acoustic markers that decipher and translate vocal patterns allowing digital devices to draw conclusions about the mood of a speaker while voice-compatible and voice-activated technology is both prominent and convenient it also runs the risk of privacy invasion as chaspari explained everyones voice contains unique attributes including timber and pitch that reveal such things as age and gender this information can then be used to identify a speaker which is especially concerning when personal health information is involved what we want to do is make ordinary devices be able to understand emotion while erasing any information related to the identity of the speaker said chaspari so we are transforming the speech signal and deriving measures that are emotion-dependent behavior-dependent but not identity-dependent by removing the link between voice and speaker to provide anonymity to users chasparis emotion monitoring program will be a vital stepping stone in the development of emotional healthcare and research in a digital world whether a tool to help psychiatrists track grief or a means for parents to keep an eye on the emotional development of their child the voice has a lot to say about the future of personal well-being there have been a lot of studies about how tracking the speech and vocal patterns of people with depression can help understand its progression and recognize problematic episodes said chaspari now that we have technology that can comprehend and record data from people's lives the possibilities are endless
2823,jamita barnett-machen has established the j barnett 94 scholarship to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in computer science and engineering from texas a&m university i saw an opportunity to give back to the university while fostering an inclusive environment for minority students by providing them with a scholarship barnett-machen said barnett-machen stays involved with the university through the association of former students which aided in her decision to fund an endowment the outreach to students at texas a&m is unmatched and the professors in the computer science department are great barnett-machen said both of these factors and my continued involvement with the association played a role in my decision
2824,carmen and mitchell mitch hovendick 79 have established the carmen and mitchell mitch hovendick 79 endowed scholarship to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m university prior to joining encap in 1997 hovendick spent 15 years as a petroleum engineer with phillips petroleum company where he worked primarily as a reservoir engineer in almost all major basins of the us he is a registered professional petroleum engineer and a member of the society of petroleum engineers houston producers forum and independent petroleum association of america hovendick received his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m in 1997 and his masters degree in business administration in finance from rice university
2825,to improve the viability of vaccines as well as improve treatment in humans and pets texas a&m university biomedical engineering doctoral student shreedevi arun kumar and junior daniel prasca have helped develop a bubble that can hold vaccines and additional medicines in a protective sphere we wanted to think about all these different challenges and combine them into one solution and thats a drug delivery form that can help protect the vaccine arun kumar said the drug is inside a bubble which protects it from the elements the students researched the bubbles as part of their work in a lab run by dr corey bishop assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering medication is injected into the center of the bubble developed out of a polymer used in many applications approved by the us food and drug administration each bubble is given a timestamp that allows physicians to schedule when the medication is activated whether it happens right after it is applied or on a time delay additionally if a release needs to be sped up within a patient it can be targeted with a laser outside the body to activate the medication the bubble can withstand temperatures slightly above room temperature the bubbles can also keep the medication from expiring too fast while the united states has generators and monitors to ensure the effectiveness of vaccines and keep them transported and incubated third world countries dont have these measures in these countries vaccine transport is very costly because there are extreme climate regions in these deserts where you have to keep them stored at specific conditions to keep them viable arun kumar said
2826,the bubbles can be used in a variety of other ways and for more than just vaccines the research is also applicable for cancer treatments which was arun kumars main interest when she joined bishops lab these drugs for chemotherapy can be toxic because it has to be in the body longer until it reaches the target area but we can optimize the amount of those drugs in these bubbles arun kumar said we can deliver different drugs at different times which is proven to be more effective
2827,"prasca said he was interested in pursuing biomedical engineering because he's interested in learning about the human body and health as well as working with small materials such as cells and nanomedicine ""biomedical engineering can help me connect those two "" prasca said to further develop the product both participated in the 2018 nsf i-corps site fellowship program arun kumar said the program walked them through basic business skills and taught them how to conduct market research which led to other applications of their project the core behind the program is to develop technologies – a lot of these technologies are developed but people dont see the bigger picture until theyre done developing the product arun kumar said during the six-week program the students interviewed 30 people from the biomedical engineering industry to better understand the challenges they face with vaccines ""we come from an engineering background so we dont have much of a business or entrepreneurship background "" prasca said ""this program allowed us to see if there actually is need that were filling we learned about which groups were actually trying to target and also discovered other groups that we werent aware of that we could possibly impact"" arun kumar said she learned how veterinarians could use the invention to keep vaccines for outdoor animals viable until owners can bring them in in pediatrics doctors can put multiple vaccines in this bubble so children receive fewer shots and time delay the vaccines through my interviews i found out veterinarians and pediatricians would benefit from this technology more than i would have ever thought arun kumar said (the program) pushed me to go out there and ask questions i didnt even think they would agree to meet with me and talk with me but i spoke with a lot of people across the country arun kumar said the next step is to optimize the size of the bubbles for clinical use conduct more studies and continue with customer interviews her long-term goal is to apply this technology in a clinical setting"
2828,in a world driven by digitalization more and more researchers are relying on computer simulations to recreate and expand upon physical experiments whether an investigation is too dangerous to conduct in person such as detonating explosive materials or depends on a natural event to occurlike a hurricanesimulations offer a quick and cost-effective alternative to traditional studies since 2009 dr rui tuo assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has worked to enhance the accuracy of computer simulations by developing a new theoretical framework for computer calibration digitally generated data acts as a modern foundation for advancing disaster safety material handling component construction and much more however for research based on computer modeling to produce long-lasting and effective results the data output must be as exact as possible
2829,in computer modeling we always have some parameters that we don't know the true value of said tuo the task of calibration is to identify the values of those parameters so that we can predict the physical output accurately these unknown values are known as calibration parameters by identifying calibration parameters and the discrepancy between the computer and physical responses researchers can predict and virtually develop the outcomes of experiments to draw conclusions and share their findings a multitude of computer codes can be used to approximate calibration parameters each offering a different view on a single subject researchers choose which code will give them the cleanest and most relevant estimation of the unknown values through a process called calibration as tuo explained while the current method of calibration and data estimation is widely accepted the theoretical basis is not well understood and it poses a long-debated identifiability issue nowadays computer simulations are very popular and almost every simulation study involves calibration so this is a very fundamental issue said tuo in order to solve this tuo partnered with dr jeff wu coca-cola chair in engineering statistics and professor at the georgia institute of technology to propose a new foundation for calibration in computerized experiments their work was published in the joint society for industrial and applied mathematics/american statistical association journal on uncertainty quantification in a paper titled a theoretical framework for calibration in computer models: parametrization estimation and convergence properties by critiquing the issues of past methods and creating a fresh accurate framework for calibration tuo and wu are making computer experiments a more viable and comprehensive method of research through their calibration framework computer simulations will be able to produce data sets that are more reliable and relatable to future interdisciplinary studies while continuing to reduce the monetary and time expenses associated with experimentation this will allow more accurate and understandable calibration parameters to be identified and used through their ongoing work tuo and wu are bridging the gap between digital and physical in doing so they are setting the stage for more effective and efficient simulations and advancing the world of computer research
2830,foam is widely used as a means of protection against impact shock and vibration while the current methods for designing foam rely upon uniform pore distribution nature offers a largely unexplored idea for innovation in impact and collision safety drawing inspiration from the peel of a pomelo fruit dr daniel mcadams and his team recently became the first to successfully develop a 3d model and simulation of a nonuniform foam material this cross between science and nature and the introduction of irregular porosity into future foam design has the potential to greatly increase impact resistance mcadams serves as the robert h fletcher professor and associate department head of research and strategic initiatives in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university his team included doctoral student guanglu zhang and former graduate student jonel ortiz largest of the citrus fruits the pomelo originated in south and southeast asia while its size alone is impressive ranging from the size of a cantaloupe to a small watermelon mcadams team discovered that there is more to this fruit than meets the eye we noticed that a pomelo is able to fall from a height of more than 10 meters without cracking or sustaining inner damage because its peel has outstanding impact damping and energy dissipating capabilities said zhang this extraordinary collision resistance stems from the gradient and mix of pore sizes that make up the pomelo peel fine and dense near the surface the pores enlarge and open up the closer they get to the flesh of the fruit; then nestled against the pulp they take on an elongated shape and become finer once more to utilize this nonuniform porosity mcadams team developed a 3d model of a pomelo peel bioinspired foam using voronoi tessellation and finite element modeling by running virtual case studies with a mathematical-based simulation method called finite element analysis the team tested how the proposed foam design might perform in compression and free-fall scenarios according to the team their concept demonstrated both superior impact resistance and impact-dampening potential compared to current foam design in addition to providing industry designers a vital development tool zhang explained that the teams modeling will also help lower manufacturing costs by setting up a simulation and allowing designers to digitally test various parameter alterations (such as pore size) the researchers model helps cut down on the number of physical prototypes that are needed prior to manufacturing this along with the reduced weight of their foam makes the production process more streamlined cost-effective and efficient using our model designers can optimize the foam structure to produce a foam material with better damping and energy dissipating properties said zhang so to achieve the same impact resistance capabilities for an application like packing designers can use less of our optimized foam material to attain the same level of protection as the current foam with potential applications ranging from commercial packaging to vehicle collision safety this research offers engineers and designers a solid foundation on which to build the future of protection the researchers findings were published in the american society of mechanical engineers journal of mechanical design in a paper titled a model for the design of a pomelo peel bioinspired foam
2831,lei xu a doctoral student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won the lockheed martin best student paper competition award at the 2019 american institute of aeronautics and astronautics science and technology forum and exposition (aiaa scitech) held jan 7-11 in san diego california xus technical paper is titled a three-dimensional constitutive model for shape memory alloys considering two-way shape memory effect and transformation-induced plasticity he is working with aerospace professor dr dimitris lagoudas and the shape memory alloy research team and center for intelligent materials and structures xus doctoral study is focused mainly on proposing new computational models with the capability to predict the cyclic response of shape memory alloy (sma)-based actuators the proposed computational model in his technical paper will be ultimately utilized as an efficient tool for the design and analysis of sma-based actuators such as sma beams and torque tubes which are intended for the realization of the future commercial supersonic transport aircraft with morphing capabilities to reduce the sonic boom noise this work is funded by nasa under the university initiative leadership program from its creation in 1963 the aiaa scitech forum has served the aerospace profession as part of its core mission spanning over 70 technical discipline areas the conference provides scientists engineers and technologists the opportunity to present and disseminate their work in structured technical paper and poster sessions learn about new technologies and advances from other presenters further their professional development and expand their professional networks
2832,motivated to provide powerful machine-learning tools to the general public dr xia (ben) hus team at texas a&m university is enabling those with limited background knowledge in machine learning to utilize such tools more easily the teams solution autokeras an open-source software library for automated machine learning an open-source software library like this is beneficial because it allows the general public to easily get access to powerful though complicated deep models autokeras and other automated machine learning tools can be applied to a variety of industries including healthcare autonomous driving and manufacturing the most intriguing part of the work is to let the machine automatically do the difficult work that non-experts cannot do and the dirty work that experts do not want to do said hu assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering in the context of deep learning neural architecture search (nas) aims to search for the best neural network architecture for the given learning task and dataset hu and his team of graduate students pursued the project from start to finish they began by designing the algorithm all the way to the end by fully developing the software
2833,the ultimate goal for this project is to propose advanced neural architecture search algorithms and provide an open source software library for automatically searching diverse deep neural network and hyperparameters in different applications under various learning contexts said hu which could achieve comparable or even better performance compared to human designated neural networks the team is comprised of hu principal investigator; team leaders haifeng jin and qingquan song; software developers zonglin yang boyuan gong thuniki yashwanth reddy satya kesav gundabathula cheng cheng and praveen kumar venugopal funded by the defense advanced research projects agency the team has worked for more than two years on developing autokeras they are now in the final stage of testing but those interested can download a pre-released as-is version at their website autokerascom since its pre-release this software has received more than 4 000 stars on github becoming the top rated open-source automated machine learning package their work has been featured in numerous articles in publications around the world including towards data science analytics india magazine and medium among others along with other projects mainly from internet giants such as google and facebook this work has been listed as one of the key breakthroughs of ai (artificial intelligence) in 2018 and ml (machine learning) trends for 2019 by analytics vidhya the successful outcome of this project will lead to advances in automated machine learning especially neural architecture search and enable the researchers and practitioners without a background in data science to create machine learning especially deep learning models for facilitating their research and applications hu said
2834,dr marvin adams has received one of only seven regents fellow service awards for his service and dedication to the texas a&m university system the state of texas and the nation the designation of regents fellow is a prestigious award from the a&m system to highlight exemplary agency professionals adams is a professor of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university the associate director of the institute for national security and cybersecurity education and research deputy director of the center for exascale radiation transport and holder of the heat transfer research inc endowed professorship i am humbled to receive this honor and proud to be part of an institution that places such a high value on service said adams adams joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1992 and has provided exemplary teaching research and service since that time adams engages in service activities at levels ranging from local to international these include service to his department the a&m system his professional society the us national-security enterprise and his research community an overarching theme of his career is a commitment to national service particularly on matters pertaining to national and international security adamss technical expertise in national-security areas has been developed over decades since 2000 he has been a consultant for multiple national laboratories and has served on numerous national laboratory advisory panels and review committees decision-makers in the district of columbia and elsewhere often ask adams for assessments and explanations concerning technical matters related to national security
2835,adams has excelled at teaching during more than 26 years at texas a&m this has been recognized through several teaching awards with the first bestowed in 1995 and the most recent being given in 2017 his teaching awards include the 2010 distinguished service award for teaching from the texas a&m association of former students this award is particularly meaningful to adams because the nomination was made by students he has supervised 24 doctoral and 19 masters students adams was instrumental in the recent texas a&m effort to secure the contract to manage the los alamos national laboratory (lanl) the texas a&m system university of california and the battelle memorial institute united by their shared commitment to national service formed triad national security llc which was awarded the lanl contract in june 2018 the triad team assumed management of lanl on nov 1 the laboratory is one of the largest science and technology institutes in the world and it conducts multidisciplinary research in fields such as national security space exploration renewable energy medicine nanotechnology and supercomputing the texas a&m system board of regents established the regents fellow service award program in 1998 the purpose of this award is to recognize and honor service extension and research professionals who have provided exemplary professional service to society that has created large and lasting benefits to texas and beyond texas a&m system chancellor john sharp said the new regents professors and regents fellows have proven their commitment to the a&m systems success these exceptional individuals represent the best of our great system and higher education in texas sharp said they are true assets adams received his undergraduate degree in nuclear engineering from mississippi state university and his master of science and phd in nuclear engineering from the university of michigan
2836,texas a&m universitys online graduate engineering program was again ranked first in the state of texas according to the 2019 rankings released jan 15 by us news & world report best online graduate engineering programs the program was ranked no 7 in the us overall up one spot from last year the college of engineering is among the oldest colleges at texas a&m and this ranking speaks to our great tradition of excellence in teaching and student engagement said dr sunay palsole assistant vice chancellor for remote education as one of the land-grant institutions in the great state of texas we take pride in exploring and using multiple modalities to meet the educational needs of the state the rankings include public and private colleges and universities with degree-granting programs offering online classes needed to complete the degree programs are rated on graduate indebtedness course delivery and academic and career support made available to students remotely the college of engineerings online graduate program currently offers 10 online masters degree options with more planned for the future
2837,in a blog posted on the open forum for semiconductor professionals alex tan writes on the verification importance in academia the forum contains an interview about the matter with dr michael quinn associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university tan referenced the hack@dac competition that was held in san francisco last june to explain how competitors identify security vulnerabilities the winning teams submissions were then evaluated by real-time industry experts hackin aggies a texas a&m competition team tied for first place with another university team from the verification standpoint the biggest area getting looked at is associated with security said quinn according to quinn texas a&m is now home to a new and growing program that specializes in security design architecture and verification quinn believes the school program should gear students towards proficiency in software and hardware development and more hands-on applications tan writes that since in 2016 the program has contributed to the introduction of more than 100 verification engineers into the computer science and engineering industry from texas a&m at dac 2018 the texas a&m team had demonstrated a slice of the fruitful outcomes from the eda (european defense agency) industry collaboration with academia wrote tan
2838,the learning curve of a computer is similar to the brain of a student like reading and sorting through lecture notes to better understand the topics covered in a class computers use machine learning to decipher categorize and respond to information machine learning a branch of artificial intelligence explores the ability of computer systems to learn from data identify patterns and make decisions without much need for human interaction and guidance to optimize this learning process dr shahin shahrampour assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university partnered with dr vahid tarokh professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at duke university to revamp the fundamental pattern analysis algorithms called kernel methods kernel methods are used for pattern recognition in machine learning to make them more adept and applicable to the constantly changing world of technology
2839,while kernel methods are sufficient when dealing with small to moderate datasets shahrampour explained that they are not scalable to a large enough degree to be effectively applied to more advanced systems the boost in core efficiency that shahrampours and tarokhs updated algorithms propose will enhance the cornerstone kernel methods that program and train computer systems to recognize patterns and apply them to future variables this will help machine learning keep up with the rapid innovations in computer technology even though there has been a lot of advancements in hardware technology that allow computers to process data faster and faster it's always good to have methods that are computationally efficient said shahrampour shahrampour further explained that having a better understanding of kernel methods may also help overcome the limitations that hinder the expansion and integration of machine learning into deep learning research heavily reliant upon efficient and accurate machine learning the ultimate goal of deep learning is to emulate the human mind through a neural network of computational models and codes in order to anticipate activity behavior and trends deep learning has been tremendously successful in many applications such as natural language processing and image pattern recognition many researchers in academia and companies like google and microsoft have been working on understanding the reason behind this success said shahrampour and i think there is a way to understand deep learning by going back and rethinking some of the classic results from kernel methods their research was published at the 2018 conference on neural information processing systems in montréal québec in a paper titled learning bounds for greedy approximation with explicit feature maps from multiple kernels
2840,kristin smith a graduate student in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university from orlando florida has spent her last two summers at los alamos national laboratory (lanl) modeling and simulating kilopower reactor using stirling technology (krusty) in los alamos new mexico ​krusty is a small lightweight fission power system capable of providing up to 10 kilowatts of electrical power enough to run several average households continuously for at least 10 years four kilopower units would provide enough power to establish an outpost krusty could also power a deep space probe
2841,a space nuclear reactor could provide a high-energy density power source with the ability to operate independent of solar energy or orientation and the ability to operate in extremely harsh environments such as the martian surface notes patrick mcclure project lead on the kilopower work at lanl the original designer dr david poston has worked on the concept of krusty for the last 40 years but most of the proof of concept work has happened in the last five years the kilopower project is an ongoing collaboration between nasa and the national nuclear security administration which encompasses multiple national laboratories i worked on an extremely detailed model of krusty and now im benchmarking that model said smith benchmarking means shes taking every single piece and calculating the uncertainties to make it more precise and find any errors her research will have a real impact on nuclear data the krusty project is significant because other energy technology such as solar panels wouldnt be efficient on mars or even the moon according to nasa on mars the suns power varies widely throughout the seasons and periodic dust storms can last for months on the moon the cold lunar night lingers for 14 days
2842,reaching criticality smiths most memorable experience was operating a machine and making it critical with the overall goal of testing the engines at the nevada national security site operating the controls is a blast said smith how many people can say they took an assembly to above critical theres also a lot of responsibility involved the neutron population graph will be flat then the line will skyrocket after reaching critical and the whole time im basically operating a joystick smith enjoyed the overall experience and recommends lanl to any aggie engineer theres so much more to lanl than nuclear security and deterrence said smith for example lanl researchers are also working on an hiv vaccine other perks of working at lanl include weekly volleyball games free food lots of sunshine and proximity to santa fe the lanl community is close-knit smith met her best friend there and her best friend met her husband there in addition many of the interns and engineers have a degree from texas a&m her interest in the national laboratory started with a nevada national security site tour during an american nuclear society conference
2843,student internships at national laboratories such as los alamos can provide tremendous benefits to both the students and the labs said dr marvin adams professor of nuclear engineering the associate director of the institute of national security and cybersecurity education and research deputy director of the center for exascale radiation transport and holder of the heat transfer research inc endowed professorship students can get a feel for the work environment at the lab and can learn a great deal of technical material both of which are valuable as they make career choices and advance in their disciplines internships give a laboratory the opportunity to expand its hiring pool and a chance to gain confidence particular students would be well suited to permanent positions when they graduate the internship taught smith how to be more independent she learned how to communicate a problem through email and has recently advanced to teaching younger students the ropes the internship also reaffirmed her career goals who doesnt want to build space reactors that work said smith its incredible only a handful of people in the world are able to do this she started her first classes at texas a&m this fall i chose (texas a&m) because of dr pavel tsvetkov said smith tsvetkov has already been an amazing help he keeps me on task his first question isn't ‘how is your research its ‘how are you smith is currently writing a 200-page research report for lanl and working on her doctoral degree in reactor physics and analysis with a focus on microreactors
2844,christie l bybee 81 and clinton w bybee 85 recently established the engineering entrepreneurship endowment to support the engineering entrepreneurship program in the college of engineering at texas a&m university through this program students are provided the opportunity to immerse themselves in high impact learning experiences and events these experiences develop students business and innovation skills while simultaneously preparing them for industry success from hosting aggies invent to courses on business basics the initiative plays a vital role in bridging engineering and entrepreneurship the college of engineering has been making progress on an entrepreneurship component for several years and it has taken off in a big way under the leadership of rodney boehm said clinton i was blown away with the potential for an engineering entrepreneurship program and the huge benefit it would be for students gifted through the texas a&m foundation their endowment will help current and future students gain the skills and knowledge needed to be leaders in the industry in my career ive had the opportunity to invest in entrepreneurial companies for over 30 years said clinton i know the power of bringing technology innovations to the market and the importance of having engineers equipped with the tools to get started down that road i want texas a&m to be a leader in this area
2845,one of the difficulties encountered when teaching science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) courses is trying to present three-dimensional concepts using two-dimensional classroom tools the maestro vr studio in the department of aerospace engineering has been funded by the texas a&m triads for transformation initiative to conduct research into how the stem classroom experience can be enhanced through the use of virtual reality (vr) the goal of the research is to bridge the gap between 3d stem concepts and traditional 2d teaching methods by developing a more intuitive teaching experience that empowers a variety of learning styles a fund of $30 000 over the next year will be committed toward the development of the required software tools necessary for the project the research will be conducted by a triad team consisting of dr darren hartl from the department of aerospace engineering dr raymundo arroyave from the department of materials science and engineering and dr christopher nowotarski from the department of atmospheric science the majority of the technical work will be performed by aerospace graduate student michayal mathew in presenting 3d concepts using 2d tools students have traditionally been forced to rely on their own ability to visualize higher dimensional concepts as hartl puts it three-dimensional vr visualization is now a commercially available and even affordable capability; its time to give our students better tools to immerse themselves in concepts of ever-increasing complexity the proposed experience revolves around educators communicating and interacting with students in the classroom using vr technology that will be live-streamed for student viewing using the developed applications students own smartphones and a low-cost vr headset the researchers will leverage the htc vive vr system for content creation and instructor delivery and google cardboard headsets for student consumption the system will empower a lecturer to take advantage of the 3d properties of stem-applied concepts while using the vive and allow for these lessons to be streamed to the low-cost google cardboards in real-time the primary short-term goal is the ability to present results generated by existing stem software tools in the classroom using vr technology educators would use the technology to lead lessons involving such concepts as solid mechanics material crystallography and meteorological storm structures elucidating their inherent 3d aspects while students use the google cardboards to view the interactive lessons in real time streams will be made accessible over the cloud for distance education use enabling students to view and collaborate over these streams from virtually anywhere thus removing the restriction of a classroom to a physical space
2846,the nations energy infrastructure has become a major target of cyberattacks over the past decade with more frequent and sophisticated attacks on the rise today a cyber incident has the potential to disrupt energy services damage highly specialized equipment and threaten human health and safety this makes energy cybersecurity a top national priority that will require the federal government and the energy sector to work together to reduce cyber risks that could trigger a large-scale or prolonged energy disruption
2847,to address this priority the us department of energy (doe) announced awards of up to $28 million to support the research development and demonstration of next-generation tools and technologies to improve the cybersecurity and resilience of the nation's critical energy infrastructure including the electric grid and oil and natural gas infrastructure among the 11 teams to receive an award is a team from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) led by dr kate davisdavis assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university leads the team with project members from pacific northwest national laboratory sandia national laboratory sekurity the university of illinois urbana-champaign and vistra energythe tees project is titled deep cyber-physical situational awareness for energy systems: a secure foundation for next-generation energy management the project team will develop a next-generation secure energy management system that can detect malicious and abnormal events through fusion of cyber and physical data and algorithms effective integrated analytics and visualizationthe grant is about re-envisioning the next generation energy management system that considers the power system together with cyber communications davis said the idea is to have a truly cyberphysical energy management system that provides visibility into the cyber side and analysis of the cyber side that is tightly coupled with the physical sideaccording to davis current energy management systems often are older technology that has been in place a long time which makes them very hard to upgrade and make changes to because the focus is on the physical processes that can increase security risksbecause they're so hard to change and because they're so complicated they tend to keep doing things the same way they've always done it which is sort of the conventional applications for managing power systems davis said there's a lot of old outdated protocols just like old technology still being used and it only considers the physical system so what we're doing would consider the cyber system and the physical system together which in our case is the power systemit's also going beyond that and thinking how do we design and build the system in such a way that were incorporating security by design davis said how do we get away from problems that existing energy management systems have and how do we get away from using old outdated protocols and make sure the information we get out of our systems is trustworthy and has high integritythe does office of electricity delivery and energy reliability has prepared the doe multiyear plan for energy sector cybersecurity to improve cybersecurity and the resilience of the nations energy system the plan aligns does distinct roles and programs with the efforts of government energy owners and operators and key energy stakeholders at all levelswith funding provided by the office of cybersecurity energy security and emergency responses cybersecurity for energy delivery systems division research partnerships such as this will create and make available innovative technologies that help prevent detect and mitigate cyberattacks davis said the overall impact of a more secure energy management system would benefit everyone from communications personnel to operators who can learn what types of risks they need to worry about to education and outreach for everyone to make the different groups more aware of issues shes excited to be able to do her partthis is a project thats the close to my heart davis said these problems are the things that keep me up all night so im thrilled to have the opportunity to have this kind of impact
2848,pioneer natural resources usa inc has provided a gift to support initiatives in texas a&m universitys college of engineering and mays business school the company is funding scholarships and fellowships in the engineering technology and industrial distribution mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering departments in the college of engineering in addition to contributions to fund a faculty award in petroleum engineering and to the student activities fund in engineering technology and industrial distribution pioneers gift to the mays business school will benefit the supply chain consortium and the center for the management of information pioneer natural resources company was formed through the 1997 merger of parker & parsley petroleum company and mesa inc built on the strategy of acquiring and exploiting proved properties these companies had established significant operated interests in quality long-lived fields pioneer has been a longtime supporter of texas a&m
2849,"dr j mike walker co-founder of dril-quip former texas a&m university student and namesake of the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering passed away on dec 26 at the age of 75 survived by his wife son two daughters six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren walker has left behind a legacy of generosity caring and extraordinary leadership i am deeply saddened by the untimely passing of dr walker said dr andreas polycarpou department head of the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering he was a brilliant engineer and entrepreneur whose commitment to mechanical engineering at texas a&m is unparalleled his extraordinary generosity will immeasurably benefit our students and faculty for generations to come i looked forward to getting to know mike and now our department looks forward to continuing to honor his legacy with his wife donna"" from his humble beginnings in a log cabin outside huntington texas and throughout his successful career walker was a devoted advocate of the value and importance of higher education due to the impact that his academic experiences had on his life walker united his alma maters texas a&m university and the university of texas at austin by gifting each mechanical engineering department $20 million in september 2018 my experiences at these two universities certainly helped me grow as an engineer walker said about his gift but they also taught me how to be a leader how to collaborate on big ideas persevere through tough challenges and bounce back from failure i want to make that same opportunity available to as many students as i can born in 1943 walker was valedictorian of his class at huntington high school upon receiving his bachelors degree from texas a&m and his masters degree from the university of texas at austin he began his career at exxon refining after working for four years he returned to texas a&m to acquire his phd walker returned to exxon as a subsea engineer in the offshore department of the exxon production research company while subsequently working for mcevoy and vetco offshore walker then went on to co-found dril-quip one of the worlds leading manufacturers of offshore drilling and production equipment when he retired from his role as chairman president and ceo in 2011 dril-quip had a market cap in excess of $4 billion and over 2 200 employees around the world his generous gift will enhance education at texas a&m for years to come by providing critical resources to researchers as they advance the future of engineering as well as supporting the leaders of tomorrow though fellowships grants and scholarships"
2850,smart devices are integrating into our workspaces and homes providing convenient features such as security cameras temperature control motor games and more smart devices often have cameras that transmit data to the cloud the cloud uses analytics to recognize different actions and sends data back to the device recently these smart cameras have come under public scrutiny for creating hacking opportunities that infiltrate the privacy of the home a balance must therefore be reached to protect the security of the user and maintain optimal performance of the devices functionality texas a&m university researcher zhangyang wang along with his two doctoral students zhenyu wu and haotao wang have partnered with adobe research scientists dr zhaowen wang and dr hailin jin to find new ways to protect user privacy from video-enabled in-home devices the collaboration with adobe began in september 2017 we must reach a balance that allows people to use cloud-based services without exposing personally identifiable information said zhangyang wang assistant professor in the computer science and engineering department
2851,texas a&m and adobe have developed new cutting-edge techniques to solve this problem their work builds on adversarial machine learning a research field that lies at the intersection of machine learning and cybersecurity traditional machine learning tries to preserve and extract information to maximize it zhaowen wang said our approach is different for example adversarial learning can help us minimize recognizing a persons identity while still seeing and understanding their actions the team formulated a unique adversarial training framework to improve privacy-preserving visual recognition adversarial machine learning has two models one model is trying to protect the information while the other model does the opposite trying to steal the information the models then learn from competing with each other and advance their techniques their adversarial training framework learns a smart filtering mechanism that can automatically convert a raw image to a privacy-preserving version the learned filter can be embedded in the camera front-end so that the image captured by the camera will have privacy information removed at the very beginning before any transmission storage or analytics experiments show that it cannot be hacked by other machine learning attacker models and only video contents free of privacy information can get past the scrutiny of the filter
2852,the filtering mechanism can also be used to secure privacy in human clinical trials human research topics currently pixelate faces to retain privacy but pixelating or downsampling is an oversimplified solution said zhangyang wang we all know someone we could recognize merely by their body shape clothing or body language not protecting an individuals data could lead to an unwanted security breach in these scenarios their filter presents a new crucial layer of protection as their models have undergone many empirical experiments designed specifically to test the hackability of the image transmission and interpretation a large-scale video dataset and benchmark study will be released soon verifying the results their research is further described in the teams 2018 european conference on computer vision (eccv) conference paper towards privacy-preserving visual recognition via adversarial training: a pilot study the researchers look forward to the software being accessible as an update that users can download built into future smart home cameras or used as a data processing software for de-identifying privacy-sensitive data
2853,roderic pettigrew is training a new hybrid specialtyhalf physician half engineer growing up in the deep south roderic pettigrew remembers making his first bow from the limb of a chinaberry tree and a strip of rubber from a bike inner tube his career in medicine has been marked with a similar curiosity about how things work leading to a masters in engineering and a phd in applied radiation physics in addition to his md pettigrew is a member of both the national academies of medicine and engineering in part because of his research and inventions in magnetic resonance imaging he also served as the founding director of the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering but his latest project is to bring his own cross-disciplinary experience to a new generation as executive dean of the new engineering medicine (enmed) joint program between the texas a&m colleges of engineering and medicine and houston methodist hospital pettigrew will help students earn degrees in engineering and medicine within a blended four-year graduate program a mind immersed in both the physical and life sciences says pettigrew can provide expertise the twenty-first century desperately needs the realm of the physicianeer q: how is enmed different from a traditional medical school a: our students will earn two degrees in four years but enmed is much more than that we are training people to be intellectually and conceptually fluent in multiple languages across the whole landscape of science the idea is that our graduates will have an integrated engineering and medicine mindset with the tools to find and solve big problems q: what kind of problems a: heres a good example we dont have a vaccine for hiv a virus thats been around since the 1980s but what if you bring teams together from very different fields and ask them to come up with an integrated approach to mobilizing and controlling the immune system recently the (national institutes of health) had a workshop focusing on this question for the first time and brought together the bioengineering and vaccinology communities or what if you wanted to send flu vaccines in the mail that people could apply themselves there are teams working on projects like that a materials science engineer a biologist and a vaccinologist produced a vaccine embedded in microneedles so tiny that they dont cause pain it is about the size of a dime and you place it on the skin microneedles penetrate the dermis and deliver a form of this vaccine that doesnt require refrigeration now imagine if we trained students to do that kind of integrated-discipline thinking from the start they would be uniquely suited to build the next generation of discoveries that is the goal of enmed q: are there any unusual requirements in enmed a: we want these students to solve problems and to be invention-minded to anchor that in a practical way we ask all our students to invent something transformational during their time here its not a hollow requirement something that you toss out there to students and say have at it! the curriculum will be designed to train them in this unusual skill set and guide them through the inventing process q: are there things you wish you had learned at the outset of your career a: i wish i had gotten an earlier understanding of even more scientific fields the concepts of different disciplines really help you sort though problems because the cross-talk is synergistic as a simple example the body is often described biologically and physiologically on the scale of an organ but it is full of tiny mechanical fluid mechanical and electromechanical systems levers circuits electrochemical physical and shear stress gradients these systems even occur at the molecular and cellular levels and are integral to genetic expression which guides how we develop and function these basic biological systems are actually easier to understand if you have the context of engineering so thats really what were trying to do create a person with a new type of mindset to work at those intersections article originally published on proto from massachusetts general hospital
2854,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university welcomes nine new faculty members to the department with research expertise in areas such as data science artificial intelligence computer graphics quantum algorithms systems and cybersecurity with the unprecedented demand for computing professionals and the surge in computer science enrollments across the nation faculty recruitment is a significant challenge said dr dilma da silva department head and professor we are delighted with our success in attracting talented thriving researchers and educators of such high caliber
2855,dr shuiwang ji associate professor received his doctoral degree in computer science from arizona state university jis research interests include machine learning deep learning artificial intelligence vision and language computational biology and computational neuroscience he is the recipient of a faculty early career development (career) award from the national science foundation
2856,dr nima kalantari assistant professor received his doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering from the university of california santa barbara and his masters and bachelors degrees in electrical engineering from amirkabir university of technology before joining texas a&m he was a postdoc in the computer science and engineering department at the university of california san diego kalantaris research interests are in computer graphics with an emphasis on computational photography and rendering in recent years he has focused on developing deep learning techniques for image synthesis in these two fields
2857,dr abdullah muzahid assistant professor received his doctoral and masters degrees from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign and his bachelors degree from bangladesh university of engineering and technology before joining texas a&m he worked as an assistant professor in the computer science department at the university of texas at san antonio muzahids research interests include computer architecture systems and artificial intelligence he is the recipient of a faculty early career development (career) award from the national science foundation
2858,dr guni sharon assistant professor received his doctoral masters and bachelors degrees in information systems engineering from ben-gurion university before joining texas a&m he was a postdoc in the computer science department at the university of texas at austin sharons current work focuses on developing and applying artificial intelligence techniques for optimizing transportation networks he is the recipient of the outstanding paper award from the association for the advancement of artificial intelligence
2859,dr fang song assistant professor received his doctoral degree from pennsylvania state university and his bachelors degree from the university of science & technology of china before joining texas a&m he was an assistant professor in the computer science department at portland state university and was a postdoctoral fellow at the institute for quantum computing and combinatorics and optimization department at the university of waterloo songs research interests include post-quantum cryptography quantum algorithms computational complexity and theoretical computer science
2860,dr chia-che tsai assistant professor received his doctoral degree from stony brook university his masters degree from columbia university and his bachelors degree from national taiwan university before joining texas a&m he was a postdoc at the riselab at the university of california berkeley tsais research interests include operating systems and runtimes software system security secure hardware virtualization and cloud computing he is the recipient of an eurosys best paper award
2861,dr david kebo houngninou instructional assistant professor received his doctoral degree in computer engineering from southern methodist university his masters degree from washington university in st louis and his bachelors degree from the university of evansville before joining texas a&m he was an adjunct lecturer at southern methodist university and previously held research development and engineering positions with ibm nxp semiconductors and magellan integration respectively
2862,robert lightfoot lecturer received his masters degree in software engineering from southern methodist university and his bachelors degree in computer science from texas a&m before joining texas a&m he worked at ericsson (now sony-ericsson) in the network development and digital switch corporation and motorola in cellular infrastructure development project management and technical marketing he also owned a company that developed custom networked and computer-controlled automation equipment
2863,dr tim mcguire instructional professor received his doctoral degree in computer science from texas a&m his masters degree in mathematics from colorado state university and his bachelors degree in mathematics from letourneau college before joining texas a&m he was an associate professor of computer science at sam houston state university mcguire is the recipient of multiple nasa/american society for engineering education faculty fellowships at space flight centers
2864,six former students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university were inducted into the distinguished alumni academy during the annual awards banquet held in november john kenner 87 and michael slack 73 were honored with the highest distinction in the academy the distinguished aerospace engineering alumni award this award is presented to a former student who is retired or near retirement with outstanding career records recognizing sustained and meritorious contributions to engineering and engineering management slack focuses on the most challenging and demanding areas of civil litigation including aviation law and products liability cases against major us corporations a licensed pilot and former nasa aerospace engineer slack combines his technical knowledge and skills with his extensive litigation and trial experience for the benefit of his clients kenner has more than 30 years of domestic and international experience in international service and manufacturing companies with the majority being in the oil and gas industry his experience is in the areas of executive leadership engineering manufacturing operations marketing and sales he believes aerospace engineers can achieve great results in many disciplines from building an expansive analytical and experimental toolkit
2865,lt col wayne lutz 72 was honored with the outstanding engineer award this award is presented to a former student 40 years of age or older who has proven superior professional achievement community service and service to the university proving to be a role model for all to follow lutz is an associate professor of practice in the department where he shares his experience with students in the aero 401 capstone design class he is a former united states air force test pilot on the b-1 bomber program and operations officer in the air force test pilot school at edwards air force base in california as well as chief test pilot supporting boeing defense systems flight operations 757 flying testbed aircraft for the development of the f-22 raptor
2866,cody p kelly 10 tyler p neale 10 and lesley a weitz phd 05 were all honored with the outstanding young aerospace engineer award this award is presented to former students under the age of 40 who have shown outstanding work in their field and are promising leaders of the future kelly serves as the subsystem manager for astronaut postlanding survival and rescue equipment at the nasa johnson space center neale is the executing agent for the test resource management centers high-speed systems test program headquartered at arnold air force base he is responsible for the development of new and improved technologies tools and techniques for effective and timely test and evaluation of hypersonic systems weitz is a principal systems engineer at the mitre corporation where her current research is in advanced avionics for next generation air traffic systems and the integration of airborne and air traffic control automation systems
2867,cude engineers has established the michael cude and judy cude engineers endowed scholarship to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in civil engineering at texas a&m university cude engineers has long been recognized in the architecture construction and engineering industry the company has helped shape the landscape of san antonio by offering innovative solutions and high-quality service to its clients
2868,the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment as a leading research university texas a&m can give its supporters access to cutting-edge knowledge and enhance their visibility with students and faculty if your company or foundation is interested in supporting the college of engineering or would like more information on how you can give please contact jay roberts assistant vice president for development
2869,dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has received the national science foundations (nsf) faculty early career development (career) award for his research in metal additive manufacturing as one of the foundations most prestigious distinctions the career award provides grant funding to early-career faculty who have the potential to become academic leaders and role models that advance the integration of research and education this award provides me with a unique opportunity to address fundamental research questions and contribute to the field of metal additive manufacturing elwany said i feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity to show my family and mentors how their support has been rewarded elwanys nsf career-funded research focuses on microstructure control in metal additive manufacturing and the education of the next generation of advanced manufacturing scientists and workforce in the united states additive manufacturing commonly referred to as 3d printing is a set of disruptive manufacturing technologies that enable the fabrication of parts with high degrees of geometric complexity without the need for part-specific tooling elwany aims to take the technology further and produce components with location-specific properties – parts that have different properties at different locations within a single structure for example a jet engine turbine has a blade with a blade root the blade must be resistant to high temperatures and remain unchanged while the blade root must be able to be deformed and reformed many times additive manufacturing can potentially be used to produce a part like a jet engine turbine blade with location-specific properties that cannot be found in any single material this type of manufacturing process can also be bioinspired by structures found in nature the claw of a mantis shrimp for example combines a hard outer surface with a tough inner core which gives it excellent fracture resistance elwany said he explained that these additive manufacturing capabilities will be achieved by varying local manufacturing process conditions to enable spatial control of microstructures the ultimate goal of such research is to be able to use a single manufacturing process to create assembly-free parts with location-specific properties in the future elwanys educational objectives include plans to train and prepare advanced manufacturing scientists engineers and workers through synergistic activities including graduate internships at lawrence livermore national laboratory study abroad programs an outreach program for teachers and a professional certificate program read more about elwanys research and objectives in his abstract
2870,the intensive design experience can serve as a workplace simulator for engineering students giving them the opportunity to work alongside peers it has proven over and over again the benefits of learning through real-life experience this innovation developed by rodney boehm director of engineering entrepreneurship and the artie mcferrin 65 associate professor of practice in the college of engineering has earned boehm a featured speaking role at venturewells upcoming 2019 open conference which is focused on entrepreneurship venturewell recently highlighted the impact of boehms program here: intensive design experience: preparing engineering students for the real world
2871,reed hamptons leadership philosophy is simple: question everything as president of the student engineers council (sec) at texas a&m university hes focusing on iterative improvement for the organization everything should have a concrete reason for its existence beyond maintaining the status quo said hampton a computer science major from keller texas another principle initiative for hampton who has been president for 10 months is building unity across the college the zachry building has been an excellent source of unity he said it has brought engineering students and societies together from across campus the sec is the representative body for all students in the college of engineering at texas a&m formed by the dean of engineering in 1939 the sec represents the concerns of engineering students and professional societies to the college administration and the university as a whole
2872,in high school hamptons best subjects were english and history my mom couldnt understand why i was choosing the subject i was the worst at he said and i said ‘because thats what i want to get best at if im already good at something i dont need to keep doing it that mentality drove me in the direction of engineering i fell in love with the problem-solving aspects the benefit it can have on society and the opportunity for impact even a single person can have whether thats creating a software program for a new medical device or even just making peoples lives more convenient i decided to study here because i recognized that texas a&m had the leading engineering program in the state of texas hamptons first semester was rough despite performing well in high school he learned very quickly he would need a different approach to education at texas a&m it affected me in a profound way he said having a humbling experience was a significant course correction he sat down and wrote a very long life plan of all the things he wanted to do and the dates he wanted to do them by with the goal of holding himself accountable from there he was able to turn his academics around i realized i needed to surround myself with people that were smarter than me who were better than me at public speaking who were more eloquent than me in interviews and to try and learn from them said hampton thats what led me to the sec the sec has a culture of developing its members and providing opportunities for them to grow and become leaders both in academics research industry and among their peers i recognized that it was a group of very qualified people some of the most intelligent people ive had the pleasure of meeting and being able to call my friends since then the organization has provided hampton with the professional and personal growth he sought as a sophomore the sec has made me a more competent and confident individual he said its rounded my edges ive grown immensely in my patience with other people ive met many representatives from industry academia and other engineering students now im working on developing leadership in other students
2873,the sec is most well known for their sec career fair the largest student-run career fair in the nation the fair typically hosts nearly 400 companies with 10 700 student visitors the sec also helps facilitate professional advancement through industry night seminars and department informational saturdays the sec provides opportunities for students to be heard by the administration and acts as a liaison for the students the engineering student survey is a unique opportunity for students to express their concerns what many people may not know is that sec members go through every single free response we present it to staff faculty and the dean hampton said it leads to concrete changes this years survey was also professionally vetted by the public policy research institute and each question was reviewed to remove implicit biases in the aggie spirit of selfless service the sec works with 15 other societies to host the annual spark conference an engineering design competition on the texas a&m campus with a focus on inspiring kindergarten through 12th grade students to explore the engineering field while showcasing texas a&m's culture and traditions read more about hampton and the sec on ingenium the official blog for texas a&m engineering
2874,find your niche in one of 91 engineering student organizations
2875,ten teams 48 hours and a lot of busy bees the college of engineering and the college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences partnered for aggies invent for veterinary medicine which challenged student teams to solve a veterinary health care need ranging from monitors to check an animals pulse during surgery to a way to safely restrain an animal to administer medication students were expected to research design and develop a prototype and then present a business pitch to a panel james oconnell mechanical engineering senior said he wanted to participate in the event because of his background in health care oconnell was a medic in the army and he said he appreciated how the event introduced him to different ways of thinking ‘you dont know what you dont know that was one of the most profound things anyone has ever said to me if you approach things only looking through your lens youre only going to see things a certain way oconnell said sometimes thats a good way but rarely is it the best way while aggies invent competitions usually include a majority of engineering students this one crisscrossed campus to encompass multiple colleges and focuses emily hoskins first-year vet student said she signed up to grow and add more variety to the skills on her resume including working in a team and a leadership role she said she was worried at the beginning that it would be difficult for the veterinary medicine students to speak the same language as the engineering students
2876,everybody did such a great job of making sure everyone was on the same page and breaking down those language barriers hoskins said when you get out into the real world you are going to be working with people who are coming from different facets of the industry so being able to get out of this small veterinary box and being able to work with people on the engineering side work with people on the biomedical sciences side was a really valuable experience for me blending majors in the teams was beneficial to the overall success said molly coon biomedical sciences senior because the students came from a variety of educational backgrounds they were able to run ideas by and fact check each other having engineers working with us was crucial because they did all of the circuit work and it was helpful for us coon said we (biomedical sciences students) have had animal experience which helped us know what will actually work in a real-world setting the event even drew a potential future aggie sarah cate hyde graduated from the university of oklahoma and works as a chemical engineer she decided to pursue a veterinary medicine degree heard about the event and reached out to the coordinators she said she didnt realize how much crossover there was between engineering and medical devices before aggies invent were making a device for blood clot removal cate hyde said i do a lot of work with troubleshooting piping and vessel problems so to me this problem is like working on a pipe it relates in a way that i didnt expect
2877,after two days of hard work the winning team was g-sense comprised of biomedical science and biomedical engineering students who came together to design an earring sensor that can detect glucose levels in cats which can help monitor diabetes this really taught me its okay to make mistakes and to go back to the drawing board said team member elizabeth mathews biomedical sciences junior i think college puts you in the mindset that you have to reach a certain goal every exam a certain grade this helped show me that you can be at 99 percent and go back to zero and still come up with something that takes you to that 100 percent you can actually make something in 48 hours said team member guillermo palou biomedical engineering junior you think you need a lot of time to have a proof of concept and everything but in 48 hours we were able to prove the concept and try it with a prototype g-sense will continue to innovate their idea in preparation for the veterinary innovation summit in april hosted by the college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences
2878,"scott roth first-year vet student said he really enjoyed getting to meet and collaborate with like-minded people he said future partnership would be useful for veterinary students to help them think differently and break the mold of the daily grind we have a lot of day-to-day problems that we just deal with and work around in the clinic roth said getting to talk and meet with people who say ‘well we can easily solve this it makes you as a vet student think in a whole new way maybe instead of spending five hours every day cleaning all the dog cages we can have an innovative design that self-cleans or something along those lines dr eleanor green dean of the college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences said aggies invent is one of the most exciting events for students and their lives change throughout the weekend they learn to work in teams they learn to be innovative and inventive and they learn what their skills are green said theyll all be surprised with what they come out with themselves theyll grow professionally and learn how to present and make pitches the benefit to these students is incredible mary chandra biomedical sciences freshman said the event gave her newfound confidence coming into this i really didnt think i could think at this high of a level chandra said i thought all of this information would be way too far above my skillset anything is possible if you put your mind to it"" for gilberto flores biomedical engineering junior the event made him realize that developing new solutions does not always require the latest equipment sometimes to create a product you dont have to have the highest end technology being creative and knowing how to use what you have is more important flores said"
2879,dr xia ben hu and his graduate students are collaborating with jj world a leading gaming company in china to develop a sheng ji gaming bot (sheng ji is one of the most popular asian card games) the new bot will not only provide a better gaming experience for users by matching their skill set but will also advance the field of machine learning in environments with incomplete information previous research has already been done on games such as go (an abstract strategy board game) these games have a set number of moves and player strategies enabling a computer to compute and search for the next steps the available information is complete sheng ji is a typical game with incomplete information said hu a computer science and engineering assistant professor at texas a&m university when a player makes a decision she needs to consider the hidden cards from the other three players to tackle the information asymmetry we need to implement a model to predict the hidden cards from the other players hu said the system is expected to be divided into three modules: the memory module the prediction module and the decision module the memory module as the game progresses will record all the known information that serves as the input of hands prediction in the prediction module the outputs of the memory module and prediction will be further used for decision making in the decision module
2880,hus work on sheng ji represents a high-risk high-reward opportunity hus team has the unique opportunity to integrate their research into a real-world gaming system with access to millions of users through online tests they will be able to analyze player behavior and iteratively improve the gaming strategies the more adaptive the game the better the player experience will be enticing players to play more sheng ji their work will also be applicable to other related games hopefully by collaborating with one of the largest gaming platforms in china we can develop learning algorithms with impact in this domain said hu
2881,hu along with his graduate students daochen zha and kwei-herng lai started this research one year ago in the data analytics texas a&m laboratory in december jj world gave hu an industrial grant of $108 000 to advance the algorithms and systems involved many challenges and opportunities await said hu
2882,parkusa has established the parkusa water research and technologies scholarship to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in industrial distribution from texas a&m university parkusa has served as the technology leader in the water industry for over 35 years as demands and regulations on water stormwater and wastewater infrastructure have evolved so has parkusa the company's innovative designs and manufacturing capabilities enable it to provide sustainable solutions for todays water issues
2883,the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment endowments supporting the students in the college have an immeasurable impact on their education if you are interested in supporting the college of engineering or would like more information on how you can give please contact jonathan pozzi assistant director of development
2884,the quest for clean energy sources has been ongoing for many years with minimal results this could all change with the development of a single device that will lie on the waters surface and utilize the ocean waves to generate electrical power dr heonyong kang a research assistant professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university first began working on this idea in 2015 as the result of the us department of energys (doe) wave energy prize competition kangs project is the development of a surface riding wave energy converter (sr-wec) while the initial applications will be a stepping stone to eventually utilizing the renewable and clean ocean energy in the commercial sector the sr-wec will be further developed to be a competitive power supply for the large-scale grid connected system the first goal is to supply maritime markets then supply the large-scale connected system in this project we develop and test the sr-wec in a form of scaled prototype which can eventually supply electricity to various maritime markets at a competitive cost said kang lead principal investigator on the project the maritime markets to benefit from this technology include ocean observation and navigation underwater vehicle charging desalination marine aquaculture marine algal biofuels seawater mining offshore data center disaster resiliency and recovery and isolated power systems
2885,kang and his team of interdisciplinary researchers will be faced with some limitations regarding the development of the scaled prototype of the sr-wec due to being in the early stages of developing the technology required for wave energy conversion into electrical power there are multiple aspects we need to make efforts along the technical development kang said it spans from fabricating the scaled prototype out of limited suppliers and building connections in the industry to educating the public of the sr-wec and its potential impact on society the most challenging aspect of the project has been to develop the preliminary system with minimal support the doe identified $23 million for projects in next-generation marine energy devices and selected 12 research projects including kangs project the grant will help to further develop and test the prototype and prepare it for open-sea testing by the end of the project in 2022 i am most excited to unlock the renewable ocean wave energy and eventually resolve energy challenges in the various maritime markets kang said
2886,ivey wilson has a commitment to service that transcends the everyday her commitment to serve and create a better future has inspired many of her life choices from choosing texas a&m university to a career in nuclear engineering wilson is the 2019 student officer of the year president of the american nuclear society (ans) student chapter and a mitty c plummer scholarship recipient wilsons path to nuclear engineering began in high school with a strong interest in physics i always wanted to do something that had a greater impact and i knew my degree had to include making a positive contribution to the future she said nuclear energy is a safe clean energy source
2887,she was drawn to texas a&m based on the size of the nuclear engineering program (the largest in the nation) and the fact that theyre ranked number three nationally i joined ans my freshman year because i thought it was one of the best ways to navigate the entry-to-a-major process and decide if nuclear was where i truly wanted to be she adds i would recommend other freshmen join as well wilson enjoys ans because it covers the whole spectrum of the nuclear industry and brings students from across the department together to learn network and socialize our greatest asset is networking she said creating community creates opportunity networking helps you find opportunities both in college and during your career its also just great to get to know the people in your classes this year ans started a new initiative: the atoms family the atoms family is a peer mentor group where upperclassman are matched with underclassmen to provide guidance whether its helping with a specific class or exploring the nuclear industry ans members can also participate in four career workshops per year the ans officers are trained by the career center to help students tailor their resumes to industry standards and make their unique skill sets shine last year wilson and kevin savabi the former president successfully worked to grow the membership of ans in order to serve and bring together more students wilson recommends students seeking success in the nuclear field do their best to look for stretch opportunities such as undergraduate research and internships its important for an undergraduate to research the industry especially the first two years and to find a professor in the department who you can talk to that way you feel secure taking your life in the direction you want to go she said its also okay to not know exactly what you want to do and explore your options ill never forget doing undergraduate research with dr (mark) kimber he took the time once a week to teach me new lab concepts was very patient with the learning curve and was equally happy with my accomplishments
2888,energizing entergy wilson interned at entergy nuclear which places interns where they think they will thrive for wilson this meant being at the forefront of nuclear engineering and licensing at their corporate headquarters in jackson mississippi she recommends visiting the location in person before starting a job or internship if possible and exploring the new town wilson also enjoyed the mentorship of her female supervisor who went on plant tours with her and connected her with upper executives in the company i absolutely loved my internship at entergy in nuclear engineering programs said wilson i felt the experience was not only a great way to apply the knowledge i obtained in the classroom but also to grow as an individual within the professional world entergy values its interns and was dedicated to ensuring we maximized the most out of each day on the job which in turn made me value the company even more and decide to pursue industry after graduating in may
2889,wilson appreciated their focus on philanthropy and service to local communities and now looks forward to service days on the job when she can go out and volunteer its important to put yourself out there and to apply for things even if theyre off your radar she said always ask questions both during the interview and on the job it lets the company know more about you and helps you to know your co-workers thats how i was able to work on multiple projects beyond my own in the end wilson decided to pursue a career at entergy headquarters after graduation to have a greater contribution in the nuclear field in the future she would like to pursue a master's degree in law and regulation and obtain more plant experience to become a leader in the industry
2890,explore the american nuclear society and other engineering students organizations
2891,dr j maurice rojas texas a&m university mathematician and affiliate faculty member in the department of computer science and engineering has been selected to the 2019 class of american mathematical society (ams) fellows this designation recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation exposition advancement communication and utilization of mathematics rojas was cited for contributions to algorithmic algebraic geometry complexity theory and scientific computation and mentoring of student research at all levels rojas joined the texas a&m mathematics faculty in 2001 and since 2013 has held a courtesy appointment in the computer science and engineering department he earned masters degrees in both mathematics and computer science as well as a doctoral degree in applied mathematics from the university of california berkeley rojas completed postdoctoral study at the mathematical sciences research institute mit and city university of hong kong and held visiting positions at john hopkins university the institute for mathematics and its applications and sandia national laboratories prior to coming to texas a&m his research in algebraic geometry and algorithmic complexity is extensively published and funded primarily by the national science foundation including through a 2004 faculty early career development (career) award founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship the 30 000-member ams fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses strengthens mathematical education and fosters awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life visit here for more on the ams fellows program and a complete list of 2019 honorees visit here for the college of science story
2892,margaret s and richard r dick lonquist 87 have established the margaret and dick lonquist 87 petroleum ventures certificate scholarship endowment to provide one or more certificate scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in petroleum engineering and a certificate from the petroleum ventures program (pvp) from texas a&m university the pvp certificate sets aggies apart by giving them unparalleled exposure to business concepts entrepreneurship industry leaders and case-based learning opportunities the program is a collaboration between the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and the mays business school department of finance this interdisciplinary endeavor prepares students for expanded technical roles within the industry the certificate is available to students pursuing degrees in either petroleum engineering or finance we saw it as an opportunity to equip both engineering and business students with the necessary skills to work in the industry richard lonquist said whether its engineering students working on the business side or business students working on the petroleum side this program provides them with the starter kit to be successful lonquist who serves on the petroleum advisory board commented on the program's success referencing a nearly 100 percent job placement for graduates and current students in summer internships this could very well be the first time a business school and engineering school have worked together in such a manner lonquist said its a step forward in fostering collaborative learning on college campuses
2893,if you would like to learn more about supporting students participating in the program please contact jeremy quast senior director of development at the texas a&m foundation
2894,michelle 92 and robert paul deere 92 have established the paul 92 and michelle deere 92 electrical engineering scholarship to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in electrical and computer engineering from texas a&m university both the first in their families to attend college the deeres are excited to help other students achieve the goal of finishing their education texas a&m gave both of us the skills to pursue our dreams which has provided us with the means to give back on a larger scale paul said
2895,their daughter nicole deere has continued the tradition of attending texas a&m and their son james deere is hoping to attend as well you might not realize it while youre a student but when you come back and see the banners of the core values it hits you paul said the core values are incorporated into your instruction while youre at a&m and during that time they build within you until you truly embody them there is something amazing about that paul graduated with his bachelors degree in electrical engineering in 1992 he founded the company tolteq group llc in 2003 and recently sold the business to national oilwell varco he is now the owner of paul deere properties llc and deere development company paul volunteers his time with the vista ridge high school entrepreneurship program and the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship at texas a&m michelle graduated with her bachelors degree in genetics in 1992 and earned a doctorate in human and molecular genetics from uthsc-houston michelle worked in the biotech field then became a biology teacher at leander isd michelle now volunteers as a science fair mentor at several schools in the austin area and she is the lead src chair for the state science and engineering fair that will be held at a&m this spring
2896,the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment endowments supporting the students in the college have an immeasurable impact on their education if you are interested in supporting the college of engineering or would like more information on how you can give please contact jay roberts assistant vice president for development
2897,hannah fowler an undergraduate student researcher in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded an honorable mention in the computing research associations 2019 outstanding undergraduate researcher award program this distinction which recognizes north american undergraduate students who show extraordinary potential in computing research was given to her for her qualitative data analysis work in the interface ecology lab researchers in the human-computer interaction lab directed by dr andruid kerne professor in the computer science and engineering department investigate the future of human expression with a focus on creativity play participation and learning hannahs work exemplifies the power of solving problems through a multidisciplinary approach her research achievements are remarkable said dr dilma da silva department head and professor in the department with nearly three years of experience in the lab and a qualitative analysis-driven internship fowler has played an integral role on a variety of projects including studies on massive open online courses pen and touch interaction measuring ingenuity and the creation of the web-based collaboration platform livemâché fowler attributes much of this success and interest in qualitative analysis to her double major in computing and philosophy which has given her a unique approach to research in her philosophy courses fowler learned principles about how to think and ask relevant questions – which has become a valuable asset to qualitative analysis in the interface ecology lab in turn these teachings have allowed her to be able to explore and investigate the more theoretical side of computer science with a keen eye for detail it has helped me develop this sensibility when looking at data to be able to say ‘this is something that could be interesting i think it takes a certain eye to notice those kind of things but once you notice them it's hard to ignore them said fowler currently she is working on an ethnography covering texas a&m studio design professors from visualization mechanical engineering and landscape architecture by conducting interviews with faculty and students identifying key themes in the transcript and segmenting data to measure specific patterns and phenomenon she is able to gain insight into the status quo teaching methods and issues therein one of the things that we're interested in is how we can support instructors computationally said fowler so for example how and if can we quantify creativity looking toward graduation and beyond fowler will begin working for microsoft in september as a program manager with the identity team i interviewed with them last summer and the team was awesome said fowler it is the kind of work that i want to do and i can integrate what i've learned in the interface ecology lab into that role which is special
2898,department informational saturday is held once a semester by the student engineers' council as a service to engineering students exploring departments during the entry-to-a-major process the nuclear engineering sessions will be held in the zachry engineering education complex and will only be open to freshman engineering students
2899,attend cookies with advisors on april 11 at 4 pm in the ai engineering building room 111 speaking with an advisor can illuminate new knowledge about the nuclear engineering discipline and answer vital questions students that are unable to attend can still meet with or email our undergraduate advisor marna stepan
2900,according to jack wiley 18 nuclear is impressive on the surface and the deeper i get the more futuristic it still is i like being at the center of innovation i found my family here part of this small family feel can be attributed to the five student organizations in our department: the american nuclear society women in nuclear the health physics society the institute of nuclear materials management and the nuclear engineering student advisory council the five families ice cream social will be held on april 11 from 5 to 7 pm in the student lounge the student lounge is located on the second floor of the ai engineering building's annex
2901,the general public can schedule an appointment (one week in advance) with the nuclear science center there you will see the triga reactor a radioactive sample from marie curie and the construction of new laboratories
2902,read the news on nuclear engineering and explore our fact sheet labs and youtube channel before checking out the nuclear energy institute and the us department of energy
2903,the deepwater horizon oil spill of 2010 was the largest oil spill in history estimated to have pumped more than 200 million gallons of oil into the gulf of mexico during a period of more than 85 days nearly a decade ago methods for tracking the flow of an oil spill and determining the extent of its negative impacts neglected processes that proved important during deepwater horizon lessons learned by researchers as a result of deepwater horizon have empowered them to create tools to better facilitate response and mitigation efforts in the event of future spills through a collaborative research effort dr scott socolofsky ap & florence wiley professor ii and the division head for environmental water resources and coastal engineering in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has developed a model that can accurately predict where contaminants from an oil spill will travel helping response teams such as the us coast guard better prepare plan for and mitigate damage to human and ecological populations we are interested in this model for response socolofsky said if there were a new type of deepwater horizon event our modeling system is fast and efficient so that it can help responders answer questions they need to know in 2000 10 years before deepwater horizon offshore experiments in norway tested models predicting the spread of oil well blowouts as part of that effort socolofsky performed laboratory experiments with air bubbles in an attempt to better understand the risks of deep-water drilling after this time oil companies started developing in deeper water and interest in studying oil well blowouts faded that was until deepwater horizon
2904,laying the foundation for the model after completing his phd in 2001 socolofsky turned his focus to gas bubble injection in lakes and reservoirs this research set the backbone for what would one day become his improved oil blowout model oil well blowouts are a mixture of gas and liquid droplets of oil which travel from the ocean floor through seawater and create a multi-phase plume or a column of liquid and gas particles moving through one another in the water socolofsky was able to use the model structure that he developed for aeration plumes in lake reservoirs to gain a deeper understanding of oil blowouts however making the jump from lake reservoirs to oil blowouts had several challenges socolofsky and his colleagues knew that the chemistry of the oil would be important to correctly model the flow of a spill so the research team would have to determine how the chemistry density size of droplets and other factors for both the liquid and gas states of oil would interact with seawater
2905,predicting the behavior of oil in water density is stratified meaning that denser water is closer to the bottom of the ocean floor and less dense water rises to the top during deepwater horizon as gas and liquid oil droplets burst from the ocean floor the flow of oil became a deep-water plume of gas oil and seawater most of the gas and some of the released liquid petroleum dissolved into the seawater and this plume of dissolved oil was held down by denser water brought up from the ocean floor unable to break the waters surface the crude oil that comes out of the seafloor during a spill contains some damaging hydrocarbons that can negatively impact marine life as the plume festers in the seawater underneath the oceans surface this formation of a deep-water dissolved petroleum plume is important because it can have an impact in industries like fisheries socolofsky said these hydrocarbons below the surface may be affecting fish in certain areas which are exposed to toxic chemicals that impact both human health and the ocean ecology
2906,"impacting future spills the research team joined socolofksys original reservoir model with other collaborator models to determine the chemistry and droplet sizes for the liquid and gas states for oil and gas creating a model that could predict spill behavior during events such as deepwater horizon after taking extensive measures to validate the accuracy of the model entities such as the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (noaa) are now utilizing the model in their capacity to forecast spills during an oil spill event the us coast guard is responsible for directing an oil spill recovery response when directing this response they need to have forecasts of the oil trajectory in the environment and be able to relay that information to response teams for effective cleanup noaa forecasts where this oil might be to help the coast guard assess what can be done about it socolofsky said their modeling system needed the capability to model what is happening underwater and they teamed with us to use our model"" socolofsky is now using the model for projects in alaska and canada to study the specific conditions and considerations around possible oil spills in the arctic which are now more likely to occur due to the increased crude oil shipping in the region i am happy that noaa can use the model and finds it valuable socolofsky said im glad weve created a tool that noaa can actually use to forecast oil trajectory if there was another spill and im glad there is the opportunity right now to use this tool as preparation to avoid future spills or have better mitigation and response in the event of a disaster __________________________________________________________________________________ this project is a collaborative effort with researchers at eth zurich the woods hole oceanographic institution and the new jersey institute of technology you can read more about the model in this publication about its implementation by the gulf of mexico research initiative"
2907,for 48 hours innovation was not bound by borders tripped up by time zones or influenced by politics on feb 15 25 universities across the world kicked off invent for the planet (iftp) an intensive design experience which brought together more than 600 students to tackle the same global challenges hosted by the college of engineering at texas a&m university the texas a&m winners the first-place winner was team hail no with their solution to minimize hail damage to aircraft wings operational delays costly repairs and accidents the teams design was similar to an airbag that would be installed over the leading and trailing edge of the aircraft wings using nylon straps to reduce the risk of it blowing off in a storm team members included umang kantesaria computer science and engineering; jacob azbell electrical engineering; bamidele fadayomi mechanical engineering; jobin george mathew industrial engineering; mazen ali mechanical engineering; and william smith manufacturing mechanical engineering technology trying to find a solution to our specific problem or any of the problem statements definitely makes peoples lives better in a way that we might not have seen before said mathew that is what im trying to achieve that is what im trying to get out of this and that is why im here
2908,second-place winner was team hydrowhirl with a means to help provide access to clean water they devised a barrel system that would filter water as it is rolled across the ground it gives the user the ability to transport more than 14 gallons of water and also filter it using a plastic barrel rope spout local filter materials like gravel sand or charcoal and a microfilter membrane that will enhance the filtration process team mac took third place with their solution to reduce fatal motorcycle accidents they created a blind spot monitor that notifies riders of danger using handlebar grips that vibrate more on the winners here
2909,the global perspective the number of participating universities around the world almost doubled from last years pilot launch of iftp texas a&m student volunteers representing nearly all of the cultures and languages from partnering universities were available to help overcome any barriers iftp participants might face with collaboration after the success of last years first and second place teams a record number of texas a&m students signed up with hopes to participate it really made me feel good knowing that we really werent just creating a solution to a problem in an isolated environment said smith we were in contact with people who are very familiar with the problem and were kind of stumped on the solution
2910,like last year microsoft provided each student with access to microsoft teams a program with chat rooms set up for each challenge so students working on that challenge around the world could easily communicate with one another as one team aptly pointed out during the competition their challenge addressed equipping rural health workers with better information technology or education what better way to understand that situation than to collaborate with a team whose country is dealing with the issue firsthand and would be the ideal consumer for this solution people have asked ‘whats the motivation for our students to collaborate with teams on the other side of the world isnt the point to win the whole thing outright said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program and creator of the u-invent experiences the answer is the motivation is to change the world and make an impact that will go beyond just their local community whether that means you attempt a design without collaboration or not its the students decision but we hope they see what insights students from another environment can offer and use it
2911,the innovation continues throughout the event students were mentored by faculty industry members students and each other they were reminded that win or lose if they have a passion to pursue their design beyond the competition texas a&ms engineering entrepreneurship program is available to help them continue on that path there have been many success stories to come out of the entrepreneurship incubator program the involvement with the students was incredibly rewarding for me said ron pekny a participating mentor who just retired after 28 years as an american airlines engineer to be able to interact and see the difference that some of my suggestions made to their progress from friday to sunday … these guys went beyond their need statement i truly believe it is feasible im excited to get a copy of the presentation and show it to my american airlines colleagues as a judgment on my part it truly is a viable concept in this first iftp event of the year students competed locally first judged against their university peers to determine the top three teams of those the first-place team from each university will go head-to-head in the second round of virtual judging in march to determine the top five teams worldwide the overall global winner will be chosen at a conference held at texas a&m on april 23 global winners will be awarded monetary prizes of $3 000 $2 000 and $1 000 respectively this years iftp was supported by the national academy of engineering autodesk airbus usaid and venturewell for more information on invent for the planet including a list of universities who participated and the top three winning teams visit our website
2912,two students affiliated with the texas a&m university college of engineering have been named finalists in the 2019 sc awards for exemplary professional leadership in cybersecurity philip smith and casey stephens were named student of the year finalists in the professional award category of the sc awards now in its 22nd year the sc awards are recognized as the industry gold standard of accomplishment for cybersecurity professionals products and services winners in the professional award category are selected by an expert panel of judges and recognized as the most talented cybersecurity professionals from end-user companiessmith is a senior electrical engineering student with a focus on information security he also is a security analyst in the texas a&m university system security operations center which monitors a&m system member networks in order to detect cyberattacks and other malicious activitystephens is a senior technology management student with a minor in cybersecurity and business she is a member of the college of engineering cyber response team where she works as a security analyst providing security analysis monitoring detection investigation and response services to texas a&m engineering she also was a part of building the tri-agency cyber response team where she is lead student stephens is a member of the cybersecurity club has attended hacking competitions and conferences and is a part of the competitive and collegiate cyber defense competition teamsthe mission of the sc awards is to honor the achievements of the cybersecurity brands and professionals striving to safeguard businesses their customers and critical data in north america winners in all categories will be announced at the sc awards ceremony on march 5 in san francisco
2913,three faculty from the texas a&m university college of engineering were among seven former faculty fellows to be named permanent members by the hagler institute for advanced study this honor recognizes each of the renowned scholars who accepted faculty positions at texas a&m the title permanent member is an honorific title to recognize these excellent scholars for their ongoing contributions to the university and the hagler institute in their role as tenured faculty said dr john junkins founding director of the hagler institute for advanced study they are already making an indelible impact on advancing scholarship at texas a&m based on nominations solicited from the texas a&m faculty the hagler institute selects its faculty fellows from among top scholars who have distinguished themselves through outstanding professional accomplishments and significant recognition these scholars then collaborate with texas a&m faculty and students on research projects designed to solve some of the worlds toughest problems and challenges the following from the college of engineering were named permanent members in the hagler institute: • dr alan needleman university distinguished professor department of materials science and engineering and a 2012-13 hagler faculty fellow needleman joined the texas a&m faculty in 2014 following appointments at the massachusetts institute of technology brown university and the university of north texas he is a member of the national academy of engineering and the american academy of arts and sciences • dr robert skelton texas engineering experiment station (tees) eminent professor department of aerospace engineering and a 2014-15 hagler faculty fellow he joined the texas a&m faculty in 2015 following appointments at purdue university and the university of california san diego skelton is a member of the national academy of engineering a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and a life member of the alexander von humboldt foundation • dr james e hubbard jr tees eminent professor j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering and a 2017-18 hagler faculty fellow hubbard joined the texas a&m faculty in 2018 following previous positions at the massachusetts institute of technology and the charles stark draper laboratory optron systems inc and the photonics center at boston university hubbard co-founded photosense inc and iprovica inc the hagler institute for advanced study was established in december 2010 by the texas a&m university system board of regents to build on the growing academic reputation of texas a&m and to provide a framework to attract top scholars from throughout the nation and abroad for appointments of up to a year the selection of faculty fellows initiates with faculty nominations of national academies and nobel prize-caliber scholars who align with existing strengths and ambitions of the university
2914,three researchers from the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university were recently recognized by the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) for their transformational work in the field of manufacturing dr alaa elwany assistant professor and his team received the 2018 david dornfeld manufacturing vision award dr satish bukkapatnam rockwell international professor director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations institute for manufacturing systems and barbara and ralph cox '53 faculty fellow; and dr hamid parsaei professor at texas a&m university at qatar were elected 2018 sme fellows for more than 85 years sme has been a leader in manufacturing solutions through collaborative efforts the organization has worked alongside experts companies universities and communities to advance manufacturing engineering elwany: 3d printing the future of civil infrastructure recognizing outstanding vision and leadership the david dornfeld manufacturing vision award is made in tandem with the north american manufacturing research conferences blue sky competition the goal of the competition is to identify long-term challenges and new visionary ideas for manufacturing to influence research and education in the us this award impacts not only the future of my research in 3d printing for civil infrastructure but also the entire research discipline at large the selection panel consisted of industry and government experts which creates possibilities for establishing large multi-project manufacturing research programs to advance the current state of knowledge said elwany
2915,during the competition elwany and his interdisciplinary team tackled the issue of affordable construction and restoration of civil infrastructure by proposing the integration of 3d printed materials into manufacturing their method can offer unique capabilities including geometric freedom material-saving through design optimization and functional complexity reimagining how we build by leveraging new manufacturing technologies such as 3d printing has the potential to exponentially increase productivity in the construction industry according to mckinsey global institute this could create an additional $16 trillion of added value per year and boost global gross domestic product by 2 percent said elwany the team included dr zachary grasley professor in the zachry department of civil engineering department and director of the center for infrastructure renewal; dr stephanie paal assistant professor in the civil engineering department; dr zofia rybkowski associate professor in the college of architecture; and negar kalantar assistant professor in the college of architecture more information about their research for the blue sky competition can be found in the article researchers take home first place in manufacturing competition bukkapatnam: the manufacturing technology of today and tomorrow the sme college of fellows recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions and dedicated themselves to various aspects of manufacturing in 2018 only seven fellows were electedtwo of which hailed from texas a&m inducted for his work in smart manufacturing bukkapatnam has 30 years of experience in engineering his research has led to more than 150 publications five pending patents millions of dollars in grants and 14 best-paper recognitions in any career you face a lot of ups and downs and you're never certain that you're doing the correct thing but you have to keep going said bukkapatnam this award proves that the efforts of my students my mentors and my group mean something smart manufacturing as bukkapatnam explained aims to optimize and modernize this starts with collecting analyzing and modeling information recorded by advanced wireless sensors
2916,"from there computer systems are programmed with the goal of being able to oversee and maintain manufacturing systems and processes a big aspect of smart manufacturing is how we can deploy technologies like computational infrastructures so that the machines intelligence is enough to sense if something inside it will fail and be able to alert itself said bukkapatnam it is the next generation of machines and the methods techniques and science that goes into making this vision a reality in addition to his extensive research experience bukkapatnam is leading the efforts on campus to grow and advance the manufacturing program offered to students with cutting-edge physical resources and invaluable expertise from faculty and staff the program provides students the opportunity to transform their ideas into products ""many perceive manufacturing as dingy dangerous and dirty "" bukkapatnam said in a past interview with the eagle ""we want to transform that perspective and change the minds of people to see manufacturing as an exciting and illuminating area to work in"" parsaei: setting the standard for engaging leadership selected as a 2018 sme fellow in recognition of over 35 years of expertise parsaei has demonstrated leadership in manufacturing systems design economic decision-making regarding applications to advanced manufacturing systems and engineering education he has worked on a variety of projects funded by numerous organizations including ibm the national science foundation the national institute for occupational safety and health and the department of homeland security through collaboration with sme he has enhanced methodologies that help industry leaders make more informed investment decisions in the area of advanced manufacturing systems creating a vital tool for the expansion of research and business many of these proposed methods have been widely adopted by organizations and used to measure the attractiveness of the investment in those environments with non-monetary or intangible attributes parsaei said in addition to being a leader in industry and research parsaei has devoted himself to advancing education and opportunities for his students by developing automation and robotics laboratories as well as implementing several tools and creative exercises in his classes this passionate commitment to education led him to accept leadership positions within professional organizations and become heavily interested in the effects and outcomes of engaging leadership and mentorship in doing so he has held offices in local branches of sme and participated in national and international conferences and workshops it is difficult to describe the pride i felt in being recognized and standing among those who also received this honor said parsaei i have always held the conviction that manufacturing is the backbone of the economy it can create successful careers and undoubtedly lends itself to a dynamic and prospering economy like many who received this recognition before me this will certainly not be the end my journey continues"""
2917,dr daniel a jiménez professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has received the high-performance computer architecture (hpca) test of time (tot) award for his 2001 paper titled dynamic branch prediction with perceptrons this prestigious award is given at most to one paper from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) international symposium on hpca whose influence is still felt 18-22 years after its initial publication this is only the second hpca tot award to be given and the first year that papers from 2001 were eligible for the award heightening this honor jiménez co-authored the winning paper with his former doctoral advisor from the university of texas at austin dr calvin lin their interdisciplinary research between computer architecture and machine learning presented a new method for how microprocessors run computer programs of the 225 papers considered theirs was selected for how it fundamentally changed research into branch prediction prior to their research branch predictors used ad hoc techniques that made inefficient use of processor resources jiménez used his background in neural networks to apply perceptrons to branch prediction his method of applying neural learning directly into the hardware has significantly improved performance achieving accuracy superior to previous state-of-the-art techniques according to google scholar the paper is the most highly cited on branch predication published in the last 25 years and advanced micro devices oracle and samsung have since utilized perceptron-based branch predictors based on this research it is rare for a hardware technique proposed in literature to actually be adopted in industry said jiménez we are gratified that the idea was welcomed by academia and industry and has had such a large impact jiménez and lin accepted their award and delivered a talk at the hpca conference on feb 19 in washington dc
2918,corrosion is the natural deterioration that occurs with all materials and it affects nearly every industrial sector and government agency along with having a direct impact on the economy health safety infrastructure environment and national security so its not surprising that industry professionals from toyota motor north america inc and pinnacleart traveled to college station to learn more about the degradation process and how to deal with its destructiveness in their own fields the national corrosion and materials science reliability lab at texas a&m universityin partnership with tees edge the professional and continuing education division of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees)now offers a course that introduces industry professionals to the fundamentals of corrosion and the multiscale-level materials performance for corrosion engineering applications tees edge collaborates with tees researchers to meet current industry needs by developing opportunities for professionals to explore in a hands-on environment applications resulting from our cutting-edge engineering research said melissa walden tees edge director dr homero castaneda-lopez and the center for infrastructure renewal worked closely with leaders at toyota and tees edge to launch this high-quality short course with immediate benefits across the automotive and energy industriesbenefits we hope extend beyond those enrolled in the course on dec 11-13 the center presented the short course basic corrosion: an introduction to thermodynamics and kinetic fundamentals at the center for infrastructure renewal the course was led by castaneda-lopez interim director of the lab and associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m the course is about corrosion basics why corrosion because theyre industry empirically they know that the phenomenon exists but they dont know some fundamentals some basics of why its happening so the intention of the course is to first explain what is happening then the fundamentals and then how to apply it to their fields during the course participants attended lectures and hands-on demonstrations on modern engineering tools necessary to understand the basic principles of materials electrochemistry and corrosion its definitely been a great experience weve been able to get into a lot of the details and background on some of the theory said kory koran a toyota engineer weve been able to discuss some of the real-world applications of those theories and got hands on experience working with some of the tools used to calculate corrosion mechanisms
2919,crude oil extracted from the earth often contains many substances that are hydrocarbon-based such as other liquids dissolved solids and gases of these asphaltene a dissolved solid and key ingredient in asphalt can be problematic when underground pressure changes occur in reservoirs during oil extraction asphaltenes can re-solidify and block a well in a process called precipitation dr berna hascakir flotek industries inc career development professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university addressed precipitation in two research projects that investigated the reservoir ratios and polarity properties of asphaltenes she found a way to predict the conditions under which asphaltenes become solid and used methods based on dielectric properties to get the solid material moving again using prediction asphaltene like many substances in the earth changes phase as pressures or temperatures vary the problem lies in predicting which conditions bring about the change think about water said hascakir when you lower the temperature of water at atmospheric pressure you make ice which is solid in the same way you have a liquid crude oil and youre lowering the pressure during oil production this change makes the crude oil solid like ice the effects of pressure and temperature on asphaltenes have been well researched but the variations in oil chemistry and the dielectric constants of reservoir materials that can affect this phase change have not hascakir and her students studied these facets of the problem and found the ratios of asphaltenes and other components to oil within the reservoir fluids was significant the dielectric properties that determine whether reservoir materials were polar or non-polar also affected outcomes hascakir devised a method that uses this information to reliably predict conditions where precipitation was likely to happen her method will help oil companies address the problem before solidification occurs and plugs up their expensive wells we were issued a patent on that method said hascakir a chemical company currently owns the rights of the patent they say our method is one of the best to determine the asphaltenes stability and they hired my former student abhishek punase who was working on that project assessing properties to solve the problem of getting solidified asphaltenes moving again hascakir investigated the dielectric properties of the material with deeper interest there are different dielectric constants in every substance these constants determine the absorption or reflection of electromagnetic waves electromagnetic waves can affect polar molecules so hascakirs research centered on just how polar the materials are inside a reservoir and how well they would respond to this stimulation the solidified substances in precipitation are both polar and non-polar depending on composition said hascakir the trick is to pull them apart using polar and non-polar means the polar nature of solid substances allows for greater heat generation and electromagnetic waves at microwave frequencies take advantage of this when you are putting something into a microwave - lets say you are heating up your lunch - the cup is not getting hot however the food is getting hot after microwave heating explained hascakir how is this happening because the dielectric properties of the food are favoring microwave absorption but the cup is not any warmth the cup might have is from conduction asphaltenes the heaviest and most polar fraction of crude oil respond to microwaves this means microwaves have the potential to heat asphaltenes and decrease their viscosity or resistance to movement a reservoir with its rock formations fluids gases and other materials is not the best microwave container however water a polar substance would heat up but carbon dioxide being non-polar would not these two substances present in all reservoirs could alter the polarity of the reservoir rocks and fluids around them making microwave use difficult heavy metals sometimes present in asphaltenes could also react to microwaves in an unexpected manner
2920,testing solutions my student matthew morte and i tested different types of oils and different types of reservoir rock said hascakir what is certain is that certain types of reservoir rocks and fluids are responding better to stimulation i am using heat and heavy metals to reduce asphaltene viscosity to make it flow and now this research is at the patent level hascakirs team found a way to control the microwaves under the ground so they can be used as an advanced thermal enhanced oil recovery method normal thermal enhanced recovery uses steam injected into the ground to improve oil flow requiring energy and time to heat water to a boiling point at the surface of the well hascakirs solution does not necessarily require water depending on reservoir rock composition and electromagnetic waves on a microwave frequency are more efficient at producing the heat needed to decrease viscosity this saves time money and natural resources while you are investing less money you are investing the same amount of heat said hascakir its extremely attractive to oil companies when solid deposition happens that well will be blocked you will lose that well and thousands like it this is happening now in conventional reservoirs and unconventional reservoirs like heavy oil but mostly in light oils so this research will help a large-based oil recovery-related problem
2921,dr lawrence rauchwerger eppright professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been named a 2018 american association for the advancement of science (aaas) fellow for his contributions to thread-level speculation parallelizing compilers and parallel libraries this prestigious honor is awarded to society members who have transformed and advanced science for the betterment of society making a difference not only to knowledge and education but to the world at large rauchwergers work has influenced industrial products at corporations such as ibm intel and sun rauchwerger joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1996 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor full professor and eppright professor in 2001 2006 and 2014 respectively he has also served as co-director of the parasol laboratory since 1998 he is an institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) fellow national science foundation career award recipient and has chaired various ieee and association for computing machinery conferences rauchwerger received his doctoral degree in computer science from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign masters degree in electrical engineering from stanford university and engineer in electronics and telecommunications degree from the polytechnic institute bucharest romania he will return to his alma mater the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in august 2019 as a professor in their computer science department but intends to continue working with colleagues at texas a&m through collaboration and cutting-edge contributions aaas has grown to become the worlds largest multidisciplinary scientific society since its founding in 1848 the organization has strived to bridge the gap between research and application by solving real-world challenges with innovations in science technology engineering and mathematics its members who reside in more than 90 countries around the globe are leading experts in research industry and academia
2922,"a gift from concho resources will allow texas a&m university and midland college to enroll the first cohort of students for the texas a&m-concho engineering academy at midland college in fall 2019 this innovative co-enrollment partnership was developed to address the states growing need for engineers qualified students will be admitted to the texas a&m college of engineering complete the first two years of coursework at midland college and finish their engineering degrees in college station texas the program will accept applications through june 30 we are proud to support the texas a&m-concho engineering academy at midland college said tim leach chairman and chief executive officer of concho resources the program creates new opportunities for students in west texas and will enhance the pipeline of highly skilled local talent that our industry and region need to be successful as the permian basin continues to grow over the next decade access to higher education is essential for meeting our industrys increasing demand for an innovative and technical workforce leach said we look forward to engaging with program participants about their very bright future in our evolving and technology-driven industry the texas a&m-concho engineering academy at midland college allows students to pursue one of 21 majors within the college of engineering at texas a&m we are pleased to offer students in midland a unique pathway toward a first-rate degree from an engineering college ranked among the top 10 in the world said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp our goal is to attract the very best students to texas a&m engineering even if circumstances require them to stay close to home for the first part of their college career these students will be aggies in midland from day one by offering opportunities like the engineering academies texas a&m is able to better serve texans as a public university we are committed to serving students across texas said michael k young president of texas a&m the engineering academy in midland gives students in west texas an opportunity to begin their quality education that leads to graduation from one of the top engineering schools in the nation in a field vital to the local region engineering is a critically important program to the community of midland and to the mission of midland college said steve thomas president of midland college the texas a&m-concho engineering academy at midland college is a natural partnership designed to provide a highly trained engineering workforce to fill much-needed local engineering and technology jobs"" in texas the projected need for engineers in the workforce is 53 000 by 2024 to meet this need universities and two-year colleges must work together to bridge the gap and attract and retain students who are interested in stem fields students in the engineering academy enroll in math science and core curriculum courses through midland college and have the unique opportunity to enroll in engineering courses taught by texas a&m faculty on the midland college campus texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean dr m katherine banks said the academies have the potential to reach beyond the typical pathways for access to a top-ranked engineering program the academies provide new pathways to a first-rate engineering education banks said at a time when many texas families are worrying about the cost of college students can live at home for the first two years of college without postponing their participation in an engineering program that is highly regarded by employers across the country ​ visit engineeringtamuedu/academies for more information about how to apply and other details about the engineering academy"
2923,gifted through the texas a&m foundation dr jn reddy has established the jn reddy chair in applied mechanics faculty endowment to bolster his fellow researchers and instructors now and into the future this generous endowment will be used to support the teaching research service and professional development of faculty in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering who embody the passion for and commitment to education for which reddy is known i have enjoyed my time at texas a&m university doing the two things that i am most passionate about teaching and research – both of which involve students who are the most precious thing we have at the university said reddy a legend in mechanical engineering reddy shares his devotion for teaching and knowledge with everyone he meets he has been a leader in research and education for more than 42 years nearly three decades of which has been as a member of the texas a&m faculty in addition to being a part of the national academy of engineering reddy also serves as oscar s wyatt jr chair professor university distinguished professor and regents professor in the mechanical engineering department i have accomplished a lot as a teacher and researcher as attested by many significant awards and honors i received over the years but any meaningful measure of accomplishments must include giving back to the community said reddy i hope that whoever holds the endowed chair in my name will continue my legacy and will help students and junior faculty in their pursuit of knowledge and its use for societal benefit learn more about the jn reddy chair in applied mechanics
2924,the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment faculty endowments encourage and reward faculty members who embody the passion for and commitment to the education of engineering students they bring years of rich experiences from the field and add tremendous value to the college of engineering if you are interested in supporting faculty or would like more information on how you can give please contact jonathan pozzi assistant director of development or stephanie lampe assistant director of development
2925,the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) has signed a research agreement with kathaleen wall 90 co-owner of texas thorium llc on the new thorium research initiative (tri) wall along with co-owner holly frost donated $5 million to support research geared toward advancing thorium-based nuclear technology the research initiative will be led by principal investigator dr yassin hassan from the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university along with dr sean mcdeavitt and dr lin shao the research in this initial project will focus on molten salt thorium systems the tri will perform studies to enable the design of a small modular reactor and a 10 to 30 mw test reactor fueled with thorium we are excited to have the backing of someone like kathaleen wall and her belief in our expertise in the field of nuclear engineering said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp with ms walls generous donation our researchers have the support they need to further their work in this emerging technology thorium power has the promise of simpler safer cleaner and cheaper power than any other power source said wall thats the reason were doing this
2926,dr yassin hassan has been named a member of the national academy of engineering (nae) election to the national academy of engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer members have distinguished themselves in business and academic management in technical positions as university faculty and as leaders in government and private engineering organizations individuals in the newly elected class will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the nae's annual meeting in washington dc oct 6 hassan is cited for his work on experimentally validated thermal hydraulic analyses of multiphase flow fields for nuclear reactor operations he joined texas a&m in september 1986 and is the sallie & don davis '61 professor in engineering a professor in the department of nuclear engineering and the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering he has earned many honors during his tenure he is a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science the american nuclear society (ans) and the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) he was awarded the 2008 ans seaborg medal (an award that recognizes an individual who has made outstanding scientific or engineering research contributions to the development of the uses of nuclear energy) the 2003 george westinghouse gold medal award (for distinguished and notable achievements in the power field of mechanical engineering) the 2004 thermal hydraulics technical achievement award (the highest award given by the thermal hydraulic division of ans in recognition of contributions to nuclear engineering education and research) and the 2001 glenn murphy award of the asme (in recognition of outstanding contributions in nuclear safety through research and education) in 2007 hassan was sworn in as a part-time technical judge to the atomic safety and licensing board panel of the us nuclear regulatory commission he has authored more than 470 refereed publications in technical journals and conference proceedings (190 technical journals and 285 conferences) and more than 370 summaries in ans transactions (the largest for any ans member since the establishment of ans in 1950) he also serves as editor-in-chief of the journal of nuclear engineering and design and is associate editor of the journal of verification validation and uncertainty quantification he was appointed as an honorary professor in the school of computer science and engineering at bangor university in the united kingdom
2927,what if we fully understood the basic structure of materials and could prevent fracturing from happening before deterioration ever began materials are all around us and while researchers have a reasonable understanding of their overall composition there is plenty still to understand particularly at the microscopic level levi mcclenny a doctoral candidate in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university who holds a fellowship from the data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) training program is working with dr ulisses braga-neto on a research project using state-of-the-art machine learning tools to gain a better overall picture of what happens at the microstructure level in materials moreover he is pursuing a full understanding of the fracturing process in order to predict when breakage or deterioration would occur in military vehicles and other structures and ultimately prevent this from happening in the first place recently mcclenny spent two weeks at the army research lab (arl) in aberdeen maryland to establish a collaboration on future material projects the lab is particularly interested in vehicle applications for instance in potentially predicting when a component will break in an aircraft which will help with maintenance and operational requirements
2928,"a vehicle is comprised of many components all of which are at individual states in their individual lifecycles mcclenny said if we can get an overall system state from these component states we can report to the driver or the pilot the overall state of his or her vehicle or aircraft in real time the idea here is to engineer vehicles that can begin to detect their own deterioration this project is uniquely impactful to mcclenny as he is a blackhawk pilot in the united states army reserve one of the vehicles being studied with these applications is the very aircraft i fly he said this is by happenstance but that makes the project all the more exciting for me in particular the vehicle application research for the military could find its way into the force and knowing that i can impact soldiers in my unit or in future units with this work is extremely exciting mcclenny and his collaborative team are seeking to discover how certain microstructure properties relate to material properties by using images from a microscope lens to observe distortions and other inconsistencies within a material these images could hold a wealth of information on how the materials function in the presence of some sort of stress the team is hoping to reverse engineer these observations essentially trying to generate images from data with the original images as a roadmap however these images would have specific desirable properties that the researchers can control if we can generate images with the desired properties then we can potentially determine the processing parameters to generate those materials in real life "" mcclenny said ""with this approach we could generate a material with the exact specifications we desire such as tensile strength ductility conductivity and more mcclenny is utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence to research the factors that cause materials to fracture cracks to propagate and eventually break we want to understand these microstructure interactions modeled using machine learning approaches to better leverage their properties for more efficient materials mcclenny said once an understanding is gained there are numerous applications such as ‘smart vehicle technology and many others levi started as my undergraduate researcher on an nsf project on boolean dynamical systems went on to earn a master of science in the same area and is now pursuing his doctorate in the applications of machine learning in microstructure informatics all the while balancing his duties as an army blackhawk pilot and his academic work said braga-neto electrical and computer engineering associate professor i am gratified to see how far he has come and how much is ahead for him the collaboration with d3em and with the arl have the potential to produce real breakthroughs in the characterization of material properties using artificial intelligence techniques"
2929,dr ali mostafavi an assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering recently received the faculty early career development (career) award from the national science foundation (nsf) one of the most prestigious awards for up-and-coming researchers the award provides funding to support promising integrated research and education mostafavi will use the career award to study the impact of infrastructure failures during natural disasters on people his research recognizes that disasters do not impact people equally due to the variance in vulnerability among a regions population he hypothesizes that there is a disparity in the impact of risk and his research aims to increase the theoretical and empirical foundations in the interdisciplinary area of urban resilience research his nsf career project will use machine learning social sensing and complex networks simulation to analyze people's responses to infrastructure disruptions following disasters such as hurricane harvey newly developed computational simulations models will allow researchers to assess the predicted societal impacts alongside existing system failure models which will advance fundamental knowledge of urban resilience to inform policy decisions the computer models will even be applicable to engineers and infrastructure managers prioritizing resilience investments in preparation for different types of disasters such as flooding wildfires and earthquakes
2930,mostafavis research will have a positive impact on future engineers as well he currently teaches his students the human-centered approach which emphasizes the need to consider human dimensions when designing and updating civil engineering systems student participants in his newly developed service learning project will engage with households from harris county and learn how to prioritize the reduction of human suffering in vulnerable populations through community engagement learning modules will be shared with faculty across the nation to magnify the impact of these new frameworks the knowledge will also be shared with organizations tasked with both disaster resilience and optimizing the prevention of future failures both at the state and the national level we are trying to advance convergence research in the interdisciplinary field of disaster resilience in my lab and this project reflects the novel convergence of different interdisciplinary methods data and theoretical elements to uncover social inequalities in risks due to the interplay between physical infrastructure and household social networks in disasters he said read his nsf abstract
2931,the electric grid is something that we may take for granted in our daily lives until an outage occurs ikponmwosa iyke idehen is a doctoral student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university working with dr thomas overbye on a two-part research project to better understand the dynamics of the electric power grid to avoid these types of disturbances from happening idehen grew up in nigeria where he completed his undergraduate degree prior to starting his phd program he had worked as a branch operations staff and information technology datacenter operator in a nigerian bank for three years and had lost all hope of becoming an electrical engineer idehen made the decision a couple of years ago to return to graduate school to pursue his career goals even though it was a tough and risky choice and he is glad he did it because he knows he can make a difference
2932,currently idehen is diving into exactly what causes electrical outages to better detect an issue thus preventing outages and blackouts in the first place to do this he uses measurements acquired from the grid itself by isolating useful information from the grid he is able to visually display an accurate representation of the state of the grid so that key stakeholders such as operators can tell what is going on and carry out a control action to save parts of the grid working to visually display what is happening where on the grid is an integral part of idehens work he obtains grid measurements using a device known as a phasor measurement unit which gives researchers the ability to implement an x-ray-like analysis on the system with this device previously low-resolution measurements can now be received at an expedited rate depending on the project idehen could be given data from the actual grid or use synthetic data that is derived from real-life data authentic data from the grid can be hard to come by because there are many privacy laws prohibiting its distribution once he obtains data that he can work with he scans it for errors to be sure that before data analysis begins the data is clean and correct once all the data has been analyzed for errors i try to identify disturbances in the system idehen said are there any hidden low frequency disturbance signals you want to detect them on time before they lead to larger disturbances which can cause outages or blackouts we are trying to prevent that by using different methods to improve an operators situational awareness of the grid idehen will complete his doctoral degree in 2019
2933,three faculty members from the texas a&m university college of engineering are among 66 academic inventors named to the inaugural class of senior members by the national academy of inventors (nai) the new senior members include dr jaime grunlan linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering; dr duncan j maitland associate department head and stewart & stevenson professor i in the department of biomedical engineering; and dr richard miles tees eminent professor in the department of aerospace engineering nai senior members are active faculty scientists and administrators from nai with success in patents licensing and commercialization they have produced technologies that have brought or aspire to bring real impact on the welfare of society congratulations to our faculty members who have been elected to this first class of nai senior members said dr mark a barteau vice president for research and nai fellow this recognition pays tribute to their knowledge skill and talent as well as to the role that texas a&m plays in encouraging and nurturing research and innovations from start to finish together these faculty members and texas a&m are making the world a better place for all of us senior members also foster a spirit of innovation within their communities through enhancing an inventive atmosphere at their institutions while educating and mentoring the next generation of inventors this inaugural class of nai senior members represents 37 research universities and government and nonprofit research institutes they are named inventors on over 1 100 issued us patents we are truly excited about each of our nai awardees this year whose research and inventions range across novel multifunctional surfaces and coatings (grunlan) advanced shape memory polymers for implantable medical devices (maitland) and microwave lasers and magnetohydrodynamic technologies (miles) said dr bala haridas executive director for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship for the texas a&m engineering experiment station this technological diversity world-class research and translation to practical application truly represents the exciting work by researchers in texas a&m engineering a full list of nai senior members is available on the nai website
2934,dianna stanger owner of darkstar air racing and members of her team visited the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university to meet with researchers and students treating them to a personal tour of her l-39 racing jet and giving them a chance to interact with the pilots and crew members darkstar air racing made history by fielding the only female-owned and piloted aircraft to compete in the jet class at the reno air races in 2015 another first for the team was the aircraft flown an aero vodochody l-139 also owned by stanger that is a prototype and the only one in existence the jet flown by vicky benzing placed fifth in the championship gold class competing against jets with speeds of over 500 mph the reno air races officially known as the national championship air races comprise the longest running series of air races and the only closed course pylon race event the jet class completes eight-mile laps that are sometimes no more than 50 feet above the ground the all-female powerhouse team of stanger benzing and debby rihn-harvey (all pilots) paid a visit to the department at the invitation of dr darren hartl assistant professor to discuss options for collaborating with aerospace researchers on ways to improve the performance of their plane in hopes of winning in september 2019
2935,it is a real honor that our department was considered as a potential team member for speeding up the darkstar aircraft hartl said it says a lot about the capabilities and reputation of our students and faculty in addition to meeting with researchers hartl arranged for the team to tour the new zachry engineering education complex as well as the oran w nicks low speed wind tunnel and the flight simulator in the vehicle systems and control laboratory the team also met with a number of faculty and a cadre of invited students including student pilots for lunch in the department
2936,in turn stanger and her team invited members of the aggie aerospace women in engineering and other aerospace students to tour the l-39 plane at easterwood airport the students had a chance to walk around the plane climb into the cockpit and talk directly to all three pilots it is so important that our students have a chance to meet with these leading women in aviation and also that they be reminded of how fun and exciting aerospace engineering really is hartl said i am so thankful to dianna and her team for bringing that reminder to texas a&m
2937,i am an aggie petroleum engineer those six words resonate with the faculty and student body where they are proudly displayed in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university for former student michael gatens ‘80 and his wife heidi the sentiment continues to run deep to this very day together they have pledged $1 million to the petroleum engineering department in order to support the research of exceptional faculty members and encourage their continued mentorship of students their gift made through the texas a&m foundation will be split between the michael and heidi gatens professorship in unconventional resources and the sa holditch 69 department head chair in petroleum engineering the education i received at texas a&m and the career that it enabled has been one of the major elements of my life drs william von gonten stephen holditch john lee and richard morse each made a significant impact on me both personally and professionally said gatens my education and the connections i established are why i am giving backso that others can have a texas a&m experience in petroleum engineering upon graduation gatens started his career at bass enterprises production company as part of an engineering development program he returned to texas a&m in 1982 to work alongside his old instructor at sa holditch and associates inc consulting firm and to receive his masters degree in petroleum engineering
2938,his successful career took him further north after that where he and fellow former student george voneiff 83 founded mgv energy inc in calgary alberta to focus their efforts and experience on the development of unconventional gas in canada their company later acquired by quicksilver resources was the inaugural first-place organization ranked by the mays business schools aggie 100 the business duo eventually founded unconventional gas resources in 2007 and merged with natural gas company painted pony energy ltd in 2017 since the merger gatens has been traveling more with heidi as he moves toward retirement they have taken up long distance hiking and plan to climb mt kilimanjaro in the fall in the meantime he is still helping others and spreading his expertise through a variety of ancillary industry and unconventional energy organizations i am on the executive boards for primavera resources a consulting firm run by voneiff (mosaic petroleum analytics) and geoscience bc a non-profit research organization in vancouver said gatens we also try to make it down to college station to visit friends and catch a football game every year
2939,the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment faculty endowments encourage and reward faculty members who embody the passion for and commitment to the education of engineering students they bring years of rich experiences from the field and add tremendous value to the college of engineering if you are interested in supporting faculty or would like more information on how you can give please contact jeremy quast senior director of development
2940,a team of inventors from the vehicle systems & control laboratory in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded us patent 9 957 035 for un-manned aerial vehicle having adjustable wing module tail and landing gear
2941,the pegasus unmanned air system was conceived specified designed built and flown by the team of dr john valasek professor in the department andrew beckett and james f may graduate research assistants and cecil c rhodes jr a&p technician and flight mechanics specialist pegasus was conceived as the control systems integration testbed for researching and evaluating fault tolerant adaptive control laws autoland control laws and a variety of airborne sensors for imaging and tracking missions
2942,pegasus has more than 80 flights at the texas a&m rellis campus out of its design life of 300 takeoff and landing cycles the airframe has a wing span of 12 feet and is designed to 7g limit maneuvering load factor and has a maximum takeoff weight of 108 pounds pegasus can carry 30 pounds of payload in the nose and fuselage payload bay which has a volume of 12u half-width rack chassis
2943,pegasus features variable static stability with a positionable wing location on the fuselage and multiple redundant control surfaces: eight ailerons two elevators two rudders and a throttle pegasus has a stall speed at maximum takeoff weight of 26 knots and a maximum speed of 90 knots the endurance is 1+ hour depending upon fuel system configuration visit here to see a video of the pegasus flight operations
2944,texas a&m university researchers are developing a new kind of flame-retardant coating using renewable nontoxic materials readily found in nature which could provide even more effective fire protection for several widely used materials dr jaime grunlan the linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m led the recently published research that is featured on the cover of a recent issue of the journal advanced materials interfaces successful development and implementation of the coating could provide better fire protection to materials including upholstered furniture textiles and insulation
2945,"these coatings offer the opportunity to reduce the flammability of the polyurethane foam used in a variety of furniture throughout most peoples homes grunlan noted the project is a result of an ongoing collaboration between grunlan and a group of researchers at kth royal institute of technology in stockholm sweden led by lars wagberg the group which specializes in utilizing nanocellulose provided grunlan with the ingredients he needed to complement his water-based coating procedure in nature both the cellulose – a component of wood and various sea creatures – and clay – a component in soil and rock formations – act as mechanical reinforcements for the structures in which they are found ""the uniqueness in this current study lies in the use of two naturally occurring nanomaterials clay nanoplatelets and cellulose nanofibrils "" grunlan said ""to the best of our knowledge these ingredients have never been used to make a heat shielding or flame-retardant coating as a multilayer thin film deposited from water"" among the benefits gained from using this method include the coating's ability to create an excellent oxygen barrier to plastic films – commonly used for food packaging – and better fire protection at a lower cost than other more toxic ingredients traditionally used flame-retardant treatments to test the coatings grunlan and his colleagues applied the flexible polyurethane foam – often used in furniture cushions – and exposed it to fire using a butane torch to determine the level of protection the compounds provided while uncoated polyurethane foam immediately melts when exposed to flame the foam treated with the researchers' coating prevented the fire from damaging any further than surface level leaving the foam underneath undamaged the nanobrick wall structure of the coating reduces the temperature experienced by the underlying foam which delays combustion grunlan said this coating also serves to promote insulating char formation and reduces the release of fumes that feed a fire with the research completed grunlan said the next step for the overall flame-retardant project is to transition the methods into industry for implementation and further development visit here to learn more about the research and see the teams findings"
2946,researchers from texas a&m university led by dr akhilesh k gaharwar have developed a new way to deliver treatment for cartilage regeneration gaharwar assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m said the nanoclay-based platform for sustained and prolonged delivery of protein therapeutics has the potential to impact treating osteoarthritis a degenerative disease that affects nearly 27 million americans and is caused by breakdown of cartilage that can lead to damage of the underlying bone as americas population ages the number of osteoarthritis incidences is likely to increase one of the greatest challenges with treating osteoarthritis and subsequent joint damage is repairing the damaged tissue especially as cartilage tissue is difficult to regenerate one method for repair or regeneration of damaged cartilage tissue is to deliver therapeutic growth factors growth factors are a special class of proteins that can aid in tissue repair and regeneration however current versions of growth factors break down quickly and require a high dose to achieve a therapeutic potential recent clinical studies have demonstrated significant adverse effects to this kind of treatment including uncontrolled tissue formation and inflammation
2947,in texas a&ms study published in acs applied materials and interfaces gaharwars lab has designed two-dimensional (2-d) mineral nanoparticles to deliver growth factors for a prolonged duration to overcome this drawback these nanoparticles provide a high surface area and dual charged characteristics that allow for easy electrostatic attachment of growth factors these nanoparticles could prolong delivery of growth factors to human mesenchymal stem cells which are commonly utilized in cartilage regeneration gaharwar said the sustained delivery of growth factors resulted in enhanced stem cell differentiation towards cartilage lineage and can be used for treatment of osteoarthritis by utilizing the nanoparticle for therapeutic delivery it is possible to induce robust and stable differentiation of stem cells said dr lauren m cross senior author of the study and research assistant in the biomedical engineering department in addition prolonged delivery of the growth factor could reduce overall costs by reducing growth factor concentration as well as minimizing the negative side effects the research was supported by the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering of the national institutes of health and the national science foundation
2948,dr kristi shryock has been named director of the texas a&m university college of engineerings craig and galen brown engineering honors program she currently serves as associate department head and associate professor of instruction in the department of aerospace engineering and will continue in these roles the aggie engineer has served the university for 21 years first as an undergraduate student researcher and currently as a faculty member in aerospace engineering shryock received her bachelors masters and doctoral degrees from the college of engineering at texas a&m i am so honored to be working with such an impressive group of high-caliber leaders in engineering shryock said she is taking over the leadership of the program following dr nancy amatos move to serve as department head of computer science and an abel bliss professor of engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign
2949,we are grateful to dr amato for her years of service and her dedication to expanding the opportunities our brightest students have at their disposal said dr mark weichold regents professor and senior associate dean for academic affairs under her tenure the engineering honors program has expanded dramatically and i look forward to seeing its further growth under dr shryocks capable leadership shryock said shes looking forward to following amatos lead as the program continues to develop and grow there are currently more than 1 700 students in the engineering honors program the program has grown by leaps and bounds the last several years and i look forward to continuing this expansion and introducing new opportunities for exploration and enhancement shryock said shryock helped establish one of the first departmental honors programs within the college of engineering and is also a member of the honors faculty at texas a&m she is regularly invited to present her work related to teaching and the engineering education field at national and international events she served as lead author on a paper at the 2011 frontiers in education conference that won the highly coveted benjamin dasher best paper award and also received the instructional faculty teaching award in 2015 and 2018 from the college of engineering she frequently supervises undergraduate and graduate students on projects related to engineering education including active learning personalized learning modules enhanced understanding using interactive documents team-based learning and teaching with technology she also leads several educational national science foundation grants and serves as an advisor for two student organizations my passion has always revolved around helping students succeed she said our students are amazing and i look forward to continuing to provide them with opportunities to help prepare them to truly change the world
2950,dr mladen kezunovic regents professor and the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was recently invited to participate in a prestigious panel organized by the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine under the leadership of the naval studies boardthe panel was part of a two-day workshop titled maintaining operational effectiveness for us naval forces in highly degraded environments: ensuring trusted resilient data in the face of data warfare representatives from different areas of the us naval forces community attended the workshop kezunovic was part of panel session two aggregating pre-processing and storing datakezunovic is director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center site director of the power systems engineering research center and director of the power system control and protection lab his expertise is in protective relaying automated power system disturbance analysis computational intelligence and data analytics and smart grids before joining texas a&m in 1986 he worked for westinghouse electric corp and energoinvest in europeamong his many honors kezunovic was appointed by the us secretary of energy to serve on the electricity advisory committee for the department of energy he has been named an institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) life fellow and a council on large electric systems (cigre) fellow honorary member and distinguished member he has published more than 550 papers in journals and conference proceedings and has been invited to give more than 120 lectures worldwide he is also listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee power engineering society while at texas a&m he has been the principal investigator on more than 120 research projects and supervised more than 60 graduate students
2951,dr alexei poludnenko associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering received the 2018 distinguished paper award in the detonations explosions and supersonic combustion colloquium from the combustion institute at the 37th international symposium on combustion the paper compressible turbulent flame speeds of highly turbulent standing flames was co-authored by jonathan sosa jessica chambers and kareem a ahmed from the university of central florida and vadim n gamezo from the naval research laboratory the paper presents the first measurement of turbulent burning velocities of a highly turbulent compressible standing flame induced by shock-driven turbulence in a turbulent shock tube it is the second consecutive distinguished paper award for the group the previous award was given at the 36th international symposium on combustion distinguished papers are selected biennially from among the scientific papers presented during the international symposium on combustion and accepted for publication in the proceedings of the combustion institute one paper is selected for each represented colloquium as the most distinguished in quality achievement and significance one paper in each colloquium is selected as a distinguished paper the 13 distinguished papers now have the chance of winning the silver combustion medal to be awarded during the 39th symposium in adelaide australia
2952,carol h hamm has established the hamm family scholarship in honor of her children deborah hamm nikolis 89 and robert alan hamm 92 this endowment will provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing attending the mays business school or zachry department of civil engineering who have elected to participate in a study abroad program in 1979 the hamm family moved to beaumont texas where their children attended high school two of our children attended and thrived at texas a&m hamm said they made lifelong friends met their spouses and went on to successful careers two of hamms grandchildren currently attend texas a&m and have participated in study abroad programs led by the university they have benefited greatly from participating in study abroad programs hamm said in an age of increasing globalization study abroad programs enrich students personal lives and career opportunities the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment endowments supporting the students in the college have an immeasurable impact on their education if you are interested in supporting the college of engineering or would like more information on how you can give please contact true brown director of development
2953,two engineering faculty members were among 10 from texas a&m university named to clarivate analytics highly cited researchers list for 2018 dr philip hemmer and dr jn reddy were on the annual list which identifies influential researchers from around the world who are recognized by their peers in the form of high citation counts over a decade the a&m researchers who qualified for this years list represent the scope of the texas a&m research enterprise from science and engineering to business and liberal arts said dr mark a barteau vice president for research we are proud of their accomplishments as well as those of our many other outstanding researchers who contribute every day to advancing human knowledge and to improving society and the world around us hemmer is a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering his research interests include nitrogen vacancy diamond color centers for quantum information and biological applications solid materials for quantum optics sub-wavelength imaging single molecule imaging ultra-sensitive room temperature solid-state magnetometers ultrasound modulated optical tomography nanofabrication of surface plasmon structures quantum computing and storage in solid materials chemical/biological agent detection using quantum coherence ultraslow and stopped light in solids materials and techniques for resonant nonlinear optics phase-conjugate-based turbulence aberration compensation spectral hole-burning materials and techniques holographic optical memory materials smart pixels devices optical correlators photorefractive applications laser trapping and cooling and atomic clocks reddy is a university distinguished professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering he is known worldwide for his significant contributions to the field of applied mechanics through his pioneering works on the development of shear deformation theories and the authorship of widely used textbooks on the linear and nonlinear finite element analysis variational methods composite materials and structures applied functional analysis and continuum mechanics advances around the world his shear deformation plate and shell theories and their finite element models and the penalty finite element models of non-newtonian fluids have been implemented into commercial finite element computer programs like abaqus nisa and hyperxtrude this is the fifth year clarivate analytics has published its list of highly cited researchers
2954,a conversation with dr andrew johnson an expert in electricity distribution about his ongoing work in finland the world runs on electricity and those in charge of its distribution must balance quality and reliable service with efficient production methods and profitable prices in order to make electricity distribution as cost-effective and fair as possible a research team partnered with the federal regulator in finland to create implement and evaluate national electricity distribution policies and techniques the team included dr andrew johnson associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and dr timo kuosmanen a professor in the department of information and service economy at aalto university
2955,q: what is electricity distribution as johnson described electricity distribution is the final part of the energy supply chain in which the electricity carried across power lines is delivered to the consumer because well-functioning power lines are vital to the process distributor companies are responsible for overseeing and maintaining them to ensure customers are receiving service due to the high cost of construction it is common for only one distributor to exist in a service area in the united states the regulation of this sector is done by state agencies that aim to identify anomalies in distribution and correct companies if no anomalies are brought to their attention no initiative is made to evaluate distributor companies europe on the other hand has a more proactive approach johnson explained that each country has a federal regulator who actively studies the performance of distributors and enacts policies to ensure customers are getting fair pricing and arent being taken advantage of by the sole area distributor q: what issue(s) does your research address thirty or 40 years ago johnson said european electricity distribution services were owned by the federal governments however that raised concerns that the government didnt maintain a high quality of service because there wasnt a profit incentive in order to improve the service level provided electricity distribution was privatized across europe but was still regulated and benchmarked by the federal governments what we're trying to do with our regulation and technique is push back in the other direction so now the service level is pretty good but we want to make sure the companies are providing service at the best cost for the people johnson said
2956,that means that the researchers needed to learn how to balance and navigate the tug-of-war relationship between business and government one challenge that weve come across is that companies have very large stakes in the way policy decisions might affect their financial outcomes and are eager to do what they think is in their own best interest said johnson as he further explained this obstacle stemmed from the built-in skepticism that companies have toward the regulator for every policy and benefit explained the team is met with political pushback from companies as they haggle for other outcomes that they believe will better fulfill their goals q: what conclusions has your research produced in addition to practical applications johnson and kuosmanens ongoing work has given them an opportunity to analyze methods used in their area of research using real data and to improve upon them johnson explained
2957,the limitations of the variety of techniques used in efficiency literature has become clear during our project said johnson to rectify this we've combined some of them in order to develop enhanced hybrid techniques to implement in finland our work with the regulator has allowed us to test our techniques and impact society and by being able to estimate cost benchmarks better and get fair electricity distribution prices we hope that we've put money back in the consumers pockets and made lives easier together the researchers and regulator evaluated current cost benchmarking methods and electricity distribution policies in order to gain insight into the status quo johnson said from there they created new policies and efficiency techniques to improve cost-effectiveness and consumer protection and set up a schedule to gradually introduce new national regulations finally the researchers took a step back to analyze the benefits and consequences of implementation in order to prepare solutions and amendments for the future q: any closing thoughts we're currently writing a paper about our most recent iteration of the regulatory policy and one thing that we've realized is that finland does have relatively low distribution costs compared to the rest of europe said johnson
2958,"so while this is just one data point it's also the only one that's adopted our new methodology for benchmarking "" he continued ""we think this is a strong indication that the regulation is working and showing some benefits for the people of finland i know there's always been a skepticism in the united states toward regulation and government intervention in private markets but there is value to protecting the consumer in natural monopolies i think in this kind of situation where one company has been given the task to provide a service and no other company can compete with them there is benefit to regulation"
2959,as nasa and private companies race to send humans to mars and beyond the need for a program providing sustainable life for long periods in space becomes apparent dr robert skelton has proposed a growable habitat with 1 g of gravitational force to solve this need skelton a tees eminent professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university is wrapping up phase ii of his space habitat project funded through nasas innovative advanced concepts program skelton aims to answer four yet-unsolved needs for maintaining long-term life in space: gravity radiation protection agricultural space for food production and a growable technology for expanding the habitat as economic conditions allow while humans have been traveling to space for over 50 years each of the stays has been relatively short in part because outer space is not a friendly long-term environment for humans the human body is used to a 1 g gravity environment as found on earth when astronauts spend a significant amount of time in zero gravity different bodily systems are affected including bone density loss impaired vision muscle atrophy cardiovascular deconditioning and immune system changes for example on earth the fluid pressure in your eye is less than the pressure in your feet because gravity is pulling everything down when someone is in space the pressure is the same throughout the body which is too much for the eye the pressure change causes changes to the eye that are noticeable upon return to earth
2960,skelton argues that the only way to sustain life in space long term is to provide a habitat for humans that provides a gravity environment similar to what they experience on earth the habitat he envisions is a settlement in space with research capabilities to determine what level of gravity is required for human health before launching long-term space travel to mars and farther he proposes to start the habitat at the size of 20 meters radius enough to sustain about 20 people with the final structure being built over time out to 225 meters housing 8 000 people with 300 square meters of agricultural space per person the initial habitat would be small and built from materials launched from earth because material resources are costly in space skelton suggests using tensegrity systems for the design of the growth adaptable space structure these minimal mass structures make the habitat easy to change in shape and its very strong and lightweight subsequent growth stages of the habitat would rely on tensegrity robots mining materials from the moon and asteroids with the overall shape of the habitat designed in concentric cylinders the outer shell would be a thick-wall of regolith for radiation protection that would rotate slowly to enhance stability regolith is a layer of loose heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock found on earth the moon and asteroids the habitat inside would spin at a faster rate to provide artificial gravity (due to the centrifugal forces) for the inhabitants inside the habitat would provide all levels of gravity from 0 g to 1 g where the lower g-level space is reserved for agriculture and the people occupy higher g-levels up to 1 g the outer shell would consist of 5 meter thick panels which would allow light in but are thick enough for radiation protection included in the outer shell are shutters that can open and close to simulate night and day large mirrors on either side of the structure will be used to bounce light into the structure
2961,inside the habitat along the outer walls in the lower gravity range are shelves that are used for growing varied crops positioned where light can easily get to them in the center of the habitat skelton envisions green space including parks with plants and rivers running through it bringing some of the loved features from earth including 10 000 trees and lakes the finished habitat at 225 meters would include five residence floors housing people offices shops and work spaces the initial orbit skelton has chosen for the habitat is called a lunar resonance orbit its a stable orbit that goes from the earth to the moon and back again in a somewhat figure eight pattern in the orbit the habitat would visit the earth and the moon once every 10 days while near the moon the inhabitants could be doing operations such as mining the moon and other commercial chores when orbiting near the earth the proximity makes it easier to get resupplies to the habitat as the project wraps up skelton believes that the space habitat is the next step in building our space program answering the question of how we safely and perhaps permanently occupy space for extended periods of time team members that contributed to the project include drs manoranjan majji raktim bhattacharya and bonnie j dunbar from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m as well as anthony longman from skyframe research and joel sercel from transastra inc
2962,with dr james hubbard jrs relocation to texas a&m he brings with him a state-of-the-art motion capture studio -- a tool he plans to use to push new boundaries in the development of autonomous vehicle technology hubbards starlab is located on the rellis campus approximately 10 miles from texas a&m the 2 000-acre rellis campus provides the lab with large outdoor working areas as well as an indoor facility featuring motion capture and animation technologies used for the development and simulation of both aerial and ground autonomous vehicles the lab will feature more than 40 high-speed motion capture cameras a capture volume of 40 feet by 40 feet and a holodeck-like environment well-suited for the testing and development of new methods and technologies we have the ability to merge motion capture and tracking with virtual reality and augmented reality environments said hubbard tees eminent professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering merging motion capture with augmented reality and virtual reality and seamlessly including real-time data from platforms operating on the rellis campus opens a whole new world of possibilities for the development of autonomous systems ground and airborne among the projects hubbard will be working on will include an autonomous shuttle service for handicapped individuals alongside dr srikanth saripalli and the development of a smart seat for autonomous vehicles capable of monitoring the condition of its riders through the use of built-in sensors to non-invasively measure the brainwaves of riders the research could lead to the ability for autonomous vehicles to sense when a person is anxious tired alert and more this is a new paradigm which will give the autonomous vehicle situational awareness of the human rider for improved autonomy hubbard said although he was first brought to texas a&m as a fellow with the hagler institute for advanced study hubbard accepted a full-time position at the university earlier this year
2963,seawalls dikes and sand dunes are single defense alternatives protecting the worlds beaches and coastlines with nearly 40 percent of the population living along the coastline it is now more important than ever to better protect our coastal communities badreyah al-marshed a doctoral candidate in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university is working to develop a functional design for a hybrid coastal structure based on the wave-structure interaction during storm events al-marsheds research is centered on building a defense structure for coastlines by combining a rubble mound dike and a sand dune into one structure it can widen beaches and provide many benefits including but not limited to flood protection enhance tourism and also create new habitats for a variety of species the structures hybrid nature allows for the simultaneous protection and restoration of coastal ecosystems this design also offers the desired level of infrastructure protection against flooding and storm surge and can be utilized in locations with limited space
2964,hybrid structures similar to the ones al-marshed is working on will be adopted in the future coastal protection plan for the greater houston and galveston texas areas to reduce risks associated with hurricane-induced flooding thus the development of design criteria of such hybrid structures will be essential for the protection of our coastal community al-marshed said although hybrid coastal structures have become more common recently there are still many knowledge gaps regarding their performance my goal is to generate a design formula for those hybrid structures based on wave overtopping volumes while also investigating the benefits of such a structure in reducing risk associated in storm events al-marshed received her bachelor and master of science degrees in coastal engineering from kuwait university she chose to attend texas a&m due to the opportunities for students to conduct their own research she will graduate in may 2019 and return to kuwait university as a faculty member in the civil engineering department and continue her research and teaching efforts being a female coastal engineer in a male-dominated field is the greatest challenge i have faced so far al-marshed said however i have learned that if you believe in yourself and pursue your passion you can achieve anything you set your mind to she encourages women pursuing a similar career to identify a goal and work hard to achieve it remember that with determination and hard work you will achieve your goal no matter how unattainable others think it is al-marshed said
2965,dr john l junkins university distinguished professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and director of the hagler institute for advanced study will receive the robert h goddard astronautics award from the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) for his indelible teaching and mentoring contributions his leadership in creating a unique institute that promotes scientific excellence and his career research contributions to spacecraft navigation dynamics and control the goddard astronautics award is the highest honor bestowed for notable achievements in astronautics it was endowed by the estate of robert h goddard rocket visionary pioneer bold experimentalist and superb engineer whose early liquid rockets set the stage for the development of astronautics and the exploration of space in its current form the award has been conferred since 1975 the honor previously was more narrowly focused on excellence in propulsion and energy conversion a professor inventor and aerospace engineer junkins holds the royce e wisenbaker chair in innovation in texas a&ms college of engineering he is a member of the national academy of engineering and the national academy of inventors he is also a fellow of the international academy of astronautics and an honorary fellow of aiaa junkins has received over a dozen previous international honors he is the author of over 400 papers and patents and seven books his co-authored book analytical mechanics of aerospace systems received the 2014 martin summerfield best book award given annually by aiaa
2966,junkins began his career at nasa in huntsville alabama at age 19 as a co-op student from auburn during the apollo program according to junkins: i have been surfing a wave of enthusiasm ever since the apollo era it is almost embarrassing to be honored for doing what i love so much he time-shared graduate study at ucla with his role as an engineer at mcdonnell-douglas where his trajectory optimization developments supported launches of over a dozen satellites aboard delta rockets junkins' expertise spans analytical research computational methods conceptual design invention and experiments his work has led to advances in sensing navigation and control of spacecraft and space robotic systems following academic appointments at the university of virginia and virginia tech he joined the texas a&m faculty in 1985 as the first endowed chair holder in the college of engineering his work attracted sponsorship for about 100 research projects and he led the development of a significant laboratory for space robotics research he has directed 54 doctoral students and currently advises six doctoral candidates junkins is known as an effective mentor and almost half of his doctoral graduates have become professors as a consequence he has over 120 doctoral descendants distributed worldwide in industry government and academia his prolific teaching writing and research has generated a significant school of thought in astronautics his technical descendants are respected for their technical breadth and ability to apply fundamental principles that frequently achieve closure between mathematical modeling and physical realizations as advancements in the state of the art in recognition of his leadership to launch and secure endowments for the hagler institute for advanced study junkins was the inaugural recipient of the faculty partner in philanthropy award bestowed by the texas a&m foundation in 2016 since its founding eight years ago the hagler institute has attracted 61 eminent scholars to texas a&m and over $36 million of endowment commitments the hagler institute is making a significant impact on the advancement of texas a&m junkins will receive the goddard astronautics award may 15 during aiaas annual aerospace spotlight awards gala at the ronald reagan building and international trade center district of columbia
2967,the land around rivers has been attractive and vital to mankind throughout history for its fertile soil for agriculture easy access to transportation and flood regulation as civilizations continue to grow trees are cleared to make room for progress changing the landscape for better or worse merging engineering with geosciences an interdisciplinary team from texas a&m university was awarded a 2019 pesca grant to investigate how human-induced deforestation influences the evolution of lowland tropical river ecosystems pesca grants are awarded by the universitys division of research to support scholarly projects that have the potential to lead to external funding by agencies and endowments by utilizing real-world data computer simulation technology and deep learning the study aims to gain insight about how to preserve and sustain environments around rivers and ecosystems in areas impacted by human intervention dr inci guneralp associate professor in the department of geography is leading the project the team includes dr anthony filippi associate professor in the geography department dr georgianne moore associate department head for graduate programs and associate professor in the department of ecosystem science and management and dr zhangyang atlas wang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering i think this project represents an exciting direction in research in general how to use deep learning and artificial intelligence techniques to analyze the unprecedentedly large data sets collected in the geosciences said wang at its core deep learning is a branch of artificial intelligence that focuses on emulating human thinking and learning patterns in doing so it creates a computer brain that is able to draw conclusions and predict patterns without much human guidance this is particularly helpful when deciphering and translating data sets that are too large or too complicated to do manually before the team can apply deep learning techniques to the large data sets in the study they must first create a computer simulation model using a small sample of data this foundational model will help pinpoint key factors for the computer to make note of and act as a set of guidelines to steer the computers mind in the right direction this in turn will allow deep learning to be applied to bigger and future datasets in order to decipher and predict the long-term changes in geomorphic and forest patterns caused by deforestation armed with that information researchers will be able to better understand the current state of threatened lowland tropical forest and river biomes and propose measures and policies to protect their resilience and future sustainability as an engineer it is exciting to see that our techniques can also help to generate societal values said wang i think that the interdisciplinary projects we work on together – whether its for global warming climate changes deforestation or river flow – all really contribute to the quality of people's lives
2968,dr paul gratz associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was recognized for his work in the paper titled synchronized progress in interconnection networks (spin): a new theory for deadlock freedom the paper was selected as a top pick of all computer architecture papers published in 2018 by the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) micro publication along with gratz aniruddh ramrakhyani and tushar krishna from the georgia institute of technology were co-authors of this paper in order for a paper to be chosen as a top pick it must first be accepted in a major computer architecture conference then it is submitted for consideration out of 123 top pick submissions in 2018 their paper was one of the 12 awarded ieee micro will publish the top picks from the computer architecture conferences as its may/june 2019 issue one of the most fundamental design challenges in any high-performance computing or on-chip network are deadlocks deadlocks are circular resource dependencies within the network that prevent forward progress they can be thought of in terms of a traffic jam that cannot resolve itself gratz explained that once a deadlock is formed without a resolution mechanism it cannot ever resolve until the part is reset deadlocks are a design flaw that can break chips making the part useless if not caught early and prevented in the design stage the traditional approaches to solve them are very expensive either in terms of performance lost or resources wasted to prevent them gratz said our work means that the problem can be solved with much less resource consumption making processor chips less expensive perform better and lower energy consumption in their paper gratz and his collaborators challenge the theoretical notion of viewing deadlocks as a lack of resource problem but instead as a lack of coordination between distributed entities the root of the idea in this approach is that coordination would make the traditional interconnection network deadlock problem go away gratz said as i recall the basic idea came from teaching ecen 350 where we talk a lot about pipelining my thought was that in a pipelined processor there can be dependencies between stages but no deadlock occurs because the stages coordinate hand-offs from one to another so why can't we do that in interconnection networks to handle the similar case of deadlocks this solution has the potential to improve the battery life and reduce costs in smartphones and could also mean that less power is consumed by data centers such as those run by facebook amazon or google
2969,as a first-generation student analicia leiva used to call her mom frequently for encouragement the rosenberg texas native said she felt anxious when she first arrived in college station as a freshman anthropology major at texas a&m university she would always say ‘you can do it leiva recalled several years later she uses those same four words to encourage the first-year engineering students she helps as an advisor in the college of engineering
2970,a helping hand leiva was a regents scholarship recipient and participated in the foundations of continued undergraduate success (focus) program focus is a learning community that provides mentorship opportunities for first-generation students to leiva it was a life-changing experience after completing her freshman year and gaining newfound confidence in herself leiva started mentoring other students in the focus program the first year i did it i didnt even know you got paid she said i just wanted to pay it back paying it back has become her philosophy for everything she now does as an advisor becoming an advisor while working on her masters degree in student development and higher education leiva was hired as an academic advisor for the college of architecture at texas a&m in 2014 she completed her graduate degree the following year as an advisor leiva assisted construction science students and helped teach a course for first-generation regents scholars
2971,its quite different from the career she originally envisioned for herself as a paleontologist studying dinosaurs but its a career that she became passionate about through her own experiences as a student to be an advisor for first-generation students you have to be patient she said you have to overexplain things its those little details that help them as the first person in her family to go to college she remembers how those little details helped her i want them to understand and i always take the time to make sure they do she said going the extra mile leiva joined the college of engineering as an academic advisor in june 2017 she advises general engineering students and teaches an academic success seminar to first-year students my favorite part of my job is having an impact on students in some way she said i like working with freshmen because the perfect time to influence someones development is between the ages of 16 and 19 jose pena ‘22 a chemical engineering student said leiva helped him realize his own limitations in a way that ultimately benefited him on many occasions students believe that they have had enough experience in their academic trajectories to be able to decide what is beneficial to them pena said however by the same token these types of students also become involved with a wrong sense of confidence and wellbeing that they forget to ask questions yes i am also talking about myself pena said hes been very involved as a freshman engineering student and leiva helped him take things into consideration that he had not thought about before
2972,rewarded for excellence leiva was recently recognized with the presidents meritorious service award for commendable service to the university in an email from president michael k young the recipients of this prestigious award demonstrated their commitment to the aggie core values to excellence integrity leadership loyalty respect and selfless service in february leiva was also rewarded for the way that she goes above and beyond she received the innovative advising award from the texas academic advising network (texaan) the award was based on her initiative to include all first-year engineering students in her class whether they attend texas a&m in college station or in galveston mcallen or a remote academy something i try to make the students realize is that saying ‘i cant is just an excuse she said you just have to try leiva also recently became a fish camp namesake she didnt attend fish camp as an incoming student but she now sees the benefit of other students attending they try to make you realize that its ok to be yourself and to open up she said admitting that this is something she could have benefited from as a freshman leiva is passionate about her career in advising and the ability she has to make an impact on students i think that advising is all about appreciating different types of students and understanding their goals and visions she said having that direct impact on students is about helping them develop as individuals not just in college but also in the future somehow
2973,every year the southeastern conference (sec) selects one faculty member from each school in the conference to receive the sec faculty achievement award the award recognizes professors with outstanding records in research and scholarship this year the sec honors dr roderic i pettigrew ceo of engineering health executive dean for engineering medicine (enmed) and holder of the robert a welch chair in chemistry enmed is the result of a partnership between texas a&m universitys colleges of medicine and engineering and houston methodist hospital and is overseen by pettigrew enmed is a new training program converging two distinctly different disciplines that will transform the nature of health care as we know it said dr carrie l byington 85 vice chancellor for health services at the texas a&m university system senior vice president of the texas a&m health science center and dean of the texas a&m college of medicine through dr pettigrews leadership and innovation texas a&m is creating a new type of health care provider for the 21stcenturythe physicianeer pettigrews ideas are helping the texas a&m health science center create a new generation of professional the ‘physicianeer with his guidance we can encourage others to embrace this concept the possibilities are endless the sec selected pettigrew to highlight his innovative thinking and transformative plans for enmed enmed will train a new kind of medical mind said pettigrew our graduates will understand that life springs from a seamless integration of the biological and physical sciences and engineering we seek to train invention-minded physicians who see problems in health care and dream up solutions pettigrew joined texas a&m at the end of 2017 with a portfolio of international accomplishments in advancing biomedical innovation he served as founding director of the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering at the national institutes of health he is an elected member of both the national academy of medicine and the national academy of engineering is an elected member of the national academy of inventors and is an elected foreign fellow of the national academy of sciences india enmed is complete paradigm shift from conventional thinking about what it means to be an engineer or a physician dr pettigrew has taken on the challenge of leading this ambitious program and making it a success we need his kind of vision to face the major health care challenges of the future and the lead the way for these new ‘physicianeers said m katherine banks vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories at the texas a&m university system dean of the texas a&m college of engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station to be eligible for consideration the individual must be a teacher or scholar at an sec university; have achieved the rank of full professor; have a record of extraordinary teaching; and have a record of research that is recognized nationally and/or internationally each sec faculty achievement award winner will receive a $5 000 honorarium from the sec and will become texas a&ms nominee for the sec professor of the year award the sec professor of the year to be named in april receives an additional $15 000 honorarium dr marcetta darensbourg distinguished professor in the department of chemistry at texas a&m won the honor last year
2974,sanjay ramabhadran 96 was recently sworn in as president of the texas lyceum in austin he sat down with us to discuss his career civil service and life as an international student-turned-texan-advocate the texas lyceum is a public service organization made up of 96 leaders from around the state whose purpose is to identify the next generation of texas leaders educate them about important issues facing the state of texas empower them to have the opportunity to actually impact policy and to steward texas values past members include presidents us congressmen members of the texas legislature ambassadors business leaders and leaders in the nonprofit sector
2975,since graduating from texas a&m university with a masters degree in civil engineering ramabhadran works in houston in public infrastructure hes passionate about changing the stereotypes that surround engineers because he believes engineers have a special point of view when it comes to big issues engineers can get stuck and just put their nose down doing what needs to be done in order to finish a job however i think engineers also have a lot to offer in terms of public policy – be it city planning how will we get around houston or planning for sustainable use of our water resources given we are an integral part of implementing infrastructure projects we have an on-the-ground experience to offer policymakers ramabhadran said ramabhadran grew up in a small mining town in india where his parents instilled in him a lifestyle of service from a young age my parents helped build infrastructure and civic organizations in our town he said i learned from my father how engineers could change lives and from both my parents the importance of civic engagement ramabhadran grew up and benefitted from an undergraduate education from birla institute of technology and science an indian university formed by the ford foundation and the massachusetts institute of technology in the 1960s my western-style undergraduate education truly benefitted me as an international student looking to study in the united states ramabhadran said but the decision to study at texas a&m was a shock to ramabhadrans family five of my cousins and nephews were already studying at another certain school in texas i had no idea what an aggie was but i saw the civil engineering rankings and the cost of living in college station and i was sold ramabhadran said embracing the aggie spirit ramabhadran enjoyed his time on campus he traded his cricket bat in for a baseball bat assisted with the bonfire and soon after helped in the repainting of the welcome to aggieland water tower after working at regional and global engineering firms in executive and board roles ramabhadran recently founded versa infrastructure and is a co-principal he has been involved in leadership houston the metropolitan transit authority of harris county american leadership forum and in speaking to international students at texas a&m as president of the lyceum ramabhadran is seizing his opportunity to bring it back to college station in fall 2019 members of the texas lyceum will meet at the bush school of government and public service at texas a&m to explore whether texans are taking our democracy for granted other topics for 2019 include education the workforce how commerce moves into across and through texas and the states natural splendor but there is one thing in particular that ramabhadran is excited to finally bring to campus after all this time im excited to say that by the time the lyceum meets in college station i will have received my aggie ring he said
2976,the texas a&m college of engineering is proud of our former students like sanjay ramabhadran who uphold aggie core values such as loyalty and respect if you know an aggie who is celebrating an accomplishment and would like them to be recognized by the college please contact the office of alumni relations
2977,five faculty members in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university have been appointed to new faculty fellowship and professorship positions assistant professor dr michael moreno will serve as the inaugural j mike walker faculty fellow assistant professor dr bruce tai will serve as the inaugural mechanical engineering industry advisory council faculty fellow associate professor dr choongho yu was selected to serve as the sallie and don davis 61 faculty fellow ii and associate professor dr srikanth saripalli was selected to serve as the gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor ii the four appointments are effective immediately associate professor and morris e foster faculty fellow ii dr ya wang will serve as the leland t jordan career development professor her appointment is effective sept 1 i am tremendously grateful for the donors' generous endowments to support our faculty's pursuit of excellence in teaching research and professional engagement said dr andreas polycarpou department head meinhard h kotzebue '14 professor and james j cain chair in mechanical engineering gifts like these bolster the stellar contributions to the department's teaching and research mission on our path toward preeminence
2978,dr balakrishna haridas and dr kristen maitland from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university have been elected to the american institute for medical and biological engineering (aimbe) college of fellows aimbe is the authoritative voice and advocate for the value of medical and biological engineering to society its mission is to recognize excellence advance the public understanding and accelerate medical and biological innovation college membership honors those who have made contributions to engineering and medicine research practice or education and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education haridas professor of practice and director of the bioinnovation program and executive director of the tees division of commercialization & entrepreneurship was elected for major contributions in development of technologies for minimally invasive surgery endovascular interventions and biomaterials for tissue repair and healing it is a pleasure and honor for me to be inducted as a fellow of aimbe an institution that i have admired for its contributions toward promoting the field of medical and biological engineering to the public industry and health care policy makers in government haridas said maitland associate professor and director of the microscopy and imaging center was elected for contributions to advanced optical imaging instrumentation and its application to detection of cancer inflammation and infection i am truly honored to be elected to the aimbe college of fellows a notable group of leaders in medical and biological engineering committed to improving health and society maitland said the aimbe college of fellows class of 2019 included 156 members while most fellows are from the united states the college of fellows has inducted fellows representing 30 countries current members include nobel prize laureates presidential medal of science and/or technology and innovation recipients and members of the national academy of engineering the national academy of medicine and the national academy of sciences
2979,students gathered in rudder theatre thursday night to get advice from former students who have risen to the top in its third year aggie boss talk hosted five industry leaders from a variety of fields panelists included john faulkinberry ‘92 vice president of sales in north america at emerson; stephanie atkinson ‘97 ceo of compass intelligence; jay still ‘84 president and ceo of guidon energy; bonnie black ‘94 vice president of permian well planning and permitting pioneer natural resources; and brad simmons ‘83 global vice president of built environment these five aggie bosses had incredibly timely and amazing advice to give our students not just about how to rise to the top but about how to be the best engineer right where you are said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program its always an exciting time when you can bring former students back to campus and give them the opportunity to engage with aggies who will make up the workforce of tomorrow chemical engineering graduate student jyoti sharma said that she really enjoyed the event its all up to you she said you are responsible for your career mechanical engineering senior onur erdemir agreed i understand a new perspective of how people in industry approach certain situations that might arise he said i learned that communication and soft skills are very important here are some of the key takeaways from boss talk: 1 youre responsible for your own success youre a big fish in a small pond said still i have a personal saying ‘if youre doing good things good things are going to happen never stop learning atkinson agreed with this sentiment dont live your life by default be purposeful she said 2 develop your soft skills faulkinberry said that even if youre an introvert you can learn how to put yourself out there first of all smile he said people will accept your approach a lot more if they think youre pleasant atkinson said its important for students to learn how to be social and that authenticity is crucial you cant be fake she said youve got to build your personal brand if youre going to start your own company 3 choose the right friends youre known by who you surround yourself with simmons said i learned to be a little more selective just really think about the kind of person you are and the kind of person you want to be around 4 enjoy the aggie network you can be in the deepest part of africa and you can pick out an aggie ring from across the airport still said simmons agreed i usually always have an a&m hat on and my ring he said its amazing how you can spot someone and i will certainly look at your resumé harder if i see a&m on it that said simmons added that this doesnt mean aggies should expect to have it easier if you get in the door that way you have some extra pressure on you he said 5 start your day right im up early faulkinberry said adding that hes the first in the door and the last to leave atkinson said she works from home i might be in my pajamas until noon but i get stuff done she said i get on twitter and i look and see whats trending in tech news and i make sure i know whats going on i try to have a smile on my face when i greet my employees theres nothing worse than the boss walking down the hall with a grimace on his face 6 set the right workplace culture black said one of the first things she did when she started working at her current company was get rid of the giant wooden desk in her office i moved in bean bags and comfortable couches she said it doesnt matter what my title is or how much im getting paid were equal simmons said that he purposely blocks some time off on his calendar for no meetings and he opens his door or sits in a cubicle its scheduled interruptible time he said you want people to come in and have a chance to visit 7 be fearless black said when she first started her own business with a colleague it was when she had a young child and another on the way they went without paychecks but within five months they were cash positive i had no fear and if i fell on my face i knew i was employable and i knew how to work she said still said when a window opens its almost never convenient those windows of opportunity open and close and then theyre gone he said you have to have the courage to jump and the wisdom to know that this is something youre jumping to and not away from i see a lot of people that just dont want to get out of their comfort zone
2980,mere months away from graduation and the start of a career at the boeing company senior mechanical engineering student cade capps is leaving texas a&m university a little bit greener than it was when he arrived through his work in building an enhanced burner for combustion research leadership and years of dedicated research in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering capps has set the stage for the design and development of cleaner and more efficient automotive engines i first learned about working on vehicles from my dad and absorbed as much information as i could from him capps said then when i got into my thermodynamics class and discovered that we were learning about the fundamentals of how engines operate i became completely hooked harnessing his passion for mechanics and melding it with his newfound academic curiosity capps began his research journey in the optical diagnostics and imaging laboratory directed by dr waruna kulatilaka associate professor and morris e foster faculty fellow i in mechanical engineering there capps helped set up and run laser-induced fluorescence experiments streamlined data acquisition systems and created programs to decrease the time it took to analyze data his devoted work eventually granted him the opportunity to conduct an integral research project in the lab: the systems integration of a combustion burner to simulate the liquid-fuel combustion process inside a gas turbine combustor or an internal combustion engine laboratory burners play a vital role in simulating engine operating conditions in order to help researchers investigate fuel efficiency and levels of emissions using advanced laser diagnostics i enjoyed having the freedom to be creative by combining a nebulizer with a syringe pump to create a fine mist of fuel which is highly desirable as it results in better combustion characteristics and air-fuel mixing capps said
2981,his burner has become a cornerstone at texas a&m for ongoing simulation and optical diagnostic experimentation which aims to capture the complicated phenomenon of combustion to gain further insight into the creation of cleaner engines cade has worked diligently in assembling our piloted liquid-fuel spray burner which is now being used for a variety of research studies said kulatilaka after completion of that project capps transitioned into the computational thermo-fluids and energy systems laboratory directed by mechanical engineering assistant professor dr dorrin jarrahbashi he continued to expand his knowledge research and expertise through the use of computer simulation and modeling such simulations offer a quick and cost-effective alternative to traditional studies that allow researchers to expand upon physical experiments by approximating unknown data points based upon known variables this in turn lets researchers extrapolate the results of an experiment under varied programmed circumstances harnessing such technology capps became involved in a simulation project that jarrahbashi and kulatilaka were conducting that involved using the piloted spray burner he helped create to study liquid fuel combustion for capps the project offered another opportunity to enhance engine efficiency and apply the knowledge he gained from working alongside his father since then capps and jarrahbashi have been funded by cummins to investigate the direct injection processes of diesel fuels and their spray formation to observe how different thermo-fluid dynamic parameters effect the combustion process of engines their results from this ongoing project will help to discern how to achieve optimum emissions fuel economy and performance in commercial vehicles like trucks among the applications of capps combined research from both labs are such things as making transportation more cost effective reducing harmful vehicle emissions and supporting military personnel in situations where the performance of an engine could mean the difference between life and death the high-paced learning and the engineering experience i gained has opened many doors for me that i would never have thought possible coming into texas a&m as a first-generation college student capps said
2982,now as his time at texas a&m comes to a close capps has shifted gears in his research once more moving away from experimentation and data gathering his final project aligned with the national science foundations broader impacts guidelines is to pave the way for future engineering students to take up the torch and continue his research the idea is to create a user-friendly program that can be run by high school students so they can toggle between different parameters observe changes and understand how injectors and general internal combustion engines work said capps the goal is to create a straightforward research module in order to motivate students to pursue studies in engineering and stem-related fields by working on this final project capps final walk across the stage at graduation is only the beginning of his impact on the future
2983,the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university celebrated the successful contributions of students faculty and staff at its annual spring banquet and awards ceremony on march 7 the banquet was hosted by the departments student organizations and funded by the industrial affiliates program (iap) throughout the evening department leaders shared successes from the past year and those in attendance enjoyed dinner a presentation of awards and recognition and a dance that ended the night it is such a privilege to be able to recognize the great work done by my colleagues our students and our staff said dr dilma da silva department head and professor it is also a great opportunity to thank our supporters our scholarship holders have the opportunity to spend the evening with the alumni and industry partners who are investing in their success and then we dance! more than 500 guests filled the bethancourt ballroom in the memorial student center to celebrate here is a list of the award winners of the night:
2984,2019 distinguished former student award in 2004 the department created this award to recognize the exceptional contributions of former students in the fields of computer science and engineering lydia tapia class of 2009 lydia tapia associate professor of computer science at the university of new mexico performs research in the area of computationally efficient algorithms for the simulation and analysis of high-dimensional motions both in robotics and biological domains based on this work she has been awarded two patents one on a novel unmanned aerial vehicle design and another on a method to design allergen treatments tapia is the recipient of the 2016 denice denton emerging leader abie award from the anita borg institute a 2016 national science foundation career award and the 2017 computing research association committee on the status of women in computing research borg early career award peer teacher excellence award william flores teaching assistant excellence award andrew lam undergraduate faculty teaching excellence award dr james caverlee graduate faculty teaching excellence award dr theodora chaspari dr guni sharon undergraduate leadership excellence award hannah gooden graduate leadership excellence award larry powell undergraduate research excellence award carson hanel graduate research excellence award qingquan song mentoring excellence award muin momin staff excellence award karrie bourquin iap research project competition winners first place: sensor fusion for robotic surface and subsurface infrastructure inspection by chieh (jay) chou (advisor: dr dez song) second place: explainable artificial intelligence by fan yang (advisor: dr ben hu) third place: online fake reviews detection by parisa kaghazgaran (advisor: dr james caverlee)
2985,earthquakes are a defining force of nature in areas like san francisco where it is often a question of when not if another will strike residents not only have to deal with billions in property damage loss but also the emotional toll of losing a home with the uncertainty of when if ever they can return a team of researchers led by dr maria koliou an assistant professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university is conducting research into how residential wood-framed buildings are damaged from strong earthquakes providing new insight into how to best build and repair infrastructure so that residents can move back into them as soon as possible the project involved a series of tests at the worlds largest shake table (e-defense) in japan in partnership with japanese researchers led by prof takuya nagae from nagoya university studying the impacts of earthquakes to the residential infrastructure in urban environments
2986,this collaborative effort is part of a national science foundation (nsf) rapid response research project under the partnership of the nsf-funded natural hazards engineering research infrastructure (nheri) with japans national research institute for earth science and disaster resilience (nied) this research provided a unique set of data on the performance of wood-frame structures and non-structural elements within them under strong earthquakes via use of advanced monitoring equipment from the nheri rapid facility at the university of washington within a well-controlled laboratory environment koliou said this allows us to identify damage patterns perform measurements and see how damage occurs and propagates in these structures the research team participated in seismic tests of two wood-frame buildings under varying conditions to the respective foundations including a base isolation system fixed connectivity conditions and testing one building on a soil box which simulates soil-structure interaction effects
2987,"""seismic isolation in simple terms can be visualized as putting a building on wheels which allows the building to move back and forth during the event primarily horizontal ground shaking without significant damage koliou said the tested isolation system was observed to be an effective technique during the tests resulting into minimum structural and non-structural component damage tests with the soil box allowed researchers to see the interaction of various building components such as pipes during earthquakes this kind of testing is additionally important from a disaster recovery standpoint as residents are unable to move back into their homes without working utility lines even if the structure has minimal structural damage the preliminary data from these tests has provided some insight into how these types of structures perform during an earthquake which can impact damage mitigation and reduce seismic vulnerability with the tests now complete the team plans to also host an expert panel including collaborators from japan and leading experts from the us from a variety of technical areas this panel will help us identify similarities of damage patterns and structural performance between the us and japanese structures for wood residential construction koliou said we are interested in identifying how similar the construction and damage would be in the us urban environment as well as identify restoration times and associated costs for resilience assessment studies apart from the data that can be applied to us structures and the strides that can be made toward improved disaster recovery koliou said the collaboration between researchers from different countries was a beneficial experience this has been a unique opportunity to participate in full-scale tests at the worlds largest shake table and have the opportunity to collaborate with leading experts in japan and the united states koliou said it is fascinating to observe actual wood-frame residential structures being subjected to strong earthquakes it is an experience that stays with you"
2988,ecs southeast llp has established the ecs southeast llp fellowship in the zachry department of civil engineering to be used to provide one or more fellowships to full-time students in good standing pursuing a graduate degree in engineering from texas a&m university founded in 1988 engineering consulting services (ecs) is a leader in geotechnical environmental construction materials and facilities engineering today with over 1 700 employees ecs has grown to more than 60 offices and testing facilities spread across the mid-atlantic midwest southeast and southwest ecs is currently ranked 75th in engineering news-records top 500 design firms (april 2018) an employee-owned firm ecs provides innovative solutions and responds to client needs with value and high-quality service in a variety of market sectors its solution-oriented focus client responsiveness and commitment to employee and job safety have built ecs' reputation in the industry as the firm to call when exceptional service matters most
2989,the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment fellowships encourage collaboration between the faculty students and industry mentors while allowing graduate students to further their education thus having a greater impact on the industry if you are interested in supporting the college of engineering or would like more information on how you can give please contact true brown director of development at the texas a&m foundation
2990,the walt disney world resort in orlando florida is considered by some to be the most magical place on earth but it takes more work than simple pixie dust to keep that magic running thats where civil engineering former student gena gillispie ‘18 comes in a project management intern with walt disney imagineering gillispie and interns like her assist with bringing the various walt disney imagineering projects to life you are building these things that are big and fun and can give people this exciting experience gillispie said but you get to be a lot more creative and make peoples dreams come true gillispie fell in love with disney world during her first visit at 17 later as a general engineering student at texas a&m university she felt drawn to civil engineering during her college career she was able to participate in the disney college program where she was introduced to how engineering works within disney it was such an awesome experience that i knew it was a goal i wanted to pursue gillispie said i knew i wanted to be a civil engineer because you work on really big projects and things that impact the way people live and with this we get to be so creative and impact the way peoples dreams come true in a different way gillispie works as a part of a project team helping coordinate between construction crews designers and project executives while such project management aspects are also found when working as a part of an engineering consulting firm there are added challenges gillispie has come across as an imagineer where there is an emphasis on both functionality and the user experience i think its a very different mindset than other types of construction gillispie said i have to think about what the people are going to see and how they will interact with it also the parks are open 365 days a year so we have to think carefully about how we manage noise and construction safety with all of these people around who are trying to take in this disney experience according to gillispie some construction takes place during the night to minimize the impact on the park goers experience this creates additional safety challenges and other concerns that are not typically present in public works construction imagineers are also required to collaborate with many different working disciplines including artists design managers and construction teams gillispies internship with disney currently extends through spring 2019 but she hopes to have the opportunity to continue working for disney and possibly work at one of their international park locations in the future i think many people think of civil engineering and see it as water resources and bridges and roadways but it is so applicable to anything you feel passionate about gillispie said whether that is theme parks humanitarian work or whatever you want to do it is applicable and worth it to chase after that thing you want to do and i am excited to get to be a part of this opportunity
2991,the department of ocean engineerings center for dredging studies (cds) at texas a&m university recently hosted the 48th annual dredging engineering short course (dsc) with a record-setting number of participants from the united states canada nigeria and sweden the cds collaborates with esteemed lecturers from the dredging industry government and academia to present the latest science and advances in the field as part of the dsc which continues to create a world-class continuing education environment for participants the short course was one of the most rewarding educational experiences ive had in my professional career said kristen keele a participant from the maryland port administration the expertise and knowledge of the lecturers lends itself to an invaluable learning experience; this course is truly a must-have for anyone who works in dredging dr ram k mohan an adjunct professor in the department led the course in coordination with the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) continuing education office tees edge more than 75 course participants represented the us army corps of engineers ports and dredging companies from four countries the five-day short course is geared towards providing the dredging practitioner with a broad overview of all things dredging related mohan said topics covered include basic dredge laws hydraulic and mechanical dredges dredge pumps and performance characteristics dredging best management practices and claims avoidance beach and dune restoration ecosystem (wetlands) restoration hydrographic surveys and dredge cost estimation among others the cds was established in 1968 by dr john herbich and is currently under the direction of dr robert randall in addition to research and industrial testing the center's activities include teaching university courses and providing annual seminars and short courses concerning advances in dredging engineering technology over the years more than 2 000 dredge professionals have participated in the dredging short course the 49th dredging engineering short course is scheduled for jan 6-10 2020 at texas a&m the course fee is $1 800 and applications are available on the cds webpage
2992,since 2014 the student-run organization tamuhack has hosted annual hackathons in conjunction with the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university in celebration of its fifth year anniversary here are five key takeaways from the 2019 tamuhack:
2993,1 aggie engineers set the standard for student involvement not only did this years hackathon break the record for student involvement in tamuhack with over 800 participants it also boasted the most project submissions for any hackathon in the state of texas while the university of texas at austins hacktx received 86 submissions and rice universitys hackrice received 46 tamuhack received more than both universities combined with a total of 138 project submissions and demonstrations learn about the winning teams and their projects
2994,2 industry involvement with education lends itself to innovation with a multitude of company booths and demonstrations at the event the hackathon teams were given a direct line into the needs and knowledge of leading companies across the country in addition to seeing and demonstrating new technology students were challenged by company sponsors to use their hacking coding and engineering skills to create solutions to real-world challengesbolstered by the mentorship of industry experts
2995,3 building relationships opens doors to future careers this year more than 20 company sponsors including american airlines southwest airlines microsoft and charles schwab gave their support to the student-run hackathon held on jan 26-27 during the 24-hour event students were given the opportunity to meet mingle and give resumes to industry expertscreating a strong network to help prepare them for their future careers
2996,4 a little swag goes a long way whether its free swag or monetary and technology awards participants of tamuhack all go home with something to remember the experience by
2997,5 this is only just the beginning for half a decade tamuhack has created a community of mentorship so students can work together in order to create software and hardware solutions to problems faced in the industry with great leadership and ongoing commitment and interest the organization has built a strong foundation for years to come
2998,the department has been tremendously helpful in every aspect of organizing this event for our students and others around the country said tamuhack president and computer science senior muin momin we even had several students from berkeley georgia tech and mit we're incredibly proud of what the team was able to achieve this year and can't wait to see where tamuhack goes next
2999,"texas residents are no strangers to the impact of drought as the state has experienced extended periods of it within the last several decades most notably in 2011 which boasted some of the worst drought conditions since the 1950s texas is also not alone as seven other states are experiencing drought conditions in 2019 these states often rely on reserves of groundwater for growing agricultural crops and municipal water needs during drought periods which must be carefully managed these circumstances highlight the importance of making every drop of water count but it isnt always clear to federal and state water resource management entities how to make the best use of the water they have a task force with the council for agricultural science and technology (cast) led by dr john tracy director of the texas water resources institute and a professor of civil engineering at texas a&m university has published a new paper to serve as a resource for managing the impacts of groundwater depletion and its effects on agriculture we set out to put together a paper that showed what we understand about why groundwater depletion is occurring tracy said we wanted to showcase how poorly managing this resource can have negative consequences on agriculture and provide tools we can use to address it according to tracy groundwater management is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor different areas and climates will have different considerations to address in how to best utilize their water resources states such as texas which already has a long history of handling drought have management frameworks already in place but this is not the case for all states groundwater management he explains is done at the state level so each state is responsible for developing their own policies to put into practice tracy and his team sought to create a compendium of existing knowledge to provide policymakers and utility managers the ability to make informed decisions about groundwater management for their state one of the things we wanted to avoid with this publication is that there is a potential for oversimplification of the issues he said there is this idea that groundwater management is just a numbers game however we have these differences between rechargeable and non-recharging aquifers that impacts how water is used and managed"" tracy explains that there are consequences for not getting the most out of specific aquifers there are both rechargeable and non-rechargeable aquifers meaning that rechargeable aquifers have their water source replenished over time and non-rechargeable aquifers do not in water management practice if it is known that the aquifer feeding a crop field is non-rechargeable it would not be wise to use that aquifer to feed water heavy crops such as sugar cane and rice because once the water is utilized it is gone much of the debate comes down to this idea about environmental ethics about not using groundwater resources up tracy said we are not trying to advocate for one side of the debate or the other but are rather trying to get policymakers to think about consequences of their decisions and understand the impacts of those decisions on water management and agriculture he explains that the consequences of poor groundwater management can stretch far beyond agriculture the impacts on agriculture affect food production which can in turn have economic consequences at a national level as agricultural needs grow nationwide proper water management as well as technological advances in agriculture and water resources will be key to meeting that demand at the end of the day we are looking at informing water governance and how states decide who gets to use water when and where tracy said this paper doesnt provide a silver bullet or blanket solution because of all the unique scenarios but it will give policymakers the information to make the best decisions and lay the groundwork for future sustainable policies contributing authors for this report include drs gretchen miller dana osborne porter and zhuping sheng at texas a&m jennifer johnson with the us bureau of reclamation and dr steve sibray at the university of nebraska-lincoln"
3000,the southwest chemical association has established the southwest chemical association endowed scholarship to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m university southwest chemical association exists to award scholarships to selected engineering and science students whose studies focus on the chemical and/or energy industries from approved universities in the southwest region
3001,the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment endowments supporting the students in the college have an immeasurable impact on their education if you are interested in supporting the college of engineering or would like more information on how you can give please contact haley jennings director of development at the texas a&m foundation
3002,the southeastern universities research association (sura) has announced that dr akhil datta-gupta university distinguished professor and the lf peterson 36 endowed chair in petroleum engineering at texas a&m university will receive its 2019 sura distinguished scientist award the annual honor goes to a research scientist whose extraordinary work fulfills the sura mission to advance collaborative research and education and to strengthen the scientific capabilities of its members and our nation the award and its $5 000 honorarium will be presented to datta-gupta on march 28 in conjunction with the sura board of trustees meeting being held at georgia tech in atlanta dr akhil datta-gupta is a prolific researcher in petroleum engineering at the forefront of reservoir modeling and streamline simulation technologies said dr m katherine banks texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean in addition to his election to the national academy of engineering and two cedric k ferguson awards dr datta-gupta has received numerous awards for his pioneering contributions to petroleum engineering in his letter supporting the nomination mohan kelkar chairman and williams endowed professor at the university of tulsas mcdougall school of petroleum engineering wrote without question dr datta-gupta has established himself as a preeminent expert in his field noting the awards datta-gupta has received from the international society of petroleum engineers he added that such recognition is a testament to dr datta-guptas innovative research and his ability to marry research with practical applicationsdatta-gupta received his bachelors degree in petroleum engineering from the indian school of mines in dhanbad india followed by his masters and doctorate from the university of texas at austin his professional experience includes working in the earth sciences division at lawrence berkeley national laboratory an engineering specialist with bp research in cleveland and reservoir engineer with bp exploration in alaska his academic positions at texas a&m have ranged from assistant professor in 1994 to regents professor university distinguished professor and his current endowed chair positionhe well-renowned in petroleum engineering and has worked in reservoir modeling history matching and streamline simulation technologies for more than a decade his research program is funded by the national science foundation the us department of energy (doe) and oil companies worldwide garnering over $10 million for his portion he has directed more than 91 graduate students including 43 phd students graduated with 10 in progress he has authored four books 102 peer-reviewed journal articles seven book chapters and 117 conference proceedingsin addition to the cedric k ferguson and numerous other awards datta-gupta is a member of the national academy of engineering he is a society of petroleum engineers (spe) honorary member (the highest honor bestowed by the society) and is the recipient of the 2015 spe distinguished achievement award for petroleum engineering faculty he is an spe distinguished member (elected 2001) distinguished lecturer (1999-2000) distinguished author (2000) and was selected as an outstanding technical editor (1996) in addition to his spe awards he is recipient of the american institute of mining metallurgical and petroleum engineers rossiter w raymond award (1992) the doe award for outstanding contributions to basic research in geosciences (2008) and served as member of the polar research board of the national academy of sciences (2001-2004) and the technology task force of the national petroleum council (2007)the sura distinguished scientist award was established in 2007 commemorating the organizations 25th anniversary suras development & relations committee manages the solicitation screening and selection of the recipient from a sura member institution the president and trustee of each of suras 60-member research universities is eligible to make one nomination for the distinguished scientist award
3003,five successful aggies will be returning to college station on thursday to share some of their secrets of success with current students this event hosted by the engineering entrepreneurship program at texas a&m university offers an excellent opportunity for students to learn from industry leaders we are excited to bring back aggie boss talk said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program i feel strongly that these aggie bosses have a lot of wisdom to share what better way to plan for your future than by learning from those who have overcome obstacles and achieved success aggie boss talk begins at 7:30 pm in the rudder theatre complex on thursday march 21 there will be a panel discussion followed by a question and answer session please rsvp here a closer look at our aggie boss talk panelists:
3004,john faulkinberry 92vice president of sales in north america emersonmajor: industrial distribution john faulkinberry has over 25 years of experience in the industrial sales marketplace after graduation he took an account manager position with rainey engineering a small industrial supplier after 11 years of developing essential skills and building markets with rainey faulkinberry took a sales position with dresser inc selling control and relief valves during his tenure with dresser he advanced several times ending with the role of global account manager faulkinberry moved to emerson in 2010 and has since been promoted three times to positions of increasing responsibility leading to his current role of vice president of sales
3005,stephanie atkinson 97ceo compass intelligencemajor: industrial distribution stephanie atkinson founder and ceo of compass intelligence leads the organizational direction of the company including strategic initiatives client engagement activities financial planning and consulting services with vendors and companies across the globe her research and advisory services are specialized around telecommunications/mobile information technology network infrastructure emerging technology internet of things and other high-tech topics atkinson has worked in the telecommunications and high-tech market research and consulting industry for more than two decades under her direction compass intelligence made the aggie 100 list in 2019 which recognizes the fastest growing aggie-owned businesses atkinson has also been listed in the top 100 wireless technology experts 2014 by today's wireless world as well as top machine-to-machine (m2m) influencer (#8) by onalytica and the 50 most influential women in internet of things (iot) by ioti she chairs two invite-only conference summits including the iot exchange smart cities summit and the enterprise transformation exchange summit she serves as an executive or board advisor for silverwood partners ngage events techweek dallas and the department of engineering and industrial distribution at texas a&m she is an author and contributor to ciocom hosts webinars as an influencer for idg tech and has been quoted in numerous trade publications including cnn money the wall street journal usa today and ceo magazine she also volunteers for the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship at texas a&m
3006,jay still 84president and ceo guidon energymajor: mechanical engineering jay p still president and ceo of guidon energy founded the company in april 2016 in partnership with blackstone energy partners one of the leading private equity investors in the energy space since guidons inception the company has built a significant acreage position in the core of the midland basin one of the most prolific oil and gas fields in the world the company currently has approximately 60 employees with offices in irving and midland texas the properties are being developed with extended reach horizontal wells utilizing leading edge development techniques and a manufacturing process with safety and environmental protection as the number one priority previously still was president and coo and a member of the board of directors of laredo petroleum prior to joining laredo he held various positions with pioneer natural resources most recently as executive vice president of domestic operations where he was responsible for assets in the rockies alaska barnett shale west panhandle mid-continent and south texas his responsibilities also included corporate engineering efs midstream and sustainable development in 1995 still joined pioneers predecessor parker & parsley petroleum company and prior to that spent 10 years with mobil corp
3007,bonnie black 94vice president permian well planning and permitting pioneer natural resourcesmajor: civil engineering since 2015 bonnie black has served as vice president of the well planning & permitting department at pioneer natural resources her numerous responsibilities include work in the permian basin a shale-rich region in west texas where pioneer leases about 750 000 gross acres blacks team prepares the inventory of future wells that will be drilled to develop the largest unconventional oil reservoir in the us her team works seamlessly with multiple departments including strategic planning and field development land regulatory drilling and completions black is also charged with nearly a dozen individual steps that must be completed to begin the process of drilling each well she ensures all permits land titles surface rights partner approvals subsurface targets well trajectories drilling and completions plans geologic interpretations and budgets are delivered on time before assuming her current duties black was vice president of pioneers environmental and sustainable development processes which she directed at both a state and federal level key responsibilities and initiatives included compliance air emissions reduction methane detection and seismic monitoring black joined pioneer in anchorage in 2007 as manager of health safety & environmental (hse) for the companys alaska asset she has 25 years of experience in the oil and gas industry with half her experience in alaska and the other half in texas prior to joining pioneer she was a business owner and industry consultant
3008,brad simmons 83global vice president built environmentmajor: environmental design (architecture) brad simmons fellow of the american institute of architects is the global vice president of built environment he is the senior leader responsible for developing the growth and strategy industry thought leadership executive project sponsorship with key client accounts senior customer relationships and attracting and developing top organization talent the built environment business provides planning design and construction services to a diverse mix of public and private sector clients simmons serves on the building infrastructure & advance facilities global management leadership team he has been with jacobs since 1990 joining the company as part of the acquisition of sverdrup in 1999 during that time simmons has served in a wide range of senior leadership roles at the regional national and global level simmons was elected to the prestigious american institute of architects college of fellows in 2000 becoming one of the youngest architects honored in the organizations 150+ year history from 2000-2003 he served on the national board of directors for the american institute of architects and he served as national chair of the aias 2005 national convention in las vegas in 2006 simmons peers in the american institute of architects of missouri honored him with the aia missouri distinguished service award for a career of leadership and commitment to the profession texas a&ms college of architecture recognized simmons professional contributions by bestowing him with outstanding alumni award in 2007
3009,only five years after women were allowed to attend texas a&m university and before women were allowed to live on campus or join the corps of cadets linda morris 71 and maureen reenie (turk) smith 72 75 embarked on a journey to go where no woman had studied before: the department of nuclear engineering
3010,morris path to nuclear began with a chance encounter she ended up taking radiochemistry at lamar university in beaumont texas her senior year and was introduced to health physics during a visit to the nuclear engineering and science center health physics is the discipline responsible for the protection of humans and their environment from the harmful effects of ionizing radiation while providing for its beneficial uses the visit inspired her to change her plans from becoming a microbiologist in colorado to obtaining her masters in health physics at texas a&m health physics united all my interests: the life sciences engineering physics and math said morris it was serendipity almost if i hadn't decided to take that radiochemistry class i wouldnt have found my career never in my entire life have i regretted it health physics has been a great career field for me all these decades and i still visit texas a&m morris started in the fall of 1970 and fondly remembers the time she spent in evans library studying lymphocyte pyknosis following cobalt-60 gamma irradiation and its biological effects for her masters thesis she completed her studies in december 1971 i was only there about a year and a half but that was a very critical year and a half in my life said morris it made all the difference there were only the five of us in my cohort so we were very close i remember pulling all-nighters in the basement of the cyclotron institute which had the only computer available at the time the curriculum was challenging then there were all the stresses anyone faces when trying to get your research completed your thesis written and undergo oral exams i knew i would have to work hard to get a degree of value though morris didnt have any female role models but the wives of the faculty members provided support morris said she always felt welcomed and accepted by the engineering department and by the health physics community she appreciated her professors who led by example sharing the practical and academic aspects of being a health physicist along with being active members in the health physics society
3011,thirty-six years after getting her masters morris was named a fellow of the health physics society and in their 50-year history was only the 22nd female to be made a fellow now there are many women in the health physics field she said i am very pleased to say that i enjoy working with many of them even to this day when i visit campus its delightful to see the new zachry and so many female students there shes a member of the state of texas health physics society and the student assistance chair so she works with college students in waco and in college station at least once or twice a year she talks to dr kenneth peddicords class about health physics peddicord is a professor of nuclear engineering and the director of the nuclear power institute i hope students will consider the health physics option because it will open doors to a really promising career she said morris is a licensed medical physicist and has worked for the state of texas primarily in medical and academic health physics she was appointed by governor perry in 2011 to serve as a state commissioner for the texas low-level radioactive waste disposal commission morris is currently the regional fair director for the central texas science and engineering fair the fair is for sixth through 12th graders and encourages students to consider a career in stem morris is involved with the nuclear power institute where she teaches radiological protection concepts to international atomic energy agency school students students should enjoy every aspect of their career because new and different wonderful things can always happen she said although the university has changed dramatically in size the traditions have stayed the same texas a&m has played a big role in my life said morris i still say howdy to this day i met my husband there and my daughter went to medical school at texas a&m if i hadnt taken that one radiochemistry class none of this would have happened
3012,turk-smith started in the fall of 1968 in nuclear engineering she chose engineering because she enjoyed math and designing and chose nuclear engineering so she could attend texas a&m which had one of only three programs in the nation at that time she also felt nuclear engineering an innovative new field would be more open to women engineers her favorite memories from engineering included her engineering graphics class (which included designing a cement mixer for small diy jobs) and going to the cyclotron institute i still cant choose a favorite aggie tradition said turk-smith instead i think of the feeling of inclusion of being an aggie being part of a community that understands the meaning of the traditions sharing the early experiences of the campus changing from all corps to non-reg and co-ed yet still coming together in our commitment to texas a&m and understanding how it furthered our success i didnt really have challenges with attending texas a&m as one of the few but increasing in numbers females said turk-smith the student body was changing – 68 was five years removed from 63 when being a member of the corps was no longer mandatory president rudders leadership helped in the acceptance of women on campus we were freshmen trying to focus on our classes adjusting to the traditions and new environment we were in this together
3013,turk-smith switched to physical education with a physics minor her junior year she recommends students in stem should have a love of math and to seek a teacher or tutor who matches their learning style to guide them through the basic concepts dont be intimidated by other students – we all have our own learning progressions she said enjoy what you are doing and where you are in the learning process in 1972 she received her bachelor of science in physical education with a physics minor and in 1975 she received her master of science in health and physical education for the last 32 years turk-smiths role has been a senior lecturer in the health and human performance department at texas state university where she uses her engineering and physics background in teaching students how to move increase their skills and stay healthy turk-smith continued using her health background by serving on the governors advisory council on physical fitness during governor perrys administration today there are 29 799 female students at texas a&m 4 207 in the college of engineering and 88 in the department of nuclear engineering
3014,the decision to enter the field of nuclear engineering was made in 1957 while dr john c calhoun was dean of engineering the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m was one of the first nuclear engineering departments in the country at the time when the academic council approved the recommendation for a nuclear engineering department only two degree programs were administered: a master of science and doctor of philosophy in nuclear engineering the undergraduate program was established in 1966
3015,"texas a&m university researchers are looking to nature for inspiration in developing a new method of underwater plasma generation using shrimp as a model a discovery that could provide significant improvements for actions ranging from water sterilization to drilling dr david staack associate professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and xin tang a phd candidate and graduate research assistant in the department used 3d printing technology to replicate not only the physical shape of a snapping shrimp's claw but also the complex mechanism through which it generates plasma the teams research was published on march 15 in the online journal science advances ""generally when you look to nature evolutionary pressure makes it so that nature is very efficient at doing things "" staack said ""i find it interesting that the shrimp has been doing intense shock waves plasma chemistry and nanoparticle synthesis for millions of years"" when the snapping shrimp also known as the pistol shrimp snaps its claw it shoots out a jet of water fast enough to generate a bubble that when it collapses creates a loud noise and emits light the high pressures and temperatures produced in this process lead to plasma formation the project led by staack began more than four years ago as an offshoot of a national science foundation (nsf)-funded project on electrical discharge plasma in liquids in comparing the plasma-generation process of the snapping shrimp to their electrical plasma process the researchers became curious if they could find a way to measure and replicate its properties the researchers set out to mimic the mechanics of the snapping shrimp's claw with initial support from the nsf carefully studying how the sea creature creates a cavitation bubble that generates plasma at upwards of 3 000 degrees fahrenheit ""in our paper we report the first direct imaging of the light emission induced by the same method the shrimp uses: the mechanically generated energy focusing on a collapsing cavitation and the following shockwave propagation "" staack said ""the bio-inspired mechanical design allowed us to carry out repetitive and consistent experiments on the plasma generation and indicate a significant increase in conversion efficiency compared to sonic laser and electric induced cavitation"""
3016,"staack said the use of 3d printing was instrumental in the progression of this project allowing the researchers to create an accurate scaled-up model of the snapping shrimp's claw in a way that was impossible just a few years ago previous attempts at replicating the shrimp's behavior focused on the two-dimensional geometry of the shrimp ultimately missing some of the complex 3d processes that newer technology allowed the researchers to recreate the mechanism successfully staack and tang created a 3d model of a snapping shrimp's molted claw husk five-times larger than it appears in nature to power the mechanism without the aid of the shrimp's muscles the researchers implemented a mousetrap-like spring system in nature shrimp use the cavitation bubble as a weapon to generate shocks and stun their prey a scaled-up version of the shrimp's mechanism could be used for a broad range of disciplines including analytical chemistry physics and material processing ""shrimp use the systems as a weapon and that is certainly one application "" staack said ""the pressure and shocks can stun small fish or break-up a kidney stone the cavitation and dynamics can be used to modify boundary layer flow and reduce drag for a boat other applications take advantage of the chemistry of the plasma state nanoparticles can be synthesized with exotic phases due to the extreme conditions during synthesis water can be sterilized oil can be upgraded"" drawing inspiration from the snapping shrimps plasma and shockwave capabilities staack is working with a team of colleagues from the mechanical engineering department on a spin-off project to advance the drilling technology used to create geothermal wells that tap into the earths natural heat by enabling electrodes on the tip of a drill bit to emit a microscopic plasma discharge the technology will help break through hard rock and streamline the drilling process moving forward staack said some of the goals for future research include determining the temperature of the plasma generated finding out how large they can scale up the mechanism and testing some potential applications they are also working on refining the most efficient version of the mechanism removing parts from the claw model that do not serve a purpose in the creation of plasma ""what weve learned from this is that we dont need all of this shrimp biology "" staack said ""we need the little back plunger and we need the channel but we dont need the part that the shrimp uses to hit with there are some things which evolved for different reasons some of the things were doing now are figuring out what the distilled version of this mechanism is"""
3017,build your ownthe bio-inspired snapping shrimp device is relatively easy to build making it both useful for reproducibility of the science as well as being fun for those interested to explore staack believes with appropriate supervision and less than $100 people ages 12 and up could reproduce the device the materials necessary to reproduce the device have been made available electronically through an open-access platform hosted by the texas a&m university libraries
3018,congratulations to texas a&m university graduates candyce ward 06 and harold cobb 82 for being named 2019 engineers of the year by houston engineers week according to its website houston engineers week is dedicated to the promotion of the profession of engineering as a social and economic influence vital to the welfare of the community the state of texas the united states of america and all mankind ward was named one of the young engineers of the year for 2019 and is a senior hydrologist at cobb fendley after graduating with a bachelors degree in civil engineering and a masters degree in water resources she began impacting the communities surrounding houston and harris counties cobb was named 2019 engineer of the year and is executive vice president and the central operating group manager at terracon consultants he earned his bachelors degree in civil engineering from texas a&m and his master of business administration from letourneau university his 35-year career has been marked by mentorships continuous learning and giving back to his alma mater besides serving on the texas a&m civil engineering advisory council he is also chair of the texas engineering foundation board of trustees
3019,the texas a&m college of engineering is proud of former students like candyce and harold who uphold aggie core values and are committed to training aggie engineers to be industry leaders if you know an aggie who is celebrating an accomplishment and would like them to be recognized by the college please contact the office of alumni relations
3020,jobin george mathew is making a difference one hail storm at a time mathew a graduate student in the department of industrial and systems engineering was part of the first-place winning team during invent for the planet (iftp) a global design challenge that took place in february hosted by the texas a&m university college of engineering mathews group team hail no worked on a solution to reduce hail damage to aircraft wings by designing an airbag-type appliance that would be installed on the leading and trailing edge of the wings with nylon straps they competed against more than 600 students from all over the world to clinch the win in the past mathew had always wanted to participate in iftp but struggled to find time due to his workload with this semester being his last as a graduate student participating in iftp was a priority after his win mathew gave some insight into the competition his education and future goals after he graduates q: why did you decide to register for invent for the planet a: this event provides students with the opportunity to explore their talents test their limits and apply what they have learned to find solutions to problems plaguing the world teams have the opportunity to collaborate with mentors and industry experts to gain insights and solve problems using the universitys extensive resources this year my interests and the event dates matched up and i am happy i got to experience this event q; what was your role on the team a: i worked mainly on brainstorming and finalizing the prototype design 3d printing the model and putting it into perspective for the team using a solid modeling computer-aided design program solidworks i also managed the timeline to ensure that the team met project goals in a timely manner and assessed the marketability future scope and impact of the final product q: why did you choose the department of industrial and systems engineering for your graduate education a: industrial engineering helps me leverage my background and previous skill set while transitioning into a techno-managerial role i have a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering and previous industry experience which helped me figure out what challenges are faced in industry and which skills i would need to make an impact in my career i would like to focus on supply chain and the courses i have taken through my graduate program have given me the skills to lead projects improve quality in supply chains and quantify financial and long-term risks for a company i have improved my project management skills and been exposed to real-life problem scenarios through my courses and an internship with a company in houston i believe that my degree in industrial engineering has prepared me for the challenges ahead
3021,mathew and his team have made it through the first round of local competition on march 8 mathews team was ranked among the top five teams worldwide after a virtual judging round they will advance to the final competition and the global winner will be announced in april during a conference at texas a&m read about the top five teams projects
3022,five invent for the planet teams are one step closer to becoming world champions the engineering entrepreneurship program (eep) announced the top five winners after judges around the world deliberated the winning teams are team hail no from texas a&m university team haildom from aristotle university of thessaloniki team supersocial from swansea university team sips from james madison university and team tupa which was a collaborative effort between universidade federal do rio de janeiro and centro federal de educação tecnológica celso suckow da fonseca these teams will travel to college station for a showcase and final competition april 23-24 the first-place team will win $3 000 second place will win $2 000 and third place will win $1 000 all other first place teams from participating universities are invited to attend the showcase and compete in a peoples choice category invent for the planet is a global intensive design competition hosted by the college of engineering at texas a&m in its second year the competition doubled in size welcoming teams from 26 other universities in 16 countries for 48 hours last month the sun never set on innovation as more than 600 students collaborated virtually to solve some of the biggest challenges facing our planet using microsoft teams students were able to share ideas and ask experts questions as they created prototypes
3023,there were 16 challenges in all ranging from finding ways to provide access to clean water to designing methods for personalized learning need statements were provided by industry partners with usaid the national academy of engineering and airbus as well as from texas a&m being a part of this experience was incredibly inspiring said rodney boehm director of engineering entrepreneurship invent for the planet evokes the spirit of collaboration and selfless service that aggies are known for and in this case the results could be far-reaching last year the first-place team from texas a&m collaborated with the second-place team from myanmar to create an inexpensive light source that would allow children to study after dark in developing countries their idea is now close to being implemented in myanmar heres a run-down of the top five teams:
3024,team haildom aristotle university of thessaloniki greece this team designed a two-part system to protect airplane wings from hail damage using a c-shaped motorized vehicle that would quickly secure a nylon blanket to the wings as a hail storm approaches
3025,team supersocialswansea university wales this team created an app that promotes in-person social engagement and activities to tackle loneliness
3026,team sips james madison university virginia this team developed a different solution for hail damage to airplane wings using compressible foam that would quickly inflate and cover the wings
3027,team tupa universidade federal do rio de janeiro and centro federal de educação tecnológica celso suckow da fonseca brazil team tupa developed a two-part sensor system that would allow people with visual impairments or blindness to find their way without using a cane or guide dog this cost-effective solution includes a handheld wand and low-profile head sensors that would vibrate when the user approaches an obstacle
3028,team hail notexas a&m university team hail no also developed a solution for hail damage to airplane wings their prototype works similar to an airbag that would be inflated and installed using nylon straps
3029,junior civil engineering student nicholas rossi loves music the rhythm structure and creative expression speaks to him its no wonder that as a member of the fightin texas aggie band rossi enjoys the rigid structure and camaraderie of the texas a&m corps of cadets where artistic expression and discipline are married together in every note and footstep that echoes off the walls of kyle field at halftime rossi is the current combined band sergeant major for the corps but will serve as the combined band commander for the 2019-20 school year the position is one of privilege and service within the organization and will embody the culmination his corps leadership experience which began like all cadets as a freshman i knew (the corps) would be a different kind of challenge rossi said i did band in high school and i liked the camaraderie i had there so the fact that the band and corps were paired together made it seem like the place for me now as the highest-ranking junior in the band and soon to be the highest-ranking senior he has faced many challenges as a part of his leadership experience it has taught him that one of the most important aspects of leadership is just showing up being a leader requires you to be present rossi said you have to be consistent and show up every day rossi will face some new challenges as the band commander as band practice will now be housed in the new music activity center and cadets will no longer practice on the band field behind the student corps dorms this will be a significant logistical challenge for the band as it will change long-standing procedures for morning practices however despite the rank and responsibility he will still be a bandsman and that means participating within a unique student culture on campus what is special about the band to me is that we really do have a major unit identity rossi said there are times when we all come together and we drop our outfit (individual corps unit) identities we bring out there and for a moment we are all aggie bandsmen we all wear the same gear and we all have that common ground according to rossi that same culture has also opened him up to one of his favorite morning rituals talking to other cadets whether he is getting chow at duncan dining hall or walking down the quad he enjoys getting to talk with others and share perspectives which is one aspect he thinks is crucial in any leadership role getting to talk to people and treating them like people and as not just subordinates is very important rossi said (its important to) continue to foster an environment where people not only want to meet each other but want to form relationships with one another in addition to his current responsibilities as band sergeant major rossi is also a member of the ross volunteer company he is looking forward to participating in an internship opportunity with civil engineering firm civilcorp this summer where he will get the opportunity to gain some hands-on experience based on what he has learned in the classroom looking forward rossi is excited to help make positive change for the bandsmen under his leadership and apply what he has learned in the corps to his post-college experiences the corps is a four-year picture rossi said i really do think there is something to be said about this four-year leadership experience i dont think you get something like it anywhere else
3030,merging art and engineering into a grand musical masterpiece students in binomial rhapsody are given the opportunity to explore the point at which creativity and innovation meet whether they are at the opening notes of their academic symphony or transitioning into their finale binomial rhapsody challenges engineering students at texas a&m university to compose music using scientific and mathematical formulae the students truly stepped up to the challenge in the way that only aggie engineers do said shayla rivera professor of practice and director of engr[x] the results of this program have truly exceeded any expectations i had rivera explained that the new engr[x] program which includes binomial rhapsody aims to spur creativity in students by offering them experiences beyond the requirements of their academic curriculum in doing so these programs not only give students a chance to have fun but also develop the skills that employers desire most including collaboration critical and creative thinking team building project management communication leadership and self-awareness when i first came to texas a&m i was looking to get involved with something said general engineering student ritika bhattacharjee from the first binomial rhapsody meeting i just felt like it was where im supposed to be for the first time everything just lined up bhattacharjee who is trained in classical piano voice and indian classical dance was introduced to binomial rhapsody while searching for a creative outlet within the field of engineering i love engineering and i love music but sometimes i think theres this perception that you have to choose to study either stem or art and theres no way to integrate the two but nothing is really that black and white its never just a dichotomy said bhattacharjee
3031,so then how is engineering like playing a piano practice developing the mastery of an instrument and the mastery of mathematics works in stark parallel to one another the truth is that you can never master something unless you take the time to practice the best engineers and the best artists had to spend time developing and honing their skills said bhattacharjee even if youre gifted in an area you still have to practice and develop that aptitude otherwise its never going to go anywhere but perhaps the most important lesson learned from practice is to accept failure sometimes experiments dont work sometimes musicians miss a note or an actor forgets a line innovation is creative and engineering is a constant learning curve things may go wrong at times but treating failure not as a setback but as an opportunity for growth opens the doors to discovery likewise practicing performing arts and embracing on-stage failure has the same effect i've been to auditions that didn't go so great i've practiced or had concerts where i've messed up and prayed that nobody in the audience knew the piece i was playing so that they wouldn't notice but once you get used to embracing the idea of failure i think you can do anything said bhattacharjee anything including bringing together a group of engineering students from various departments to create a classical music piece inspired by newtons second law which states that force is equal to mass times acceleration bhattacharjee and her team calculated force by setting mass to be a constant 22 (a nod to the teams graduation year) and varying acceleration from one through 12 the team then took their output the aforementioned force and converted it to a base 12 numeric system with each number corresponding to one of the 12 notes of the western classical chromatic scale from there they used music theory to arrange the output into music overlaying this output with more instruments and melodies to bring the piece to life through their work bhattacharjee and the other teams participating in binomial rhapsody break down the stigmatic barriers between engineering and art inviting abstract creativity into the world of stem i would say to just ignore the dichotomy i think we're programmed to think in a way thats just left or right or up or down or black or white but we're human we're not computers we're not binary code said bhattacharjee you can be happy and you can do math and science and you can do art so dont listen to the dichotomy just be who you are
3032,colleges and universities nationwide together with employers and entrepreneurs have studied and recognized a great need to broaden a student's college experience to be better prepared for their professional lives engr[x] is texas a&m university's solution learn more about engr[x]
3033,dr eyad masad professor at texas a&m university at qatar and texas a&m university will receive the prestigious 2019 james laurie prize from the transportation and development institute of the american society of civil engineers (asce) the award was established by the asce in 1912 in honor of the first president of the society it is awarded each year to an asce member who has contributed to the advancement of transportation engineering in either research planning design or construction masad was selected to receive the honor for his definite and transformative contributions to the advancement of transportation engineering through his continuing innovative research on asphalt concrete micromechanical modeling masad is a professor in the mechanical engineering program at texas a&m at qatar and is the zachry professor in design and construction integration ii in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m he is also the executive director of global initiatives for the texas a&m engineering experiment station his research focuses on microstructure characterization constitutive modeling and micromechanics of pavement materials and systems he has active research groups and programs in the united states and in qatar and has published more than 350 technical papers and reports masad is a fellow of asce and has served as associate editor of two major engineering journals through the years he has received several prestigious academic and professional awards in recognition of his professional academic research and administrative contributions he will be recognized at the annual asce international conference on transportation and development in alexandria virginia in june the asce represents more than 150 000 members of the civil engineering profession in 177 countries founded in 1852 the asce is the oldest engineering society in the united states and stands at the forefront of the civil engineering profession which plans designs constructs and operates societys economic and social enginethe built environmentwhile protecting and restoring the natural environment
3034,texas a&m engineerings graduate program was ranked 15th overall nationally and ranked eighth among public institutions in the latest us news & world report survey americas best graduate schools 2020 the complete list of individual programs ranked were: aerospace engineering 10 (6 public); biological and agricultural engineering 3 (3); biomedical engineering 38 (19); chemical engineering 23 (14); civil engineering 14 (9); computer engineering 27 (15); computer science 43 (25); electrical engineering 23 (15); industrial and systems engineering 11 (8); materials science and engineering 30 (17); mechanical engineering 17 (9); nuclear engineering 5 (4); and petroleum engineering 2 (2)